Reminders:
Souper Bowl Sunday February 12, 2023 Please bring soup, bread or a dessert to share following church.
Communion Sunday February 12, 2023
Thrift Shop reopens February 7th
Please update your Zoom information for the church. This is a link for both Sunday Worship and Friday Bible Study. When you can’t make it in-person, you can join us online:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88517704747?pwd=bmJZenJNUFlHK2I1eHl4dHFmbmRsdz09
Meeting ID: 885 1770 4747
Passcode: 7272621
Meeting ID: 885 1770 4747
Passcode: 7272621
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kFRvvORoUOPENING WORDS:
Fourth Sunday of Epiphany
January 29,2024
A Service of the Word
OPENING WORDS:
We open our hearts to the presence of God and worship together.
PRELUDE: Prelude in C 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: Jesus taught: Blessed are the poor in spirit.
He said that the realm of God is theirs.
Many: We read that those who mourn are blessed.
Jesus said they will be comforted.
One: The meek will inherit the earth.
The merciful will obtain mercy.
Many: All who hunger and thirst for rich treasures are blessed:
Jesus said they will be filled.
One: Blessed are the pure in heart and peacemakers:
They are God’s children and will see God.
Many: Those persecuted and falsely accused are blessed.
Even in the face of evil, we will rejoice.
*HYMN: Let Me Enter God’s Own Dwelling No. 67
WELCOME
PRAYER OF INVOCATION
O Foot Washing God, who bends down,
who comes prepared with water and linens,
who first loved us, so that we may know how to love,
we gather here in your Spirit of service.
You taught us how no one is greater than the other,
no messenger outranks the sender.
And so, we come to worship both as givers and receivers,
the washers and the washed.
We unite in this sanctuary filled with your presence
finding the grace only you can give,
to embolden us to go and do likewise.
PASSING OF THE PEACE
ANNOUNCEMENTS, CELEBRATIONS AND CONCERNS
Souper Bowl Sunday: Our Souper Bowl celebration is February 12.
You’re asked to bring soup to donate and soup to share.
Sign-up sheet is in the Fellowship Hall.
A TIME OF PRAYER:
❖ Pastoral Prayer
All-wise God, whose saving power has come to us in Jesus Christ, grant that we may hear and speak the truth and do what is right so our lives may be a blessing to the world and lead others to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with you.
Let the mountains hear our voices raised in prayer and praise, wise and holy God. We gather in this sacred place to honor and adore you. We come humbly, claiming the cross of Jesus Christ as our sign. We give thanks that you lift up the weak and lowly, defy the world’s foolishness, and invite us to share in life at its fullest and best as disciples of Jesus. We want to accept your invitation.
❖ 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, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.
ANTHEM: We’ve Come This Far by Faith Haya
OFFERING & OFFERTORY: Prelude in B Minor Chopin
*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. Amen.
SCRIPTURE LESSONS:
❖ Micah 6:1-8 OT Page 817
❖ Psalms 15 OT Page 458
❖ 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 NT Pages 145-146
❖ Matthew 5:1-12 NT Pages 3-4
SERMON: “A Needed Nod to Humility”
In my theological circles, one of the most often quoted verses of scripture is the last verse we read of our first reading from Micah: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
Given the war and violence and corruption of our days, it is perhaps no surprise that justice gets the top billing. The headlines scream of more mass shooting and of police brutality and death. We learn of almost unbelievable deceit and corruption in Washington, with Santos as the current star of the clown show. Plus, there was the
unjustifiable Russian invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine followed by the ongoing protracted war, led by an out-of-touch dictator. Where is the justice we ask? Where is the hand of God?
It's easy to bemoan the lack of justice in our world. Although we at times will attend a rally or a prayerful protest, it doesn’t often happen. Although griping about injustice can feel good, it often falls flat, and just serves to take the focus off the living of our lives the responsibility we have to be models and agents of change for the better,
change for the holier working of God.Closer to home (thankfully), and that which has recently colored my days of late was having just taught Jonah in which (spoiler alert) the prophet for whom the book is named thinks he’s got a better plan than God does, and that he can hide from God, out run God on land and sea. I’m watching a Netflix series with a similar theme as many get to play God of sorts with the decisions they make based on future knowledge. In real life, I drive to pick up Miguel at the train station and watch as one parks in the middle of the road and waits to pick up the guest. It doesn’t seem to matter how much traffic backs up. And the selfishness isn’t limited to the roads. We all live with a generation that many refer to as entitled, for that’s the attitude with which they live. You see it too, in real life, in stores, gas stations, and perhaps most of all on our roads and highways. It’s the people who look to their desires, their wants, who rely on their “better” self-centered thinking, doing what they
should definitely not do if they had any sense of genuine communal living and compassion. But it’s all and only about them. More than anything else, it’s those people who absolutely infuriate me.
It may be too late to turn the tide and correct the wrongs of many in the driver’s seats of the most troublesome vehicles. Putin may continue to be unreachable and out of touch. Washington’s elected and nonelected egotistical self-centered legislators and pundits may be unbendable, uncorrectable. But surely we can reach at least a few
hearts in our communities, our families, our churches and clubs, and do what we can to teach a better way. That better way focuses on loving God and neighbor, on looking to the needs of others beyond the needs or desires of self.
But humility, taking others into account over self, has never gotten much play or attention. According to many standards today, humility is not considered one of the benchmarks for success. Being self-assured and having an air of arrogance seems to be what the world considers to be praiseworthy. The weak, the poor in spirit, the meek,
are not lauded. Even those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers, are left behind and those virtues are seldom lifted up. When we feel wronged, we tend to look for revenge and retribution, and are slow to understand and to forgive and to seek a better way. Charles Spurgeon and Joseph Parker both had churches in London in the 19th century. On one occasion, Parker
commented on the poor condition of children admitted to Spurgeon’s orphanage. It was reported to Spurgeon however, that Parker had criticized the orphanage itself. Spurgeon blasted Parker the next week from the pulpit. The attack was printed in the newspapers and became the talk of the town. People flocked to Parker’s church the
next Sunday to hear his rebuttal. “I understand Dr. Spurgeon is not in his pulpit today, and this is the Sunday they use to take an offering for the orphanage. I suggest we take a love offering here instead.”
The crowd was delighted. The ushers had to empty the collection plates three times. Later that week there was a knock at Parker’s study. It was Spurgeon. “You know Parker, you have practiced grace on me. You have given me not what I deserved, you have given me what I needed.”The what’s needed is to seek out a better way, to look to the bigger picture where God and neighbor are embraced, and where empathy, compassion and genuine love truly reside. The what’s needed is to give the needed nod to humility and look beyond self to see how even the poor in spirit and the meek can bring a blessing.
"Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance."
- Saint Augustine
"We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility."
- Rabindranath Tagore
*HYMN: O for a World No. 575
https://youtu.be/6OJanH5zQdw
*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: Fugue in C Bach
