Worship Connection: September 3, 2023
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
COLOR: Green
SCRIPTURE READINGS: Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28
Call to Worship #1
L: We are standing on holy ground.
P: All those who have gone before us have witnessed to the love of God.
L: We are challenged to be people of loving service
P: Lord, open our hearts and spirits to accept the call to serve you by helping others.
All: AMEN.
Call to Worship #2
L: We gather as a community of compassion and hope.
P: Jesus calls us to care for each other tenderly and willingly.
L: By this caring and sharing we will be known as followers of Jesus.
P: By our example others may be led to lives of peace.
L: Lord, open our hearts and minds this day to your word.
P: Teach us to serve you with all our gifts and talents. Amen.
Call to Worship #3
[Using THE FAITH WE SING, p. 2129, “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus”, offer the following call to worship as directed]
L: There are so many directions in which we are being pulled.
P: We struggle and hope that we have chosen the right way.
L: Some of these paths are falsely enticing and others dangerous.
P: How can we know what to do?
L: Look to Jesus! He will be your guide and Holy Spirit will guard your life.
P: I am going to follow Jesus. He is the example of compassion, healing and hope.
All: singing verse 1 of “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” p. 2129 FWS
Gathering Prayer
From all our life’s pathways, you have called us to this place, O Lord. Be with us as we listen for your word and seek your ways. Guide our steps and guard our lives that we may serve you more effectively in this broken world. AMEN.
Opening Prayer
Lord of summer sunshine and autumn harvest, be with us this day as we gather to encounter your word and your way for us. Remind us that we can place our trust in your eternal love. Enable us to be more effective in our witness to that love by word and deed. Guide our steps and pick us up when we falter. Dust us off and place us on the pathways of grace and service. These things we pray in Jesus’ name. AMEN.
Prayer of Confession
God of love and mercy, be with us this day. We have faltered in our service to you. We create divisions between various people; we judge before we listen; we condemn before we make any attempt to understand. Our lives are in turmoil and we confess that we have turned away from you. It is fear and anger that too often surrounds us and our actions become based on those fears and anger. Slow us down, Lord. Give us hearts overflowing with grace and compassion. Help us to mirror Jesus who loved and healed others who were rejected by “polite” society. Remind us that we are called to be strong voices of hope for those who feel alienated and lost; we are called to be a home to strangers; to quench thirst and to give nourishment; to welcome and bring words of hope. Forgive us when we have forgotten these things. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. AMEN.
Words of Assurance
Christ calls each of us into lives of service and hope. He equips us for these ministries and places us on the pathways of peace. Rejoice! You are called by God’s Son and blessed by him. AMEN.
Morning Prayer
Lord of hope, we come to you this day. We have followed many paths and the one of hope leads to this doorway. Enter our hearts this day as we share our joys and concerns in prayer and in the actions and service that follows. We lift before you situations and people who are in need of your healing mercies and your peace. Help us to be those who would bring this peace to them. Let us be in prayer, lifting our concerns to God. Please share with us your concerns this morning. [Sharing of concerns]
Congregational Response: Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers.
As our lives have encountered difficulties and concerns, so, too, are we blessed with great joys. We celebrate these moments of happiness and wonder with each other, lifting up joys and celebrations in this congregation this morning. Please share with us your joys and celebrations [Sharing of joys and celebrations]
Congregational Response: Lord, in your love, hear our praise!
Lord, bless all those whom we have named before you in our hearts and with our voices. Touch each life with the blessings and peace and mercy. Give us strength and empower us for the ministries of reconciliation, for it is in your name that we pray. AMEN.
Offering
As God has blessed our lives with abundant love and gifts, let us bring our tithes and offerings to this place, seeking to help others, to offer comfort and hope. Let us receive our morning offering.
Prayer of Dedication
Lord of all mercy and compassion, bless these gifts lovingly offered and all the people here. Help us to use these gifts for ministries of hope through our church and into our community, nation and world. AMEN.
Benediction/Sending Forth
Jesus has called you and placed his trust in you. Go into this world, bearing the words of hope and healing. Reach out to others in compassion. For it is Jesus’ name, that you are sent out to serve. AMEN.
Children’s Time
[If this is feasible, get four different colors of masking tape or electrical tape (they should be about 1-2” wide). Beginning at the back of the sanctuary, create twisting and turning paths that will eventually lead to the altar/worship center. Give each child ½ index card with a patch of the color tape affixed to it. This will be the color of the path they will follow.]
Good morning! We are going to do something very special today. We are going on a journey today. I am going to give each one of you a card. It has on it a patch and this is the color of the path you will follow. Don’t trade cards – use the one you have been given. My four assistants (older youth or young adults) will be guides for each path. OK…..let’s go to the back of the sanctuary. Show your guide the color patch you have on your card and you will be placed at the beginning of the pathway. Don’t stray from the path. Ready. [the guides and the children go to the rear of the sanctuary and take their places]
Now it’s time for our journey. You will be going on your color path only – no shortcuts! [The children are released a few at a time to go on the path. When they get to the altar/worship center, have them stand very still waiting for the other to arrive]
[When all the children have arrived, the worship leader/pastor addresses them.] Those paths were different. What did you discover? Were the paths straight? Did you have to double back and it seemed as though you were never going to get to the destination? Life is like that. We are all on paths. Some of the paths are straight and others curvy. Some go forward and some twist and turn and seem to go backward. There are times when we are confused and just want to get off the path and go our own way. But Jesus calls us to be faithful to the pathway and when we are faithful we can learn many things and help many people. When we place our focus on the journey and the things we can do to help others, we are following the way of Jesus. Jesus wants you to follow him. He loves you and will always be with you. So, path-walkers, God is blessing you and preparing you for special journeys of hope. That’s great news! God bless you always and keep you safe. AMEN.
