GATHERING THE PEOPLE
Welcome and Announcements (Sue)
Good morning and welcome to Engadine Uniting Church. We are called by God to be a caring community of Jesus’ disciples and so we.welcome all who wish to share in the fellowship, membership, leadership, worship, ministry, sacraments, rites, responsibilities and blessings of our faith community. As we affirm that every person is a child of God, no one is excluded, regardless of race, ethnic or socio-economic background, marital status, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental ability, nationality, or faith background. All are welcome here!
Acknowledgement of country
We acknowledge that the First Peoples of this land had already encountered the Creator God before the arrival of the colonisers, and that the Spirit was already in the land revealing God to the people through law, custom and ceremony. We recognise the continued ministry of First Peoples within the church, and their continuing connection to their land and living cultures. We acknowledge the ways in which we, the church, have been and continue to be complicit in the oppression of first peoples.
All: In doing so, we recommit to the path of reconciliation and justice that God lays before us
Lighting of the Christ Candle
Today we celebrate God beyond, beside and within us.
We celebrate the light of the world that guides us in the way, the truth and the life has not been overcome by darkness.
We celebrate: the Spirit that renews life, joy, and possibilities.
We symbolise this in the lighting the candle
Eternal and near at hand, already and not yet:
move in our hearts, and draw us deeper into the mystery of your being. Amen
Call to worship
Oh, give thanks to the Holy One, for God is good;
God’s loving kindness endures forever.
People of God, come, sing your praise,
rejoice, for God is good!
Prayer Of Invocation/Welcome
Holy One, come among us again,
come, feed us with your love;
quench our thirst with your wisdom.
Holy One of wondrous works to all on earth;
come, listen to our prayers and our singing. Amen.
Hymn: Loving Spirit (Together in Song)
Loving Spirit loving Spirit
You have chosen me to be
You have drawn me to Your wonder
You have set Your sign on me
Like a mother you enfold me
Hold my life within Your own
Feed me with Your very body
Form me of your flesh and bone
Like a father you protect me
Teach me the discerning eye
Hoist me up upon your shoulder
Let me see the world from high
Friend and lover in your closeness
I am known and held and blessed
In Your promise is my comfort
In Your presence I may rest
Loving Spirit loving Spirit
You have chosen me to be
You have drawn me to Your wonder
You have set Your sign on me
Praise and thanksgiving, based on Psalm 107
Let us give praise with the psalmist who declares,
O give thanks to God, for God is good;
for God’s steadfast love endures forever.
Let the redeemed of God say so, those God gathered in from the lands,
from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.
Some wandered in desert wastes, hungry and thirsty,
their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to God in their trouble,
and God delivered them from their distress;
God led them by a straight way, until they reached an inhabited town.
Let us thank God for steadfast love, for wonderful works to us.
The thirsty will be satisfied and the hungry filled with good things.
Let those who are wise give heed to these things,
and consider the steadfast love of the Lord.
O give thanks to God, for God is good;
God’s steadfast love endures forever.
Prayer of adoration and confession
We seek to hang on to what we can see;
we feel safe and secure,
believe we are free.
silence
What if we turned our hearts
to the riches You hold?
What freedom is there
to be found, to be told?!
silence
Assurance/Affirmation
Blessed are those that hear the word of God and obey it!
Hear this word: be at peace.
Receive God’s peace and live it!
HEARING THE WORD
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-34
Item Homelessness Week: slides then video from Wayside Chapel (see below for talk and video)
Hymn/Song: You, Lord, Are Both Lamb and Shepherd (tune: Picardy)
Christus Paradox
You, Lord, are both Lamb and Shepherd.
You, Lord, are both prince and slave.
You, peacemaker and sword-bringer
Of the way you took and gave.
You the everlasting instant;
You, whom we both scorn and crave.
Clothed in light upon the mountain,
Stripped of might upon the cross,
Shining in eternal glory,
Beggar’d by a soldier’s toss,
You, the everlasting instant;
You, who are both gift and cost.
You, who walk each day beside us,
Sit in power at God’s side.
You, who preach a way that’s narrow,
Have a love that reaches wide.
You, the everlasting instant;
You, who are our pilgrim guide.
Worthy is our earthly Jesus!
Worthy is our cosmic Christ!
Worthy your defeat and vict’ry.
Worthy still your peace and strife.
You, the everlasting instant;
You, who are our death and life.
Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.
You, who are our death and our life.
Sermon (John) Jesus: dreamer, utopian, or rational economist? (Sermon from 16.02; Homelessness Week talk and Wayside Chapel video from 1.45)
RESPONDING TO THE WORD
Hymn/Song: “Spirit Of Jesus, If I Love My Neighbour” (Tune: O Perfect Love)
Spirit of Jesus, if I love my neighbour out of my knowledge, leisure, power or wealth
Help me to understand the shame and anger of helplessness that hates my power to help
And if when I have answered need with kindness my neighbour rises – wakened from despair
Keep me from flinching when the cry for justice requires of me the changes that I fear
If I am hugging safety or possessions uncurl my spirit as your love prevails
To join my neighbours’ work for liberation and find my freedom at the mark of nails
Collection
We who have enough, and more, are pleased to share with those in need.
Let us pray: Holy One, we pray that all would have enough,
and when we find that we have more, we pray we have generous hearts and hands to give.
Bless what we have to share today, and may our love, if not our money,
bring treasures of peace and healing to those that need it.
Amen.
Prayers of the people (Jan)
Hymn/Song: “Christ within Us”
Christ, within us, hidden.
Christ, in all and each.
Christ, who comes unbidden.
Christ within our reach.
Christ, born in a stable.
Christ, our daily bread.
Christ, our host at table.
Christ, the hungry fed.
Christ, in friendship’s sharing.
Christ, in stranger’s face.
Christ, reborn in caring.
Christ, in love’s embrace.
Christ, in bodies broken,
Love new-crucified.
Christ, the Word new spoken,
Death by life defied.
Christ, in love recovered.
Christ, in hope revealed.
Christ, in faith discovered.
Christ, in tombs unsealed.
Christ, who comes unbidden.
Christ within our reach.
Christ, within us, hidden.
Christ, in all and each.
Words by S. Curtis Tufts. Copyright © 2005
Benediction
May the love of God fill your days; May the grace of God fill your mouth.
May the peace of God be with you always. Amen
Benediction Song: Archie Roach song:
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