Resurrection

GATHERING THE PEOPLE

Welcome and Announcements 

My name is Sue. I am a member of Engadine Uniting Church and will lead the worship service today.

Friends, you are welcome in this place. Our time together is God’s gift to each of us. 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. Together let us seek to be Christ’s light and salt in the world. So welcome!

Acknowledgement of country

As we gather, we pay our respects to the traditional owners of this land, the Dharawal people, who have lived, worked and played on this country for thousands of years. We bring to mind their elders, past and present, and their place in passing on story and song, language and lore. May we commit ourselves to ongoing learning, growing understanding, and renewed reconciliation between First and Second Peoples of this land. 

All: Let us be part of a new way of living and sing a new song together in this land now called Australia.

Hymn: TiS 181 Come O God of all the earth / Sing Out Earth and Skies (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. 

Refrain: Sing out, earth and skies! sing of the God who loves you; raise your joyful cries; dance to the life around you.

2. 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.

Refrain

3. 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.

Refrain

4. Come, O God of snow and rain: shower down upon the earth;

come, O God of joy and pain: God of sorrow, God of mirth.

Refrain

5. Come, O Justice, come, O Peace: come and shape our hearts anew;

come and make oppression cease: bring us all to life in you.

Refrain

Marty Haugen 1950– , Words and music by permission G. I. A. Publications Inc, Chicago, Illinois. All rights reserved.

Call to worship 

Friends, let us open our lives to our God, the Dream Awakener, 

Spirit-lifter, 

Hope-animator.

Resurrection is bursting forth here in our midst.

Come, let us worship.

Come, let us join in.

Lighting of the Christ Candle

Prayer Of Invocation/Welcome 

Spirit of Christ,

you are welcome in this place.

You are welcome in our lives.

You are welcome in our hearts and in our imaginations.

Come, Spirit of Christ.

Prayer of adoration and confession

Resurrection comes to us all with a hint of threat.

Sometimes, it’s easier to stay with what we know,

in those places of comfort and familiarity.

Sometimes, we ourselves benefit from the way things are.

Forgive us, God, for all the many ways

we resist resurrection in our own lives.

Words of Assurance/Affirmation

The Spirit of Christ keeps coming to us as a spark of life,

keeps coming to all the world with fresh invitations to choose life over death,

all of this held by the gracious choice of God,

bound up in forgiveness and grace.

We are forgiven.

Thanks be to God.

Prayer of Praise and Thanksgiving

O sing, all you sisters, brothers, siblings.

Love is stronger than death.

God never steps away from care and faithfulness,

God sees it through.

And when it seems like it has all fallen apart,

out from the ashes come new green shoots of hope.

So, sing, all you sisters,

Sing, all you brothers.

Make a hearty noise!

Come join in the resurrection parade with joyous hearts!

Hymn: TiS 166 Sing a new song sing a new song (James McAuley) 

Refrain: Sing a new song, sing a new song, and wait upon the promise of the Lord.

Creation sings a new song to the Lord, the universal energies rejoice, through all the magnitudes of space and time creatures proclaim the grandeur of Christ.

The mountains and the valleys and the plains, the cattle and the wild beasts and the birds, the shadows and the clouds, the rain and snow praise and reflect the bounty of Christ.

The ocean deeps, the currents and the tides, the diatoms, the fishes and the whale, the storm, the reef, the waterspout, the calm, praise and reflect the wonder of Christ.

The human eye, the shaping hand, the mind,with number and with symbol and design, in work and play and artistry and prayer, praise and reflect the wisdom of Christ.

Item: Learning about consensus in the Uniting Church

HEARING THE WORD

Readings

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 Luke 20:27–38, and I am reading from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition:

27 Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28 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[a] shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman and died childless; 30 then the second[b] 31 and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32 Finally the woman also died. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”

34 Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage, 35 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. 36 Indeed, they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37 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. 38 Now he is God not of the dead but of the living, for to him all of them are alive.”

The second reading is from 1 Cor 15:12-19 and 35-44

“12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised, 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have died[a] in Christ have perished. 19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

“35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. 41 There is one glory of the sun and another glory of the moon and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.

42 So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.”

Reader: Through these readings we hear God speak.

All:  Thank you, God, for your words of life.

Sermon: John McKinnon

RESPONDING TO THE WORD

Hymn/Song: There’s a spirit in the air, by B. A. Wren, Together in Song 414

There’s a spirit in the air Telling Christians everywhere Praise the love that Christ revealed Living working in our world

Lose your shyness find your tongue Tell the world what God has done God in Christ has come to stay Live tomorrow’s life today

When believers break the bread When a hungry child is fed Praise the love that Christ revealed Living working in our world

When a stranger’s not alone Where the homeless find a home Praise the love that Christ revealed Living working in our world

May the Spirit fill our praise Guide our thoughts and change our ways God in Christ has come to stay Live tomorrow’s life today

CCLI Song # 1447647 Brian Arthur Wren | William Patrick Rowan © Words: 1979, 1995 Hope Publishing Company; Music: 1987 Hope Publishing Company For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com

Offertory prayer

“Thank you to everyone as you bring your gifts of loving service and financial support through online giving. If you prefer to use cash, it can be placed in the wooden box at the back, and you can also make one-off donations via the QR code on the box. Let us pray:”

God is summoning us to be a gentle people with a passion for justice and generosity. Let us embody this with our whole lives and also in the gift of our tithes and offerings, let us pray:

Gracious God, may our giving be an open-hearted celebration of hope. Bless these gifts. Let them be part of the new things you are doing in the world. Amen.

Announcements: Sue, including notes about prayer vigil with UCAN, and the consensus talk.

Prayers of the people (Kathy)

God of life, bring energy and hope into our fearful and bruised lives.

Send forth your love into this weary world—revitalising our leaders and decision-makers along with all our collective hopes for a better world.

Strengthen the hurting, the unhoused, and the unwell. Restore the oppressed as well as those caught up in practices of domination. May we all take our place in this resurrection movement. May we find our home in your love that never dies, never ceases, never leaves us. Amen.

Celtic version of the Lord’s Prayer

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

J Phillip Newell

Thank you to everyone who did something to help out today. Without volunteers we cannot keep going. We love you and you are appreciated!

Benediction

Friends, stand firm in the hope of resurrection. Hold onto the gifts you’ve been given along the way. And may Jesus, and the God who embraced you in love lead you through every opening where death has given way to life, strengthened by the joy of the Holy Spirit. Go in peace.

Benediction Song: 

Verse 1 only of “God Gives Us a Future”, TiS 687 by Elizabeth J Smith.