Art for the Altar/Worship Center
Cover the altar/worship center with green cloth so that it puddles to the ground. Place a 2’ wide and 2 yard long strip of fabric (monks cloth or canvas) on which have been drawn footprints. Place this panel in the center of the worship center/altar so that the feet are moving toward the cross. Use light weights to hold the cloth in place. Let it drape over the altar/worship center, onto the floor. At the end of the worship, during the Benediction, have two youth take the white panel and turn it around so that the footprints are coming from the cross into the congregation[
You may use white pillar candles and large leafy green plants on the back of the worship center/altar to complete the design. I have used large Boston ferns at the base of the worship center/altar to give it a finished look.
Scripture into Script
[This is an unusual way to present a Psalm, using a voice choir and interpretive dance. I recommend having about four people in the voice choir and three people in each of the dance groups. The choir and the dancers may be robed in choir robes or may way coordinating outfits of white tops and dark slacks/skirts. Dancers should be bare-footed or wearing solid color knee-high socks. The readers will need to practice. They need to be excited about the words, but not rush them as the dancers will be moving during their speaking time. This whole presentation should have several rehearsals in order to make sure that everyone knows what to do and when to do it.]
Choir: Give thanks to the Lord. Call upon his name. Make his deeds known to all the people.
Dance group 1: [As the above words are being spoken, do the following movements. Then freeze in place]. Take four steps down the aisle. Make a complete turn clockwise and then lift both arms up in the air facing the worship center/altar.
Choir: Sing to God! Sing praises to God! Dwell on God’s wondrous works!
Dance group 2: (follow the same directions as for group #1.]
Choir: Give praise to God’s holy name. Let the hearts rejoice of all those who are seeking the Lord.
Dance group #1: [lower your arms, slowly take four steps forward, as the above words are being spoken, raise your arms and swing them in a circle in front of you, then bring your hands across your chest in a prayer position (crossed) – freeze]
Choir: Pursue the Lord and God’s strength. Seek God’s face always!
Dance group #2: [follow the same directions as for group #1]
Choir: [Read slowly and deliberately – do not rush these because the dancers need time to get down the aisles and place themselves in front of the altar/worship center] Remember the wondrous works God has done, all God’s marvelous works and the justice God has declared. Praise the Lord!
Dance groups #1 and #2: As the words above are being spoken, do the following actions: Run toward the altar/worship center, positioning group #1 on the right side of the altar/worship center toward the front and group #2 on the left side of the altar toward the front. In unison, stretch your hands out to the congregation, palms up, slowly lower them. Make a sweeping movement and raise your arms up toward the ceiling and then bring your arms across your chest in a praying position, bowing your heads slightly. Pause and then leave the chancel and go down the sanctuary aisles to the back of the sanctuary.
Message Movers
My favorite poet, Robert Frost, in "The Road Not Taken," has offered these words. I have included the entire poem on an insert in your bulletin and will be making references to it as we go along.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could to where it bent in the under growth. Then took the other as just as fair, but having perhaps the better claim because it was grassy and wanted wear, though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same.”
Most of us can identify with the traveler’s dilemma. There are choices and differing directions placed before us many times in our lives. We stand at the junction where the roads split off and go in their own direction. In the beginning some of these roads seem too similar and we don’t know what to do. Other times we can see what is being presented. We stand there trying to decide what we should do and then take our first step on the road which appealed to us, our choice.
Mr. Frost noted that we “looked down one of the roads as far as we could”, then perhaps seeing nothing that particularly called out to us – we ventured forth on the second road, not really knowing where it would lead. And the journey holds surprises for us – some broken pavement, some dirt, some mud, some filled with obstacles, some sandy, some grassy – on and on it goes, presenting differing vistas, differing opportunities, differing lessons for us.
For Jesus’ disciples, this must have been the way things were. They decided to follow Jesus. They had been living their lives as best they could, but something was missing – something was broken. Jesus called them to come and become those who would bring the words that would capture the hearts of broken and alienated people, of arrogant and apathetic folks. And they followed, but not without encountering many hazards as well as opportunities to learn and serve.
What has it been like for you? Think about all the roads you have encountered and the decisions you have had to make. Most of you will feel pretty good about the decisions, believing them to be the right ones given all the information you had at hand at the time. And they were good decisions and you have stood by them. Good for you. That’s a blessing. But I find that there were times in my life when I stood at the crossroad and wondered what I should do and make a decision – but continued to wonder what things would have been like if I had followed the other path. Choices…….many choices seem to come to us…..little choices and monumental choices. What and whom should we follow? If left to our own devices, we wander helplessly around in circles. Jesus set his foot on the path – he kept his focus. One night he prayed to let things be different “Let this cup pass from me, O Lord”, and quickly followed it with a statement of commitment to the very end “Nevertheless, not my will but your will be done.” Peter, hearing Jesus’ statement about going to Jerusalem where he would suffer at the hands of the religious and secular authorities, tried to intervene, claiming that those things could not happen. Peter became an obstacle. He was frightened and he could see only the danger. Jesus saw his pain. “Get behind me, Satan” Not a nice thing to call Peter. This is the path set for Jesus – each disciple would have his/her own path. Jesus calls us to follow him. To be willing to place our trust in him – to take up the cross, face forward and focus on the glorious goal. Can you let go of the painful path you might be on? Can you take a step on the pathway of hope and salvation? It is your choice – it is always your choice.
“I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence. Two roads diverged in a wood and I……I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
God bless you all on your journeys. AMEN.