You can watch the bible readings and part of the service here, or scroll down to read the rest of the Sunday prayers and content, and watch this video at the point it occurs during worship.
GATHERING THE PEOPLE
Welcome and Announcements
God loves and accepts us just as we are. Engadine Uniting seeks to be a safe place for all people to gather regardless of age, ability, sexuality, or culture. We gather today accepting each other in our diversity to seek love and joy in the presence of God. Know that you are loved and that your presence here this morning both enriches each one of us and our worship time together. A special welcome to our friends on zoom and to anyone visiting us this morning.
Acknowledgement of country
Leader: 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
Call to worship
Come all you people, whoever you are, whatever your story, there’s a place for you here just as you are, warts and all. Love is near; Jesus is here. Let us worship with glad hearts.
Prayer Of Welcome
Come, Spring of Hope, Fountain of Love. Refresh us with your words to us. Renew us with your presence. Be with us, we pray.
Hymn/Song: Come, O God of all the earth (Marty Haugen)
Come, O God of all the earth; come to us, O Righteous One. Come and bring our love to birth; in the glory of your Son.
Chorus: Sing out, earth and skies! Sing of the God who loves you. Raise your joyful cries, Dance to the life around you.
Come, O God of wind and flame; fill the earth with righteousness. Teach us all to sing your name; may our lives your love confess. (Chorus)
Come, O God of flashing light; twinkling star and burning sun. God of day and God of night; in your light we all are one. (Chorus)
Come, O Justice, come, O Peace; come and shape our hearts anew. Come and make oppression cease; bring us all to life in you. (Chorus) Composer: Marty Haugen (1985)
Prayer of adoration and confession
O God, when we fall to pieces and cry out,
you are the one who takes up our cause!
You hear our stories of struggle and meet them with kindness,
your loving ways lead us back to life, out of our sackcloth and into vibrant colour once again.
And then something beautiful rises within us, something that matches our experience of goodness—
a spirit of gratitude and songs of praise!
Even the terrible dancers among us find ourselves on our feet, praising and celebrating, telling everyone how wonderful you are. O God, spectacular God, we can’t thank you enough. Jesus restores and renews us and ensures that we know we are not our mistakes or failures. Falling short does not disqualify us.
Jesus meets with us, forgives us, and frees us to live wholeheartedly, allowing us to start again. You are forgiven. You are a beloved child of God. Thanks be to God.
HEARING THE WORD
Readings (Karen)
Let us pray: God, please open our ears and minds and hearts so that as we hear the words of the Bible, you will speak to us and bring us new life.
The first reading is from John 20:19-23, from the New Revised Standard Version.
19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
The second reading is from Acts 2:1-4 and verses 42-47
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds[a] to all, as any had need.
46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Reader: Through these readings we hear God speak.
All: Thank you, God, for your words of life.
Hymn/Song: Would I have answered when you called (Herman G. Stuempfle, Jr., Roy Hopp)
Would I have answered when you called, “Come, follow, follow me!”? Would I at once have left behind both work and family?
Or would the old, familiar round have held me by its claim and kept the spark within my heart From bursting into flame?
Would I have followed where you led through ancient Galilee, On roads unknown, by ways untried, beyond security?
Or would I soon have hurried back where home and comfort drew, Where truth you taught would not disturb The ordered world I knew?
Would I have matched my step with yours when crowds cried, “”Crucify!”” When on a rocky hill I saw a cross against the sky?
Or would I too have slipped away and left you there alone, A dying king with crown of thorns upon a terrible throne?
O Christ, I cannot search my heart through all its tangled ways, Nor can I with a certain mind my steadfastness appraise.
I only pray that when you call, “Come, follow, follow me!” You’ll give me strength beyond my own to follow faithfully.
Sermon John M: May the breath of God be with you
RESPONDING TO THE WORD
Offertory prayer (Karen)
God calls us and gives us great responsibility to care for others and to encourage others. May all that we have, O God, and all that we are be used by you. May this money be a part of people experiencing your love. Amen.
