We held virtual worship on Sunday, September 13, 2020 at 10am. You may watch the recording below or on our Facebook page by clicking here.
WELCOME
Sixth months into Covid, what is worth remembering?
How fragile we are.
How little our differences matter.
Nineteen years after 9/11, what is worth remembering?
That in our vulnerability we are most human.
That violence begets only violence.
As cities writhe in racial protest, what is worth remembering?
That in pain and anger we can choose to come together;
we can choose to be part of the world’s healing.
With the West Coast aflame, what is worth remembering?
That entering into the world’s suffering is divine.
That the world is not ending yet.
As we gather to worship in a broken world, what is worth remembering?
How deeply we need each other.
That we are one.
That we belong to God and to each other.
OPENING TO GOD TIME
When we are short-sighted and think we can’t see you,
you show us a mother cradling her sick child.
When we are anxious, certain you don’t care about us,
you are confident enough to trust us with your grace.
When we are cynical, sure that nothing matters,
you are hopeful enough to become one of us.
God, you are our Hope. (silence is kept)
You sweep the streets of the world,
to uncover the people we consider to be expendable.
You shine your grace into sin’s shadows
to find us when we have lost our way.
Jesus, you are our Joy. (silence is kept)
When we walk the dusty desert of desolation,
you refresh us with showers of grace.
When our lives lie in ruined rubble,
you come and build a foundation for us out of love & faith.
Spirit, you are our Life. (silence is kept)
YOUNG PEOPLE’S MESSAGE Danielle Sturgeon
EPISTLE Philippians 2:1-15 Sara Kepchar
If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of Abba God.
Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.
REFLECTION Poured Out Mitchell & Barb
MUSIC Isn’t He Beautiful music & photos
by Kathryn Parker
PRAYER FOR THE WEEK Denise Levertov
Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; cap and bells.
And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng’s clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed One, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.
SHARING PRAYERS
LORD’S PRAYER
ANNOUNCEMENTS
BENEDICTION
POSTLUDE Whispering Hope music & photos
by Kathryn Parker
