Home Worship for the week of May 10 – 6th Sunday after Easter
Morning Prayer: God You are the author of joy. You put new words in our mouths and new intentions in our hearts, especially a new understanding of power. Power shaped by love and righteousness, justice and mercy. We now know that power is not to be used to exploit or dominate, but to serve others as willingly as Jesus did. His life and death demonstrated how the love of power could be transformed by the power of love. We gather here today to celebrate Your rule of love in our hearts as we experience it in Jesus and through the enabling gift of the Holy Spirit. Amen. (Discipleship Ministries)
Opening Hymn: #75 All People That on Earth Do Dwell
- All people that on Earth do dwell, sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.
Him serve with mirth, His praise forth tell; come ye before Him and rejoice. - Know that the Lord is God indeed, without our aid He did us make;
We are His folk, He doth us feed, and for His sheep He doth us take. - O enter then His gates with praise; approach with joy His courts unto;
praise, laud, and bless His name always, for it is seemly so to do. - For why! the Lord our God is good; His mercy is forever sure;
His truth at all times firmly stood, and shall from age to age endure.
Psalm 100
100 Shout triumphantly to the Lord, all the earth!
2 Serve the Lord with celebration!
Come before Him with shouts of joy!
3 Know that the Lord is God—
He made us; we belong to Him.
We are His people,
the sheep of His own pasture.
4 Enter His gates with thanks;
enter His courtyards with praise!
Thank Him! Bless His name!
5 Because the Lord is good,
His loyal love lasts forever;
His faithfulness lasts generation after generation.
Prayers of Intercession: (CORE prayers, adapted) Let us join our hearts and voices together to bring our prayers to the Lord.
Gracious God, You sent Your son Jesus not to be served, but to serve. Shape our hearts to reflect Yours – humble, willing, and full of love. Let every task, whether it be great or small, be done as an offering to You.
May our service bring joy to others and fill us with joy and most importantly, have our service bring glory to Your name. Teach us to see each person as our neighbor, formed and beloved by You.
Thank You for the gifts You have given to each of us to deploy out into world. These gifts will foster healing, reconciliation, justice, and compassion. Remind us to encourage each other to employ them for Your glory.
Hear us as we lift to You the needs of this church, this community, and this world. Bring all of creation in line with Your divine mission of resurrection and new life in Jesus Your Son, who taught us to pray together by praying …
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: Looking forward to Miracle Sunday, May 17. Pastor Becky explained Sunday morning, there is little funding for training and educating pastors in Europe, Africa and The Philippines. A special offering will be dedicated on May 17 to support theological education.
Offering prayer: Joyful Giver of Every Good Gift, You call us to serve with glad hearts, to offer what we have with joy, and to love one another deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins. Receive these gifts as acts of praise. Use them to build up the body, to speak Your truth with grace, and to serve others with strength not our own. Let us give not out of duty but as joyful stewards of Your manifold grace, that in all things, through Christ, You may be glorified. In the name of the One who serves with us. Amen. (Discipleship Ministries)
Hymn of Preparation: #408 The Gift of Love
- Though I may speak with bravest fire, and have the gift to all inspire,
And have not love, my words are vain, as sounding brass, and hopeless gain.
- Though I may give all I possess, and striving so my love profess,
But not be given by love within, the profit soon turns strangely thin.
- Come, Spirit, come, and hearts control, our spirits long to be made whole.
Let inward love guide every deed; by this we worship, and are freed.
Scripture: Mark 10:42-45
42 Jesus called them over and said, “You know that the ones who are considered the rulers by the Gentiles show off their authority over them and their high-ranking officials order them around. 43 But that’s not the way it will be with you. Whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant. 44 Whoever wants to be first among you will be the slave of all, 45 for the Human One[a] didn’t come to be served but rather to serve and to give His life to liberate many people.”
Scripture: 1 Peter 4:8-11
8 Above all, show sincere love to each other, because love brings about the forgiveness of many sins. 9 Open your homes to each other without complaining. 10 And serve each other according to the gift each person has received, as good managers of God’s diverse gifts. 11 Whoever speaks should do so as those who speak God’s word. Whoever serves should do so from the strength that God furnishes. Do this so that in everything God may be honored through Jesus Christ. To Him be honor and power forever and always. Amen.
Message: Serve Joyfully Pastor Becky
I continue to point us to the Council of Bishops vision statement that we are pairing with the mission statement of the Church. The vision statement is how we are going to live out our mission statement. The mission statement of the United Methodist Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. The vision is the church forms disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections.
