August 29th ~ 14th Sunday after Pentecost
Watch this service at www.graceunitedthornbury.ca/live
Leading us today in Worship:
Minister: Rev. Christine Smaller
Guest Musician: Saundra Lake
Lay Leader: Sandy Eagles
~ Leader: regular font ~ All: bold font ~ Sung words: bold italics
We Gather to Worship God
PRELUDE: Andante Tranquillo, Percy Whitlock
GREETING: (2 Cor: 13:13) (Lay Leader)
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
And also with you.
WELCOME:
CALL to WORSHIP:
Here, our Beloved speaks to us; the voice of our Beloved sounds in our hearts:
calling us to generous acts, to share the gifts we have been given.
Now, our Beloved speaks to us; the voice of our Beloved sounds in our land:
calling us to generous acts, to open our hearts to all in need.
In every place, in every moment, our Beloved speaks to us; the voice of our Beloved sounds in all creation:
calling us to generous acts, to stand with God's people: the least, the lost, the little, the last.
OPENING PRAYER:
Life-giving God: our praises spring up like flowers on a spring day; our songs of joy are lifted to you; our hearts overflow with your kindness and generosity. Beloved One: you look through the lattice of the world at our lives, our hearts, our souls. Speak to us this morning with tenderness and strength, And call us to come away from rigid legalism to lives of grace and hope. Amen
HYMN: VU 642 Be Thou My Vision
1. Be thou my vision, O joy of my heart;
naught be all else to me save that thou art,
thou my best thought, by day or by night,
waking or sleeping thy presence my light.
2. Be thou my wisdom, my calm in all strife;
I ever with thee, and thou in my life;
thou loving parent, thy child may I be,
thou in me dwelling, and I one with thee.
3. Be thou my battle shield, sword for the fight;
be thou me dignity, thou my delight,
thou my soul’s shelter, thou my high tower;
raise thou me heavenward, O power of my power.
4. Riches I heed not, nor vain empty praise,
thou mine inheritance, now and always;
thou and thou only, the first in my heart,
great God of heaven, my treasure thou art.
5. Great God of heaven, after victory won,
may I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O ruler of all.
PRAYER OF APPROACH:
Holy One of leaders and little children, we hear your words every day, yet find it difficult to live by them. Our impetuous tongues rush to judgment, while our words of hope sound like a sluggish soundtrack.
Gracious God may your mercy fall on us like a summer shower on parched grass; may your hope overflow our hearts; may your Beloved Child, Jesus Christ, speak to us and call us to life.
WORDS of ASSURANCE:
Listen and understand - the voice of the Beloved speaks to us, implanting the word of hope, the word of grace, and the word of forgiveness into our hearts.
We listen and understand. Every gift comes from God, especially the gifts of mercy and love.
Thanks be to God, we are forgiven. Amen
We Listen to God’s Word
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION: (Lay Reader)
Holy One, we know that you constantly breathe new life into every word of scripture. Help us hear the Living Word you desire to share with us today.
SCRIPTURE: First Reading: ( Lay Reader) Song of Solomon 2: 8-13 (NRSV)
The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice. My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
Psalm 45 VU 769 Refrain : God has blessed you forever and ever.
My heart overflows with a noble theme; I utter the song that I have made for the king, my tongue like the pen of a ready scribe.
You are the fairest, the most handsome; God endows your speach with grace; God has blessed you forever. Refrain : God has blessed you forever and ever.
Gird your sword on your thigh, O hero, in splendour and majesty.
In your majesty ride on to conquer In the cause of truth and justice.
Let your right hand teach by awesome deeds, arrows sharp in the heart of royal enemies.
The nations shall fall at your feet. Your divine throne endures forever.
Your royal sceptre is righteousness; you love right and hate what is wrong.
Your God has annointed you with more oil of gladness than all your peers.
All your garments are fragrant With myrrh, aloes and cassia.
Out of the ivory palaces stringed music makes you glad.
Refrain : God has blessed you forever and ever.
Second Reading : Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23 (NRSV) Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
RESPONSE: The word of God for the people of God.
Thanks be to God.
MUSICAL INTERLUDE: If With All Your Hearts - Mendelssohn SERMON:
HYMN: VU 489 When Love is Found and Hope Comes Home
1. When love is found and hope comes home,
sing and be glad that two are one,
When love explodes and fills the sky,
praise God, and share our Maker’s joy.
2. When love has flowered in trust and care,
build both each day, that love may dare
to reach beyond home’s warmth and light,
to serve and strive for truth and right.
3. When love is tried as loved-ones change,
hold still to hope, though all seems strange,
till ease returns and love grows wise
through listening ears and opened eyes.
4. When love is torn, and trust betrayed,
pray strength to love till torments fade,
till lovers keep no score of wrong,
but hear through pain love’s Easter song.
5. Praise God for love, praise God for life,
In age or youth, in calm or strife,
Lift up your hearts! Let love be fed
through death and life in broken bread.
We Respond to God’s Word
PROFESSION OF FAITH A New Creed
We are not alone, we live in God’s world.
We believe in God: who has created and is creating,
who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh,
to reconcile and make new,
who works in us and others by the Spirit.
We trust in God.
