Worship
Service for March 15, 2026
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: I will sing of Your steadfast love
forever, O Lord.
P: I will proclaim Your faithfulness to all
generations.
L: I will declare that Your love stand firm
forever.
P: Righteousness and justice are the
foundation of Your throne;
L: Love and faithfulness go before You.
P: Blessed are they who have learned to
acclaim You and blessed are they who walk in the light of Your presence.
Opening Hymn – Jesus Walked This Lonesome Valley #80 Blue
Prayer of Confession
Compassionate Lord, forgive us
when we falter on this Lenten pathway; when the road ahead seems too uncertain
and we are afraid. We admit that
following Jesus in not an easy task.
Jesus requires us to be willing to make the ultimate commitment of our
whole lives and we hesitate and hold back.
Draw us back to You, Lord. Give
us confidence and courage to face the future with hope. Let us place our trust in You that the
message of peace and mercy You have given to us through Jesus Christ may be
offered to others through our own witness to Your healing mercy. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: Hear the Good News; Jesus, having been
made perfect, became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him. And so, I declare to you: in Jesus Christ, we
are renewed, we are cleansed, we are forgiven.
P: Praise God for His mercy!
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
O unseen yet
ever-present God, we come to you in awe and wonder. Though we cannot see you, we are surrounded
by signs of your presence; in a perfectly formed lily, in the laughter of a
friend, in the need of a stranger. Give us spiritual eyesight and insight so
that we may see you at work in the world around us.
Today we pray for those in particular who are struggling
with doubt, whose faith journeys seem to be uphill battles. May they find in you a home where doubts are
accepted as acts of faith on the path toward wholeness and peace.
We also remember those who suffer in any way. We pray for the victims of abuse, oppression
and terror, those who feel helpless or deserted, those who are sick and for
their caregivers, and all those who grieve great loss. May they know your presence even when they
feel most alone.
Today, we especially lift up to you….
Hear us Lord, in these moments of silence, as our hearts and
spirits pray to you….
Lead each of us, Lord, to someone in need, so that we may
show the love of Christ, who in boldness taught us to pray to you, 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 –
Jesus Paid It All Hymn
#305 Brown
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – I
Samuel 16:1-13
Second Scripture Reading – John
9:1-41
Sermon
– Seeing
What God Sees
(based on 1 Samuel 16:1–13 & John 9:1–41)
There’s a theme that runs through both of our readings this
morning, and it has to do with seeing. Not simply seeing with our eyes, but seeing
with the deeper vision of the heart. In
the reading from 1 Samuel, the prophet Samuel is sent to Bethlehem to
anoint a new king. If you remember this
Old Testament story, you’ll remember that Saul, the first anointed King of
Israel, has failed God and the nation of Israel as their king. God tells Samuel, the prophet in Israel, to
go to the house of Jesse. One by one
Jesse’s sons pass before him. The oldest
looks strong and capable. Surely this
must be the one. But God interrupts
Samuel’s assumptions and says:
“Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his
stature… for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward
appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”
One by one the sons of Jesse pass by until finally the
youngest—the one that no one even thought to invite to this parade of
remarkable young men—is brought in from the fields. This son, the youngest and perhaps less
remarkable is the shepherd boy. The
overlooked one. David. And God says to Samuel, “Rise and anoint
him.”
Evidently, God sees something that everyone else has missed. Now, let’s move to the Gospel of John, where
Jesus encounters a man who has been blind from birth. To help them understand the mindset of God, the
disciples immediately begin a theological debate. “Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents?” Someone must be to blame. Someone must deserve this. In those day’s and maybe even today, people
think that tragedy comes to those who deserve it, who aren’t blessed by God,
who are outside God’s protection – due to sin or something else.
But Jesus refuses that way of seeing the world. Instead, he heals the man. The one who had never seen suddenly sees for
the first time in his life. But the
story quickly reveals that the real blindness is not physical blindness at all.
The real blindness belongs to the
religious leaders, and even the disciples, who either can’t or simply refuse to
see what God is doing right in front of them.
And by the end of the story the irony is pretty clear: The
man who once was blind now sees clearly.
And the ones who believed they could see remain blind.
Like in our Old Testament Reading, Samuel almost missed
David because he was looking for the obvious choice. The tall one.
The strong one. The impressive
one. But God has never been much
impressed with our measurements of success.
God tends to look somewhere else.
God looks toward the margins. Toward
those who are overlooked. Toward the
ones no one expects. And here, the
youngest son becomes king. And in John,
the blind beggar becomes the one who understands Jesus better than all the
scholars, scribes, and Pharisees.
This pattern runs all through the Bible. God chooses Moses, who insists he cannot
speak well. God calls Jeremiah, who says
he is too young. God works through Mary,
a teenage girl in an occupied land.
