ORDER OF SERVICE FOR SUNDAY, AUGUST 8, 2021
ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Due to copyright limitations, we are unable to print the words to the songs. However, our musicians have chosen music to fit the scriptures. We invite you to look up the words in your worship book and ponder them. If you do not have a worship book, ponder the words to one of your favourite hymns and listen for God’s voice. Those who have internet may find the songs on YouTube.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
The goal is not to be delivered of your problem only but to be an instrument of God.
~Sunday Adelaja
BEFORE WE WORSHIP, WE REFLECT…
We don’t often talk about biblical “heroes” suffering from severe depression, but the description of Elijah entering the wilderness praying to die certainly points to that experience. The angel’s directive to “get up and eat” sounds simple, but anyone who has struggled with depression knows that those two “easy” physical acts can be extraordinarily difficult to accomplish. Jesus’ call to eat of “the bread that came down from heaven” can be just as difficult, spiritually speaking. Both experiences—mental health crisis and spiritual health crisis—can be hard for a community to acknowledge, especially in a culture that often assumes that having faith will make life easier.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Come. Come into the softness and love that is God.
Spirit, gently embrace us, receive our laments, our pain and our distress.
Our Creator calls us to come, to rest in moments of comfort and awe, declaring to each of us, speak.
Your voice is important to me.
Come into this time of worship. Come into the softness and love that is God.
~Jani Francis, St. Andrew’s U.C., Indian Head, SK
CHILDREN’S SONG WOV 754 Let Us Talents And Tongues Employ
CENTERING PRAYER
Gracious God, we gather before you to open our hearts. We struggle to be honest. We know the brokenness within us. Yet we are fearful of being open. We worry that people will think less of us. And yes, we worry that you will think less of us. Loving God, we ask: Listen to us. Be with us, even as we know you already are. Amen.
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.
CHILDREN’S CHAT
As a teenager, I babysat for a Jewish family. They had three children. I would go camping with them and help look after the children. It was nice for the parents because they could go out and have some time to themselves and not have to worry.
We had been camping for three weeks and I was feeling out of sorts. I wasn’t physically ill, I just felt, unsettled somehow, and couldn’t figure out why. It wasn’t until we were driving through a small, Ontario community, with a big church up on a hill, that I realized the source of my discombobulation. I had not worshipped in three weeks! I was used to worshipping every Sunday. I was used to my daily devotions and Bible reading. Camping had disrupted my routine, and I was feeling somewhat disconnected from God.
I mentioned this to the parents. I had told them about my feeling out of sorts and wanted to inform them that I had figured out my feelings. Mr. A. said that, had I let him know, he would have cheerfully taken me to a local church to worship. I said that it was ok. I wasn’t aware of the reason why until that moment. However, the situation did make me think.
Jesus says to the crowd, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” I understand what he means. Jesus is not saying that we will never hunger for him. In a way, I was hungry for Jesus because I had not been with a faith community for three weeks. What Jesus is saying is that when we keep a healthy relationship with him, when we worship together, our faith is fed.
What I am saying to you is that I hope you continue to attend worship and spend time with your faith family. It feeds your faith, and that is a wonderful thing!
MINUTE FOR MISSION
THANK YOU FOR BELIEVING: ARWA’S STORY
We all need someone who believes in us. Someone who supports our dreams. When you give to Mission & Service, you are that someone. Here’s one story of how your belief and support make all the difference.
Three years ago, Arwa was a Palestinian refugee who had just arrived in Montreal. She had made a harrowing journey, travelling from Saudi Arabia through New York City with three children in tow.
“It wasn’t easy for me. I was a single mom in a new country with new people. I was struggling for housing and looking for a job. It wasn’t easy at all,” she says.
Arwa sought help at Montreal City Mission, an outreach ministry your Mission & Service gifts support. There, her whole family found belonging. Arwa’s children made friends, and she benefitted from training programs and events.
It wasn’t long before Arwa gathered a group of women together to form a catering cooperative called Women Weaving Their Dreams, which specializes in homemade Middle Eastern meals. The group was going strong and the women were becoming more financially secure when COVID-19 struck.
No stranger to hardship, Arwa was determined to help others through the pandemic. She initiated a sewing circle to make masks. The group made over 500 masks a week and distributed them to homeless shelters and frontline workers. “I was so happy to help people,” says Arwa, whose extraordinary leadership skills landed her a full-time job at Montreal City Mission.
“I consider myself a lucky person that I got to know this organization. It has become not only my full-time job, not only my provider. It has become my home. I hope to see more and more women getting the same chance to have this better life for their families,” she says. “I wanted a country that could hold me and hug me my whole life long. I found it in Canada.”
Your gifts through Mission & Service don’t just support dozens of organizations like Montreal City Mission across the country. They also support people’s dreams for a better life—amazing people who make their communities and our country stronger.
