Bread and More Soup Kitchen continues to serve a free to-go meal every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 5:30-6:15.
We are an open and affirming member of the United Church of Christ and no matter who you are or where you are in life's journey, you are welcome here. Contact the Pastor, the Rev. Dr. Murray at 631-727-2621 for more i
Save the Date: July 6 barbecue following church service!
Allare welcome. Please bring a side dish to share. A sign-up sheet is in the fellowship hall.
Church services are held at 10:00 am usually followed by a coffee hour. Please join us.
All are welcome.
Alley Cat Thrift Shop: Donations of adult clothing , shoes and small household items are accepted Tuesday and Thursday from 10-2 and Saturday 9-1 only. No furniture or children's items accepted.
Sunday School: Please call our church office if you would like your child to join. Sunday School is held during church services.
If you would like to join us on Zoom , please follow the link
Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86897065711?
pwd=a0FZcDg5MnRqKz-JMQXRLVzIBTGZFQT09 to start or join a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Meeting ID: 850 1493 9172
Passcode: 7272621
Second Sunday after Pentecost
A Service of the Word
June 22, 2025 ✦ 10am
OPENING WORDS:
We open our hearts to the presence of God and worship together.
PRELUDE: Andante Welsh
(Once the music begins we ask that you would please maintain respectful silence)
*CHORAL INTROIT:
We are here this day to share God's love;
We have come with burdens and cares,
For within this place, we are bound as one
In this fellowship, we share.
*CALL TO WORSHIP:
One: God is ready for us to seek what is eternal.
God wants us to find the truth beyond ourselves.
Many: Our spirits long for God, as a deer longs for water.
We cry out for some evidence of God’s presence.
One: God seldom comes as earthquake, wind, or fire.
Rather, in moments of sheer silence, God is revealed.
Many: We come in quiet expectation to this holy place.
We approach the altar of God, hungering to be fed.
One: All are welcome here as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Here is a place to find healing and promise.
ALL: Our hope is in God, who gives us life and identity.
Our help is from God, who is in covenant with us.
HYMN: O God, Our Help in Ages Past No. 25
https://youtu.be/N-hN740J6qA
WELCOME
PRAYER OF INVOCATION
…God, our refuge and our hope, come among us today to give us energy and purpose. Move us beyond the discipline of the law to the discipleship of faith. Free us from the shackles of fear and a sense of failure that keep us from stepping bravely into your future. Grant us the sense that we are not alone but are part of a great company of your faithful people of every nation and tongue….
CHILDREN’S TIME
ANNOUNCEMENTS, CELEBRATIONS & CONCERNS
Celebrating the 4th: On Sunday, July 6th, be sure to join us after
worship for hot dogs and hamburgers as we extend the 4th of July
celebrations.
A TIME OF PRAYER:
❖ Pastoral Prayer
…Holy God, whose healing presence gathers together our brokenness and restores our integrity, move us once more to proclaim to one another how much you have done for us, that no one will question, “Where is your God?” but will sense your reality among us. May we be attentive listeners and faithful followers….
❖ Silent Prayer
❖ Lord's Prayer:
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.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory,
now and forever. Amen.
OFFERING & OFFERTORY: Pavanne Fauve
*DOXOLOGY AND BLESSING OF GIFTS:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise God, all creatures here below;
Praise God above, you heavenly host:
Creator, Christ, and Holy Ghost.
SCRIPTURE LESSONS:
❖ I Kings 19:1-15a
❖ Psalm 42 and Psalm 43
❖ Galatians 3:23-29
❖ Luke 8:26-39
SERMON: “To the Rescue”
Today, with the help of our first lesson from I Kings, we get some fun with theology.
It seems that many of the heroes of our Biblical accounts -- from Noah and family, to Abraham and Moses, David, Jonathan, Job, Jonah, all of the major prophets, Jesus and the apostles -- find themselves in a world of trouble. Paul, particularly, was regularly in hard spots. When writing to the Corinthians, he provides the list of the many ways his faith was tested as he suffered "through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger."
But with these trouble spots, we always get fervent prayer (as our prayer game is always upped in times of trouble) and God comes to the rescue, providing exactly what’s needed, whether it’s instructions on building an ark to weather the storm, water from a rock or quail in the wilderness, or mighty power to calm storms or escape a violent crowd.
