Next Sunday - August 13, we will have a joint service at Olivet at 9:45 led by Rev. Marsha Sebastian.
Sunday, August 20, we will be meeting at Round Hill Park at Timothy Grove at 11:00am for our annual Church picnic and worship service with our Brothers and Sisters from AME Zion Church Elizabeth, First Presbyterian Church Elizabeth, Bethesda United Presbyterian Church, and Olivet Presbyterian Church. Feel free to join us at any of these worship times/places.
Worship
Service for August 6, 2023
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: We might come to today’s worship service
lonely, empty, or frightened.
P: We might come to today’s worship sick,
grieving, or discouraged.
L: We might come from households spiky with
anger. We might come from unfinished
projects, ruined plans, and multiple irritations.
P: We might come today from broken diets,
hidden drinking, unanswered mail, and a week without bedtime prayers.
L: We might come from a paralysis to watch,
listen to, or read about the news for fear of what might be happening around
us.
P: From inadequacy, we seek God’s wholeness
and healing. From delinquency, we seek
God’s forgiveness.
L: No matter what, we have come to be strengthened
and renewed.
P: Refresh us, O Lord.
Opening Hymn – My Faith Looks Up to Thee #383/539
Prayer of Confession
O Holy God, we come in
confession for our lack of love. We have
neither loved ourselves nor our neighbors.
We have passed by suffering and misfortune because of fear or busyness
or preoccupation. We have held
prejudices against people as deep as those against the Samaritans in Christ’s
day. Heal our pains, amend our faults,
and guide us in ways of compassion, for we pray in the name of Jesus, our most
beloved neighbor, who cared for us, loved us, taught us, and redeemed us. (Silent prayers are offered) AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: God has indeed forgiven us – for God so
loved the world that God sent the one and only Eternal Son into the world to
redeem it.
P: Thanks be to God!
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, as the crowds followed Christ, eager to be filled with hope, we come this
day to this place, seeking nourishment for our own souls. We hunger and thirst for the word of hope and
truth, but our lives are battered by anger and hostility. Our hearts are filled with concerns for
family and friends, for our country and our world. We don’t see how we can be of help to others. Sit us down, as Jesus seated the
multitude. Give us a sense of calmness,
as Jesus reassured the disciples that all would receive care. Lift us up, as Jesus encouraged others to
reach out in compassion. Give us hearts
of confident faith in your presence, O Lord.
Place Your hands of healing on the many people and situations we have
named today. We especially pray for:
Lord,
we ask your merciful goodness as we seek you in this moment of silence.
It
is in Jesus’ name that we 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 – Precious Lord, Take My
Hand #404/684
Scripture Reading(s):
Old
Testament Reading Psalm 145:8-21
New
Testament Reading Matthew 14:13-21
Sermon –
Loaves and Fishes
(based on Matthew
14:13-21)
As you may know by now, Becky Cartus
and I will be traveling to the Parliament of World Religions and offering a
workshop on Food Insecurities around the world.
Part of the content of the workshop comes from my research during my
Sabbatical leave. What do I mean by the
term Food Insecurity? It’s a term that
refers to the lack of means to get nutritious food and there are a variety of
reasons why there is still Food Insecurities both in the US and globally. Did you know that 49 million Americans live
in households that are unable to get nutritious food? And more than 800 million people world-wide?
What is most important
to know is that Food Insecurity is not about the supply of food. The world produces enough food to feed every
single person on the planet. The biggest
problem is that over 1/3rd of it is wasted or lost every year. One of the most obvious reasons for Food
Insecurity stems from extreme poverty.
Half the world’s population lives on less than $5.50 a day. But there are some less obvious reasons as
well. Conflict – 60% of the hungriest
people on the planet live in areas of conflict – due to violence, invasion or civil
war. Another reason is Climate Change – (We’re
probably all sick of hearing about climate change, but it is a real factor) and
80% of the world’s hungry live in areas of the world that are greatly affected
by extreme weather conditions and those extreme events have doubled in the last
30 years and are getting worse year after year.
As I mentioned before, Food waste/weak government systems is another
reason – 1/3rd of the food produced is wasted due to mismanagement
of distribution due to poor government systems and also due to things like
insect and pest infestations, and something as simple as mold. Unfortunately, Americans are the most
wasteful. The average American throws
out 20lbs of food every month.
Today’s scripture
reading from Matthew is often referred to as a miracle story. That miraculously Jesus made the five loaves
of bread and two fish feed over 5,000 people.
However, I don’t think it was a miracle story at all; in the sense that
Jesus, by magic or by some unexplainable phenomena, multiplied the bread and
the fish. I do think Jesus created a
story of wonder, however. As in, “Jesus
performed many signs and wonders.” And I
think this was one of them.
Let me explain what I mean by a story.
Once upon a time,
there was a poor village filled with people who did not like to share. They locked their doors and windows tight and
kept what little food they had for themselves.
One day, a stranger passed into the village. He was very tired and hungry from his
journey. He stopped at the first house
and knocked on the door hoping that someone there would be able to share with
him just a morsel of something to eat.
