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 information.
Announcements:
Lenten Schedule: Midweek Lenten Services will be held at 7pm each Wednesday.
Below is the schedule:
April 2: FCCR
April 9: Salvation Army
Church services are held at 10:00 am usually followed by a coffee hour. Please join us.
All are welcome.
Alley Cat Thrift Shop: 1/2 Price Sale on all items Thursday, April 3 and Saturday April 5. 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
Fourth Sunday in Lent
A Service of the Word
March 30, 2025 ✦ 10am
OPENING WORDS:
We open our hearts to the presence of God and worship together.
PRELUDE: Chorale Smith
(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: A new day has dawned, God’s gift to us;
the fruits of the land are ours to enjoy.
Many: We are a new creation in Jesus Christ;
the old has passed away, the new has come.
One: This is a day for forgiveness and reconciliation;
celebrate God’s love for the lost who are found.
Many: The glad cries of deliverance surround us;
shouts of joy arise from our hearts.
One: Let all who are faithful offer up prayers;
May all who are in Christ give thanks.
ALL: We will be glad and join the dance of life;
with the upright of heart, we rejoice and sing.
*HYMN: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling No. 43
https://youtu.be/hsbsd0oZgH8
WELCOME
PRAYER OF INVOCATION
…Welcoming God, we have gathered together so that you may teach us the way we should go. In our times of distress and need, you have provided. When we have stubbornly followed our own plans, you have curbed our impulses. From our days of confusion and aimless wandering, you have rescued us and restored us to our true identities. Meet us, now as we worship together to shape us into a righteous reconciling people. Amen.
CHILDREN’S TIME
ANNOUNCEMENTS, CELEBRATIONS & CONCERNS
Lenten Schedule: Midweek Lenten Services are held at 7pm each Wednesday: Below is the schedule:
April 2: FCCR (tonight!)
April 9: Salvation Army
April 17: Maundy Thursday Old Steeple
April 18: Good Friday Baiting Hollow
A TIME OF PRAYER:
❖ Pastoral Prayer
…God, whose love for us never fails, even when we wander far from home, teach us compassion for all who are lost and confused. Keep us from living as competitors for your favors that we might participate joyfully in your forgiving, reconciling work. Make us ambassadors for Christ, that all your children may come home to your welcoming arms…
❖ 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: One Great Hour of Sharing
OFFERING & OFFERTORY: His Eye is on the Sparrow arr. Gross
Soloists: Susan Conrad and Anne Stevens
*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:
❖ Joshua 5:9-12 OT page 182
❖ Psalm 32 Hymnal Page 642
❖ 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 NT Page 159
❖ Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 NT Page 67
SERMON: “Embrace the Blessing in the New”
Admittedly, the older I get, the less enthusiastic I am about embracing the new. Mind you, I do like new purchases: computers, clothes, and plants, for example, are great new. But when the new is about change in life routines or traditional expectations, I’m not one to run to them. We get used to the way things work or are, all of which tend to take a bit of learning curve, and we get comfortable with them. And if the new brings something we don’t readily agree with, then the embrace is especially slow to come, if it ever does.
Consequently, I understand completely the prodigal son’s brother’s point of view. Not only did he get used to things without his brother around, but he was also –understandably -- considerably less than thrilled by the treatment the runaway got upon return.
Of course, as we learn the story of the prodigal son, we don’t focus on the brother. It’s the father’s grace of forgiveness that’s celebrated. While the prodigal son is in the account to represent the sinners and tax collectors who are welcomed by God in the new age of Jesus, the elder son is in the picture to represent the Jewish authorities who begrudged the changes that Jesus was bringing. Like the brother, the Jewish leaders would only find the blessing in the new if they came to see thing differently. But such a change in perspective is seldom easy, especially when it runs counter to long held teachings and beliefs.
As I look around, I doubt there are any prodigal ones here who are longing to go home to the place of forgiveness and new starts. Rather, those whom I see are the good children, who have long been home and hard at work, even while other brothers and sisters are out there playing. So rather than focus on our need for the welcome of a forgiving and loving embrace on the homefront, a more needed focus for us is on our role as the good child or parent already at home, and on our challenge and willingness to take the prodigal one back.
In addition to the well-known lesson of the prodigal son, our other readings today also illustrate the call of God and God’s own example for us to be people of grace, of forgiveness and welcome.
Our first lesson was from the book of Joshua. OT: Joshua. After Moses’ death, Joshua leads the people into the promised land. Additionally, that day is Passover– the feast of unleavened bread and remembrance, when the people call to mind that God spared their lives and freed them from the bond of slavery in Egypt. Now 40 years after they fled Egypt, they finally arrive into the promised land of Canaan, the land said to be flowing with milk and honey. An odd thing happens here – the people eat some of the produce of the land and the manna ceases. The cycle of forgiveness is complete and the people with no longer go out in the morning to gather the manna, but eat what the land itself offers. The reproach – blame, rebuke, guilt and shame – of Egypt is gone. Total forgiveness and with it a fresh start in a new land of mystery and challenge. God has forgiven the people for all their waywardness and led them home, and now it’s up to them to make a fresh start, to put away their idols and return to faithful living. The time of change has come, and the people must embrace change in the very way they live to be able to survive and thrive in a land of new starts.
