Worship
Service for July 2, 2023
Prelude
Announcements:
Call to Worship
L: Let us reach out with our heart and soul
to the Lord.
P: O Lord, our God, in You we place our
trust.
L: Let us ask the Lord to lead us.
P: Help us, O Lord, to find the paths we should
take.
L: Lead us in Your truth, O God.
P: And we shall rejoice in Your love and
goodness forever. AMEN!
Opening Hymn – O God of Every Nation #289 Blue
Prayer of Confession
O Lord God, full of mercy and
compassion, give us courage today to see ourselves in the mirror of Your Son,
Jesus Christ. We confess that we fall
short of all You have made us to be.
Give us grace, O gracious Lord, lest we be overcome by the truth of our
shortcomings. Give us understanding, O
Lord of truth, that we might receive and grow in the redemption so freely
offered in Jesus Christ our Savior. (Silent
prayers are offered)
AMEN.
Assurance of Pardon
L: God proves His love for us that while we
were still sinners Christ died for us.
Confident in this free gift of forgiveness, I declare to you Christ’s
word of grace. Our sins are forgiven.
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
Lord,
we talk so easily about being a friendly church. We like to think of ourselves as a place where
everyone is welcomed. But our welcome
should not stay confined to these walls. There is so much mission and ministry to do
outside of these walls. Provide us with
courage and boldness to find ways of passing a cup of cold water to a
stranger. Of offering a glimpse of love
to those who may not even understand the meaning of the word. We are called to adopt attitudes of
hospitality to others who may not return the favor. We are called to be willing to take the risk
of hospitality in our workplace, our homes, our community, everywhere we go. You reached out to people in all kinds of
conditions. Many of those people had
been rejected by their society, their families. They were in need of compassionate, greeting,
and friendship. Lord Jesus, as you have
welcomed us regardless of our faults and failings, let us also be a welcoming
presence to all in your name.
We
pray also for our loved ones and those whom we hold dear….
Hear
these prayers along with the prayers of our hearts in these moments of silence.
Gracious
God, we offer our heartfelt love back to You as we pray 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 – Let Us Break Bread
Together #513/460
Scripture Reading(s):
Genesis
22:1-14
Matthew
10:40-42
Sermon – A Cup of Cold Water
This passage in Matthew is about welcome and
its intrinsic rewards. It’s about simple
things like connecting with other people.
It’s about the most basic necessities of life – a cup of cold
water. But it’s also so much deeper than
that. It’s about building relationships,
it’s about demonstrating the interconnectedness that we all share as a local,
regional, or global human community, regardless of whether we look the same or
speak the same language.
Howard
Thurman once wrote, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and
then go do that. Because what the world
needs is people who have come alive.” More
today than ever, I think his words hold real meaning. “The world needs people who have come alive.”
The
welcome of a stranger, the connection that we make from one person to another,
our faith journeys and the meaning that those journeys have for us to share
with one another, the simple offer of a cup of water are all poignant actions
for us to engage in today when the world seems on the brink of devolving into
chaos, hatred, and violence on a global scale.
A
few years ago, I read a book called The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary
Person Can Create Extraordinary Change by Adam Braun. The Promise of a Pencil is a true life story
how one young man, in search of meaning and purpose for his life, began a
revolution of change in the world. It’s
not a story that happened decades ago, but rather a story that is even now
unfolding.
Adam
Braun was born into an upper middle class family. He went to Brown University and during
college had heard about an exciting opportunity called Semester at Sea, where
college students could spend one semester traveling around the world to 60
different countries while maintaining course work during their travels. Each student chose to remember their travels
in different ways, many collected souvenirs from each country, some took
pictures of various stuffed animals in front of famous landmarks. Adam decided to ask one child per country,
“If you could have anything in the world, what would you want most?” He said that asking a question would give him
a chance to connect with at least one person in each country. He expected to hear things like, “I want a
flat-screen TV, an IPad, or a fast car.”
He thought he would gather a series of these responses and journal them
in parallel to his own wants and desires as a child – the latest toy, a shiny
car, a big new house.
At
the first stop in Hawaii, an adorable child approached him and asked if they
could be friends. He said yes without
hesitation and said, “But first, I have something very important to ask
you. If you could have anything in the
world, what would you want most?”
He
said that she put her finger to her chin and glanced knowingly at her mom. “To dance,” she replied with a confident nod.
Adam
laughed, “No, I meant if you could have absolutely anything in the entire
world, what would it be?”
She
smiled, now fully understanding my question, “To dance!” she replied again with
delight. To Adam her answer was
disarming in its honesty, delight, and pure enthusiasm. He thought back to the happiest moments in
his own life and realized that many of them had nothing to do with material
things and realized that he had a lot to learn.
In
Beijing, he asked a girl near the entrance to the Forbidden Temple, and she
said, “A book.” Her mother explained
that the girl loved school, but didn’t have any books of her own. Adam again realized that this girl’s dream was
to have something he took for granted every day.
In
Vietnam, he asked another girl what she wanted most. “I want my mom to be healthy. She is sick in bed all day, and I just want to
hold her hand as she walks me to school.”
