July 5 – 5th Sunday after Pentecost
Sermon: “Simple and Restful”
July 5, 2020 – 5th Sunday after Pentecost
Words of Welcome
Lighting of the Christ Candle
Call to Worship
If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest. Take the yoke I give you. Put it on your shoulders and learn from me. I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest. This yoke is easy to bear, and this burden is light. Christ calls us to come to worship, to rest from the things that are troubling us, to learn what Christ can teach of life, to realise what we can offer to others and so to return into the world to serve. Let us worship God.
Opening Prayer
In times of weakness and hour of need, yours is the strength by which we carry on, the shoulder we rest our head upon. When our load is heavy and too much to bear, yours are the arms stretched out to help us the grace that we depend on. In times of weakness and hour of need, your voice is heard, ‘Come… find rest.’ This is grace divine, the path we tread to wholeness of body and spirit, the path that leads to you, and for which we offer our offering of praise. Amen.
Hymn: #415 – “God, We Praise You for the Morning”
1st Scripture: Romans 7:15-25a (NRSV)
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Confession: A Prayer for the Journeyers
O God, Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you. You are beyond our busy imaginings, far above our elevated constructions of thought. Yet you meet us in the dust. Your footprints cross ours. Behind us and before us you tread the path, you lead the way, you exult, you bow low, you lift us up. You look upon us through the face of the poor; you bless us in the nurture of friendship; you challenge us in the cries for justice and the weeping for hope. Yoked to Jesus your Son, joined in oneness with yourself, we strain against your direction and we know ourselves irksome; summoned to follow your way, we burden ourselves and others; asked to stand up, we cower in our own inadequacy and our own discrediting. Forgive us the wrongs we have done to others, to ourselves, to you. Forgive us our bondage to fixed patterns when they no longer serve you; our surrender to newness when newness is folly; our failure to listen to the old people of this land and the old and new who are hurting and hidden beyond our preoccupations. Lift us from our fear that we may see your vision know your wisdom and find our rest in you, through Jesus Christ our Lord…Jesus said: Come to me all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.
Hymn: #595 – “We Are Pilgrims”
2nd Scripture: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 (NRSV)
‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.” For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’ At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’
Ministry of Music: Bridge Over Troubled Water
Sermon: “Simple and Restful”
Hymn: #626 – “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say”
Prayer of Joys and Concerns and Lord’s Prayer
Wisdom and insight and truth come from your hand, O God, and we are thankful for those who grapple with life, with experiences of sorrow and pain, in order to distill from those experiences new understanding of life, and of your nature and ours. Out of the crucible of experience, on such person drew the concept of the Suffering Servant of God, who would take to himself the sorrows and burdens of a hurting, needing people, and who, by doing so, would show the way back to an experience of your love, and forgiveness, and peace. The entire shape and content of our lives has been changed by this concept and by the life of Jesus, who took up that vision and made of his life and active parable of that kind of reconciling love. May we learn not to clutch the benefits of such costly love neurotically and selfishly to ourselves, but to open ourselves to its influence, that the miracle of redemptive love, experienced through a sharing of life’s pain, may take place for those around us because of our faithfulness. So may the spirit that was within our Lord take life within us and infuse our living and we join in the prayer given to believers in every age: 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, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
Hymn: #806 – “O God, Our Help in Ages Past”
Commissioning and Benediction
Give us a child-like faith as we leave this time of worship: looking with awe at the billowing clouds, and star-spread night sky; celebrating the joy of each new day, finding the deepest lessons in the simplest games, ready to trust and share with friends, prepared to forgive and start again, wondering at the sheer goodness of Jesus, believing totally in the love of our Heavenly Parent. Go confidently in that love, for God goes with you. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all.
Choral Closing: #965 – “The Lord Bless Thee”
The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. Amen.
June 28 – 4th Sunday after Pentecost
Sermon: “Jesus In Us”
June 28, 2020, (4th Sunday after Pentecost)
June 21 – 3rd Sunday after Pentecost
Sermon: “Not As the World Gives”
June 21, 2020 – 3rd Sunday after Pentecost
June 14 – 2nd Sunday after Pentecost
Sermon: “Servants’ Entrance”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO-LqJfzLX0&list=PLk5IqC2HtDM_NVfTmvpl33dunVRZdeU1e
Online Worship with Moderator Richard Bott
Beginning Sunday, March 22, 2020, Moderator Richard Bott will be offering an online worship service each Sunday for the duration of the COVID-19 outbreak. This will be a video-recorded service you can join on our website or Facebook page. The prayers, hymns, and reflections from the Moderator’s online worship will also be available in audio and text form.
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