Today, it’s Elijah in trouble with Jezebel because he had killed the prophets of Baal, and God provides the needed nourishment, courage and instruction, even in the silence, to get him through it.
To the rescue. As it was just Father’s day and as today is my dad’s 97th birthday, my father has been on my mind. He, too, fits well in the picture of to the rescue. In my childhood home, my father worked as manufacturers' representative and was often on the road. My mom stayed at home to look after my twin sister and me, tend to the affairs of the house and home, and serve as dad's administrative assistant in the home office. Mom was always around, feeding and tending, but when it came to the larger, fix-it issues, they would wait for dad. It was dad who'd fix the plumbing when floods hit the basement or the bathroom. Dad fidgeted with the breakers when the electric would go. It was dad's job to deal with the gutters, the downspouts, the garage doors, the snowstorms, or hurricane debris, basically anything outside. Mom was always around, but for the serious stuff, it was dad to the rescue.
I was one of the fortunate ones. For there are many who grow up with the absent, missing, or non-existent dad. For them, the notion of "Father God" isn't particularly helpful or endearing. For them, "Father God" is just God somewhere out-there who may or may not show up. Yet even with my regularly returning father, the notion of one who isn’t always there remains. Today we are reminded that our God not only sweeps in like superman to come to the rescue, but also remains with us, for some of the rescue that God gives to us is the gift of holy presence in all our days. And that’s what this new season of Pentecost is all about.
With all the trouble of our Biblical heroes, one of the recurring issues of Biblical literature and scholarship is that of the transcendent versus the immanent presence of God. Transcendent presence points to our God who is wholly other, who dwells outside our realm and who breaks into our existence from the beyond. Immanent presence points to our God among us, who dwells within and around us.
A couple of years ago, seminary professor George Stroup wrote an article for The Journal of Preachers entitled with the rather self-evident question "Does God Intervene?" There Stroup speaks of the ways that we, as Christians, understand God's coming to the rescue like superman even in light of our understanding of an ever-present God. As the author points out, the case for the transcendence of God is easy to make. The Bible regularly shows us God who breaks through the boundaries of heaven and frees the people from bondage in Egypt, feeds them with manna in the wilderness, leads them by a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. It is our God who sends prophets to chastise, and when the people ignore the prophets sends foreign armies to conquer and send them into exile. This is the God who pops in and performs miracles in our midst but then retreats and leaves the world to run its normal and natural course. Although clear, this conceptualizing of God leads us, to paraphrase Bonhoeffer, to push God out of our world that has come of age, and relegate God to a realm beyond the world of experience. This is the God of the gaps who flies in like superman, beats down the bad guys and saves the people.
The problem, of course, is that the superhero disappears, flies off again into the distance. And such understanding can lead the Christian to perceive of God as one who is only occasionally present and not involved in the ordinary events of our day to day lives.
Another theologian, Karl Rahner, seeks to correct such thinking. Unfortunately, he does so with language that can be hard to understand. God's intervention, he poses, can only be understood as "the historical concreteness of the transcendental self-communication of God which is already intrinsic to the concrete world." If one can battle through such phraseology which doesn't really get much clearer, we can come a little closer to understand God who is not only revealed as the distant creator who reaches out and breaks through with the magic hand, but God the Holy Spirit who dwells within us and around us all of the time. This is our God of the here and now. This is our God of our daily experience.
Although considered opposites, we must think of God as both transcendent and imminent, remaining always mindful that God is closer than we can even imagine. Such will be Elijah’s challenge and ultimately, his strength. Although treated to God powerfully pops by in wind, earthquake and fire, Elijah must come to understand that God remains with him as he journeys on. So, too, we must open the doors of our hearts and minds to God's presence regardless of the currents of conflict or of jubilation. For God is wholly other but wholly present and is willing to work in tandem with us in each day. To use Paul's language, we are called to open wide our hearts and receive God's power to prevail, and understand that God is always poised to come to the rescue if we invite God in and that God always remains to nourish us and lead us on.
*HYMN: I’m So Glad, Jesus Lifted Me No. 474
https://youtu.be/uHb8waPQOPs
*BENEDICTION
CHORAL BENEDICTION:
May the light of God shine on us today.
May the light of God shine on us today.