In
India, within view of the Taj Mahal, he saw a young boy. He explained that he had a question for the
boy. A man nearby helped translate. What would the boy want if he could have any
one thing? He thought about it for a few
seconds, then responded confidently, “A pencil.”
“Are
you sure?” Adam asked. He had no family,
the man explained to Adam, he was one of thousands of street children. More men came over and prodded the young
boy. “You can have anything you
want. He might give it to you,” they
said. The boy’s answer remained the
same. “A pencil.”
Adam
said that he had a pencil in his backpack, so he reached in, pulled it out and
handed it to the boy. He said that as it
passed from his hand to the young boy’s, his face lit up, he looked at it as if
it were a diamond. The men explained to
Adam that the street children never go to school, but he had seen other
children writing with pencils.
Over
the course of the months that followed Adam realized that this was true of most
children across the world, they didn’t go to school to get an education. Could something as small as a pencil, the
foundation for education, unlock a child’s potential, he wondered?
For
Adam, the pencil was just a writing utensil, but for this young boy it was a
key, a symbol, it was a portal to creativity, curiosity, and possibility. Every great inventor, architect, scientist,
and mathematician began as a child holding nothing more than a pencil. That single stick of wood and graphite could
enable him or her to explore worlds within that he would never otherwise
access.
Adam
wrote in his journal later that night, “Up until that point, I had always
thought that I was too young to make a difference. I had been told that without the ability to
make a large donation to a charity, I couldn’t help change someone’s life. But through the small act of giving one child
one pencil, that belief was shattered. I
realized that big waves start with small ripples.”
I think we all often have the same mentality that Adam had. If we can’t make a big donation, we just
aren’t very helpful in making a difference in the world. But that is not true at all. Think about it through this child’s
eyes. Receiving the one thing he wanted
most in the world – a pencil. Something
so innocent and simple to us, but it meant the world to him. It was his cup of water. And a whole new world was opened up to him.
About
15 years ago or so one of our members wanted to spend some of her newly acquired
free time in retirement rocking newborn needy babies – a way of calming them. Finding out that this wasn’t possible she
learned that many of the new mothers who come to Magee are often without a lot
of resources such as baby clothes for the newborn or even a car seat to take
them home in, so she collected a few items and took them to Magee which went to
a new mother. In a short span of time,
Baby Love Layettes was born. And people
donate clothes, money, car seats, even newly sewn blankets, etc… which now helps
around 12 new mothers every month, who otherwise would have absolutely nothing
for their newborn to wear or snuggle under. We’ve heard BJ Berich give testimony and read
thank you cards about how Baby Love Layettes has impacted those mothers’ lives,
but not just theirs, but also the staff and volunteers at Magee who see the
acts of kindness given to total strangers.
And how that one simple act of receiving some baby items, means the
world to a new mom who has nothing.
Or
how about 45 years ago a group of people from the church realized the food
insecurity need in our community and began a food bank that continues to help people
in West Elizabeth and nearby communities for either a short period of time when
they have a bump in the road with finances like being laid off of work or finding
themselves somehow between jobs or even for decades when for whatever reason
they can’t seem to ever get ahead of bills and financial needs.
Whether it is a local mission like our
food bank at Olivet that has helped 25-70 families each month, a regional
mission like Baby Love Layettes through BJ and Bethesda providing newborn
clothes and needed items for 12 new mothers every month, or becomes a global mission
that Adam began called the Promise of a Pencil, which has opened over 700
schools to date, employing 100’s of local teachers and organizers, and reaching
thousands of children who would under ordinary circumstances never get an education;
this is the church at work in the world.
We are all part of that church outside
these walls. And it is God who calls us
to this work, to see and understand a vision of hospitality and care to those
who are in need. This is Christ’s work
in the world – just by offering a cup of cold water, a newborn baby blanket, a
box of food necessities or a pencil to begin an education. What more can we do?
Offertory –
Doxology –
Prayer of Dedication –
Generous God, You have abundantly blessed each
one of us; cause these gifts to be a blessing as they are put to work in Your
world. AMEN
The Lord’s Table
Invitation
God in Christ breaks down the
walls that make us strangers to ourselves and divide us from one another. We are the body of Christ, each and every one
of us. Around this table, we enact our
faith. The body broken is restored to
wholeness; the lifeblood poured out brings healing to the world. All of you are invited to the banquet and
feast of God. Come.
Prayer of Thanksgiving
L: The Lord be with you.
P: And
also with you.
L: Lift up your hearts.
P: We
lift them up to the Lord.
L: Let us
give thanks to the Lord our God.
Words of Institution
Breaking of the Bread
Sharing of the Cup
Prayer: Loving
God, our hunger is never better satisfied than at Your table. Our gifts can have no higher value than when
they are offered to You. Because You
fill our spirits, we hunger to serve.
And we pray that these gifts may be as food to nourish the living body
of Christ. Thanks be to You, O God, for
this renewing feast. AMEN.
Closing Hymn – God of the Ages, Whose Almighty Hand #262 Blue
Benediction –
Friends, God
sends us out into the world with confident joy. Allow us to reach out to others and care for
them as God has cared for us. Go in
peace. AMEN.
Postlude
