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 information.
Announcements:
We are pleased to announce that Sunday School is available for children on Sundays at 10:00 AM. Please call the church at 631-727-2621 for more information.
The Alley Cat Thrift Shop is open Tuesdays and Thursdays 10-2 and Saturdays 9- Donations only accepted when the shop is open. Volunteers always welcome.
The March 2024 edition of the Beacon Light is available on our website. If you would like a paper copy, please call the church office at 631-727-2621.
If you would like to join us on Zoom , please follow the link
Join Zoom Meeting:
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pwd=a0FZcDg5MnRqKz-JMQXRLVzIBTGZFQT09 to start or join a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Meeting ID: 850 1493 9172
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Fifth Sunday of Easter
A Service of the Word
April 28, 2024 10am
OPENING WORDS:
We open our hearts to the presence of God and worship together.
PRELUDE: The Abundant Life Parker
(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 worship God whose love was revealed in Jesus.
Let all the ends of the earth turn to our God.
Many: We will worship the Almighty and sing praises.
We will proclaim good news to others.
One: Beloved, we are called to love as God loved us.
We are to love one another as sisters and brothers.
Many: Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
We seek to let God’s love be perfected in us.
One: Remember that you have been baptized.
God claims you and has high expectations of you.
ALL: Christ is the vine; we are the branches.
We will bear fruit when we abide in the vine.
*HYMN: For the Beauty of the Earth No. 28
https://youtu.be/3pO7MIiICG0
WELCOME
PRAYER OF INVOCATION
…Open our senses to your direction, amazing God, so we may be alert to opportunities you give us. Fill us with good news to share with those who seek meaning for their lives. We are here because we need the good news ourselves. There is much in life that we do not understand. We seek to know your word and to be led by it. Renew within us the vows of baptism, reconfirming in us the covenant promises that
link us to you and to one another. As we meet you here, our hearts are lifted up in praise. May our worship glorify your name and be pleasing to you….
CHILDREN’S TIME
PASSING OF THE PEACE
ANNOUNCEMENTS, CELEBRATIONS & CONCERNS
Call to Meeting: The Trustees are calling a congregational meeting to be held Sunday, May 5, 2024 immediately after our worship service for the sole purpose of voting on a company applying siding to the parsonage.
Mother’s Day, May12: We are planning a special service for Mother’s Day that will be led by the women of our church.Plus, the men will host a Mother’s Day brunch after worship.
Please join us.
A TIME OF PRAYER:
❖ Pastoral Prayer:
…Loving God, whom we praise and glorify as disciples of Jesus Christ, cleanse us today by your word so we may rejoice once more in our baptism and aspire to the perfection of love among us and throughout our world. Prune away the dead debris of our fears and failures so we may become productive branches in the church, reaching out to feed a world starving for genuine love and yearning for community….
❖ 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
*DOXOLOGY AND BLESSING OF GIFTS:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise God, all creatures here below;
raise God above, you heavenly host:
Creator, Christ, and Holy Ghost.
SCRIPTURE LESSONS:
❖ Acts 8:26-40 NT Page 110
❖ Psalm 22:25-31 HYMNAL Page 633
❖ 1 John 4:7-16 NT Page 213
❖ John 15:1-8 NT Page 95
SERMON: “Nourished”
With thanks to the lessons of the day, I was moved to contemplate two of my favorite topics. The first, as led by the gospel lesson, was gardening and then through that (perhaps because I was a bit hungry when I started) I got to food -- more specifically to nourishment, which given today’s after-worship offering, is also nicely appropriate.
As Jesus teaches about the vine and the non-productive branches, I thought about what I hope to get growing in my garden. Admittedly, I don’t grow a lot of vines. There are no grapes, sour or otherwise, at pastor’s place. However, the vine I do grow is clematis. If they, or really any of my plant, gets to suffering, my first consideration is often the soil. Any lackluster growth, I figure, is likely because the plants aren’t getting the vitamins they need, so I get out the plant food. That regularly brings good help,
but clematis, and even tomatoes for that matter, sometimes need a bit of pruning in addition to the proper nourishment. The weaker bottom sprouts need to get snipped, so the good nourishment can reach the higher branches which will bring the fruit and flowers. The pruning, in addition to the feed, helps insure that growth is promoted for the unneeded shoots can rob the plant of its vigor. And so we prune and deadhead. It’s an apt metaphor for things in our own lives that need some snipping.But as you heard, that’s the only reading of the day with a ready tie to gardening. Yet it didn’t take
much to find a ready tie to nourishment in the first two lessons. The first lesson about the Ethiopian eunuch who needs help to understand scripture, and the second lesson about the indwelling of God that comes when we love others, are also about being fed. But those fruitful considerations are about spiritual nourishment which is, after all, what we’re all about here. My standard prayer after reading the scripture lesson here in church, is for god to bless us with a renewed understanding of God’s living Word that proves nourishment to our souls. And with the rain, I regularly thank God for the rain that nourishes the earth and for God's spirit that nourishes us. Nourishment for the soul is the heart of the first lesson. Phillip, directed by an angel of God, comes
across a man, hears him reading scripture, and asks him if he understands it. I love the honesty of the response: “How can I unless someone guides me.” And so the eunuch invites Phillip to join him, and Phillip takes the time to tutor the one striving to learn. As it turns out, this lesson is so effective, so lifechanging, that the eunuch even requests to be baptized at its conclusion. Both men here provide sound examples for us of ways that we too can feed our soul and promote the growth in us and around us. First, in spite of his limited ability to fully understand the text, the eunuch actually picks up scripture, all by himself, while he’s not even in church, and reads it. Then he welcomes, even invites, another to help him gain some understanding; that is, he recognizes his own weakness and unabashedly seeks the help he needs.
