Worship for the Lord’s Day
October
4, 2020
Both congregations,
Olivet Presbyterian Church (9:45am) and Bethesda United Presbyterian Church
(11:15am) are now open for in person corporate worship beginning this
Sunday. For those of you who will continue
to worship from home, our service has changed a bit for the in-person corporate
worship service, but we’ll continue to provide you a similar experience here,
on-line.
Today is World
Communion Sunday and we’ll have communion at church. I’ve included a liturgy within today’s
worship service for you to use, if you wish to celebrate communion at home. So, grab some bread and a drink of some
kind. Thankfully, our denomination isn’t
so strict that the elements of communion MUST be blessed or must be part of the
same loaf or that you have grape juice/wine. The bread element could be a slice of whole
wheat bread, a cracker, perhaps even a cookie or a donut. The cup element can be water or juice or even
milk or soda (perhaps even coffee or tea) – it’s honestly up to you. The important part about communion for
Presbyterians is not what is eaten, but what is prayed, felt, believed, and
worshiped. The sacramental elements are
a symbol of communion.
Let’s begin:
Call to Worship
We call upon God to
enter this space with me now. Lord, with
You and You alone we find our strength, faithfulness, love, and peace. Wrap your compassionate arms around us and
call us into being a faithful and ready community of believers, eager to do
Your will. AMEN.
Hymn Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee
Prayer of Confession
God forgive us. Our communion is not always visible to the
world. Sometimes we allow threats to our
unity to enter the church, making it hard to see that we are Your community. We act as though we do not need each
other. We do not always love one another. We do not bear one another’s burdens. We fail to build each other up. We do not always give ourselves willingly and
joyfully to one another. Forgive us, and
strengthen us so that we may live in the unity that You grant us. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Words of Assurance
By Christ’s work, we
are reconciled and united with God and with one another. Thanks be to God for this Good News! AMEN.
Affirmation of Faith –
The 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:
(Continued prayers for
all those affected by the Coronavirus, for our schools, for our national
leaders. We also pray for those affected
by the recent hurricanes and the wildfires that have damaged so much.)
God of all nations, you
called your people to be a light to the world, to draw to yourself all who seek
peace. Lord, we ask that you use us,
your church, to be instruments of that peace, so that justice and compassion
might be known in every land.
We pray for your
hurting and broken world. We pray that
conflict, wherever it may be, comes to an end, that wars might cease and that
peace can truly be realized. We pray for
our enemies, as much as we pray for our friends and allies. Lord, give our nation’s leaders a spirit of
wisdom and a heart of reconciliation, that we might be guided to provide for
the well-being of the hungry and homeless.
We especially think of those who continue to be refugees
and migrants in these difficult days who have left their homes to find a
place of comfort and rest; away from the disasters and tragedies, conflicts and
poverty in their homelands.
We pray for your church
and its leaders. Give us pastors and
church leaders who are eager to hear your voice and to follow your call. Make us as community models of righteousness for
all who seek to know your ways. Teach us
to rejoice in all things and to seek what is honorable, just, pure, pleasing,
commendable, and praiseworthy, that we might be good ambassadors of your good
news to those whose hearts are restless for you.
Lay your healing hand
on those we name now before you today who struggle with sickness of body, mind,
or spirit. We especially pray for…
Lord, by your healing
and comforting, reveal your power and love, and give us a taste of the feast to
come. We
ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior who taught us to pray 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 Let Us Break Bread Together
Scripture Readings
Old Testament: Psalm 19
1The heavens are telling the
glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
2Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
3There is no speech, nor are
there words; their voice is not heard;
4yet their voice goes out
through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In the heavens
he has set a tent for the sun,
5which comes out like a
bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with
joy.
6Its rising is from the end of
the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hid from its
heat.
7The law of the Lord is
perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise
the simple;
8the precepts of the Lord are
right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening
the eyes;
9the fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring forever; the ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether.
10More to be desired are they
than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the
honeycomb.
11Moreover by them is your servant
warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
12But who can detect their
errors? Clear me from hidden faults.
13Keep back your servant also
from the insolent; do not let them have dominion over me. Then I shall be
blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
14Let the words of my mouth and
the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
New Testament: Matthew 21:33-46
“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted
a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a
watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. 34When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the
tenants to collect his produce. 35But the
tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned
another. 36Again he sent
other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 37Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect
my son.’ 38But when the
tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us
kill him and get his inheritance.” 39So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed
him. 40Now when the owner of the
vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable
death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at
the harvest time.” 42Jesus said to
them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders
rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is
amazing in our eyes’? 43Therefore I
tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people
that produces the fruits of the kingdom. 44The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and
it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” 45When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables,
they realized that he was speaking about them. 46They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds,
because they regarded him as a prophet.
Sermon – Just like the hymns, you can click on the
sermon title to hear/watch a video of today’s sermon via YouTube.