May it show us where to travel.
Lead us back if we should stray.
May the light of God shine on us today.
POSTLUDE: Prelude in F Bach
Second Sunday after Pentecost
A Service of the Word
June 22, 2025 ✦ 10am
OPENING WORDS:
We open our hearts to the presence of God and worship together.
PRELUDE: Andante Welsh
(Once the music begins we ask that you would please maintain respectful silence)
*CHORAL INTROIT:
We are here this day to share God's love;
We have come with burdens and cares,
For within this place, we are bound as one
In this fellowship, we share.
*CALL TO WORSHIP:
One: God is ready for us to seek what is eternal.
God wants us to find the truth beyond ourselves.
Many: Our spirits long for God, as a deer longs for water.
We cry out for some evidence of God’s presence.
One: God seldom comes as earthquake, wind, or fire.
Rather, in moments of sheer silence, God is revealed.
Many: We come in quiet expectation to this holy place.
We approach the altar of God, hungering to be fed.
One: All are welcome here as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Here is a place to find healing and promise.
ALL: Our hope is in God, who gives us life and identity.
Our help is from God, who is in covenant with us.
HYMN: O God, Our Help in Ages Past No. 25
https://youtu.be/N-hN740J6qA
WELCOME
PRAYER OF INVOCATION
…God, our refuge and our hope, come among us today to give us energy and purpose. Move us beyond the discipline of the law to the discipleship of faith. Free us from the shackles of fear and a sense of failure that keep us from stepping bravely into your future. Grant us the sense that we are not alone but are part of a great company of your faithful people of every nation and tongue….
CHILDREN’S TIME
ANNOUNCEMENTS, CELEBRATIONS & CONCERNS
Celebrating the 4th: On Sunday, July 6th, be sure to join us after
worship for hot dogs and hamburgers as we extend the 4th of July
celebrations.
A TIME OF PRAYER:
❖ Pastoral Prayer
…Holy God, whose healing presence gathers together our brokenness and restores our integrity, move us once more to proclaim to one another how much you have done for us, that no one will question, “Where is your God?” but will sense your reality among us. May we be attentive listeners and faithful followers….
❖ Silent Prayer
❖ Lord's Prayer:
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.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory,
now and forever. Amen.
OFFERING & OFFERTORY: Pavanne Fauve
*DOXOLOGY AND BLESSING OF GIFTS:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise God, all creatures here below;
Praise God above, you heavenly host:
Creator, Christ, and Holy Ghost.
SCRIPTURE LESSONS:
❖ I Kings 19:1-15a
❖ Psalm 42 and Psalm 43
❖ Galatians 3:23-29
❖ Luke 8:26-39
SERMON: “To the Rescue”
Today, with the help of our first lesson from I Kings, we get some fun with theology.
It seems that many of the heroes of our Biblical accounts -- from Noah and family, to Abraham and Moses, David, Jonathan, Job, Jonah, all of the major prophets, Jesus and the apostles -- find themselves in a world of trouble. Paul, particularly, was regularly in hard spots. When writing to the Corinthians, he provides the list of the many ways his faith was tested as he suffered "through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger."
But with these trouble spots, we always get fervent prayer (as our prayer game is always upped in times of trouble) and God comes to the rescue, providing exactly what’s needed, whether it’s instructions on building an ark to weather the storm, water from a rock or quail in the wilderness, or mighty power to calm storms or escape a violent crowd.
Today, it’s Elijah in trouble with Jezebel because he had killed the prophets of Baal, and God provides the needed nourishment, courage and instruction, even in the silence, to get him through it.
To the rescue. As it was just Father’s day and as today is my dad’s 97th birthday, my father has been on my mind. He, too, fits well in the picture of to the rescue. In my childhood home, my father worked as manufacturers' representative and was often on the road. My mom stayed at home to look after my twin sister and me, tend to the affairs of the house and home, and serve as dad's administrative assistant in the home office. Mom was always around, feeding and tending, but when it came to the larger, fix-it issues, they would wait for dad. It was dad who'd fix the plumbing when floods hit the basement or the bathroom. Dad fidgeted with the breakers when the electric would go. It was dad's job to deal with the gutters, the downspouts, the garage doors, the snowstorms, or hurricane debris, basically anything outside. Mom was always around, but for the serious stuff, it was dad to the rescue.
