Epiphany 9 / Ordinary Time 9
Worship
Lectionary Worship Workbook, Series IV, Cycle C
Soul Motion
Object:
They who sing pray twice.
-- Saint Augustine
There are no strangers here; only friends you haven't met.
-- William Butler Yeats
Call To Worship
Leader: Welcome, friends and strangers! Before the living God, we are simply human beings who gather to worship God with our thoughts, our music, and our words.
People: We are glad for this place of prayer and for the welcome the Holy Spirit gives all of us.
Leader: As we read the scriptures, we hear Solomon opening the new temple to people whose blood is not Jewish.
People: And we hear Jesus saying we are to love our neighbors and our enemies -- we think that includes strangers!
Leader: Look around you. If you do not know the person next to you, share names so that you can converse after the benediction. Then, let's be united as people of God in prayer.
(Pause for people to introduce themselves to others.)
Prayer Of Thanksgiving (Leader)
Creating God -- how exciting it is to gather here to listen for your voice and to meet new people! We've come with all the left-overs from last week -- our sore muscles, our fears about the bank account, our anger with the neighbors.... We lay them aside and invite your Spirit to vitalize us with mercy and grace! We give you our undivided attention in our words and our thoughts. Amen.
Call To Confession (Leader)
Remember the things that trouble you. These next moments are an opportunity to give them to God and to feel free of angst, guilt, and shame.
Community Confession (Unison)
Living God -- our human nature is prone to do things that are not helpful to ourselves or to others.
When we do things or plan things that violate our internal sense of right, we are uncomfortable with ourselves.
Sometimes we carry great burdens.
Take them; take them all and let us be free and creative.
Reveal to us what in us is not aligned with your Spirit.
Straighten us, we pray. Amen.
Word Of Grace (Leader)
When we have named our cacophonous ways, God straightens us and sets us free. We can sing new lyrics and a new melody for ourselves and for God.
Sermon Idea
A title/theme might be: Builder Expects Visitors to Experience the Divine, playing off the 1 Kings story where Solomon builds a temple and then prays that everyone, especially strangers, would pray and have their prayers heard. Another title/theme might be: Old Manuscripts Divulge Good News, suggesting that the ancient hope of the Davidic line was to include all ethnic groups in worship events for Yahweh throughout the Ancient Near East. What a different world Jesus would have inherited and we would be experiencing today if that hope had been realized.
The apostle Paul writes of one God, one gospel, one Christ and we know that he understood Gentiles to be included in the one God's love and grace. The psalmist talks about expressing the human emotions in music while Luke suggests that strangers expect Yahweh God to be kind and helpful because the people who worship Yahweh have the reputation of being helpful.
It's our wide, and maybe wild, dream that the teachings of Jesus will empower people to try out neighborliness rather than warfulness. Fences and guns do not give anyone security or peace. Large beautiful buildings do stand for a century or two and satisfy the human need for a sense of permanence and connectedness with the past while we look ahead.
The Lukan text could be applied to an individual's personal health. Psychology tells us that people who express their emotions are usually happier than people who repress them. And who knows -- maybe God gets tired of old, complaining songs and would like to hear some new ones!
Contemporary Affirmation (Unison)
Jesus of Nazareth aligned himself with God whom he called Father.
The Holy Spirit is a divine gift that lives within us allowing us to be cocreators with God.
God is the creator of all that is; God invites us to work and pray, sing and play so that a new reign can come to earth.
We are people of God, eager to make this world a benevolent home for all creatures.
Let us take hope and wisdom into the world. Amen. Let it be so!
Offertory Statement (Leader)
Though we are eager to help the kingdom of God manifest, we need skills, supplies, and money. Let's fill the baskets!
Doxology
Great Are Your Mercies (v. 1), tune: SONG OF THE HOE
Great are your mercies, O my Maker,
Food and raiment You freely bestow.
Let me praise you always, Serve you all my days.
You the spring wind, I the grass; On me blow!
Prayer Of Thanksgiving (Leader)
We do sing -- new songs and old songs, songs of joy and songs of sadness. We sing of abundance and need. We are grateful we come together to collaborate with your hopes for a new world. We are grateful for all the resources we need to make something of heaven here on earth. Amen.