Prayers of the people (Karen)
Let us join together in saying this Celtic version of the Lord’s Prayer together, by J Phillip Newell of the Iona community:
Holy One beyond all names
Eternal Wellspring
May love rise again in us today
With food for every table
Shelter for every family
And reverence for every life.
Forgive us our failings in love
And free us from all falseness
That the light of our souls may shine
And the strength of our spirits endure
For Earth and all its people
This day, tonight, and forever. Amen
Communion Hymn: When at this table I receive a blessing (Shirley Murray)
When at this table I receive a blessing, the broken bread, the wine of life for me, then let me share the peace with you, my neighbor, and let the Spirit set our spirits free.
If at this table I have need of healing, unbidden grief, relationship gone wrong, then let me know the hands of God enfolding, and let lament become believing song.
If at this table I forget the hungry, the dispossessed and warfare’s spreading stain, then let this bread become the bread of judgment, this wine the sharp awareness of that pain.
If at this table I make dedication to give my life in serving what is good, then let my center be where God invites me, and show the words of Jesus understood.
What faith I have, I bring to join this table, what hope I hold, in Christ is taught and true; with those around us, I will share the blessing, the feast where God is making all things new.
CCLI Song # 5308912 Jane Manton Marshall | Shirley Erena Murray © Words: 2004 Murray, Shirley Erena; Music: 2004, 2005 Hope Publishing Company For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com CCLI License # 31951
Holy Communion: Paul
The Peace of the Lord be with you
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts
We lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
Who is this Jesus? In the homes of Peter & Jairus, Martha & Susanna. He was always the guest. At the meal tables of the wealthy, where he pled the case of the poor and the powerless. He was always the guest. Upsetting polite company, befriending marginalised people welcoming the stranger and outcast. He was always the guest. But here, at this table, he is Host. Those who wish to serve him, must first be served by him. Those who want to follow him, must first be fed by him.
For this is the table where God intends us to be nourished; this is the time when God can make us new. So come, you who are hungry and thirst for a deeper faith for a better world, for a life of justice. Jesus Christ, who sat at our tables, now invites us to be his guests.
Let us then respond to his invitation with the words of the eternal hymn:
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of your glory, Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!
Prayer of Invocation
The bread we break Is a sharing in the body of Christ.
The cup we take Is a sharing in the blood of Christ.
The gifts of God For the People of God.
DISTRIBUTION
Closing Prayer
Benediction
People of God, The love and grace of God attend us, unravelling the grip that shame has upon us and strengthening the hope that is within us. As you go from this place, know that your own worthiness rests outside the bounds of performance.
It rests instead in the affection of our God, who is for us, in Christ, who is with us, and in the freedom-bringing Spirit of God which is in us. Go, care for others and feed others with the grace you have experienced. Go in peace. Amen.
Benediction Song: For you, deep stillness (once only)
A prayer for the church
When I think, my God, about what I want the church to be –
how I want the church to be known – it’s as a community of people telling a different story, and trying the best they can to live into that different story.
I would love the church to be thought of as a place where people are loved; where people are safe.
I want people not so much to be impressed with a sanctuary that a church has, as much as the sanctuary a church offers.
I want the church to be associated with justice and anti-racism.
I want the church to be associated with support for laws and policies that protect our children – and not making up support they don’t need. Not “protecting” them from books and ideas and people who are different and the truth of our own history, but protecting them from guns and from hunger, from ignorance, shortsightedness, and judgmental rejection.
I would love for the church to be identified with relentless creativity and timely relevance.
I want people, when they think of church, to think that it’s something that matters.
I want the church to be thought of as those seeking to be good stewards of creation.
working for peace, rejecting violence, confronting selfishness and lies and those who exploit fear and exploit others.
I’d love for the church to be a place where people know you can ask big questions, not just where you’re told the ultimate answer.
That is what I want the church to be, in Jesus’ name, amen.
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