For the week of June 23 – 5th Sunday after Pentecost
Morning Prayer: Holy God, we extol and honor You for who You are. We praise You for Your faithfulness and for Your tender mercies that are renewed every morning. We exalt You, Sovereign One, for every blessing of yesterday, the gift of this day, and the promises of our tomorrows.
Grant us an enduring faith as we strive against oppression and despair. Endow us with contagious joy that uplifts the downtrodden and inspires hope in You. Increase in us the faith and courage of the prophets, the love of Jesus, and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. In Your majestic name we pray, Amen.
Written by the Rev. Dr. Renee C. Jackson, Southeast Area Minister for the Michigan Conference, UCC, from “God of Awe and Glory.” Posted on the United Church of Christ’s Worship Ways website. http://www.ucc.org/worship_worship-ways. Re-posted on the re:Worship blog at https://re-worship.blogspot.com/search/label/Proper%208%20B.
Opening Hymn: #131 We Gather Together
- We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing;
He chastens and hastens His will to make known.
The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.
Sing praises to His name, He forgets not His own. - Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,
ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;
so from the beginning the fight we were winning;
thou, Lord, wast at our side, all glory be Thine! - We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,
and pray that Thou still our defender wilt be.
Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;
Thy name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!
Psalm 9:9-11, 16-20
9:9 The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.
9:10 And those who know Your name put their trust in You, for You, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek You.
9:11 Sing praises to the LORD, who dwells in Zion. Declare His deeds among the peoples.
9:16 The LORD has made Himself known, He has executed judgment; the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Higgaion. Selah
9:17 The wicked shall depart to Sheol, all the nations that forget God.
9:18 For the needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever.
9:19 Rise up, O LORD! Do not let mortals prevail; let the nations be judged before You.
9:20 Put them in fear, O LORD; let the nations know that they are only human. Selah
Children’s Time 2 Corinthians 6:1-13
As we work together with Him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For He says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return—I speak as to children—open wide your hearts also.
Children’s Message
The Apostle Paul gives us two really big lists. One list continues all the challenges he and his followers have faced for sharing God’s love, things like being physically hurt or being put in jail. The next list has all the blessings they have received from God in place of their mistreatment, things like patience, kindness and love. As Paul continues speaking to the Corinthians, he goes back and forth about the blessings and the curses. This is all to teach us about not accepting the grace of God in vain.
Grace in its broadest sense, its biggest definition is love. Sometimes, we describe it as mercy and other times as forgiveness. It is a gift God gives us. It allows us to live our lives to God’s glory. Now, we sometimes fail at doing the right thing or the good thing and God still loves us. God’s grace lets us reset ourselves so that we can begin again to do the right or good thing. This doesn’t mean that we can just go around doing the wrong thing all the time and there won’t be consequences for what we do. It means God is always giving us support to live God’s way.
We still need to ask forgiveness when we hurt someone or do the wrong, but grace means that God will always forgive us and draw us to God and God’s will. God also wants us to extend this grace to others, so they can have a reset with us when things go wrong. Let’s try to show grace to everyone we meet this week, especially when it is hard.
Prayers of Intercession: Thank You, Lord, for hearing our prayers for those dear to our hearts. We now pray as You have taught us: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us, not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Offering spotlight: In the past year, Mission Central served over 6.3 million people with over $17.4 million in resources!! They reach out to communities experiencing natural disasters with love and relief supplies.
Offering prayer: Gracious God, as we bring our offerings before You in this Pentecost season, we acknowledge the gift of Your grace, freely given and yet calling us to respond. Help us not to accept Your grace in vain, but to let it bear fruit in our lives and in our communities. May our actions reflect the transforming power of Your grace as we open our hearts to love, to vulnerability, and to relationship, trusting in the abundance of Your grace to guide us. Amen. (Discipleship Ministries)
Hymn of Preparation: #534 Be Still My Soul
- Be still, my soul: the Lord is on your side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
leave to your God to order and provide; in every change God faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: your best, your heavenly friend
through thorny ways leads to a joyful end. - Be still, my soul: your God will undertake to guide the future, as in ages past.
Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake; all now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
the Christ who ruled them while he dwelt below. - Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on when we shall be forever with the Lord,
when disappointment, grief, and fear are gone, sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past,
all safe and blessed we shall meet at last.
Message Scripture: Mark 4:35-41
On that day, when evening had come, He said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took Him with them in the boat, just as He was. Other boats were with Him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But He was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him up and said to Him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”
Message: Pastor Becky Cuddeback
The first thing we have to name is what this account is not. It isn’t an account of an orchestrated test of the disciples. Jesus didn’t pack them in the boat, cause the storm and then silence the storm just to see how the disciples would react. This isn’t a gotcha moment where Jesus disqualifies His disciples because of their lack of faith.