Intercessory Prayer (Leader or Readers)
God of Music -- there are so many songs we can sing, so many words we can speak, so many tears we shed. We are made in your image; do you too cry and rejoice? Grieve and celebrate? You know us before we are born and support us through life when we let you. We pray for people whose songs are violent and ugly, who don't have their basic life needs met. We pray for persons whose songs mourn losses we can't understand. And we pray for ourselves. Renew our songs of praise and delight; sustain our long notes and make our quick ones graceful.
God of Sacred Spaces -- we believe that when and where two or three people gather to praise and pray, you are there. So we pray for loveliness and peace everywhere men and women, boys and girls turn to you. In temples, on hillsides, on playgrounds, in classrooms -- let each of us feel loved and appreciated. In countries where war is the habit, find a way to let peace overwhelm the violence so that even the ground is made sacred.
God of Profane Spaces -- when we think of you as Creator of all the universe, we cannot imagine any place where you would not go. In your presence, strangers can become friends over cups of tea, mothers and fathers can learn patience playing tennis, boys and girls can learn to negotiate peacefully over a chess board. Individuals seeking friends might even find them at a bar. Wherever people seek goodness and respect, be among them offering them the Spirit of love.
God of Workers -- it seems that since Eden, some people have been powerful and some have been powerless. Some have learned to prosper; some have learned the art of loving; some have learned the advantages of positive thinking. Since Eden, it seems that some people are at the bottom of the pay scale and some are at the top with most of us in between. We pray for a more equal society so that everyone can have a job that is not boring and so everyone can have wholesome food on their tables. Amen. Let it be so.
Benediction (Leader)
As you leave this space, be aware that you have healing in your fingers,
kindness on your tongue, respect in your ears
and compassion in your thoughts.
You have received them as gifts from the Creator.
Give them to others you meet on your pathway his week and sing a new song! Amen.
Music
We Gather Together
Words: Nederlandtsche Gedenckclanck, 1626; trans. Theodore Baker, 1894; adapt. Ruth Duck, 1981
Music: Dutch melody; arr. Edward Kremser, 1877
KREMSER
Gather Us In
Words and Music: Marty Haugen, 1981
GATHER US IN
God Made All People Of The World
Words: Hyn Sul Hong, 1967; tr. David Kim and Chang Hee Son
Music: Shin Young Ahn
ONE WORLD
-- Saint Augustine
There are no strangers here; only friends you haven't met.
-- William Butler Yeats
Call To Worship
Leader: Welcome, friends and strangers! Before the living God, we are simply human beings who gather to worship God with our thoughts, our music, and our words.
People: We are glad for this place of prayer and for the welcome the Holy Spirit gives all of us.
Leader: As we read the scriptures, we hear Solomon opening the new temple to people whose blood is not Jewish.
People: And we hear Jesus saying we are to love our neighbors and our enemies -- we think that includes strangers!
Leader: Look around you. If you do not know the person next to you, share names so that you can converse after the benediction. Then, let's be united as people of God in prayer.
(Pause for people to introduce themselves to others.)
Prayer Of Thanksgiving (Leader)
Creating God -- how exciting it is to gather here to listen for your voice and to meet new people! We've come with all the left-overs from last week -- our sore muscles, our fears about the bank account, our anger with the neighbors.... We lay them aside and invite your Spirit to vitalize us with mercy and grace! We give you our undivided attention in our words and our thoughts. Amen.
Call To Confession (Leader)
Remember the things that trouble you. These next moments are an opportunity to give them to God and to feel free of angst, guilt, and shame.
Community Confession (Unison)
Living God -- our human nature is prone to do things that are not helpful to ourselves or to others.
When we do things or plan things that violate our internal sense of right, we are uncomfortable with ourselves.
Sometimes we carry great burdens.
Take them; take them all and let us be free and creative.
Reveal to us what in us is not aligned with your Spirit.
Straighten us, we pray. Amen.
Word Of Grace (Leader)
When we have named our cacophonous ways, God straightens us and sets us free. We can sing new lyrics and a new melody for ourselves and for God.
Sermon Idea
A title/theme might be: Builder Expects Visitors to Experience the Divine, playing off the 1 Kings story where Solomon builds a temple and then prays that everyone, especially strangers, would pray and have their prayers heard. Another title/theme might be: Old Manuscripts Divulge Good News, suggesting that the ancient hope of the Davidic line was to include all ethnic groups in worship events for Yahweh throughout the Ancient Near East. What a different world Jesus would have inherited and we would be experiencing today if that hope had been realized.
