Home Church 18th Sunday after Pentecost October 4, 2020 Rev. Karen Hollis

Home Church 18th Sunday after Pentecost October 4, 2020 Rev. Karen Hollis

We acknowledge these lands upon which we worship are the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw First Nation.

Preparing the Space Around Us

Whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here! Welcome if you are gathering on zoom or if you are worshipping at home with the bulletin. We are one community and all part of the body of Christ. I invite you to prepare the space around you

so that for the next hour you can be fully in this worship experience, not to keep out the realities of the world, rather to focus us in the midst of it all on God. If you need to go and get something or shift something around you, feel free.

Preparing the Space within Us

We are currently in the Season of Creation that is observed both by the United and Anglican churches. This is a time to reflect on creation and our relationship with it. Our worship during these 5 weeks is be based mostly on Earth Gospel by Sam Hamilton Poore, which outlines a

4 week series of daily readings, reflections, and blessings on this topic. We are observing the following themes: Creation, Wisdom, Humankind’s Vocation, Sin and God’s Recreation, and Sabbath. Now let us prepare the space within us for a time of worship. I invite you to sit quietly, perhaps with feet on the floor, taking a couple of deep breaths and bring yourself into this moment. Open yourself to the presence of God who is with us and within us . . . as you intentionally open yourself to God, open yourself also to what you need from this time of worship.

Opening Words   Kate Compston

How

can we sing a new song from

the valley of shards?

We are broken vessels

in a fissured land, indeed

we can hear

the parchment earth crack open

beneath our feet even

as we speak.

What

can we do except

sing songs of protest, lamentation, hope

from split and bleeding lips

in the valley of splintered dreams?

What, except believe

that earth, like a fragile egg

cracks open to expose

new quiverings of life?

Opening Prayer     Iona Community

There is no pain in our hearts or in our planet

that you do not know,

for you have touched the lowest places on earth.

Teach us to grieve with you, O Christ,

the loss of all the beauty that is being killed.

There is no place in the heavens

that cannot be touched by your resurrection presence,

for you fill all things.

Give us strength in your victory over death

to grow into your way of love,

which does not despair but keeps sowing seeds of hope

and making signs of wholeness.

Under Christ’s control

all the different parts of the body fit together

and the whole body is held together

by every joint with which it is provided.

Teach us to know our interconnectedness with all things.

Teach us to grow with each other

and all living creatures through love. Amen

First Reading: Deuteronomy 11:13-17               JPS Tanakh           (Alie Lee)

Listen for the word of God to you this morning . . .

If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving the Lord you God and serving Him with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late. You shall gather in your new grain and wine and oil – I will also provide grass in the fields for your cattle – and thus you shall eat your fill. Take care not to be lured away to serve other gods and bow to them. For the Lord’s anger will flare up against you, and He will shut up the skies so that there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its produce, and you will soon perish from the good land that the Lord is assigning to you.

Silence

Prayer  Rubem Alves

Lord: Help us to see in the groaning of creation

not death throes but birth pangs;

help us to see in suffering a promise for the future,

because it is a cry against the inhumanity of the present.

Help us to glimpse in protest the dawn of justice,

in the Cross the pathway to resurrection,

and in suffering the seeds of joy.

 

Second Reading: Hosea 4:1-3                  Robert Alter           (Susan Brockley)

Hear the word of the Lord, O Israelites,

       for the Lord has a brief

              against the dwellers of the land.

For there is no truth and there is no trust

       and there is no knowledge of the Lord in the land.

Falsely swear and murder

       and steal and commit adultery.

              They burst bonds – and blood spills upon blood.

Therefore the land does languish,

       and all those dwelling within it are bleak

With the beasts of the field and the fowl of the heavens

       and with the fish of the sea, too – they shall perish.

Prayer of Confession                                  

Help me to accept responsibility for the ways I turn from you:

the ways in which I abuse your creation;

my role, both active and passive,

in marring your image in myself,

other people, and the earth.

It is often easier to get swept up in the culture

than to stand on your teachings

and consider the impact of my actions.

Teach me how to live well with creation.

Lord have mercy

Christ have mercy

Lord have mercy

 Silent Prayer of Confession

Hymn: Spirit of the Living God   VU #376

Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.

Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.

Melt me, mould me, fill me, us me.

Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me.

 

Spirit of the Living God, move among us all;

make us one in heart and mind, make us one in love:

humble, caring, selfless, sharing

Spirit of the Living God, fill our lives with love!

 

Assurance of Grace

Within the economy of God’s grace,

nothing is ever wasted

and no one thrown away.

May you entrust yourself

and God’s creation

to the power and peace

of Christ’s recycling love.

 

Epistle Reading: Colossians 1:15-20                NRSV          (Susan Brockley)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Reflection:   Rev Karen (see attached)                               

Silent Reflection

Prayers of the People    Betty Schultze (see attached)  

One:    Loving God,

All:      Hear Our Prayer

 

Lord’s Prayer                                          New Zealand Prayer Book – Jim Cotter

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all,        Loving God, in whom is heaven: The hallowing of your name echo through the universe! The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world! Your heavenly will be done by all created beings! Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come one earth. With the bread we need for today, feed us. in the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. In times of temptation and test, strengthen us. From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us. For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever. Amen

Peace of Christ

Christ is with us and in the space between us. 

Let us share the peace he brings!

              The Peace of Christ be with you!

              And also with you!

 

Offering    Owen McCooey

Let us pray . . . God, you created us in your image and filled us with the breath of life. We reflect back to you the vibrant diversity in which you delight. We are grateful for your love and feel the embrace of your welcome. Continue to shape us, O God into a place of radical hospitality in your name, and may all who seek a place to belong, find one in you. Amen.

Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to God from generation to generation, in the Church and in Christ Jesus, for ever and ever. Amen.

Blessing

If you are with another person, you’re invited to bless each other, taking every other line.

One:      The Creator’s blessing be yours on your road, on your journey,    guiding you, cherishing you.

A-M:      The Son’s blessing be yours, wine and water, bread and stories, feeding you, challenging you.

N-Z:       The Spirit’s blessing be yours, wind and fire, joy and wisdom,       comforting you, disturbing you.

All:        The Angel’s blessing be yours, on your house, on your living, guarding you, encouraging you. Let us walk together, a community on a journey, sustained in God’s blessing. Amen!

One:      Let us go now in peace to love and serve the Lord.

All:        Thanks be to God! Alleluia!