How the Hebrew people make out in the land is always tied to how well they take up the call to change, to make a new start. And when they show that they haven’t actually repented, that they aren’t willing to make the new start, they suffer at the hand of God, the loving parent. But ultimately, they get it right, and get established as a sovereign nation under God. The people become the prodigal ones made good by grace with a new start.
The need for change comes upon people. Sometimes it’s voluntary; sometimes it’s not.
Examples of our day lie with the morbidly obese who have to change if they will live, and with those whose spending is out of control – DA – or who drinking or drugging is killing them: AA/NA.
Within the bounds of fresh starts, that people do change needs to be clear. It’s ironic that both the inability to change, and the fact that change has come over a person are both used as arguments by going through divorce. Some say, “he’s a bum and will always be a bum. He’ll never change, and I can’t take it anymore. Others say, “she’s changed. She’s not the same person I fell in love with.” We know people change, and we have seen it. And often the change is for the better. Born-again Christians; Paul writes, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” There are also those of AA/DA/NA, and there are the reformed husbands, wives, daughters, sons, friends, neighbors, bosses, employees, who do repent and change. But the question is, are we willing to see it or allow it.
As the account of the Prodigal Son makes clear, our challenge, as the good father or good child on the home front, lies in our willingness to accept the change for the good, not simply in ourselves, but in others. This bucks some of the common wisdom of our days: a leopard doesn’t change its spots; you can’t teach an old dog new tricks; once bitten twice shy. The call is to forgiveness – to give others the opportunity to prove themselves as having changed, and the willingness, on our own behalf to allow that change has occurred.
This willingness to regard the returning one with new eyes, to see another as newly regarded, is to allow the grace of God’s reconciliation to happen. I remain rather amazed at the number of people who have shared with me accounts of family fallouts, when someone is no longer speaking to another: to a child or parent or sibling. They have been hurt once to many, and so have written off the other. And yet grace in action is the gift of those who know to look beyond the past, even beyond race, or class, or sexual orientation, or mental or physical ability, or any other prejudicial reducer of the value of another, and focus instead on the heart and worth of another as a child of God. Grace is the ability to view another, regardless of how “other” that one seems, as an eternal member of one’s own home, a part of the clan who can never be disowned. Grace is a warm and welcoming home when, in the words of Robert Frost (set as a dialogue between a quarrelling husband and wife) you come,
…Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.”
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.”
“I should have called it
Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.”
Grace is the gift we receive and hope to be able to extend to others, in the wrapping of sincere and heartfelt forgiveness, regardless of merit. Grace is how we all start over and begin anew. Grace is the great leveler, equalizer, of us all. It is freely given and should be freely shared. And it is only by grace that any of us can be newly regarded as those who are indeed a new creation in Christ.
New perspectives are seldom easy, but often it is only when we are willing to embrace the new that we can truly embrace the blessing in that new. And that will make for better and more grace-filled going for us. Give the new a chance, and embrace the blessing.
*HYMN: O God, How We Have Wandered No. 202
https://youtu.be/RyXWyfQ69bA
*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: Jig Fugue Buxtehude
Third Sunday in Lent
A Service of the Word
March 23, 2025 ✦ 10am
OPENING WORDS:
We open our hearts to the presence of God and worship together.
PRELUDE: Intermezzo Kim
(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: Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.
You who have no money, come, buy, and eat!
Many: Our souls thirst for God in a dry and weary land.
We seek God’s presence in all our days.
One: Listen carefully to God and eat what is good;
delight yourselves in the rich good God provides.
Many: Here our souls are satisfied as with a rich feast.
Together our mouths praise God with joyful lips.
One: God offers us steadfast love and a covenant relationship.
We are called to be faithful followers of our loving God.
ALL: We have come to meditate on the living God.
We seek inspiration and empowerment to do what God asks.
*HYMN: What a Friend We Have in Jesus No. 506
WELCOME
PRAYER OF INVOCATION:
We come before you, gracious God, seeking what money cannot buy. Only you can provide nourishment for our souls. There is no other source of meaning in our mixed-up world. We can find no fountain of strength or sustenance apart from you. Surely you can be found where two or three are gathered together. As a community of faith, we call on you, believing that you are nearer than our next breath, more available to us than we can think, more caring than we ever dare to imagine. Uphold us now that we may worship on wings of joy. Amen.
CHILDREN’S TIME
ANNOUNCEMENTS, CELEBRATIONS & CONCERNS
Lenten Schedule: Midweek Lenten Services will be held at 7pm each Wednesday: Below is the schedule:
March 26: Old Steeple
April 2: FCCR
April 9: Salvation Army
A TIME OF PRAYER:
❖ Pastoral Prayer
Eternal God, whose call comes to us through the scriptures, in the remembrance of our baptism and in our shared life in the church, feed us now with your Word, that we may bear fruit. Confront us with your truth and keep us from being tempted beyond our strength, for we seek to be faithful in our covenant with you and responsible in our relationships with one another. May we together witness to your steadfast love in ways that transform evil into good….