(based on Matthew
21:33-46)
You may not know this, but we have two cats at home and
they are very different from one another.
One of them, Missy Boots, is demure and quiet. She treads slowly around the house. Quietly slinking off to wherever her will
takes her. Quaker, our newest arrival is
a complete clod and very loud. You hear
her racing from one spot to another throughout the entire house. They both have bells on their collars. Missy Boots’ bell never rings, even when
she’s moving about. Though Quakers bells
rings incessantly, you really don’t need to know where she is. Even though they are completely different,
they both follow particular cat rules.
For those of you who have cats, you probably know that they aren’t
terribly obedient, they sort of do what they want because they operate under
special cat rules that aren’t the same as yours or mine.
Here’s a list of a few cat rules that, I think, you’ll
find are pretty funny:
1.) Life is hard, take a nap.
2.) Curiosity never killed anything except
maybe a few hours.
3.) When in doubt, cop an attitude.
4.) Variety is the spice of life - one day
ignore people, the
next day annoy them.
5.) Climb your way to the top - that's what the
drapes are for.
6.) Never sleep alone when you can sleep on
someone's face. Thankfully, neither one
of our cats do that.
7.) Find your place in the sun - especially if
it happens to be
on a nice pile of warm, clean,
laundry.
8.) When eating out, think nothing of sending
back your meal
twenty or thirty times.
9.) Make your mark in the world - or at least
in each corner of
the house. Yikes!
10) Always give generously - a small mouse left
on the bed or in
a shoe tells them: "I love
you."
Cats do seem to live by these rules don't they? They certainly don't live by ours. And believe it or not, that’s what Jesus was
trying to get to in this awful parable about the wicked tenants. God made rules for us to live by because of
who we claim to be. We claim to be
Christians, or believers, in Jesus’ day, they claimed to be Jews. And by so doing, we’re supposed to live by
those rules because it’s who we are. But
instead, we live by rules that are counter to who we should be. And God frankly gotten tired of it.
If you study the Old Testament you can see how often God
comes back to the people of God and says, “Okay, you did it again, you went
against the laws that I made to protect you.
Okay, you did it again, you went against the rules that I laid out for
you so that you could enjoy life and not worry about anything. Okay, you did it again, you’ve done things
that you weren’t supposed to have done.
It’s okay. I still love you. But could you, please! come back and just be
who you are called to be; my faithful followers? Again and again, God forgave the
Israelites. And you know, the rules
weren’t that hard. They were about as hard
as the cat rules I read, such as; Life
is hard, take a nap.
Honor your father and mother, remember the Sabbath, don’t
kill, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t want something that isn’t yours, believe in
God and God alone, and so on and so forth.
How hard are they?
They aren’t hard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And yet, time and again, we broke them. At this point in the book of Matthew, Chapter
21, Jesus realizes that all of his teachings about compassion, mercy, love,
healing - they are still falling on deaf ears.
So, he brings it home to them in this parable about the wicked tenants.
A landowner buys land and then hires tenants so that they
can work it. Now, when the harvest is
over, the tenants have sold the entirety of the crop and have a nice amount of
profit. Now, the rules in this game are
that they owe the landowner his profit.
He gave them a place to live, he gave them a living doing what they
loved to do (farm), he paid them well for their work. All he wants are the profits from the sale of
the crop. And what did they do? The messengers that came to pick up the
profit – and let me emphasis – the messengers weren’t extorting additional
money from the tenants, they came only for the profits, and they were beaten or
killed. Well, that’s not how the game,
in God’s eyes, is supposed to be played.
That’s called greed. And God
doesn’t want us to be greedy. That’s not
part of the rules. Okay, the landowner
thinks, I’ll send more messengers. And
the same thing happens. Finally, he
sends his son, saying, “They will respect my son. They wouldn’t dare hurt or kill him.” But in the tenant’s twisted sense of how they
think this game is to be played, they somehow get the idea that if they kill
the son, the property will become theirs.
Now, logically, that doesn’t even make sense, the owner is still living. By killing the son, it doesn’t make you the
heir.
But these tenants have played the game their own way for
so long, that they’re just making things up now. And Jesus says, “Enough. I’m done playing this game with you. I’ll play the game with someone else who is
willing to obey the rules.”
Do you ever remember playing a game with someone who
cheated all the time? Or who made up
their own set of rules? In the
beginning, you’re a little confused as to why they seem to win all the
time. But after a while, the game isn’t
even fun anymore. Or after a while,
they’re so used to making up rules to suit themselves, that the rules don’t
even make sense. Do you remember when we
played games as kids, especially card games?
There was always that one kid that liked to make up the rules. For instance, you learn that deuces are wild
in this game you’re playing, because your opponent laid down a 2 as if it were
a ten and told you that it was wild. So
the next time, you lay down a 2 for a Jack and are told, “Well, they were wild
last time, but they aren’t wild now.”
How stupid or thick are we?
