August 4 Worship: "The Great Gatsby"

Despite the rather dreary weather Sunday morning, our gathering was rather boisterous -- the conversations before and after worship certainly seemed and sounded spirited!  Our worship in between those gatherings was rather spirited too, as we celebrated a successful Vacation Bible School and we began the Summer Blockbuster Sermon Series.

The first summer movie this year was the new adaptation of "The Great Gatsby."  Considering the showy opulence of the movie, which represents the almost unimaginable wealth of the main characters, I suggested that we knew from history that this wealth was built on an foundation doomed to fall.  Further, these characters and their relationships reminded me of the Pharisees that often argued with Jesus, who were so worried about their outward appearances, but less about their inner substance.

Drawing upon Jesus' teaching recorded in Matthew 23, I suggested the challenge of hypocrisy in lives of faith as we seek to follow Jesus' commands not to be hypocrites and also recognizing that, inevitably, we sometimes are hypocritical in our words and deeds.  Still, as disciples of Jesus, we are to strive to allow God to transform our inner substance, even as we worry about how we appear to others that we are trying to impress.  Sometimes, God may even work through our hypocrisy, allowing our hearts to follow our speech in matters of forgiveness, love, and generosity -- sometimes we learn to talk about such things in a Christian way before we completely mean them with every fiber of our being.

If you missed Sunday's sermon, if you'd like to listen to it again, or if you'd like to share it with others, you can find an audio recording here.