We are called to be the Church:
to celebrate God’s presence,
to live with respect in Creation,
to love and serve others,
to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus,
crucified and risen,
our judge and our hope.
In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us.
We are not alone. Thanks be to God.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE:
THE LORD’S PRAYER (Spoken, traditional words, VU 921) Our Father, who art in Heaven…
PASSING THE PEACE OF CHRIST The Peace of Christ be with you. And also with you.
We share the peace of Christ by typing in the chat box. You can also think of one person with whom you would like to share the peace of Christ.
Music while we share the Peace of Christ: Sheep May Safely Graze – Bach
Invitation to the Offering: We desire nourishing food, bodily safety, and access to resources for all beloveds because we know that our flourishing is bound up with one another’s. In the spirit of mutual wellbeing, let us bring forth our offerings that our bodies might rest in the care we offer one another. With an offering stone to honour all the ways we give, we dedicate our offering, and pray together:
Prayer of Dedication: Spirit of the Living Christ, we dedicate these offerings to the protection and the flourishing of the beloved community. Undo any inclination we have to hide from one other and instead equip us for creative and sustainable relationship-tending. In your compassion and radical name, we pray, amen.
A single stone placed in the offering plate honours all our gifts.
Ways to give:
Phone: 519-599-2438 or
Email: accounting@graceunitedthornbury.ca to arrange a cheque pick-up, or an e-transfer
Mail: Grace UC, 140 Bruce St. S. PO Box 219, Thornbury, ON N0H 2P0
Credit Card: www.graceunitedthornbury.ca, select “Give” More ways to give: Care, Prayer, Share
ANNOUNCEMENTS Join us by Zoom following this service for:
Coffee Hour The link was sent out by e-blast.
We Go Out to Share the Good News
CLOSING HYMN: VU 420 Go to the World
1. Go to the world! Go into all the earth.
Go preach the cross where Christ renews life’s worth, baptizing as the sign of our rebirth.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
2. Go to the world! Go into every place.
Go live the Word of God’s redeeming grace. Go seek God’s presence in each time and space.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
3. Go to the world! Go struggle, bless and pray;
the nights of tears give way to the joyous day. As servant Church, you follow Christ’s own way.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
4. Go to the world! Go as the ones I send,
for I am with you ‘til the age shall end, when all the hosts of glory cry “Amen!”
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
COMMISSIONING and BENEDICTION:
Arise, and let us go forth as God's people.
Look! God sends us forth with songs of love on our lips.
Arise, and let us go forth to serve beside Jesus.
Look! God stands, waiting for us to help tear down the barriers of injustice.
Arise, and let us go forth to join the generous Spirit.
Look! We will be doers as well as givers with our gifts.
SUNG BLESSING Go Now in Peace
Go now in peace. Never be afraid.
God will go with you each hour of every day.
Go now in faith, steadfast, strong and true,
Know God will guide you in all you do.
Go now in love, and show you believe.
Reach out to others so all the world can see.
God will be there, * within, around, above.
Go now in peace, in faith and in love.
Amen, amen, amen.
* alternate words: watching from above
POSTLUDE: Introduction and Fugato Dr. Cuthbert Harris
RESOURCES USED LITURGY SOURCES: The following are used with permission: - Affirmation of Faith: “A New Creed,” The United Church of Canada, General Council 1968, alt. 1998 -
Call to Worship: (c) Thom M. Shuman, Lectionary Liturgies, September 2, 2018 -
Opening Prayer: (c) Thom M. Shuman, Lectionary Liturgies, September 2, 2018 -
Prayer of Approach/Words of Assurance: (c) Thom M. Shuman, Lectionary Liturgies, September 2, 2018 -
Invitation to and Prayer of Dedication: © enfleshed, August 29, 2021 Liturgy -
Commissioning/Blessing: (c) Thom M. Shuman, Lectionary Liturgies, September 2, 2018 -
Prayers of the People: Rev. Christine Smaller
HYMNS and SUNG - Psalm response: Psalm 45 Refrain: Russian Orthodox Liturgy
- Be Thou My Vision. Words: Irish ca. 8th century, trans. Mary Elisabeth Byrne 1905; vers. Eleanor H. Hull 1912, alt. Music: Irish traditional melody. Used by permission One license: #608577
- When Love is Found and Hope Comes Home. Words: Brian Wren 1978, rev. 1994. Words copyright © 1983 Hope Publishing Co. Music: English folk melody, harm. John Weaver 1988. Used by permission One License # 608577
- Go to the World. Words: Sylvia Dunstan 1985. Music: Ralph Vaughan Williams 1906.Words copyright © 1991 G.I.A. Publications Inc. Music by permission Oxford University press. Used by Permission One License #608577
- “Go Now in Peace.” Words by Don Besig and Nancy Price. © 1988 Harold Flammer Music, Inc. Alternate words used with permission. Used by permission, One License, #608577.
SCRIPTURE PASSAGES: Scripture Passage from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission.
Prelude: Andante Tranquillo, Percy Whitlock
Musical Interlude: If With All Your Hearts. Mendelssohn
Music for Passing the Peace: Sheep May Safely Graze. Bach
Postlude: Introduction and Fugato, Dr. Cuthbert Harris All in public domain