A woman opened the door only a tiny
crack, “Who are you?” the woman asked the stranger.
“I am a tired and
hungry traveler,” he responded. “Please,
may I have something to eat?”
“There is hardly any
food here,” said the woman. “In fact, I
doubt you will find anyone who has extra food to spare. We are all poor and hungry, too.” The woman closed the door.
The traveler, although he was tired
and hungry, was not ready to give up. He
picked a large, round stone from the ground and knocked once more at the
door. The lady came to the door again,
opening it only halfway. “Yes?” she asked.
“Since you are poor
like me, perhaps you would like to have some of my stone soup!” the stranger
told the woman.
“Stone soup?” the
woman laughed as she looked at the stone in his hand. “You can’t make soup from a stone!”
“Well, I’ve done it
before,” replied the traveler.
The woman had heard of or seen anyone
make soup from a stone before, but since she was hungry too, she invited him
in. Then she lit the fire and placed a
kettle of water on top and opened the windows to let out some of the heat. The traveler placed the stone inside the
water until it boiled. He sipped a
spoonful of hot liquid. “It’s almost
done,” he said, “but, if you had just a little salt and butter, the soup would
taste so much better!”
The woman went to the cupboard and
returned with a little bit of salt and a hefty spoon of left-over lard. Just as the traveler was pouring them in the
pot, the woman’s husband returned home.
In his hands were carrots and potatoes.
“What are you making?” asked the woman’s husband. “Stone soup!” replied the woman and the
traveler.
“Impossible!” shouted
the husband.
“It’s almost
finished,” the traveler assured the husband as he tasted another spoonful. “But it would be even nicer if we added some of
those carrots and potatoes.” Also
hungry, the husband agreed and dropped the carrots and potatoes into the
pot!
Soon the smell of the soup drifted out
of her house window and down the lane.
One neighbor who usually stayed inside wandered out and followed the
smell all the way to the first house, where he heard them talking about the
stone soup. “Is the stone soup ready
now?” the woman and her husband asked the traveler.
“Yes, but it could be
even better if we had some turnips and beans!” he replied.
“I have some,” yelled
the neighbor who had been listening through the window. The neighbor, curious to taste the soup that
was made from a stone, returned with turnips and beans. He poured them into the pot and the smell
drifted even further down the lane.
A word about a strange traveler making
soup out of a single stone drew many villagers out of their homes. They followed the delicious smell. “Is the stone soup ready now?” asked the
villagers when they arrived. “Yes, but I
remember having stone soup with chicken and broth in the stew once,” he
replied.
“I have chicken,” said
a farmer who ran home to get some.
“I have broth,”
exclaimed another neighbor who ran to fetch it.
The farmer returned and placed pieces of chicken into the pot. When the other neighbor added the broth, the
pot was so full that it almost spilled over.
The traveler lifted the spoon to taste it. “Perfect!” he exclaimed. Then, he served a bowl of stone soup for
every single one of the villagers to taste.
“It’s magic!” the villagers cried out,
seeing how much soup he had made.
“Delicious!” cried
another villager. “But where can we get
a magic stone? Surely this one has been
used up.”
The traveler shook his
head and pulled the stone out of the pot.
The stone was still whole! The
villagers realized that the delicious and plentiful soup did not come from the
stone, but rather from their shared ingredients.
The traveler drank the leftover soup
and went on his journey. At last, from
that day on, the villagers shared what they had with each other. And the village became a very happy place.
I think this ancient story of Stone
Soup explains exactly what happened on that hillside thousands of years ago
when Jesus spoke to and taught the multitudes.
I think the disciples, who had only brought enough food for themselves,
brought those loaves of bread and fish to Jesus when he asked them. Raising up the loaf, breaking it in the
presence of all the people, asking God’s blessing upon the bread and the fish,
he then began to pass it out. As people
watched, they too, rummaged through their satchels, finding a bit of a morsel here,
another loaf of bread there, and did the very same thing that Jesus had done.
There is another
retelling of the story in the gospel according to John where a boy in the crowd
had with him the five loaves of bread and the fish. Now, you can’t tell me that of the thousands
of people in that crowd, only a single boy thought to bring something to eat. I think what happened that day was a wonder
and not a miracle, per se. What Jesus
did was opened people’s hearts to share with their neighbor. And perhaps, that in and of itself, could be
considered a miracle.
It is certainly
something that we, as Christians, should strive to do more often – to share
from our own bounty with our neighbors.
To offer what we have for those who do not.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
With great joy, we present these tithes and
gifts for the ministry of this church.
Be with each of us as we, too, commit ourselves to lives of joyful,
thankful service. In Jesus’ name. AMEN.
Closing Hymn – Amazing Grace #280/343
Benediction –
The Spirit sends
us forth to serve. Go in peace, knowing
that God will always be by your side in all you do. Go in love, offering healing and hope to
others. Go in joy, that others may be
lifted and inspired in service. AMEN
Postlude
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