We will worship together at Olivet Presbyterian Church, West Elizabeth at 9:45am with Communion followed by a time of fellowship.
Worship
Service for November 1, 2026
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: For all those who have paved the way for
our freedom of worship, we give thanks, O Lord.
P: For those who have taught us about the
witness and the power of love, we give thanks, O Lord.
L: For those who work in our church that we
may come to know what it means to serve, we give thanks, O Lord.
P: For all the saints, those who rest from
their labors, and those who labor still, we give thanks, O Lord.
L: Praise be to God, who continually inspires
and guides workers and witnesses.
P: Open our heart and spirits, O Lord, and
help us become good workers for You.
Opening Hymn – O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing Hymn
#466
Blue 4 vs.
Prayer of Confession
Lord of mercy, forgive us when
we make excuses for our lack of faith.
We let our selfishness and empathy get in the way of illumination and
peace. We find ways to duck out of our
opportunities for service and witness, claiming that we are too small or too
ill-equipped to be effective witnesses to Jesus Christ. How foolish we can be! All of our lives You have been present to us,
whether or not we knew it. Your love is
always surrounding us. Yet we have not
taken the time to recognize it. We whine
and complain about the misfortunes that have befallen us and wonder where You
are. We want immediate release from our
struggles. And when release comes, we
again move off in our own realms of self-centeredness. Help us, O Lord. Stop us from being so faithless. Open our hearts with Your forgiving Spirit
that we, having been healed and forgiven, may be effective witnesses to Your
love and compassion. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: You have always been loved by God. Know that you are healed and forgiven, that
God has placed a special blessing in your life.
Rejoice! For God is with
you. Serve God in all that you say,
think, and do.
P: Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Gloria Patri
Affirmation of Faith/Apostles’
Creed
I believe in God the Father
Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under
Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended into hell; the
third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost,
the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins; the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. AMEN
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s
Prayer
God of all creation, we
bless you for calling the world and all its peoples to come and share your
love, blessing, forgiveness, and healing.
We praise you for the gift of your Son, Jesus Christ, for his ministry
and passion, for his dying and rising to free us from sin, and for the gift of
your holy church that lives to tell the whole world this good news.
In this season and month of thanksgiving we give thanks, O
Lord, for all those who look to you for guidance and strength, or have
fashioned their very lives after that of a compassionate savior, who have
taught us the meaning of love, and have shared with us the lessons of wisdom
and grace.
We pray for the gift of peace with liberty and justice for
all people everywhere. We especially we
pray for the children of the world victimized by war, trapped in many kinds of
slavery, orphaned and left motherless or fatherless and homeless, who need your
loving care. We pray for refugee
families struggling for food and housing, for the sick, the helpless, and the
lonely. Remember them and deliver
them.
We pray for those who are ill in body, mind, or spirit. Be with all who fight chronic disease or
crippling disability. Ease suffering
from pain, stress, and isolation.
Comfort the despairing. Renew
caregivers so they may continue their healing ministries to those under their
care. We especially lift up to you in
prayer…
As we celebrate today the gifts of all your saints, for
their faithfulness and for their giving of themselves and of their resources
for the benefit of their families, others, and the generations that came after
them. We remember all those who have had
an impact on our lives. And we remember
them by name:
In the following
moments of silence hear our inner groanings, listen carefully to our heartfelt
thanks and also our prayers, O Lord, to heal us inside and out…
All these things we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, your
Son, our Savior, who taught us to prayer together saying….…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. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our
debtors. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil. For Thine is
the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.
Hymn – Be Still My Soul Hymn #712
Brown
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Psalm
78:1-7
Second Scripture Reading – Matthew
5:1-11
Sermon –
All Saints’ Day
(Based on Matthew 5:1-11)
What
makes someone a saint?
Back in 1997, Fred Rogers was honored with a Daytime
Emmy award for his work on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” As he stood to accept the award, he started
with these words, “So many people have helped me to come to this night. Some of you are here. Some are far away. Some are even in heaven. All of us have special ones who have loved us
into being. Would you just take 10 seconds, along with me, to think of the
people who have helped you become who you are — those who have cared about you
and wanted what was best for you in life? I’ll watch the time.”
The story goes that, within a couple of seconds, the
packed auditorium was filled with the sounds of sniffles and muffled sobs from
the glitterati of Hollywood. Rogers’
slow, soft, loving, parental voice had given them permission – had
created a safe space – for them to become like children. It is no surprise many were moved to
tears by a glimpse of the love that knows no end made
manifest in a cardigan-clad Presbyterian minister.
Remembering the people who formed us has the capacity to
wrench at something deep within us. So,
like Mister Rogers’, I’d like you also to take a moment and think of the people
who have shaped you, who have loved you in being who you are, who have shown
God’s forgiveness, love and mercy to you, who have been your saints – those who
are long gone and those who are living still.
Take just these next few seconds….
(Silence)
There’s a wonderful hymn for today that I wish I had
considered before I set the template for this month’s hymns and given them to
Bob for playing today. However, I’m sure
most of you know it. It is called “I
Sing a Song of the Saints of God.”
1. I sing a song of the saints
of God,
patient and brave and true,
who toiled and fought and lived and died
for the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
and one was a shepherdess on the green;
they were all of them saints of God, and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.