I was one of the fortunate ones. For there are many who grow up with the absent, missing, or non-existent dad. For them, the notion of "Father God" isn't particularly helpful or endearing. For them, "Father God" is just God somewhere out-there who may or may not show up. Yet even with my regularly returning father, the notion of one who isn’t always there remains. Today we are reminded that our God not only sweeps in like superman to come to the rescue, but also remains with us, for some of the rescue that God gives to us is the gift of holy presence in all our days. And that’s what this new season of Pentecost is all about.
With all the trouble of our Biblical heroes, one of the recurring issues of Biblical literature and scholarship is that of the transcendent versus the immanent presence of God. Transcendent presence points to our God who is wholly other, who dwells outside our realm and who breaks into our existence from the beyond. Immanent presence points to our God among us, who dwells within and around us.
A couple of years ago, seminary professor George Stroup wrote an article for The Journal of Preachers entitled with the rather self-evident question "Does God Intervene?" There Stroup speaks of the ways that we, as Christians, understand God's coming to the rescue like superman even in light of our understanding of an ever-present God. As the author points out, the case for the transcendence of God is easy to make. The Bible regularly shows us God who breaks through the boundaries of heaven and frees the people from bondage in Egypt, feeds them with manna in the wilderness, leads them by a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. It is our God who sends prophets to chastise, and when the people ignore the prophets sends foreign armies to conquer and send them into exile. This is the God who pops in and performs miracles in our midst but then retreats and leaves the world to run its normal and natural course. Although clear, this conceptualizing of God leads us, to paraphrase Bonhoeffer, to push God out of our world that has come of age, and relegate God to a realm beyond the world of experience. This is the God of the gaps who flies in like superman, beats down the bad guys and saves the people.
The problem, of course, is that the superhero disappears, flies off again into the distance. And such understanding can lead the Christian to perceive of God as one who is only occasionally present and not involved in the ordinary events of our day to day lives.
Another theologian, Karl Rahner, seeks to correct such thinking. Unfortunately, he does so with language that can be hard to understand. God's intervention, he poses, can only be understood as "the historical concreteness of the transcendental self-communication of God which is already intrinsic to the concrete world." If one can battle through such phraseology which doesn't really get much clearer, we can come a little closer to understand God who is not only revealed as the distant creator who reaches out and breaks through with the magic hand, but God the Holy Spirit who dwells within us and around us all of the time. This is our God of the here and now. This is our God of our daily experience.
Although considered opposites, we must think of God as both transcendent and imminent, remaining always mindful that God is closer than we can even imagine. Such will be Elijah’s challenge and ultimately, his strength. Although treated to God powerfully pops by in wind, earthquake and fire, Elijah must come to understand that God remains with him as he journeys on. So, too, we must open the doors of our hearts and minds to God's presence regardless of the currents of conflict or of jubilation. For God is wholly other but wholly present and is willing to work in tandem with us in each day. To use Paul's language, we are called to open wide our hearts and receive God's power to prevail, and understand that God is always poised to come to the rescue if we invite God in and that God always remains to nourish us and lead us on.
*HYMN: I’m So Glad, Jesus Lifted Me No. 474
https://youtu.be/uHb8waPQOPs
*BENEDICTION
CHORAL BENEDICTION:
May the light of God shine on us today.
May the light of God shine on us today.
May it show us where to travel.
Lead us back if we should stray.
May the light of God shine on us today.
POSTLUDE: Prelude in F Bach
Seventh Sunday of Easter
Service of Word and Sacrament
June 1, 2025✦ 10am
We open our hearts to the presence of God and worship together.
PRELUDE: Aria Smith
*CHORAL INTROIT:
We are here this day to share God's love.
We have come with burdens and cares,
For within this place, we are bound as one
In this fellowship we share.
*CALL TO WORSHIP:
One: The grace of Jesus Christ be with all the saints!
We have gathered in that grace to worship God.
Many: Rejoice in God and give thanks to God’s holy name.
Let all heaven and earth behold God’s glory.
One: God is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
All creation is subject to God’s rule and reign.
Many: We bring our prayers and praise to God most high,
We lift our voices in hymns of celebration.
