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Worship
Service for February 19, 2023
Prelude
Announcements:
This we we begin Lent with our first Ash Wednesday Service at Bethesda United Presbyterian Church at 7pm. We will be offering the Imposition of Ashes, curated from the Palms from last year's Lent/Easter season.
Next Sunday we will celebrate Holy Communion at both churches on the First Sunday in Lent.
Call to Worship
L: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
P: And also with you.
L: Let us worship God. Clap your hands all you peoples;
P: Shout to God with loud songs of joy.
L: For the Most High is awesome.
P: A great sovereign over all the earth.
L: It is good to give thanks to the Lord.
P: To sing praises to Your name, O Most High.
Opening Hymn – Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart Hymn
#326/390
Prayer of Confession
Mighty and Merciful God, You
have called us to be Your people and claimed us for the service of Jesus
Christ. We confess that we have not
lived up to our calling. We have been
timid and frightened disciples, forgetful of Your powerful presence and the
strength of Your Spirit among us. O God,
forgive our foolish and sinful ways. As
You have chosen us, claimed us in our baptisms, strengthen us anew to choose
Christ’s way in this world. Give us Your
Holy Spirit that each one in ministry may be provided with all the gifts of
grace needed to fulfill our common calling; through Jesus Christ our Lord and
Savior. (Silent prayers
are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: The proof of God’s amazing love is this:
while we were sinners Christ died for us.
Believe the good news of the gospel: Christ died in order to redeem us
back to God.
P: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven. 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
Holy God, who revealed
the anointed Messiah to Peter, James, and John on the mountaintop, may You also
be revealed to us. Fill us with praise,
overflowing with cheers and mysterious visions of peace and justice for
all. Light our way; direct our course;
and energize us for the journey ahead.
For we have one more mountain to climb each and every day. We are thankful for the opportunities Lord,
to represent You on earth, but often we fail to live up to the world’s
expectations of us, let alone Yours. So,
in our time of prayer this morning, give us a moment to breathe deeply of Your
strength, breathe deeply of Your love, breathe deeply of Your grace and mercy,
so that we can truly be Your hands and feet working out Your will each and
every day.
We pray for our loved
ones today….We especially lift up to you…
Now hear our concerns,
joys, and sorrows in this moment of silence…
Gathered together, we
say aloud the prayer Your son taught us 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 – Open
My Eyes Hymn #324/563
Scripture Reading(s):
First Scripture Reading – Exodus
24:12-18
Second Scripture Reading – Matthew
17:1-9
Sermon –
Mountaintop
Experiences Found in the Valleys of Life
(based
on Matthew 17:1-9)
Today’s message will be rather brief
as we need to make time for our Annual Meeting following worship today. Once again, I want to say a word of thanks
for giving me the opportunity to take a Sabbatical last year. As I continue to write about my experiences
and spend time in prayer about them, I am constantly amazed at God’s hand at
work from the time that I began thinking of a theme, making my plans and
arrangements, throughout each day of the journey, and the encounters I had. And God’s hand at work continues today as I
talk about my time away and begin my writing project.
Today’s scripture reading is the story
of Jesus being transfigured on the top of the mountain with his inner circle of
trusted disciples – Peter, James, and John.
It is the story right before Lent begins that we read every year,
whether we read it from Matthew or from Luke’s gospel. It is nearly identical. And this story ties in very much to my
Sabbatical leave.
One of
the aspects of the Sabbatical was for me to take at least three intensive
guided retreats – one in Spain, one in France, and one in Italy. I did some additional impromptu ones, as well. To be perfectly honest, by and large, I was
disappointed in all of them. I don’t really
know why. Surrounded by centuries’ old
artifacts like stained glass windows that dated to the 15th Century
or wooden pews that dated to the 1100’s or stone that was worn-warped from the
steps of people like St Francis or St Clair, the energy of spirits and souls of
countless previous pilgrims who had also sought God’s guidance, I would have
thought I was in just the right place to hear God speak. Perhaps my expectations were too high. Perhaps I had expected the transfigured
Christ to appear, for Moses and Elijah to sit at the right and left hand of the
Messiah in majestic splendor, for my loved ones who have gone before me to show
up with arms outstretched in love and care.
Perhaps I expected God to give me direction or a cause or a purpose or
some sign that I’ve been a good steward after all these years in ministry. I don’t really know what I was expecting, but
I expected something grand. Something
inspiring. Something tantalizing,
energizing, or motivational for the years ahead. Being in a place that I would have called a
mountaintop experience, if not literally on a mountaintop, I had thought God
would show up.
Instead,
I often found myself distracted by the silence, led in my mind to places I
don’t like to go about my own faults and failures, about whether I was even
worthy of being in a pulpit. About a
time I had acted harshly and should have been kinder to someone, or had failed
to help someone, or had misunderstood someone’s meaning and held a grudge. The silence often led me to think about
things back home, about the worries of the day, about whether the locals hated
that I couldn’t speak their language better.
I sometimes fidgeted with my clothes or a piece of paper I found on the
ground. I worried about when I should
test for Covid again, just to be safe. The silence often gave way to nit-picky
worrying things.
However,
before you get a totally wrong impression, my time on these retreats weren’t
completely wasted. I also thought about
the meaning of particular bible passages that I was reading, about how the
meaning or the verse applied to my life, about how I could use it in a future
sermon. I thought about the history of
those who had sat in the very same place I was sitting, about their journeys
and their every day worries and how God had directed their lives. I also thought about each one of you. About your own journeys and worries and
successes. About your families and how I’ve
gotten to be part of your lives. But, I
never had a breakthrough, mountaintop experience at these times.
Instead,
I had those at a sidewalk café, watching a gentleman lovingly deal with
his autistic son or younger brother, watching a disabled street performer
interact with a young child who was simply delighted and awed by the man’s tricks
or could have cared less about the man’s disabilities and cared more about how
he was being entertained, in conversations I had with fellow travelers who
opened up to me about their own faith and their beliefs and even about their
concerns for the day, in the generosity of strangers who came to my aid when I
was lost or confused about where I was going, or those who fed me when they
knew I hadn’t had anything to eat, when I broke down in tears by a river under
a willow tree in remembering my sister, when pivots or resilience or change of
plans brought me to the low points of my trip.
It was actually in those valley moments that God showed up and
transfigured before me in the faces of complete strangers, in places I hadn’t
expected.
So, my
message to you this morning, is that if you are looking for a mountaintop
experience, you may not find it where you expect. You may not find God when you want God to
show up, but rather you just might find God where you least expect Him, but
when you need Him most.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
God
of both mountain tops and plains, giver of all good gifts. We ask that You bless these gifts brought to
You today. May they honor our commitment
to further Your work of love and justice in the world. In Your name we pray. Amen.
Closing
Hymn – Amazing Grace Hymn #280/343
Benediction –
Friends, walk in the
light and in truth. See the light of
Christ in every face.
Be the
light of Christ to all you meet. AMEN.
Postlude
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