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Proper 18

Worship
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Mark 7:24-37
Psalm 125
Proper 18 | Ordinary Time 23 - B
B. David Hostetter
LECTIONARY WORSHIP AIDS
Series III
* CALL TO WORSHIP
Praise the Lord as long as you live. Sing psalms to God all your
life long.

* PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Just God, you are even-handed in your justice and in the day of
judgment will not play favorites. We confess that we are not so
fair in our dealings. We are often unduly impressed by the
powerful and the clever and excuse in them what we would condemn
in the powerless and ignorant. Forgive superficiality and
neglect of people needing advocacy and friendship, through the
friend of sinners, Jesus Christ. Amen.

* DECLARATION OF GOD'S FORGIVENESS
Hear the Good News! God has chosen those who are poor in the
eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom
he has promised to those who love him. Friends, believe the Good
News. In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven.

* EXHORTATION
Never show snobbery, believing as you do in our Lord Jesus Christ
who reigns in glory.

* PRAYER OF THE DAY
Divine Physician, heal our hardness of hearing and soften our
feelings so that we have your sensitivity to and awareness of the
needs of others, often hidden behind a curtain of words. Free
our tongues to share our innermost feeling with a trusted friend
or counselor. Make us well, Jesus. Amen.

* PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
We praise you, God of Israel, God of the church universal. You
made the heavens and the earth, the sparrow and the gull, the
whale and the minnow. You care for people, the hungry and the
oppressed. You restore sight and help the stooped to stand tall.
You give new heart to the bereaved and hopeless. Our hopes are
in you and you will not disappoint us at the last. We praise
you, Creator, Christ, Comforter. Amen.

* PRAYER OF DEDICATION
Divine Person, beyond all human personhood, transform these
tangible but impersonal things into acts and gifts of persons-
serving-persons in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

* PSALM 125
Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion,
which cannot be moved, but abides forever.
As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
so the LORD surrounds his people,
from this time on and forevermore.
For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest on the land
allotted to the righteous,
so that the righteous might not stretch out their hands to do
wrong.
Do good, O LORD, to those who are good,
and to those who are upright in their hearts.
But those who turn aside to their own crooked ways
the LORD will lead away with evildoers.
Peace be upon Israel!

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