One: Come, all who hunger, all who thirst;
Be nourished and renewed in this time of worship.
ALL: We bring joys and sorrows, fullness and needs.
Seeking, we come with success and failures..
*HYMN: For All the Saints No. 299
https://youtu.be/WbPshOGxpew
WELCOME
PRAYER OF INVOCATION:
We come seeking a presence that shakes foundations and helps us build new ones. We come with all our wounds, asking for healing. We come, remembering our baptism and wanting to claim the difference that makes in our lives. We come through the shadowy clouds of our unbelief, seeking the brightness of your glory. We want a faith to sustain us through times of trial and testing. Be powerfully present with us, gracious Spirit. Amen.
CHILDREN’S TIME
PASSING OF THE PEACE
ANNOUNCEMENTS, CELEBRATIONS & CONCERNS
A TIME OF PRAYER:
❖ Pastoral Prayer
As Christ prayed that believers might be one, we ask, O righteous Parent, that our church may know a unity of spirit amid our diversity. Make your ways known to us, fill us with your love, and send us out in your name. We seek to bring others to the tree of life and to salvation, through Jesus Christ…..
❖ Silent Prayer
❖ Lord's Prayer:
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.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory, now and forever. Amen.
MISSION MOMENT: Strengthen the Church
OFFERING & OFFERTORY ANTHEM: Blessed by the Bread,
Graced by the Wine Beall
*DOXOLOGY AND BLESSING OF GIFTS:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise God, all creatures here below;
Praise God above, you heavenly host:
Creator, Christ, and Holy Ghost.
SCRIPTURE LESSONS:
❖ Acts 16:16-34 NT Page 119
❖ Psalm 97 Hymnal Page 685
❖ Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21 NT Page 232
❖ John 17:20-26 NT Page 98
*GLORIA:
Glory to the Creator, the Christ, the Holy Spirit,
Three -in-one; as it was in the beginning
Is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen. Amen.
SERMON: “Holy Disruptions”
When it comes to Biblical accounts, the poetic and mystic is fine, but I do appreciate the narrative accounts such as we have today from Acts. Unlike the Gospel account and John of Patmos’ visioning of Revelation, our first reading is delightfully accessible and lends itself to fine considerations as we make our way through the journey of life.
At first, I’m sure the slave girl’s announcement was just a basic interruption. Interruptions tend to be easy enough to manage as they’re just brief pauses in what we’re doing, like a sneeze while preaching. Yet as the slave girl continued with her proclamations for “several days,” it’s understandable how Paul found that the interruption to be more than something that could no longer be ignored and skipped over. And then, of course, the annoyance became a disruption.
We all deal with disruptions, such as when the computer acts up big time or a storm knocks out the power. But as unsettling as those things are, we tend just to deal with them and not get overly agitated. Yet when the disruption is caused by disruptive behavior, such as by a seriously misbehaving child, that’s when the more emotional impulse kicks in. And as saintly as Paul was, he wasn’t immune to that; yet Luke is quite diplomatic with the description of Paul’s initial reaction, writing simply, “but Paul, very much annoyed.” We can see it. Paul was ticked off big time.
At first, there’s a blessing that comes out of the girl’s disruptive behavior as she is exorcized of the annoying spirit. But then, of course, things get considerably worse as Paul and Silas are seized, stripped, flogged and jailed. Now there’s a big-time disruption.
What’s surprising is how they deal with it. No fretting, bemoaning, crying out, or even hexing in the name of God is mentioned. Rather the next image we get of them is as if they were in church: they took to praying and singing hymns. Now that’s taking things in stride for sure.
Yet even church time is disrupted. This time it’s by a violent earthquake. But again, even though the everyone’s chains were unfastened, and doors were opened, they took it all in stride and just stayed put.
Of course, as it turns out, their taking even that grand disruption in stride and not reacting out fear and fleeing, was the perfect, even holy, response. The jailer was not only spared from killing himself but converted and baptized, and his behavior was complete modified as he became nurse and gracious host to the two. Now that’s a Holy Disruption, to the max.
As I took in the account, I contemplated how I tend to be less than perfectly receptive to disruptions. Something, I likely share that with many. My inclination is regularly to get right bothered, even “very much annoyed.” I don’t so much as briefly contemplate the good they may be precipitated by the seeming inconvenience and needed change in plans. Yet it occurred to me through this reading that I’d likely do well to consider a more divine possibility in the disruption. Perhaps something right good could come of it.