This week we look at serving joyfully.
We understand how to serve. We know how to do something for another. We see that as part of our identity. We serve our friends, our neighbors, our families. We do things for them. We could list all day long the things that we do for the benefit of others. Some things that we do in our ordinary lives are what I call the “just because” things, things like laundry and housekeeping, cooking. Those tasks that keep a household going.
There's also the polite social things we do, like holding doors for people, allowing traffic to merge. Letting someone else go first.
And then there are those things that we do to show deep devotion or care. It is the difference between making food and preparing a favorite meal. We send cards or texts of encouragement. We take on large tasks for our elderly neighbors. And care for the infirm.
We also know that serving includes the biblical mandate to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, and imprisoned, offer drink to those that are thirsty. We do those things with an emphasis towards serving the widow, the orphan and the foreigner. We are to always be prioritizing the care of the marginalized, those that are on the outside.
We understand serving. Yet do we understand or really equate and appreciates that serving each other is serving God. While someone else may benefit from our service that service is always deeply grounded in God.
This is where joy comes in. Joy is the celebration of who God is and what God does. Psalm 100:2 says, “Serve the Lord with celebration, come before Him with shouts of joy!” God delivers. God heals. God protects. God loves. God forgives, God restores. And because of all that God does and all of who God is we have joy. Because of the joy, it isn't out of obligation but celebration that we serve the Lord.
Frederick Buechner, an American Presbyterian minister, author, and theologian wrote, Phrases like Worship Service and Service of Worship are tautologies, saying the same thing twice in different words. To worship God means to serve God. Basically there are two ways to do it. One way is to do things for God that God needs to have done—run errands for God, carry messages for God, fight on God’s side, feed God’s lambs, and so on. The other way is to do things for God that you need to do—sing songs for God, create beautiful things for God, give things up for God, tell God what’s on your mind and in your heart, in general rejoice in God and make a fool of yourself for God the way lovers have always made fools of themselves for the one they love.
A Quaker meeting, a pontifical High Mass, the family service at Zion Episcopal, a Holy Roller happening—unless there is an element of joy and foolishness in the proceedings, the time would be better spent doing something useful. —Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking
Now I need you to see the difference between being foolish and being a fool. A fool is fully committed to the object of their affection. Being foolish is to place the attention upon ourselves. For us to get others to notice us with no regard for there being any focus on God. Being a fool for God directs the attention to God.
I hope that in that passage from Buechner, you heard the echo of 1 Peter 4:10, ”Serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.”
First and foremost, I need you to truly embrace, to truly know that each of you is a gift. A complete gift from God. Creation is not complete without you. God knows you, God knew you before you were formed, and God will know you when your journey on earth is done.
Our gifts – those abilities and talents you are imbued with are not just for you. They were given with the intent that you would share them with each other to serve the greater community: To use those gifts to build a fellowship of believers, create a community that reflects the caring of God. To enrich all of creation. Among us, there isn't anything we lack. God has provided, and we are sustained by the Holy Spirit to be the body of Christ, serving joyfully as we bring the Kingdom of God here.
* Preaching notes authored by Rev. Dr. Derek Weber, Director of Preaching Ministries, who served churches in Indiana, Arkansas, and the British Methodist Church. His PhD in preaching and media is from the University of Edinburgh. He has taught preaching in seminary and conference settings for more than twenty years.
Closing Hymn: #733 Marching to Zion
- Come, we that love the Lord, and let our joys be known;
Join in a song with sweet accord, join in a song with sweet accord,
And thus surround the throne, and thus surround the throne.
Refrain: We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion;
We’re marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God.
- Let those refuse to sing who never knew our God;
But children of the heavenly King, but children of the heavenly King,
May speak their joys abroad, may speak their joys abroad.
- The hill of Zion yields a thousand sacred sweets
Before we reach the heavenly fields, before we reach the heavenly fields,
Or walk the golden streets, or walk the golden streets.
- Then let our songs abound, and every tear be dry;
We’re marching through Emmanuel’s ground,
we’re marching through Emmanuel’s ground,
To fairer worlds on high, to fairer worlds on high.
The blessing: May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face shine upon you this week.
Go Now in Peace: Go now in peace. Never be afraid. God will go with you each hour of ev’ry day. Go now in faith, steadfast strong and true. Know He 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, watching from above. Go now in peace, in faith, and in love.