I know the folks in our Bible Study class regularly find nourishment for the soul through our scripture study. I encourage you to give that a try. We’re currently studying the book of Psalms, and there’s lots of good food in that collection.
For me, it’s not just the study that brings nourishment, but the teaching does too. There’s much to be said about the gift of God’s nourishment when we teach and help others. As we share and give what God has given us, we too, are blessed. There’s nourishment for the soul through helping, through the charity of our time and talents. If you were to ask the volunteers in our soup kitchen or in our thrift shop about that, I’m quite certain they, too, will speak of finding nourishment for their souls in the work –although it’ll likely be expressed a bit differently.
Prayer, scripture, and teaching are all key to the nourishment of the soul for me. Yet the biggest spiritual nourishment I know comes from the gift of family and friends. I am really blessed, soulfully nourished, by a loving family and some truly wonderful friends. That my German friends are here for my birthday celebration is a wonderful gift. Those relationships are clear evidence to me that the Spirit of God abides within and around me. And I give thanks to God for them. Nourishment. In addition to the good foods you eat, how are you fed? How are you blooming and growing, and even bearing fruit? How are things with your soul? Consider pruning or deadheading that which is robbing you of God’s good nourishment for you soul. Consider, too, what feeds you spiritually from within. We do well to make more time for those things.
And cultivate love and friendships, for God will certainly nourish you through those things, too.
*HYMN: I Sing a Song of the Saints of God #295
https://youtu.be/tFIy-iUZKhU
*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: More Love to Thee O’Christ Doane
Fourth Sunday of Easter
A Service of the Word
April 21, 2024 10am
OPENING WORDS:
We open our hearts to the presence of God and worship together.
PRELUDE: Prelude#1 Bach
(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: The Good Shepherd invites us to green pastures.
We are refreshed beside still waters.
Many: We have been given everything we have.
God offers us everything we need.
One: When we walk through shadowed valleys, God is with us.
We are comforted and reassured.
Many: God leads us in the right paths.
Our cups are filled to overflowing.
One: God welcomes us to the table where love is expressed.
We are invited to partake of the truth God offers.
ALL: We have received plenty that we might share.
And our God continues to guide and to bless us.
*HYMN: Savior, like a Shepherd Lead Us #252
https://youtu.be/SQe8slFjX-o
WELCOME
PRAYER OF INVOCATION:
…Good Shepherd, we meet in your name, confident that we are known and loved by you. Here we draw close to one another and to you, expecting to be empowered by fresh insights to live as your people. We want to care for one another in life-giving ways. We seek to reach out to those who deny you or suspect us. Help us grow in love that is genuine in its caring and self-sacrifice. We embrace the wholeness you
offer and dare to risk acceptance of a healing role for ourselves and this faith community. Equip us for service beyond this hour of meeting....
CHILDREN’S TIME
PASSING OF THE PEACE
ANNOUNCEMENTS, CELEBRATIONS & CONCERNS
Call to Meeting: The Trustees are calling a congregational meeting to be held Sunday, May 5, 2024 immediately after our worship service for the sole purpose of voting on a company to side the parsonage.
A TIME OF PRAYER:
❖ Pastoral Prayer
…God of love whom Jesus knew as a caring parent, remind us of your commandments that it may become our heart’s most earnest desire to pass on your love in truth and action. Grant us the courage to risk life itself that others may see Christ abiding in us and thus come to know your goodness and mercy….