And we’ve seen it. It’s the disruption of a sudden physical attack that leads to a needed diagnosis and a remedy that had eluded us. It’s the crash and arrest that leads to a curative and transformative stay in a sober house. It’s the knock on the door that leads to a much needed and healing conversation.
The challenge is not to lament or offer a purely emotional response to the disruption but to consider God at work in it and through it. There well might be a blessing to be found, but it may take more effort that what Paul and Silas had to make.
OUR ORDER OF COMMUNION
The Invitation and Time of Confession:
❖ Call to Confession
❖ Silent Confession
❖ Unison Prayer of Confession:
Hear our individual confessions, O God, as we recall the
ways we ignore you every day. Listen to our regrets over
the abuse we have heaped on others by our words, actions,
or neglect. We join together in asking forgiveness for the
ways our church inflicts injury on members of the household
of faith while excluding many who differ from us. We live
by our own devices rather than taking risks to follow where
Christ might lead us. Deliver us, O God, from empty forms
to receive the fullness of your grace and the power to live as
you intend. Amen.
❖ Words of Assurance
Thanksgiving:
Pastor: The Lord be with you.
People: And also with you.
Pastor: Lift up your hearts.
People: We lift them up to the Lord.
Pastor: Let us give thanks to God Most High.
People: It is right to give God thanks and praise.
Pastor: We give you thanks, God of majesty and mercy,
for calling forth the creation and raising us from dust by the breath of your being.
We bless you for the beauty and bounty of the earth and for the vision of the day when sharing by all will mean scarcity for none.
We remember the covenant you made with your people Israel, and we give you thanks for all our ancestors in faith.
We rejoice that you call us to reconciliation with you and all people everywhere and that you remain faithful to your covenant even when we are faithless.
We rejoice that you call the entire human family to this table of sacrifice and victory.
We come in remembrance and celebration of the gift of Jesus Christ, whom you sent, in the fullness of time, to be the good news.
Born of Mary, our sister in faith, Christ lived among us to reveal the mystery of your Word, to suffer and die on the cross for us, to be raised from death on the third day, and then to live in glory.
We bless you, gracious God, for the presence of your Holy Spirit in the church you have gathered. With your sons and daughters of faith in all places and times, we praise you with joy as we say together:
All: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts,
Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory,
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
Words of Institution and Communal Proclamation:
Pastor: We remember that on the night of betrayal and desertion,
and on the eve of death, Jesus gathered the disciples for a shared meal of preparation.
Jesus took bread, and after giving thanks to God, broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying:
“This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way, he took the cup after supper.
Again he gave God thanks and praise and said:
“This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as
often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
Therefore, we proclaim the mystery of our faith:
All: Christ’s death, O God we proclaim.
Christ’s resurrection we declare.
Christ’s coming, we await.
Glory be to you, O God.
Prayers of Consecration:
Pastor: Eternal God, we unite in this covenant of faith, recalling Christ’s suffering and death, rejoicing in Christ’s resurrection, and awaiting Christ’s return in victory. We spread your table with these gifts of the earth and of our labor. We present to you our very lives, committed to your service on behalf of all people. We ask you to send your Holy Spirit upon this bread and wine, upon our gifts, and upon us. Strengthen your universal church that it may be the champion of peace and justice in all the world. Restore the earth with your grace that is able to make all things new.
All: Be present with us as we share this meal,
and throughout all our lives, that we may know you as
the Holy One, who with Christ and the Holy Spirit,
lives forever. Amen.
Sharing the Bread and Cup:
Pastor: Alleluia! Christ our Passover is offered for us.
People: Therefore, let us keep the feast.
Pastor: The gifts of God for the people of God.
We celebrate the grace of God in our midst.
(Please wait until all have been served and we’ll ingest together)
unison Prayer of Thanksgiving:
We give you thanks, Almighty God, that you have refreshed us at your table through the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Continue to heal us, we pray, and strengthen our faith. Increase our love for one another, and send us forth into the world in courage and peace, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit; we ask these things in the Name of Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
*HYMN: Help Us Accept Each Other No. 388
https://youtu.be/7bqkTMO5fW8
*PASTORAL BENEDICTION
CHORAL BENEDICTION:
May the light of God shine on us today.