God raises up fishermen, tax collectors, and outsiders to change the world.
God keeps choosing the people we would overlook.
That divine pattern, set by God, should make us pause for a
moment and ask: What are we missing because we are looking at the wrong things?
The story in John’s Gospel exposes something about human
nature. We like explanations that make us comfortable. When the disciples see the blind man, they
ask, “Who sinned?” Because if suffering
can be blamed on someone, then we can keep our world neat and orderly. If we can identify the cause, then maybe we
can keep the problem at a safe distance from ourselves.
Jesus refuses that conversation
entirely. Instead of debating the man’s
condition, Jesus restores him. Instead
of analyzing the suffering, Jesus brings healing. And suddenly the religious establishment is
uncomfortable. Because if God is doing
something new or different than they expected, then their categories and
assumptions may no longer hold.
Sometimes the greatest blindness is the inability to
recognize that God may be at work in places we didn’t expect. One of the striking things in so many of
these healing stories is that the obstacle standing between someone in need and
Jesus is often the crowd of religious people around him.
There is a similar story about a blind man in Mark, whose
name was Bartimaeus. In that story, the
followers of Jesus tried to even silence the blind man who cried out for mercy.
The very people closest to Jesus were
the ones blocking access to him. And
that alone should give the church pause.
Because sometimes we can become the very people who unintentionally
stand between others and the grace of Christ.
Not because we mean to. But
because we are comfortable with things the way they are. We are comfortable with people being in “their
place.” Even if that place is unjust, or
racist, or socially and economically depressive, or even gender- biased. As long as “they” stay there, in their lane,
in their proper place, all is well. We
prefer the familiar faces. The
predictable routines. The people who
already fit neatly into our expectations.
But the Kingdom of God keeps pushing outward. Jesus keeps stopping for the person no one
else sees.
Several years ago a pastor friend of mine told a story about
a church that was trying to grow. They had committees and plans and strategies
for reaching the community. One Sunday
morning a man walked in off the street. His clothes were worn, and it was
obvious he had been living rough for some time.
People noticed. Some quietly
wondered whether someone from the outreach committee should talk to him. Others subtly moved their purses and
belongings closer. But an older woman in
the congregation simply stood up, walked across the sanctuary, sat next to him,
and handed him a hymnal. She smiled and
said, “I’m glad you’re here.” Later she
said something simple but powerful. “We’ve
been praying for God to send new people to our church. I think God just did.” Sometimes the difference between blindness
and sight is simply the willingness to see someone as God sees them.
What I love about the man in John’s Gospel is how his
understanding grows. At first he only
knows this much: “The man called Jesus healed me.” Later he says: “He must be a prophet.” And by the end of the story, when Jesus finds
him again, he says: “Lord, I believe.”
Not only does his story grow as he retells it, but his sight
grows deeper and deeper. Meanwhile the
religious leaders become more and more entrenched in their blindness. And that raises an uncomfortable question for
all of us: Are we willing to keep learning how to see? Because spiritual sight is not a one-time
event. It is a lifelong process. God keeps opening our eyes in new ways.
What would it look like if we really began to see the world
the way God sees it? We might start
noticing the people we usually pass by. The
coworker who seems fine on the outside but is quietly struggling. The neighbor who lives alone and rarely has
visitors. The person society labels,
categorizes, or dismisses. We might
begin to recognize that every single person carries a story we do not fully
understand. And perhaps most
importantly, we might begin to recognize that God’s grace is already at work in
their lives.
Sometimes we aren’t called to bring God somewhere new. Sometimes we’re simply called to notice that
God is already there.
In the end, both of our readings invite us into the same
prayer.
“Lord, help us to see.” Help us to see beyond appearances. Help us to see the people others overlook. Help us to see the possibilities you see in
each human heart. Because the truth is,
every one of us has moments of blindness.
We all carry assumptions. We all
make judgments. We all miss things. But the good news of the Gospel is that
Christ is still in the business of opening eyes. And when our eyes begin to open, something
remarkable happens. The world begins to
look different. We begin to notice grace
in unexpected places. We begin to see
people the way God sees them. And when
that happens, we discover something beautiful about the Kingdom of God:
There is always room for one more.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
How grateful we are, O God, for all the gifts
of this life. You have blessed us with
an abundance of good things, not only fulfilling our needs, but going far
beyond. May our giving today reflect
your generosity, and may it be used to further your work, both in our family of
faith and throughout our community.
Through Christ, we pray. AMEN.
Closing
Hymn – I Will Sing of My Redeemer Hymn
#309
Benediction –
Go
into the world, carrying the light of Christ into the darkness. Go, with hearts full and eyes open. Go, with eyes reflecting God’s light and
hands open to share it. May you walk in
the light of Christ all the days of your life.
AMEN.
Postlude