The apostle Paul writes of one God, one gospel, one Christ and we know that he understood Gentiles to be included in the one God's love and grace. The psalmist talks about expressing the human emotions in music while Luke suggests that strangers expect Yahweh God to be kind and helpful because the people who worship Yahweh have the reputation of being helpful.
It's our wide, and maybe wild, dream that the teachings of Jesus will empower people to try out neighborliness rather than warfulness. Fences and guns do not give anyone security or peace. Large beautiful buildings do stand for a century or two and satisfy the human need for a sense of permanence and connectedness with the past while we look ahead.
The Lukan text could be applied to an individual's personal health. Psychology tells us that people who express their emotions are usually happier than people who repress them. And who knows -- maybe God gets tired of old, complaining songs and would like to hear some new ones!
Contemporary Affirmation (Unison)
Jesus of Nazareth aligned himself with God whom he called Father.
The Holy Spirit is a divine gift that lives within us allowing us to be cocreators with God.
God is the creator of all that is; God invites us to work and pray, sing and play so that a new reign can come to earth.
We are people of God, eager to make this world a benevolent home for all creatures.
Let us take hope and wisdom into the world. Amen. Let it be so!
Offertory Statement (Leader)
Though we are eager to help the kingdom of God manifest, we need skills, supplies, and money. Let's fill the baskets!
Doxology
Great Are Your Mercies (v. 1), tune: SONG OF THE HOE
Great are your mercies, O my Maker,
Food and raiment You freely bestow.
Let me praise you always, Serve you all my days.
You the spring wind, I the grass; On me blow!
Prayer Of Thanksgiving (Leader)
We do sing -- new songs and old songs, songs of joy and songs of sadness. We sing of abundance and need. We are grateful we come together to collaborate with your hopes for a new world. We are grateful for all the resources we need to make something of heaven here on earth. Amen.
Intercessory Prayer (Leader or Readers)
God of Music -- there are so many songs we can sing, so many words we can speak, so many tears we shed. We are made in your image; do you too cry and rejoice? Grieve and celebrate? You know us before we are born and support us through life when we let you. We pray for people whose songs are violent and ugly, who don't have their basic life needs met. We pray for persons whose songs mourn losses we can't understand. And we pray for ourselves. Renew our songs of praise and delight; sustain our long notes and make our quick ones graceful.
God of Sacred Spaces -- we believe that when and where two or three people gather to praise and pray, you are there. So we pray for loveliness and peace everywhere men and women, boys and girls turn to you. In temples, on hillsides, on playgrounds, in classrooms -- let each of us feel loved and appreciated. In countries where war is the habit, find a way to let peace overwhelm the violence so that even the ground is made sacred.
God of Profane Spaces -- when we think of you as Creator of all the universe, we cannot imagine any place where you would not go. In your presence, strangers can become friends over cups of tea, mothers and fathers can learn patience playing tennis, boys and girls can learn to negotiate peacefully over a chess board. Individuals seeking friends might even find them at a bar. Wherever people seek goodness and respect, be among them offering them the Spirit of love.
God of Workers -- it seems that since Eden, some people have been powerful and some have been powerless. Some have learned to prosper; some have learned the art of loving; some have learned the advantages of positive thinking. Since Eden, it seems that some people are at the bottom of the pay scale and some are at the top with most of us in between. We pray for a more equal society so that everyone can have a job that is not boring and so everyone can have wholesome food on their tables. Amen. Let it be so.
Benediction (Leader)
As you leave this space, be aware that you have healing in your fingers,
kindness on your tongue, respect in your ears
and compassion in your thoughts.
You have received them as gifts from the Creator.
Give them to others you meet on your pathway his week and sing a new song! Amen.
Music
We Gather Together
Words: Nederlandtsche Gedenckclanck, 1626; trans. Theodore Baker, 1894; adapt. Ruth Duck, 1981
Music: Dutch melody; arr. Edward Kremser, 1877
KREMSER
Gather Us In
Words and Music: Marty Haugen, 1981
GATHER US IN
God Made All People Of The World
Words: Hyn Sul Hong, 1967; tr. David Kim and Chang Hee Son
Music: Shin Young Ahn
ONE WORLD