Please give generously through Mission & Service. Show incredible community leaders like Arwa that you believe in them. Thank you for your support.
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION ~ Roxanne Williams, Gaetz Memorial U.C., Red Deer, AB
God of fresh starts and new beginnings, God of hope and promise, flesh and spirit entwined to become one with you through Jesus Christ: As heaven and earth connect, so, too, may we, through responding to your word. Increase our depth of understanding as we receive the words of scripture this day. God of eternal life, teach us to keep on the path of righteous living, which so many have travelled before. Amen.
Readings and Psalm
First Reading: 1 Kings 19:4-8
First Kings chapter 18 describes the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. The contest proves that the Lord is God, and afterward Elijah orders the killing of the Baal prophets. Angered by the deaths of her prophets, Queen Jezebel threatens to kill Elijah. This reading finds Elijah fleeing, fatigued, and in utter despair.
4 went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”
5Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.”
6He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again.
7The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.”
8He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.
Psalm 34:1-8
Taste and see that the Lord is good. (Ps. 34:8)
1I will bless the Lord at all times; the praise of God shall ever be in my mouth.
2I will glory in the Lord; let the lowly hear and rejoice.
3Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord; let us exalt God’s name together.
4I sought the Lord, who answered me and delivered me from all my terrors. R
5Look upon the Lord and be radiant, and let not your faces be ashamed.
6I called in my affliction, and the Lord heard me and saved me from all my troubles.
7The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear the Lord and delivers them.
8Taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are they who take refuge in God! R
Second Reading: Ephesians 4:25–5:2
Christians are called to be imitators of God. This does not mean Christians are perfect. Rather, the Spirit is at work in our lives so that our actions and attitudes genuinely reflect the love and forgiveness we have received through Christ and his death.
25So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.
26Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,
27and do not make room for the devil.
28Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.
29Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.
30And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption.
away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice,
32and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. 5:1Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children,
2and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Gospel: John 6:35, 41-51
After feeding more than five thousand people in the wilderness, Jesus teaches them regarding the true significance of this remarkable sign.
35Jesus said to “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
41Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”
42They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
43Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves.
44No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.
45It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.
46Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.
47Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.
48I am the bread of life.
49Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
50This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
SERMON:
What is progress? How do you measure it? Well, one of the most efficient ways to measure progress is to look back at where you were, and compare the past to where you are now. If nothing has changed, then the prognosis is that progress has not occurred, and that maybe complacency has set in. Conversely, if the situation is worse, then the prognosis is that regression has occurred.
I look at the second lesson for today, “Do not grieve the holy spirit of god, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption”, and I hear God’s pain – pain at watching the suffering we cause one another as we sit in the dark in sin. Then I read, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you”, and I think, “Nice in theory, God, but in practice?”
As I connect this reading with the first, I wonder if it isn’t time that the church world-wide examine itself and see how far it has matured, grown, opened itself to the power of the Spirit–progressed–if you will, in its faith.
Christians over the centuries have not been held in high regard by the rest of the world. We have created a very poor reputation for ourselves. For a people who proclaim the inclusive love of God, justice, patience, forgiveness, tolerance–which composes the gospel of Christ– we are some of the most exclusive, prejudiced, impatient, unforgiving and intolerant people on the face of this planet!!! No wonder people are turned off by the church!!
Much pain, torture and damage has been done over the centuries, by Christians, in the name of Christ. Witness the crusades. It wasn’t good enough that Jerusalem be won back from the “heathens”, but the Jewish people, the chosen ones of God, the ancestors of Christ, were put to the sword as well. Observe the Spanish Inquisition, otherwise known as ‘conversion by fear’. If people did not convert to Christianity they were killed. Then came Hitler, the KKK, Arian nations and others. In our own back yard, we have the atrocities of the residential schools – the Canadian government’s own attempts at genocide of Canada’s indigenous peoples and the 60’s scoop.
The world operates on a thought process of “do unto others before they do unto you”, or manipulation, “If I want to get something from someone then I have to be nice to them.” The world functions with an “If…then” mentality. Christians, however, are called to think and act differently. The writer of Ephesians says, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Christians are called to live with a “Because…we are” mentality. Because we are loved we are a loving people. Because we are forgiven, we are a forgiving people. Because God has been merciful to us, we are merciful to others.
Look at Elijah. I receive great comfort from Elijah for he, like me, gets fearful, loses trust, gives up. Thankfully, like me, he also gets back up!