May the light of God shine on us today.
May it show us where to travel,
Lead us back if we should stray,
May the light of God shine on us today.
POSTLUDE: The Heaven’s Declare Marcello
(please remain seated for the postlude)
Sixth Sunday of Easter
A Service of the Word
May 25, 2025 ✦ 10am
OPENING WORDS:
We open our hearts to the presence of God and worship together.
PRELUDE: Finlandia Sibelius
(Once the music begins we ask that you would please maintain respectful silence)
*CHORAL INTROIT:
We are here this day to share God's love;
We have come with burdens and cares,
For within this place, we are bound as one
In this fellowship, we share.
*CALL TO WORSHIP:
One: Come to this place of prayer; God is calling us.
Come, all who are burdened; there is healing here.
Many: We have come to hear the Word of God.
We have brought with us all that weighs us down.
One: Let the voices of praise greet the One who calls us.
Be glad together and sing for joy.
Many: Our hearts respond with hope for a new day.
Our voices join in thankful prayers and praise.
One: God reigns among us and fills the world with light.
We are invited to make our home with the living God.
ALL: May God’s ways be known within and among us.
May God guide us in ways of health and peace.
HYMN: Lift Every Voice and Sing No. 593
WELCOME
PRAYER OF INVOCATION:
…Maker of all things, Ruler of all peoples of the earth, we bring our prayers of thanksgiving and praise. You have provided the water of life for our baptism. You have fed us with the fruits of the earth and nourished us through your Word. Meet us again in the joyous encounter of worship, lest we forget the source of all we have and all that we are. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Amen.
CHILDREN’S TIME
PASSING OF THE PEACE
ANNOUNCEMENTS, CELEBRATIONS & CONCERNS
A TIME OF PRAYER:
❖ Pastoral Prayer
God of love and peace, whose healing Word is offered to every person and group and nation, we long to hear and see and feel your presence with us. Send your Holy Spirit to overpower our excuses, lend new perspective to our troubled thoughts, and equip us to walk into the future with courage. Reign among us that we may proclaim good news to all who need it. Amen.
❖ Silent Prayer
❖ Lord's Prayer:
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.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory,
now and forever. Amen.
OFFERING & OFFERTORY: God Bless America Berlin
*DOXOLOGY AND BLESSING OF GIFTS:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise God, all creatures here below;
Praise God above, you heavenly host:
Creator, Christ, and Holy Ghost.
SCRIPTURE LESSONS:
❖ Acts 16:9-15 NT Page 119
❖ Psalm 67 Hymnal Page 663
❖ Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5 NT Page 231
❖ John 14:23-29 NT Page 95
SERMON: “Godsends”
It may strike you a bit odd because it’s rarely that it pluralized, but godsends – with the final s – makes sense to me. As such, it not only points to the plural noun of the blessings, but it also clearly hints at the simple sentence that serves as an affirmation: God sends, as in God sends help, God sends what we need, God sends angels in our path.
From the adventuring Paul and then Lydia, to the mystical visioning of John of Patmos, and the promise of the gift of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, we are treated to fine illustrations of godsends and we them are led to the contemplate the help and support we’ve received, especially at most opportune moments, and the help and support we’re called to give.
The account of Acts starts with a vision, but with the vision there is no clear plan. It’s just a matter of being summoned to do something – in this case to help some unnamed man and others whom he’s with. It’s also a summons to travel into previously unvisited territory, now a Roman colony, across the norther Aegean Sea. There’s no “you’ve got to be kidding me” or “how are we supposed to do that?” It’s just off we go.
And without any details of the journeying other than the points of call along the way, we end up down by a river in Phillipi where, as it just happens, there is not only a place of prayer but also women who gathered there on the Sabbath. Apparently, they were Gentile converts to Judaism, so that Paul had an easy way of making theological conversation. Anything that’s said goes unrecorded, but it was obviously compelling as Lydia and her household were baptized. (A note of trivia: Lydia is considered the first European convert to Christianity.) It’s already a wonderfully odd story of what some might consider happenstance, but for the believers it would undoubtedly be a clear indication that the hand of God was in it all.