❖ 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: Good News Emerson
One Great Hour of Sharing
*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 4:5-12 NT Page 105
❖ Psalm 23 HYMNAL Page 633
❖ 1 John 3:16-24 NT Page 213
❖ John 10:11-18 NT Page 90
SERMON: “Let the Shepherd Lead You”
With the 23rd Psalm and Jesus’ well-known line: “I am the Good Shepherd,” the theme of the Shepherd wasn’t hard to select. And yet, I know, because of its familiarity, the theme may seem a little trite or at the very least old hat. The challenge with the Good Shepherd is to lift out of the old hold a lesson that has
relevance even today and to us. The common takeaway from the metaphor of the Shepherd is one of comfort and peace. Such is the reason that the 23rd Psalm is so often read at funerals. “I shall not want,” “green pastures,” “still waters,” “goodness and mercy” move us beyond the pastoral to a place of peace and security with our God. As life can be fraught with anxiety and worry, there’s much that such offers, if and when we allow ourselves to embrace it.
When I peach here, the window in view is not Jesus’ at prayer, but rather Jesus the shepherd. If you turn around and consider that window, you’ll readily pick up the pastoral calm and comfort. Jesus holds a little one while others happily graze. There’s no conflict or call to action, it’s just a matter of calmly being in the
presence of a loving, caring God. Unfortunately, that’s not where we often find ourselves as life comes at it with its storms and rising waters.
Yet if carefully considered, there’s more to the story behind that pastoral picture. The bucolic setting is not where the sheep normally reside. They had to be led there from their pens and keep to this pasture of beauty and bounty. For the sheep to have arrived there, it took a willingness to follow the shepherd and to listen to his voice.
For some of us, the older we get the harder it is for us to be led. We like to direct our own journeying, to captain our own ship, to wander at our pace and to destinations of our choosing. The only following that’s done is the following of the desires of one’s heart, and the only listening is to one’s own thinking. We tend to not be big fans of being told where and when to go, of being corralled. One of the readily overlooked lines of the 23rd Psalm is that of a compelled or forced action. Consider “he makes me lie down in green pastures.” “Makes me.” I wonder if we of a certain age, ever let anyone make us do something. It leads me to think of the parent who tells the child that it’s naptime and is met with resistance. “No,” says the child, “and you can’t make me.” Given the gift of freewill and personal choice, I get to wondering if God ever makes us do anything. To me, it’s more of a matter of being allowed to or
invited to. If God invites you to take a nap rather than makes you take one, I think you’d more readily embrace the direction.
Yet if we take Jesus as our Good Shepherd, it does become a matter of allowing ourselves to be directed, to be led, and of course, of being obedient. But God is different than the parent of our youth. Sometimes we don’t really hear God’s voice, or if we do, his voice. For some of us, the older we get the harder it is for us to be led. We like to direct our own journeying, to captain our own ship, to wander at our pace and to destinations of our choosing. The only following that’s done is the following of the desires of one’s heart, and the only listening is to one’s own thinking. We tend to not be big fans of being told where and when to go, of being corralled.
But God is different than the parent of our youth. Sometimes we don’t really hear God’s voice, or if we do, we don’t listen. God is certainly more easily ignored than my parents ever were when I was young. The veiled necessity of listening to the Shepherd is a vital aspect to the lesson today. To be led to an anxiety-free zone, to a place of safety and abundance in the comforting protective presence of God is only
possible if we allow ourselves to be led by the Shepherd through careful listening to the voice of the Savior.
The reference in our Gospel’s lesson to other sheep has particular relevance in the setting of Jesus’ conversation with the Pharisees. Jesus is suggesting here that his flock is not limited to the sheep of Israel and that the community created by his death will include people from outside of Israel. The mark of this expanded flock will be that “they will listen to my voice.” This is a trait that distinguishes the flock from
the Jewish leaders who neither listen to nor know Jesus’ voice. To hear and listen to Jesus’ voice is the mark of faithfulness to Jesus and his work. Jesus teaches, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.”
If we’re sincere about getting to where we should be and how we should be, we have to allow ourselves to be led by the Shepherd and we can only do so if we are more intentionally about hearing and listening to God’s voice. Perhaps more often than not, that takes some effort. We have to be willing to sit quietly with
our God. We have to enter into a place and time of meditation, of prayer. We have to echo the young Samuel’s prayerfully call to God, “speak for your servant is listening.”
But there’s a warning to: We also need to be prepared for the challenge of learning that what God is calling us to do and where God is calling us to be is not just in a quiet valley of peaceful napping, eventually we’ll get there, but God will likely put some tasks in our journeying on the way. Acts of charity, of service, of
giving, teaching, helping, supporting and care giving will likely be involved, for such fill out what it is to love one another.
*HYMN: My Shepherd Is the Living God #247
https://youtu.be/jthSW-hpcC4
*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: Saraband Handel
…