Better yet, how thick is God for wanting to play the
stupid game with us for so long? But,
finally, Jesus has come to say, “Enough.
I’m done with your games and if you reject me now, I’m moving on to play
the game with someone who really wants to play with me. Who will play by the rules and will reap
great rewards and bear much fruit.”
Just as cat rules help cats be the best kind of cats that
they can be, and we love them for it, don’t we? -- so God’s rules are given to us
to help us become the best people that we can be.
As part of our worship we express our thanksgiving and to
receive hope and some encouragement. Each
week when we worship we do so to devote ourselves anew to God, and to listen -
to listen in the hope that God will speak in a special way to us and that we
will be able to do what it is that God asks of us.
We listen, and we pray, and we sing hoping that the
comfort of the Holy Spirit will lift us up and give us the peace that Christ
promised to those who follow him.
Sometimes when we worship, however, we are reminded of
how far we have yet to go in our Christian walk: - perhaps the prayer of
confession comes a little too close to home - or the sermon reminds us of what
we’ve promised – and not yet done - or perhaps – in the scripture for that
morning - instead of feeling comforted by the word we feel ill at ease because
it convicts us.
Through Christ, we have inherited a message of peace, of
joy, of grace, and of hope. As we
receive Christ as the cornerstone (which I talked about at length in a previous
sermon earlier this past summer), may we also bear much fruit.
In a few minutes we will take into our hands the signs
and symbols of our faith – the bread and the cup – Holy Communion, the
Sacrament of the Last Supper, the Eucharist, whatever traditional words each
faith culture uses. With our brothers
and sisters around the world, today, we will hold this bread and this cup. Let us remember that while Jesus, the
cornerstone of our faith, has set us free from the law of sin and death, and
that while in his love he forgives us completely for all that we have done
wrong, he has still called us to live by the law – the law of grace, mercy,
love, and peace - which is now written upon our hearts - and makes all of human
life a joy and a blessing.
Thanks be to God.
AMEN.
Holy
Communion
Invitation
to the Lord’s Table
This table is for all of us, near and
far, high and low, east and west and north and south. This table is for all of us, but it is not
our table.
It’s
not a Presbyterian table. It’s not an
American table. It’s God’s table, for
all of us, and it’s a table of grace. So,
come and take your place at the table. You
are welcome, you are invited, you are called: come, let us share this meal
together.
The Great Thanksgiving - Let Us Pray
O God, we thank you for the gift of Jesus Christ. At our Savior's birth, the angels sang a
message of peace on earth. At the
beginning of his ministry, Jesus proclaimed that he had come to bring good news
to the poor, release to the outcast, and recovery of sight to the blind, and to
let the oppressed go free. He taught that those who worked for your peace would
be called your children. He prayed for
unity among all who would follow him. He
wept over people's failure to know the things that make for peace. He suffered and died for the sins of the
world. Through the blood of Jesus'
cross, you made peace with your whole creation. By our Lord's resurrection, you broke the
powers of oppression, sin and death. Our
risen Savior greeted his followers with the word of peace. We thank you that Christ reigns with you
in glory and continues to bring your peace to our world and to our lives, and
that one day he will come again and reconcile all things to himself. Remembering your wondrous acts in Jesus
Christ, we take this bread and this cup from the gifts of your creation, and
with sisters and brothers around your world, we joyfully celebrate Christ's
presence and reconciling love.
Great is the mystery of our faith in
You:
Christ has died,
Christ is risen,
Christ will come again.
Gracious God, pour out your Holy
Spirit upon us, and upon these your gifts of bread and cup, that the bread we
break and the cup we bless may be the communion of the body and blood of
Christ. Give us your Spirit, that this
meal may unite us with you, and with brothers and sisters in Christ around your
world. Give us your Spirit, that we may
experience anew your peace and go forth to share it. AMEN.
Words
of Institution
The Lord Jesus on the night when he
was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said,
“This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same
way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant
in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as
often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death
until he comes.
Sharing
of the Bread and Cup
The Bread of Life, take
and eat. (eat the bread)
The Cup of Salvation, take and drink. (drink the cup)
Closing
Prayer –
Gracious God, we offer our thanks,
for the whole communion of saint’s witness to this feast, and for the ministry
of churches around the world who gather with us today. By this broken bread may
we each be restored for the work yet to come. By this shared cup may we each be
claimed for the proclamation of your Kingdom. At this shared table may we be
united as children of your promise, children of your word, dying and made new
again, sent boldly together into the world as servants of your peace.
Hymn The Church’s One Foundation
Benediction
Even
remotely, from home, you were called today to the Table of the Lord. You were fed at this table. You were united with all those around the globe
at this table. Now, you are sent from
this table into all the world. Go
therefore into the world, with courage. Set
a place for all who hunger. Fill the cup
of all who thirst. And as you go, May
the Spirit of power and love attend you, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
uphold you, and may the great faithfulness of our God sustain you, now and
forever.
AMEN.
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