Sixth Sunday After Epiphany 

Readings:

Jeremiah 17:5-10; Psalm 1; I Corinthians 15:12-20; Luke 6:17-26

Call to Worship:

L: Rejoice, for the power of God has come—

P: The same transforming power encountered in the risen Christ:

L: Promising to the poor the realm of heaven;

P: Promising to the hungry a time of satisfaction;

L: Promising to the weeping a life of happiness;

P: Promising to the reviled the gift of acceptance.

A: Rejoice, O people of God, the transforming power of Christ is here!

Invocation:

O Christ, whom even crucifixion could not separate from either the love or the power of God, bless us, the members of your body, with the guidance of your spirit, that we might seek God with your singleness of mind, see God with your clarity of understanding, and worship God with your purity of heart.

Litany:

L: O Christ, compel us to reexamine the standards by which we judge—

P: The values we condone, the values by which we condemn

L: You pronounce blessings upon the poor and the hungry;

P: If you be for them, shall we dare be against them?

L: You pronounce blessings upon the weeping and the forsaken;

P: If you be for them, shall we dare be against them?

L: You pronounce woes upon the greedy and the pretentious;

P: If you be against them, shall we dare be for them?

L: You pronounce doom upon the proud and the deceitful;

P: If you be against them, shall we dare be for them?

L: O Christ, inspire us to embrace the standards by which you judge—

P: The values by which you favor, the values by which you forgive!

Prayer for One Voice:

Gracious Lord and Savior, whose spirit guided Jesus in life and glorified him in death, we adore you for coming to us in him and for leading us to you through him.

As the time between his life and ours grows longer, we are forced to turn to others for our knowledge of him: to the shapers of the traditions about him; the collectors of the stories about his life and teaching; and the commentators who, through the centuries, have related the Lord of the ages to the needs of the age. Often these guardians of the faith have kept it alive and relevant at great personal sacrifice and risk. To them we owe a debt of endless appreciation and gratitude.

And not only to them do we owe this debt, but also to those in whose lives we have beheld the likeness of Jesus. Their names may not be found on the covers of books or even on the pages between. Yet they are the people who come to mind when we ask what Jesus would do in our situation; what you would have us do at a given moment; whether we should take this side or that; how we can most usefully invest our energies and abilities. All of us have known them, and just now, O God, we pay tribute to the beauty of their lives and the influence of their lives on ours. By their example, they have taught us afresh what it means for the Word to become flesh.

Yet our appreciation of them is blunted by the painful awareness of how often we ignore their wise counsel; how rarely we follow their good example; how little we treasure their low regard for things; how casually we dismiss their genuine respect for persons; how lightly we take their unswerving commitment to personal integrity; how easily we betray their passion for social justice.

We cannot undo the mistakes of the past, O God, but you can spare us their repetition. Make clear to us when we are putting our trust in persons who do not put their trust in you. Try our hearts, lest we substitute loyalty to human beings for loyalty to you. As we look to Jesus, through whom you made yourself real to those who made Jesus real for us, grant us the grace to follow in their footsteps. Help us to become to others what they have become to us: prophets of peace and apostles of justice.

Benediction:

In this place of worship, we have proclaimed the presence and power of the risen Christ with the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts. Now, as we go forth to our places of work, let us demonstrate the presence and power of the risen Christ with the deeds of our hands and the labors of our lives.

(Phyllis Cole and Everett Tilson)