For the week of November 6-12 – All Saints Sunday – 22nd week after Pentecost
Morning prayer: We seek and find You in Creation, O God, in the world You have made and the people You have called. Your vulnerable, powerful Lamb is our Shepherd and Guide, leading us to share the shelter of Your abundant life. Let us recognize You here in the beauty of this morning and in its challenge; may the Risen One, Your Shepherd-Lamb, lead us to act for Your justice and peace: so that all may drink from Your springs of the waters of life, and find their tears of sorrow and pain wiped away. In the name of the Risen One we pray: Amen.
Hymn: #62 All Creatures of Our God and King
- All creatures of our God and King, lift up your voice and with us sing,
O praise ye! Alleluia!
O brother sun with golden beam, O sister moon with silver gleam!
O praise ye! O praise ye! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! - O brother wind, air, clouds, and rain, by which all creatures ye sustain,
O praise ye! Alleluia!
Thou rising morn, in praise rejoice, ye lights of evening, find a voice!
O praise ye! O praise ye! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! - O sister water, flowing clear, make music for thy Lord to hear,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
O brother fire who lights the night, providing warmth, enhancing sight,
O praise ye! O praise ye! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! - Dear mother earth, who day by day unfoldest blessings on our way,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
The flowers and fruits that in thee grow, let them God's glory also show!
O praise ye! O praise ye! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! - All ye who are of tender heart, forgiving others, take your part,
O praise ye! Alleluia!
Ye who long pain and sorrow bear, praise God and on Him cast your care!
O praise ye! O praise ye! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! - And thou, our sister, gentle death, waiting to hush our latest breath,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou leadest home the child of God, and Christ our Lord the way has trod,
O praise ye! O praise ye! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! - Let all things their Creator bless, and worship Him in humbleness,
O praise ye! Alleluia!
Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son, and praise the Spirit, Three in One!
O praise ye! O praise ye! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
Job 19:23-27a
“O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last He will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
Children’s message 1 Corinthians 11:23-25
For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
Children’s Message
Today, we are looking at the ways God reminds of His love for us. Does the scripture we just read sound familiar to you? It should, even though it comes from the Apostle Paul, it is the retelling of Jesus’s conversation with His disciples at the last supper they had together before Jesus died on the cross. These words make up our sacrament of Holy Communion. It is the most practiced sacrament we have. It is very important especially for today as we remember those in our congregation who have died and now live with Jesus. The reason Jesus had this supper with His disciples and the reason why we celebrate communion today is to remind us of how very much God loves us and makes ways for us to feel and share that love. As we come to the table today, remember God loves you.
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: Giving thanks for those who have shaped our faith with their own, we offer praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, our God. May we forge a path with our gifts of time and money for those who come after us.
Offering prayer: God of truth and light, we come to You from our daily lives that are full of scams and tricks seeking to gain our confidence and steal and betray. In many ways, it makes us wary of opportunities to show compassion. Jesus has reminded us to trust in You and in Your truth that speaks not through phones or emails but directly to our hearts. As we give this morning as You have called us, may we do so with joy, not fear. We pray this in the name of Christ, who intercedes for us that we might know truth. Amen.
Hymn #707 Hymn of Promise
In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
- There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
There’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
- In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
Scripture Lesson Luke 20:27-38
Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Him (Jesus) and asked Him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now He is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to Him all of them are alive.”
Message: Pastor Becky Cuddeback
Today is All Saints Sunday. We recall and remember our loved ones in worship not as a dwelling in our loss, but in anticipation of continuing our lives together with those who have gone on in faith.
As we have made our way through the gospel of Luke, we have been focusing on our discipleship paths and how God desires for us to live out our faith. We are stepping back from that this morning just a bit, to be reminded of how we are in relationship with God.
The Sadducees came to Jesus, not unlike the Pharisees, the scribes, the lawyers and the rich, to ask Jesus a question. Their asking wasn’t to gain knowledge, but to discredit Jesus and His teachings. The topic they raised with Jesus in this encounter is that of the resurrection. Most observant Jews believed and continue to believe in the resurrection. It is a physical resurrection at the end of time when God will bring holy completion to time and life as we understand it. But the Sadducees do not believe in any kind of resurrection. They believe this life is it and we continue through lineage and through others' memories of us. This is really boiling down the point. It is a nuanced argument, but basically there are those that do believe in a resurrection of the dead and those that don’t.
When they come to Jesus, they frame their question in the law, in the adherence of Levirate marriage. The answer they want to know at face value is, who’s wife is she? Now, what they are really hoping for is to renounce resurrection, because the succession of dead, childless husbands is absurd. 7 dead husbands and 1 dead widow. It does sound like a legal mess to figure out who belongs to whom in the resurrection.
But Jesus doesn’t answer the question, He turns it on them and says the things of this world will not matter. The widow doesn’t need to belong to any of them, for in the age to come, marriage won’t be necessary. This comes to the Sadducees as revelation, but it is the truth we cling to, which is that God is not God of the dead, but of the living. To God and for God our lives are also eternal. What we see as death, God sees as a continuation. In our earthly lives and our eternal lives our relationship with God doesn’t change from God’s perspective.
God holds us the same on either side. God’s love, care, mercy, grace, forgiveness goes on, and it is seamless. God doesn’t love us more here or there. It is our relationship with God that transforms; for we see God as God truly is.
Those we call dead, or we say have died, are only seen that way by us – in our limited view and understanding. We are always alive to God, and that should bring us encouragement and strength because we all go on to live.
Closing Hymn: #701 When We All Get to Heaven
- Sing the wondrous love of Jesus; sing His mercy and His grace.
In the mansions bright and blessed He'll prepare for us a place.
Refrain:
When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be!
When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory!
- While we walk the pilgrim pathway, clouds will overspread the sky;
but when traveling days are over, not a shadow, not a sigh.
(Refrain) - Let us then be true and faithful, trusting, serving every day;
just one glimpse of Him in glory will the toils of life repay.
(Refrain) - Onward to the prize before us! Soon His beauty we'll behold;
soon the pearly gates will open; we shall tread the streets of gold.
(Refrain)
Go into your week with the blessings of The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit.
