The Responsibility of Hearing
Welcome to this time of
worship and community. We hope you find the service helpful and encouraging.
Call to Worship - (L. J. Bartlett,
Abingdon 2016)
Come in angry people! This is a safe place
to vent your fury. Come in hurting ones! Here you will find compassion and
grace to heal your wounds. Come in, all who are need of love and peace. Here,
we gather as children of the living God.
Lord, you have been kind to your land.
You have changed our circumstances
for the better!
You are the God who saves us.
You’ve
forgiven your people’s
wrongdoing.
Because of you, O God, faithful love and
truth have met.
Righteousness and peace have kissed.
HYMN TIS 555: “Put all your trust
in God” Why wouldn't you? Or why would you put your trust in
anyone or anything else? Even when things are not going well, if we pull
ourselves up, we know we are still in God's hand.
Opening prayer
Gracious and loving God, your steadfast love
and faithfulness assuredly meet in Jesus.
In him, your righteousness and peace are truly united. Through him, we have received these great
gifts of your mercy and grace. The prayer continued, but my thought was that
when we have such gifts, why would we complain about our lack of anything else?
A Prayer of Confession
Dear God you have every right to be angry
with us. We have such good intentions, but we continue to mess up. Forgive us, God.
We joyfully sing of your love on Sunday
morning, but by Monday we’re feeling lost and
unlovable. Forgive us, God.
We preach tolerance and compassion, but we
find ourselves raging at the person who cuts us off in traffic. Forgive us, God.
How did he know about me?
Declaration of Forgiveness
Then you forgive our sins, and once more
show us how to forgive others. You offer us a vision of truth and love meeting
together, and you invite us into their warm embrace.
As your forgiven people, beloved children of
your promise, you renew us in holy love. I was going to abbreviate this
prayer but just couldn’t find anything to leave out.
Thank you God.
The Peace
Peace is a gift beyond price. In Christ, we
find peace as we are reconciled to God. Let us share this precious gift with
one another in joy and thanksgiving.
The peace of Christ be with you all. And
also with you. We then reached out to each other offering that peace to
each other.
Offering Prayer
Loving God, you fill our lives to
overflowing like baskets of summer fruit. May the offering we return to you
this day show our gratitude for your many blessings, and our commitment to love
our neighbours as you have loved us. Through your goodness and the sharing of
these gifts, may all come to know the richness of your love. Amen.
Hymn TIS 162: “Thank you for giving
me the morning” A hymn that seems to have been written for children
but it speaks to every area of my life.
Bible Readings: Hosea
1: 2-10: Colossians 2: 6 -19: Luke
11: 1-13. The Hosea reading seems to reveal a very unbending God.
Certainly that's how these people saw God's power playing out. I think God's
mercy is so much bigger than that. Colossians speaks of the freedom and
abundant life we are offered through God's love. Count me in. Luke
teaches us to persevere, that God does hear us. But what I hear is that God is
so generous in His persistence in seeking each one of us.
For the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God
Preaching of the Word The
Responsibility of Hearing.
John began by placing the situation within
the context of our own lives. How would we react if someone wanted us to open
the door when all the family was in bed and the chaos of the previous day was
strewn all through the house.
The factor that made the story a little different
from our own is that in Greek the word translated as "persistence" in
the NRSV has a connotation of "shameless". That is on top of the
cultural requirement of offering hospitality. So the householder had to open
the door because of the neighbour's shameless persistence.
Then to the point: The God of all is
shameless in his persistence at knocking at the door of our lives. May as well give in now, you
will eventually. All those things that prevent us from opening to God are
known to him anyway. And all that will happen when you do is that you
will have life abundantly. Amen
Hymn TIS 209: “And can it be” It always amazes
me - how could the God of all that is - the essence of love and life- the
source of abundant life - how could I be invited into this realm of grace?
Musical Interlude while we
thought about our own lives and those of the people about whom we are
concerned.
Prayers of Intercession Margaret
Johnston led these. That's me, by the way. There was much to pray for. We
expressed our thanks for God's unbelievable generosity as He persists to draw
us to Him. We prayed for the Grace to take the message of God’s love to
the world and then turned our attention to all those suffering because of the
insane violence in the world. We also prayed for the victims of violence
anywhere and visitors to Rio de Janeiro that they will be kept safe.
Then we prayed for all those involved
in criminal acts - the victims, that they will be comforted; and the
perpetrators, that they will find a better way. Our prayers raised up the
sufferers of physical and mental illness everywhere, and then the Church,
especially our Uniting Church that we should keep faithful to our mission. We
then prayed for the personal concerns of the congregation and drew to a close
together with the Lord's Prayer.
Hymn 755: “You shall go out
with joy” Not just us, but all of creation will rejoice. Amen
Benediction
Go in peace, knowing that you are a forgiven
people.
Go in faith, knowing that God hears your
prayers and understands your needs.
Go in love, knowing that God invites you
into the holy embrace of truth and righteousness.
Go now as children of the living God to
serve others in Christ’s name.
AMEN. AMEN. AMEN.
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