If this would have been the case, we wouldn’t even know the names of these first disciples. Jesus would have called replacements and would have continued replacing disciples until He got the right group. A group of faith-filled, ardent, and loyal disciples to place before us as examples of the right way to follow Jesus, the right way to be disciples. Disciples that would be without fear. A group that wouldn’t be afraid when life happens, when storms come, when age, illness and tragedy befall them. The problem is, those disciples would lack humanity or any real connection to humanity, or what it means to be human. And what we need are human disciples. Disciples with flaws and failings, not so we can excuse our humanity and our shortcomings.
We need them to be human so their questions mirror our questions. We can hear their questions and pair them with our questions. So we can borrow their leeway to explore and learn from our humanity with the same confidence Jesus’ first disciples had. A confidence of knowing their ignorance and fearfulness didn’t get them kicked off Jesus’s team. Jesus didn’t desert them to gather different or replacement disciples. Jesus invested His time and teachings in them and also in us. Jesus isn’t banishing us for asking questions. This should give us assurance of the depth of Jesus’s love for us and feed our desire to know Him more deeply. It should give us the space we need to grow in relationship with Jesus and His church.
In Mark’s account, the disciples ask two questions. One to Jesus- “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” Jesus doesn’t voice an answer. Yet, He responds with a resounding YES! He wakes and stills the storm. Jesus takes care of the immediate threat. He acts.
But the next question the disciples ask is the one we need to look more closely at. The disciples ask each other “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” Now, before we just sigh and answer, duh, it’s Jesus! How do we really answer that question?
We can answer that question in a multitude of ways.
We could rely on a doctrinal answer. We could point to Article II of our Articles of Religion found in our Book of Discipline. Article II reads:
“The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father, took man’s nature, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one person, never to be divided; where of is one Christ, very God and very man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile His Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of mankind.”
Or, we could look to credal answers, like that contained in the Apostles’ Creed:
“Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. On the third day He rose from the dead; ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the God, the Father Almighty from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”
We could answer by scripture:
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him and without Him not one thing came into being” John 1:1-3
Yet… these come up short. They are accurate and true, but lacking when we have to name who then this this? We have to be able to communicate who Jesus is for us and for the world. In those moments on the boat for the disciples, Jesus is Savior, helper, and stormkeeper. But who is Jesus for us?
This account in Mark encourages us to talk amongst ourselves. It instructs us to share our stories with one another. Where we have seen Jesus. How Jesus has changed our lives. It also releases us to speak our doubts, our inability to understand all that Jesus is and all Jesus does and all Jesus can be for the world.
For each of us, these answers will have similarities and differences. There will be a collection of what we have been taught and what we believe and proclaim. I would expect to hear Jesus called Son of God, Author of Salvation, Forgiver, Redeemer. Yet there is also a vastness as to how we have experienced those facets and there are facets just as valid that we have never experienced. And we get this vastness from speaking with each other about how we have experienced Jesus in our relationship to and with Him. What has transformed our lives and can shape the living out of our faith.
If we have experienced Jesus as healer, then as we embrace healing we offer healing. If Jesus is best relatable to you as champion of the oppressed because you have been liberated, maybe you see Jesus as justice and you find yourself wanting to decrease suffering. Doing works of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and the unhoused are close to your heart.
This account in scripture gives us permission to be in conversation with each other to discover the vastness of Jesus Christ. The conversations broaden perceptions and perspectives. It allows us to see Jesus through another’s eyes and how Jesus brings all of Himself to humanity. It is an invitation to the Kingdom. We are sharing with each other and our community the salvation we need today. Conversations remove what bars us from living fully with each other in the Kingdom Jesus ushered in at His appearance.
Talk to each other, ask each other – Who then is this? – So we might share Jesus, not out of duty or fear, but from genuine faith, so all may come to know, experience and love Jesus.
Closing Hymn: #277 Tell Me the Stories of Jesus
- Tell me the stories of Jesus I love to hear;
things I would ask Him to tell me if He were here:
scenes by the wayside, tales of the sea, stories of Jesus, tell them to me. - First let me hear how the children stood round His knee,
and I shall fancy His blessing resting on me;
words full of kindness, deeds full of grace, all in the lovelight of Jesus' face. - Into the city I'd follow the children's band,
waving a branch of the palm tree high in my hand;
one of His heralds, yes, I would sing loudest hosannas, "Jesus is King!"
Go into your week with the blessings of The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit.