The first part of this story is the burning up of the two altars. Elijah wants to prove to the worshipers of Baal that God is the God of all, not Baal. A contest is held in which Almighty God burns up Elijah’s altar and the altar of Baal. The people of Israel realize that they have strayed from God, repent and are shown mercy by God. Elijah then has the over 400 prophets of Baal killed. Throughout this situation, Elijah has functioned as a pillar of faith. He has placed all his trust in God and has not wavered. Now, however, faced with the woman Jezebel, he cowers. The threat of this one woman is enough to make Elijah run a day’s journey into the desert, lay down and hope to die. “I am no better than my forebears”, he says. “Just let me die so that I might end my misery. I am a failure.”
And what does God do? God gives Elijah food and drink so that he may carry on with his proclaiming the goodness of God. Elijah may give up on God, he even gives up on himself, yet God never gives up on Elijah. God never gives up on us. Like Elijah, God sustains us in our pain, gives us strength to carry on, face the fear, face the pain, maybe even face death. While Elijah was given real bread and water, we have been given Christ. The power of Christ’s Spirit will last much longer than ordinary bread and water. Anyone who has gone through periods of pain and doubt, a loss of faith and hopelessness, and, by the grace of God working through others, has either overcome or found the strength to continue will be able to identify with Elijah. The love of God never stops for us. Never.
There was a bumper sticker, years ago, that read, “Christians are not perfect, just forgiven”, which is true, but for me this creates some concern. This could easily be misinterpreted by some to mean “We can do what we want, God will forgive us.” I am guessing we all have met at least one person in our lives who has operated with this mentality. If, as it says in Ephesians, that Christ is our role model, then let us look at how Christ related to people.
Jesus challenged people to look at themselves. He called them to account when they held on to grudges, manipulated others, ignored those in need. As imitators of Christ, we are called to do the same with one another. Sadly, what can happen is that this calling to account becomes a judgment session. This doesn’t help either, so, what do we do?
Back to Elijah. When he finally stopped running, he fell down from exhaustion. Before falling asleep, in faith, Elijah confesses his failure to God. Heartfelt confession and placing oneself in the hands of God is a healthy way to maintain a close relationship with the Almighty. Notice: Elijah requested death. God gave him food and drink to preserve his life. He had a calling, and God was not going to let him give up. Elijah carried on with his ministry for 40 days and nights on the energy of that God-given food.
Jesus knew that every person he met was carrying some sort of burden. They may have hidden it from the rest of the world, but their soul hurt. Jesus wants us to understand this too. Many would choose death. Many have taken their own lives. This is not what God desires. God desires that we have life and have it abundantly. Sometimes it takes angels in disguise to remind us of that. In today’s God language it means that sometimes it takes people from within our community of faith, friends within the congregation, to help us walk through the valley of the shadow of death to the light of the Son on the other side.
God never leaves. God heals and renews. God listens to our fear, anguish, self-loathing, our desire for God’s embrace. God responds with the body of Christ. God responds with Christ’s church; imperfect and made perfect at the same time. This is us, people! Christ’s presence to each other and the world. Eat, drink and rest so that you may be renewed for service in the love of Christ. Amen.
SONG OF THE DAY VU 663 My Faith Looks Up To Thee
PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION
Rooted in Christ and sustained by the Spirit, we offer our prayers for the church, the world, and all of creation.
For the church of Christ in all its diverse forms. For mission developers, new mission starts, and all communities of faith exploring new models of ministry for the sake of the gospel. For congregations facing difficult decisions about their future.
God, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
For the health and well-being of creation. For shade trees that provide refuge from the hot summer sun. For lakes, rivers, and oceans contaminated by pollution and all who lack clean water.
God, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
For those called to positions of authority in our legal system, we pray. For judges, lawyers, law clerks, and court employees who ensure the fair administration of justice. For corrections officers and prison chaplains, that they would deal mercifully with those who are incarcerated.
God, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
For all who cry out to you in their affliction. For exiles, refugees, and others who face long and difficult journeys, uncertain about the future. For all who mourn the death of a loved one. For all who are sick in body, mind and spirit, our family members, friends and community members – Mike Froese, Brooke Alexiuk, Dwayne, Tracy Skoglund, Matthew Grossman, Lorraine & Walter Pokrant.
God, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
For this assembly gathered around your table, we pray. For those among us who bake bread and prepare the vessels for our communion celebration. For those who bring the food from this table to those who are homebound or hospitalized.
God, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
For those who have been raised to eternal life, we give thanks. With all the saints we praise you for the bread of life that keeps us in your love forever.
God, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
We lift these and all our prayers to you, O God, confident in the promise of your saving love; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
THE LORD’S PRAYER
SENDING SONG WOV 722 Hallelujah! We Sing Your Praises
BENEDICTION
And now may the blessing of a second chance, the deepening awareness of God’s presence within and all around, the strength that comes through faith and the abundance of God’s love shared with others be with each of us, as we leave this time of worship to be a blessing in all the places life calls us to be. Go in love, for you are loved. Amen.