Call to Worship
Once upon a time
a wise man offered a challenge;
“What is the greatest commandment?”
The calendars on our desks share a vision of greatness;
bills to pay, phone calls to return, appointments to keep.
Love the Lord your God.
The cameras of our memories share what commands us;
children to bathe and partners to help
parents calling and grandchildren hopeful.
Love the Lord your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your mind.
Still the Spirit lures us to new priorities;
open spaces to experience wonder,
strangers becoming friends,
devotion to that which transcends.
Love the Lord your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your mind.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Opening song – Jesu, Jesu, Fill Us With Your Love
Jesu, Jesu,
fill us with your love,
show us how to serve
the neighbors we have from you.
- Kneels at the feet of his friends,
silently washes their feet,
master who acts as a slave to them.
Jesu, Jesu,
fill us with your love,
show us how to serve
the neighbors we have from you.
- Neighbors are wealthy and poor,
varied in color and race,
neighbors are near us and far away.
Jesu, Jesu,
fill us with your love,
show us how to serve
the neighbors we have from you.
- These are the ones we will serve,
these are the ones we will love;
all these are neighbors to us and you.
Jesu, Jesu,
fill us with your love,
show us how to serve
the neighbors we have from you.
- Kneel at the feet of our friends,
silently washing their feet:
this is the way we will live with you.
Jesu, Jesu,
fill us with your love,
show us how to serve
the neighbors we have from you.
Prayer
God of wrath and thunder,
who hates those things which destroy creation
and harms creatures,
who shows us through the prophets
the way of peace with each other,
and who in Jesus Christ the corner stone
gave us the new foundation of love;
save us from the self righteousness
that leads us to rely on our own resources,
and from making ourselves immune
to the challenge of those who are different.
Give us the courage to give away
those things which make us count
so that only Christ will count with us;
through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Reading: Matthew 22:34-46
34 When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had left the Sadducees speechless, they met together. 35 One of them, a legal expert, tested him.36 “Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 He replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.” 41 Now as the Pharisees were gathering, Jesus asked them, 42 “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” “David’s son,” they replied. 43 He said, “Then how is it that David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, called him Lord when he said, 44 The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right side until I turn your enemies into your footstool’? 45 If David calls him Lord, how can he be David’s son?” 46 Nobody was able to answer him. And from that day forward nobody dared to ask him anything.
Reflection
Song – O God, Our Help in Ages Past
- O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast,
and our eternal home:
- Under the shadow of your throne
your saints have dwelt secure;
sufficient is your arm alone,
and our defense is sure.
- Before the hills in order stood
or earth received its frame,
from everlasting you are God,
to endless years the same.
- A thousand ages in your sight
are like an evening gone,
short as the watch that ends the night
before the rising sun.
- Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
bears all our years away;
they fly forgotten, as a dream
dies at the op’ning day.
- O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
still be our guard while troubles last
and our eternal home.
Prayers
Communion
Closing Song – Lift Every Voice and Sing
- Lift ev’ry voice and sing till earth and heaven ring,
ring with the harmonies of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high as the list’ning skies,
let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;
sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
let us march on till victory is won.
- Stony the road we trod, bitter the chast’ning rod,
felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
come to the place for which our parents sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered;
we have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
- God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
thou who hast by thy might led us into the light,
keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee;
lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee;
shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand,
true to our God, true to our native land.
Blessing
Go to celebrate the God who is our home forever.
God’s love goes with us!
Go to follow Christ’s example in loving God, self, and neighbor.
God’s love goes with us!
Go with the Holy Spirit to change the world with love.
God’s love goes with us!
Please remember to fill in the form to let us know you were here!
https://forms.gle/jCYjdPK6Mkfqsxt67