2. They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
and his love made them strong;
and they followed the right for Jesus' sake
the whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
and one was slain by a fierce wild beast;
and there's not any reason, no, not the least,
why I shouldn't be one too.
3. They lived not only in ages past;
there are hundreds of thousands still.
The world is bright with the joyous saints
who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, on the street, or at sea,
in
church, or in trains, or at shops, or at tea.
They are saints of God, whether rich or poor,
and I mean to be one too.
While I love the image of tea-drinking saints, I’m not
exactly sure that’s what our ancestors had in mind when they began venerating
their courageous forebears who risked their lives and often died because of
their faith.
A couple of lines in the hymn hint at something more
than a charming tea setting by the window overlooking the sea. “They loved their Lord so dear, so dear / and
God’s love made them strong / and they followed the right, for Jesus’ sake /
the whole of their good lives long.”
There seems to be a lot of confusion these days about
what it means to follow what is right.
Greed, lust for power, warmongering, profit margins for the wealthy,
rules only meant for the poor, oppression of the people’s voice. These aren’t what Jesus spoke about, however.
The central core of Jesus’ ethical teaching surrounding
a sermon he gave on the mountain. He
said,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called
children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’
sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”
Some Christian scholars interpret these Beatitudes to
describe spiritual attitudes like despondency, brokenheartedness, docility,
leniency, and so forth; Gd will transform these difficult emotions into a
blessing. However, others insist that
they are literal – where Jesus is really speaking about the poor, those suffering
from unbearable grief, the starving, and the marginalized; where powerless
people are the saints of God’s kingdom, and following Jesus means standing with
and among those who are despised and oppressed.
Honestly, I don’t think we need to choose whether they
are an abstract idea or a literal one in interpretation. Both describe an ethical path that moves
between who we are and what we do. We
need healing from the emotional turmoil of life and we need to question the
assumptions of power and privilege that have twisted blessings into nothing
more than greed and exploitation. We
know how hurt our societies are to the have-nots. And we’d rather ignore what their pain says
about our own choices.
This sermon that Jesus gave to his disciples on the
mountain was countercultural. Being
blessed is about fully embracing the concept of hardship, lament, humility,
generosity, virtue, and nonviolence – from the deepest places of our inner
lives to the activities of serve and solidarity we participate in the world
around us.
What makes someone a saint? Following what is right. And what is right? The Beatitudes reveal Jesus’ contention that
the “first shall be last, and the last shall be first.” The wounded and heartbroken are the
blessed. The poor and the peacemakers
are blessed. The hungry and thirsty for
righteousness, and those who advocate for the oppressed are blessed. Those who are persecuted for the sake of the
gospel are blessed.
Barbara Brown Taylor once answered the question about
what makes a saint by saying, “Extravagance, excessive love, flagrant mercy,
radical affection, exorbitant charity, immoderate faith, intemperate hope, and
inordinate love.” And aren’t those the
characteristic of every saint mentioned in the Bible?
A saint embodies these characteristics. A saint is someone whose life is guided by
the Beatitudes. Because, for al the bad
publicity some contemporary Christians have brought upon the faith, there are
plenty of people still who have understood and attempted to live this
path. In the past and in the
present. And although they are often
overlooked, more than a few did a decent job of it. They are the saints. The ones whom we want to emulate. Today, All Saints Day, asks that we remember
the way of blessing, the quiet yet radically countercultural faith of the
saints among us.
I want to be one, too.
How about you?
Thanks
be to God. AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Giver
of life and all the gifts of our lives, receive now these tokens of our
appreciation which we set before you as signs of our love and
thanksgiving. We rejoice with thankful
hearts for all your blessings. Help us
to live our lives in service to you as our continuing gift of thanks. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. AMEN.
Holy Communion
Invitation to the Table – Let us celebrate this
Holy Feast, prepared for you as we commune with God and with one another. People
will come from east and west, north and south to sit at the Holy Table in the
Kingdom of God. Jesus said, “I am the
bread of life. Whoever comes to me will
never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. Anyone who comes to me, I will never turn
away.
Blessed is the God of the
Universe, Lord of all creation, through God’s goodness we have this bread to
offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. May it be for us the bread of life. Blessed is the God of the Universe, Lord of
all creation, through God’s goodness we have this fruit of the vine to offer, for
the quenching of thirst made by human hands.
May it be for us the cup of salvation.
Blessed is the God of the Universe, Lord of all Creation, through God’s
goodness we have ourselves to offer, blessing of the womb, and formed by God’s
great love. May we become God’s servants
in the world. Blessed be God forever and
ever.
Words
of Institution
Prayer after Communion - God of a love stronger than death,
you have given us new birth into a living hope through the gift of your Son. God with us, like a mother you have fed us
with yourself and strengthened us for journeying ahead. God of truth and power, you take our weakness
and our sin and refashion us by grace. All Gracious God, may the love which bids us
welcome at this table gather all your children into one, in your eternal
presence, whole and free at last. Amen.
Closing
Hymn – For All the Saints Hymn
#526 Blue 4 vs.
Benediction –
Now, dear friends, go from this place in confidence that
the God of Creation is with you. Go
boldly into the world, offering peace, hope and healing love, in the name of
Jesus Christ. And may the God of love,
hope and peace be with you always. AMEN.
Postlude
