For God's Sake: A Lenten Sermon Series

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!”

You’ve probably heard, and even said this expression before.

It’s colloquial, exclaimed in frustration or exasperation when something doesn’t happen the way we think it should.

For example, “For heaven’s sake, do something!”

“For heaven’s sake, would you stop interrupting me?”

“For heaven’s sake, I just fixed the last dents you put in the car!”

“Heaven” is the polite substitute for the original, blasphemous expression “For G-d’s sake…,” because sake means “on behalf of.”

It’s blasphemous because we’re saying, “Speaking on God’s behalf, God and I are not pleased.”

Perhaps God does feel annoyed sometimes, but claiming our frustration as God’s own is a bit of an overreach!

However, if the tone of voice is changed and offered without the undercurrent of annoyance, “For God’s sake” is a prayer uttered on God’s behalf.

“For God’s sake” is God’s plea of yearning that tomorrow will be different from today: tomorrow we will be reunited as one.

To Disintegrate is to Fall apart

When something disintegrates it falls apart. It splits the integrity, divides the whole, fragments the unity.

The completed is reverse-engineered: It is un-completed.

Once parted the pieces cannot accomplish what only the whole can.

What has been torn asunder cannot fulfill the same purpose as the One.

For example:

• A garment pulled apart at the seams cannot cover the body.

• A family at odds cannot be each other’s haven.

• A congregation refusing to share Christ’s peace cannot show the world they are Christians by their love.

• A nation divided by fear and self-righteousness cannot serve the common good.

Christians are called to be one body in Christ, but separating ourselves from or shunning others dis-integrates us.

When we refuse to forgive, offer grace, listen, or uphold the inherent dignity of another we separate ourselves from God.

Dis-integration is the very nature of sin.

Lent is the time when we face our sin unflinchingly because God yearns for us to be re-integrated into our original wholeness, so that we love completely.

“For God’s Sake: A Lenten Sermon Series”

I’ve crafted a Lenten sermon series that focuses on the ways we dis-integrate ourselves from the body of Christ, and God’s corresponding call to be re-integrated as One.

Each sermon offers a focus text, a point of disintegration, and God’s corresponding call to re-integrate us.

For example, sermon themes include:

• “For God’s Sake, Come Back”

• “For God’s Sake, Give to the Poor What You Would Give to Jesus”

• “For God’s Sake, Forgive the Betrayers”

There’s one version for the Revised Common Lectionary and one for the Narrative Lectionary.

To receive your sermon series, click the link below.

For God’s sake, I pray it helps us be re-integrated into the one Body of Christ who serves the world in the name of Love.