Bulletin – Sunday, September 11, 2022 – Season of Creation 2 – Welcome Back / Blessing of the School Supplies

Friday, September 9, 2022 Sue Turley

Sunday, September 11, 2022
Season of Creation 2
Listening to the Voice of Creation and Lament
Welcome Back / Blessing of the School Supplies

Approach

Lighting the Christ Candle

As we light this candle we are reminded that we gather in the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of the Earth and all creatures! Praise be to the Holy Trinity! God is sound and life, Creator of the Universe, Source of all like, whom the angels sing; wondrous Light of all mysteries known or unknown to humankind, and life that lives in all. You have created land and trees, animals and all living creatures on the earth. We are destroying the forests through poisons and logging, the voices of the birds, insects and forest dwellers are silenced. We are carving up the land and destroying what God has made. As we light this candle today, let us remember God’s call to care for all Creation.

Call to Worship

One: God calls out through all creation.
All: Do we hear God’s call?

One: God weeps with each habitat destroyed and every mountain ripped apart.
All: Do we see God’s tears?

One: God laments human’s sense of superiority over all creation.
All: Do we feel God’s lament?

One: God grieves creation’s loss.
All: Do we grieve with God?

One: We come today to worship the God of all creation.
All: Let us hear God’s call, let us see God’s tears, let us feel God’s lament, and let us share God’s grief this day, so that tomorrow might be different.

Hymn – “Come, Just as You Are”

Come just as you are,
Hear the Spirit call.
Come just as you are –
Come and see, come receive, come and live forever.

Life everlasting,
And strength for today,
Taste the Living Water and never thirst again.

Come just as you are,
Hear the Spirit call.
Come just as you are –
Come and see, come receive, come and live forever.

Life everlasting,
And strength for today,
Taste the Living Water and never thirst again.

Come just as you are,
Hear the Spirit call.
Come just as you are –
Come and see, come receive, come and live forever more.

Prayer of Approach and Confession

O Holy Spirit, open our hearts and minds to the powerful love energy that infuses our relationships, as a way to relate with creation. Earth cries out from our betrayal of the mutual relationship that God intends. Our hearts sigh at the desolation we have wrought.

Help us reimagine ourselves as Lover and Beloved with earth, throughout the changing seasons of the year and our lives. May the story of the Garden and our seasonal songs call us into a deeper relationship of commitment and covenant with earth and Creator. Creator God, we know that love is the foundation of creation and all life, your love and ours. We know that all things are possible with love—that the least becomes the most important, the last becomes the first.

Yet we also know that we do not always love, especially in our attitudes toward earth. We are quick to pave over an empty lot, to build inexpensive homes on precious fertile lands, to use products that are not easily recycled and to fill our dumps. We waste water and paper from your trees. We want the biggest or the best or the newest when we already have all we need. Creator God, forgive us. Help us to show—more actively—our love for our earth, your earth, your precious creation. Amen.

Words of Assurance

Blessing of the School Supplies

Hymn – “How Great Thou Art”

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the works Thy hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou are! How great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou are! How great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

But when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou are! How great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation
And take me how, what joy shall fill my heart!
Then I shall bow in humble adoration
And there proclaim, “My God, how great thou art!”

Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou are! How great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

The Word

Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 4:11-28

¹¹At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem: A hot wind comes from me out of the bare heights in the desert toward my poor people, not to winnow or cleanse—¹²a wind too strong for that. Now it is I who speak in judgment against them.

¹³Look! He comes up like clouds, his chariots like the whirlwind; his horses are swifter than eagles—woe to us, for we are ruined! ¹⁴O Jerusalem, wash your heart clean of wickedness so that you may be saved. How long shall your evil schemes lodge within you? ¹⁵For a voice declares from Dan and proclaims disaster from Mount Ephraim. ¹⁶Tell the nations, “Here they are!” Proclaim against Jerusalem, “Besiegers come from a distant land; they shout against the cities of Judah. ¹⁷They have closed in around her like watchers of a field, because she has rebelled against me, says the LORD. ¹⁸Your ways and your doings have brought this upon you. This is your doom; how bitter it is! It has reached your very heart.” ¹⁹My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh, the walls of my heart! My heart is beating wildly; I cannot keep silent; for I hear the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. ²⁰Disaster overtakes disaster, the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are destroyed, my curtains in a moment. ²¹How long must I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet? ²²For my people are foolish, they do not know me; they are stupid children, they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good.” ²³I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light. ²⁴I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. ²⁵I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled. ²⁶I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger.

²⁷For thus says the LORD: The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end. ²⁸Because of this the earth shall mourn, and the heavens above grow black; for I have spoken, I have purposed; I have not relented nor will I turn back.

Scripture Reading: Luke 15:1-10

¹Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

³So he told them this parable: ⁴“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? ⁵When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. ