Chi-Rho The Chi-Rho is a Christian symbol associated with the liturgical season of Ordinary Time. It consists of the first two letters of the Greek

Transcription

1 Chi-Rho The Chi-Rho is a Christian symbol associated with the liturgical season of Ordinary Time. It consists of the first two letters of the Greek word for Christ or Christos (anointed one) The letters that make up the Chi-Rho are: Chi = X and the letter Rho = P, The fusion of these two letters into an abbreviation became a symbol for Christ WORSHIP FOR ORDINARY TIME JANUARY 1 FEBRUARY 26, 2017

2 WELCOME/LIFE OF THE CHURCH GATHERING OF GOD S PEOPLE GATHERING MUSIC (below and others as announced) The Lone Wild Bird 1 The lone, wild bird in lofty flight is still with you, nor leaves your sight. And I am yours! I rest in you, Great Spirit, come, rest in me, too. The ends of earth are in your hand, the sea s dark deep and far off land. And I am yours! I rest in you, Great Spirit, come, rest in me, too. Each secret thought is known to you, the path I walk my whole life through; my days, my deeds, my hopes, my fears, my deepest joys, my silent tears. As the Deer Pants for the Water 2 As the deer pants for the water So my soul longs after you You alone are my hearts desire And I long to worship you (bridge) you alone are my strength, my shield To you alone may my spirit yield. You alone are my hearts desire And I long to worship you. CALL TO WORSHIP (leader fills the baptismal font at each asterisk) The Lord be with you. And also with you. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give our thanks and praise. *We give you thanks, almighty God and Father, for by the gift of water you nourish and sustain all living things. Blessed be God for ever and ever. *We give you thanks that through the waters of the Red Sea, you led your people out of slavery to freedom in the promised land. Blessed be God for ever and ever. *We give you thanks for sending Jesus your Son, who for us was baptized by John in the River Jordan and anointed as Christ by your Holy Spirit. To renew the world he suffered the baptism of his own death and resurrection, setting us free from the bondage of sin and death, making the whole creation new, and opening to us the joy and freedom of everlasting life. Blessed be God for ever and ever. *We give you thanks for your Holy Spirit who teaches us and leads us into all truth, filling us with diverse gifts so that we might proclaim the gospel to all nations and serve you as a royal priesthood. Blessed be God for ever and ever. 1 Text(alt.): Henry Richard McFadyen; Tune: Prospect (The Sacred Harp,1844); 2 Text (alt.) and Tune: Martin J. Nystrom (1984): Glory to God,

3 *We give you thanks for the gift of baptism. In this water we are buried with Christ in his death; from this water we are raised to share in his resurrection; through this water we are reborn of the Holy Spirit. Blessed be God for ever and ever. 3 PRAYER OF CONFESSION ONE: Let us join together in our responsive prayer of confession: God of each of us, God of all of us, Being church is hard. We do not all agree about who you are or how to follow Jesus or what faith means or how to spend our money. We do not always listen well. We do not always speak kindly. Sometimes we forget the truth of church: We are all members of one body. Every part is needed. Every part is honored. And it is a blessing to have these companions on our journey. Forgive our failings and strengthen our love. [Time of personal, silent confession] ASSURANCE OF PARDON ONE: In the words of Psalm 103: MANY: God does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. ONE: For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; MANY: As far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us. ALL: Thanks be to God: in Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. PASSING THE PEACE ONE: May the peace of Christ be with you all. MANY: And also with you. GLORIA (Hymnal 576): Gloria, Gloria, in excelsis Deo! Gloria, gloria, alleluia, alleluia! THE WORD: IN SCRIPTURE AND PROCLAMATION PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION: Holy God, Word made flesh, let us come to this word open to being surprised. Silence our agendas; banish our assumptions; cast out our casual detachment. Confound our expectations; clear the cobwebs from our ears; penetrate the corners of our hearts with this word. We know that you can, we pray that you will, and we wait with great anticipation. Amen. SCRIPTURE Response: This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God! 3 A Celebration of Baptism Consultation on Common Texts

4 AFFIRMATION OF FAITH (all from A Declaration of Faith) Affirmation A: God s mercy and judgment await us all. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus God has already demonstrated his judging and saving work. We are warned that rejecting God s love and not caring for others whom God loves results in eternal separation from him and them. Yet we are also told that God loves the whole world and wills the salvation of all humankind in Christ. We live in tension between God s warnings and promises. Knowing the righteous judgment of God in Christ, we urge all people to be reconciled to God, not exempting ourselves from the warnings. Constrained by God s love in Christ, we have good hope for all people, not exempting the most unlikely from the promises. Judgment belongs to God and not to us. We are sure that God s future for every person will be both merciful and just. Jesus is Lord! He has been Lord from the beginning. He will be Lord at the end. Even now he is Lord. Affirmation B: We believe Christ gives us and demands of us lives in pilgrimage toward God s kingdom. Like Christ we may enjoy on our journey all that sustains life and makes it pleasant and beautiful. No more than Christ are we spared the darkness, ambiguity, and threat of life in the world. We are in the world, but not of the world. Our confidence and hope for ourselves and other people do not rest in the powers and achievements of this world, but in the coming and hidden presence of God s kingdom. Christ calls each of us to a life appropriate to that kingdom: to serve as he has served us; to take up our cross, risking the consequences of faithful discipleship; to walk by faith, not by sight, to hope for what we have not seen. Jesus is Lord! He has been Lord from the beginning. He will be Lord at the end. Even now he is Lord. Affirmation C: God sends the church into the world. God has not taken his people out of the world, but has sent them into the world to worship him there and serve all humankind. We worship God in the world by standing before the Lord in behalf of all people. Our cries for help and our songs of praise are never for ourselves alone. Worship is no retreat from the world; it is part of our mission. We serve humankind by discerning what God is doing in the world and joining him in his work. We risk disagreement and error when we try to say what God is doing here and now. But we find guidance in God s deeds in the past and his promises for the future, as they are witnessed to in Scripture. We affirm that the Lord is at work, especially in events and movements that free people by the gospel and advance justice, compassion and peace. PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE CELEBRATION OF COMMUNION In coming forward for communion, worshipers have the following options: Worshipers may make a gesture touching the offering plate, nod their head as a sign of intention, make the sign of the cross, etc. Worshipers may touch the water in the baptismal bowl as reminder of God s love extended to us in our baptism. Worshipers may make a financial contribution. Worshipers may place an I Give Card (found in the pew racks) in the offering plate. Worshipers may find other creative ways to express their offering putting a business card in the offering plate, a note, or some other personal affect. Worship Note: In the distribution of the elements, a gluten-free option is available. At the appropriate time for coming forward, those who would like the gluten-free bread are invited to come to the front of the line. The rest of the worshipping community is honored to serve by waiting a moment before coming forward

5 THE GREAT THANKSGIVING The Lord be with you. And also with you. Lift up your hearts. We lift them to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give our thanks and praise. It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to You, Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth. You formed us in Your image and breathed into us the breath of life. When we turned away, and our love failed, Your love remained steadfast. You delivered us from captivity, made covenant to be our sovereign God, and spoke to us through Your prophets. And so, with Your people on earth and all the company of heaven, we praise Your name and join their unending hymn: SANCTUS Reprinted under OneLicense.net #A Remembering Your gracious acts in Jesus Christ, we take from Your creation this bread and this cup and joyfully celebrate his death and resurrection, as we await the day of his coming. With thanksgiving, we offer our very selves to You to be a living and holy sacrifice, to work as Your hands in this world. Great is the mystery of faith: MEMORIAL ACCLAMATION Reprinted under OneLicense.net #A

6 Gracious God, we gather before the mystery of Your presence with awe and in wonder of Your infinite love, which You have made known to us in Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. He lived among us, experienced our human nature, and eventually died as one of us, stretching out his arms on the hard wood of the cross as a pure and unending sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. GREAT AMEN Reprinted under OneLicense.net #A And now with confidence, we pray the Prayer of Jesus: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen WORDS OF INSTITUTION: Breaking and Blessing Communion Sung Meditation: What Does the Lord Require of You? 4 What does the Lord require of you? What does the Lord require of you? Justice, kindness, walk humbly with your God. To seek justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION (Unison) Eternal God, we give you thanks for this holy mystery in which you have given yourself to us. Grant that we may go into the world in the strength of your Spirit, to give ourselves for others, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. CLOSING HYMN BENEDICTION RESPONSE: (South African) Ameni, ameni, amen, amen, amen, ameni. GOING OUT INTO GOD S WORLD 4 Text based on Micah 6:8; Lyrics/Tune by Jim Strathdee, Glory to God,

7 1 Corinthians 1:1-4:21 (NRSV) 1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, 2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, 5 for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind 6 just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you 7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8 He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Divisions in the Church 10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. 12 What I mean is that each of you says, I belong to Paul, or I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Cephas, or I belong to Christ. 13 Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. Christ the Power and Wisdom of God 18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. 20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For God s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God s weakness is stronger than human strength. 26 Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God. 30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 in order that, as it is written, Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. Proclaiming Christ Crucified 2 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mysteryof God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4 My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. The True Wisdom of God 6 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. 7 But we speak God s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written, What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God s except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. 13 And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual. 14 Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else s scrutiny

8 16 For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. On Divisions in the Corinthian Church 3 And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? 4 For when one says, I belong to Paul, and another, I belong to Apollos, are you not merely human? 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. 9 For we are God s servants, working together; you are God s field, God s building. 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw 13 the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. 14 If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire. 16 Do you not know that you are God s temple and that God s Spirit dwells in you? 17 If anyone destroys God s temple, God will destroy that person. For God s temple is holy, and you are that temple. 18 Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He catches the wise in their craftiness, 20 and again, The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile. 21 So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future all belong to you, 23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God. The Ministry of the Apostles 4 Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God s mysteries. 2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. 4 I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive commendation from God. 6 I have applied all this to Apollos and myself for your benefit, brothers and sisters, so that you may learn through us the meaning of the saying, Nothing beyond what is written, so that none of you will be puffed up in favor of one against another. 7 For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift? 8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you! 9 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. 10 We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, 12 and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day. Fatherly Admonition 14 I am not writing this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. 15 For though you might have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. 16 I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me. 17 For this reason I sent you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ Jesus, as I teach them everywhere in every church. 18 But some of you, thinking that I am not coming to you, have become arrogant. 19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. 20 For the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power. 21 What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick, or with love in a spirit of gentleness? - 8 -