❖ 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: One Great Hour of Sharing
OFFERING & OFFERTORY: O Love Hagenbers
*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:
❖ Isaiah 55:1-9 OT page 645
❖ Psalm 63:1-8 Hymnal Page 660
❖ 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 NT Page 151
❖ Luke 13:1-9 NT Page 66
SERMON: “Help with the Test”
Despite Isaiah’s invitation to the free feast by the riverside, it wasn’t the good eats or drink that stood out to me as I considered the readings. Rather, the line that spoke to me was the last verse from our second reading from 1 Corinthians:
No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.
Testing. What is it that tests us? Mind you, I’m pretty certain Paul does not have any algebra or other schooling in mind other than the bigger school of life. The tests of life. Now although kids, pets, or ever adults will sometimes test our patience, I don’t know them to be the real tests of life. That which truly tests us is bigger: it is the times of crisis, loss and fear that test us. It’s the diagnosis, the bad break, the times of illness; it’s the setback, the financial peril, the institutional screw-ups; it’s the crime, the violence, and all that attendant anxiety and depression; those are the things that really test us.
I take a little bit of issue with Paul’s read, even in this part. He asserts that no testing comes our way that “is not common to everyone.” I’m pretty certain that which has and does still test us isn’t common to everyone. Each of us has our own unique tests. For some the back will go out, just as the tooth ache accelerates and then the rash comes on… or some such combination, as the old adage of bad things happening in threes is again proven true. And even if it’s just one big thing, such as a raging flood waters or blazing fires, the testing, the loss, is hardly “common to everyone.”
I’m sure you know what I’m talking about as rough times come our way and then seem to be compounded by the next challenge or an attendant crisis. We can get to a point of, “Really God?” But then I can check myself and know that it’s really not God who brings the trouble but just life. It’s God who comes to the rescue.
That’s another problem with that reading from 1 Corinthians. The more unfortunate part of Paul’s teaching is the serious overtones of what I call the "God-is-going-to-get-you" theology. Some of you might be familiar with such. It's, rather unfortunately, what Pastor Jonathan Edwards is most remembered for. He's the one who wrote and preached the sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." (Snappy title, right?) In it, Edwards assures the audience that God is gonna' get them and cast them straight into hell if they don't straighten up and fly right. It's something that doesn't appear to me to be a particularly endearing approach. Wouldn't we rather run into the arms of God who loves us profoundly rather than try to get on the good side of an angry God who could smite us at any moment? On the bright side, Paul isn't quite so scary. He does however offer a do-not list and suggests disastrous consequences if we do; such is the thinking that stems from ancient Jewish theology which proports bad things happen because we’ve managed to anger God. Anyway, here's the list that Paul offers: “Do not become idolaters, do not indulge in sexual immorality, do not put Christ to the test, and do not complain.” All of these instructions are set within the bounds of an argument centered on worshiping false gods and eating food offered to idols. The behavior that Paul hopes the people will avoid is behavior detrimental to their own well-being and to the well-being of those around them. And he knows such behavior is also detrimental to their relationship with God.
The God's-gonna'-get-you theology also figures into our Gospel lesson, but there too is good news. Jesus mentions a disaster, a tower that fell in Siloam, killing 18 people. Was the suffering of these people due to their sin? No, says Jesus. But unless you repent, there will be consequences; you'll meet a similar end. And sure enough, one day our time here is going to be up. There is a strong element of warning, a strong measure of judgment in Jesus' teaching. But there is also the unmistakable message of grace. Bad things happen, but God does not send tragedy because of our sin. And for the worthless fig tree, once help comes from God at work through the gardener, the verdict is: "Give it another year. Give it another chance."
Dr. Martin Luther King is credited for saying “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” For Dr. King, and for us, the where we stand must be with God and others. For there is help on the test. And as Psalm 121 reminds us, that help comes from God who made heaven and earth.
Life, unfortunately, is full of tests. Perseverance is long needed. And as Walter Elliot reminds us “Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.” (And I will add, at least we hope they’re short.) No matter what life throws at us, we do well to remind the strength and help of God. In this regard, Paul’s teaching is exceptionally solid as, with the closing affirmations, he does recover well from the earlier stuff: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”
Help with the test. No matter the struggle, the conflict, the loss, there is help to be had. Our God who is faithful and just, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, is in it all. And others, who have struggled in similar ways, can help us, too. We’re told to “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near.” Know that God can always be found and is always near, for there is always help with the test.
*HYMN: God’s Eye Is on the Sparrow No. 475
https://youtu.be/Ei84uOUI2SY
*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: Trumpet Tune Purcell
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
Open today | 09:00 am – 12:00 pm |
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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