The big bonus – yet another godsend – was that Lydia was a dealer in purple cloth, rare and expensive fabric which meant that she was woman of means. She urges Paul and those with him to stay at her house. That’s quite the invite to a bunch of traveling sailors whom she just met, but it’s just laid out there, so we don’t readily even contemplate that. Lydia’s house then gives Paul and Silas and the crew a place to stay for many days and they’d continue to make converts. That huge gift of hospitality is a major godsend for sure, and if you were to read on, you’d even discover the man whom we expect the one of the original vision, for the godsends don’t end, for there’s even an earthquake to come that frees Paul and Silas from the chains of jail.
The odd thing about godsends, those serendipitous blessings that come our way to help and support us, is that if we only consider them to be for us in times of struggle, we tend to hope we don’t need them. We like to be self-sufficient and have things well under control without the help of others. And yet you, like me, have likely found times when events and people just happen to unfold in such a way as to provide exactly what’s needed. And I consider godsends to come in times of more normal journeying and not only in times of struggle. (Yet, granted, that when the latter is the case, we may well give a bigger “alleluia, thank God!)
Certainly, as I look over my shoulder, I know that meeting Miguel on the streets of Havana some 34 years ago was a godsend. I consider my call to Riverhead a godsend. And I know that some whom I’ve helped -- to marry, or to bury loved ones, or to assist through crisis – have considered me a godsend, too.
One of the biggest godsends in my earlier life was that of being able to not only find free housing in Biarritz for the summer, for the easy exchange of helping a widow in her home to walk the dog, and run errands, etc., but that I also managed to find work there and ended up waiting tables in a French restaurant in France. I assure you, that took some doing and in my eyes it was only by the grace of God that that was possible.
But godsends, as God works in us and through us, certainly go the other way to: that is, we who are blessed can serve as agents of God to share the blessings. It was about a week ago, that after guiding a widow to whom I write daily maneuver through the challenges of Social Security woes, she wrote to me upon her success, “You are my special angel.” And the following day, she again revisited the thanks, writing,
“The relief was overwhelming. I actually wanted to cry. I'll have to find a special way to thank you.”
And there are others, through other challenges, whom I know have found godsends, too. In our recent conversation about Bruce’s passing, Janet spoke to me about the blessing of having her daughters with her through these last days. And I know the gift of the family’s presence, mine included, at my Uncles’s memorial service was a big godsend, too.
As you look over your shoulder, you’re sure to be able to identify those moments when people or events unfolded in such a way as to comfort, support or even sustain you. Revisit them, and give thanks, for God sends the help we need.
Consider too your call to be the godsend that others need. Hospitality, service, gentle conversation, words of comfort, compassion, guidance and support, are all avenues in which you’ll discover the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, is working through and with you to be the godsends that others need, too.
*HYMN: My Eyes Have Seen the Glory No. 610
https://youtu.be/_Ic4w_UEpCQ
*BENEDICTION
CHORAL BENEDICTION:
May the light of God shine on us today.
May the light of God shine on us today.
May it show us where to travel.
Lead us back if we should stray.
May the light of God shine on us today.
POSTLUDE: America the Beautiful Rogers
We're biblical, traditional, yet progressive.
We honor and take pride in our
Congregational roots.
We covenant with one another and with God,
as revealed
in Jesus Christ through the illumination of
the Holy Spirit.
We endeavor to walk humbly with God and
strive for justice and peace.
My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.
Isaiah 56.7
We are an open and affirming congregation in which all persons regardless of race, ethnic background, economic status, gender, age, or personal ability, are equally affirmed into membership, leadership and employment
and joyfully welcomed.
Our church office is open for phone calls at 631-727-2621. Pastor Sean will return your calls. Our secretary is in the office Wednesday and Thursday mornings.
Our church office is open for phone calls at 631-727-2621. Pastor Sean will return your calls. Our secretary is in the office Wednesday and Thursday mornings.
Worship on Sundays at 10:00am.
No matter who you are or where you are in life's journey, you are welcome here.
103 1st Street, Riverhead, New York 11901, United States
Today | Closed |
Our church office is open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 9:00am-12:00. Church services are held on Sunday at 10:00am, and coffee hour in the fellowship hall following the worship service. Sunday School will be held at 10:00 am. (To run concurrent with our worship service)
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