Sunday Hybrid Worship Service January 19, 2025, 10:00am

Hybrid Worship

Rev. Suzanna Bates

Music Director: Dorothy Dittrich

19 January 2025

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

Whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey,

you are welcome here!

Words For Worship

Words in bold italics, please say together

Prelude: A Little Prelude                                 Henry Purcell – (1659-1695)

Gathering

Acknowledgement of the Land

Call to Worship

God of miracles, we praise you.
You have turned water into wine!

The ordinary into the beautiful.
Scarcity into abundance.

Despair into confidence.

And you turn us once again into your people:

No one into Someone.
Scattered pieces into one Body.

Ordinary lives changed into worship. Alleluia!

Hymn: Never Ending Joy                                                       MV #40

Lighting the Candle

We celebrate love pouring out, life springing up, light shining round.

We light this candle to draw near to God and to one another.     

We are here. God is here.

This space is holy ground.

Prayers For Transformation

Long-awaited Jesus, bring us rest for our weary hearts, bring us peace for our troubled minds, and bring us joy at seeing your face.

We anticipate the wedding feast, 

the celebration of your presence, 

and our connection forever with you.

When our lives run dry, we rest in the hope that you will replenish us. We await the hour when you come and remake the world.

With patience at times and sometimes without it, 

we plead with you to transform our lives 

and provide what we can never provide for ourselves. 

We trust you to take the emptiness of religion 

and fill us with the richness of new creation in you. 

We surrender ourselves to your transforming power and your wisdom to make us into our whole selves, the people you made us to be.
With joy, we praise you for your wonderful power and grace, coming once to give us what we needed and coming again to make all things complete.
 
We place our trust in you. Help us also to believe in the glory you have revealed as we look expectantly toward the fullness of the future you bring. Come, God, come. Amen.
 

Hymn: Come Touch Our Hearts                                            MV #12

Prayers Before the Reading of Scripture

First Reading: Isaiah 62:1–5                             Reader: Susan Brockley

No longer called Desolate but now named Delight.    (NRSV, Updated Ed.)

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn and her salvation like a burning torch. The nations shall see your vindication and all the kings your glory and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of God will give. You shall be a beautiful crown in the hand of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her and your land Married, for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

This is the Word of God

We give thanks for this word today.

Gospel Reading                                                 Reader: Susan Brockley

As is your custom, please stand or sit for the reading of the gospel. 

God be with you. 

And also with you 

The Good News of Jesus the Christ according to John. 

Glory to you, Christ Jesus.

John 2:1–11                                                              (NRSV, Updated Ed.)

The Wedding in Cana.

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to me and to you?  My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the person in charge of the banquet.” So they took it. When the person in charge tasted the water that had become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), that person called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

This is the Gospel of Christ.

We give thanks for Good News today!

Word: Six Empty Jars

Hymn of Response: The Lord’s My Shepherd                   VU #747

Life & Work of the Church

Offering

Prayer of Dedication

Generous God, who turns water into wine and scarcity into abundance, we offer our gifts to you with grateful hearts. 

May these offerings be transformed, just as you transform our lives with your grace. Guide us to use these resources 

to meet the needs we see around us, to share your love, and to build your kingdom. Amen. 

The Prayers of the People                                           Paddy Waymark

Your Love Sustains Us,

            Hear our Prayers.

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come, your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins as we forgive those 

who sin against us.

Lead us not into temptation 

but deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power, 

and the glory are yours now and for ever.

Amen.

Hymn: My Love Colours Outside The Lines                      MV #138

Blessing & Sending

God who celebrates in abundance and joy,

Blesses us with our invitation!

Spirit who dances with grace and delight

Beckons us to join in.

Christ whose hands pour out generosity,

Bids us to open our hearts

The wine has been poured

and we have seen the abundance of grace,

This is our God:

and this is how our God lives.

Let us join the feast,

and continue the celebration.

Peace and joy be with you.

And also with you. 

Postlude: A Song of Joy                                        L. Fitzpatrick – (1960)

_______________

Water into Wine

Andrea Skevington

 

Those empty stone jars,
I see them – pale grey, with a film of dust, leaning
against the wall, overlooked,
disregarded as the wedding rolls on, music and dancing
and laughter sending tiny tremors through their hollowness.

Six of them, as empty as days can be, an emptiness
we know by taste, our dry mouths rimmed with fine powdered stone.

And this is where you began your work, with these empty jars.  
Had them filled with cool water – so far, so expected.
For purification, cleansing, the couple’s, the town’s, love and life,
as the wise look on, nodding, sure that they have your meaning.

Oh, how you delight in upending expectations, traditions.
What was drawn from these jars was not water for making pure,
but the red bubbling joy of good wine, poured and shared,
for the delight of all gathered, for the blessing of love, and union,
uproariously, and without fanfare.

After three days, this is the glory revealed, this is what it means
to be full of grace and truth, to have our days, our beings,
filled with water, only for it to poured out as fine vintage,
only for it to be transfigured, transformed, as wondrous
as the grapes on the vine, as wondrous as a day,
a life, so open to joy.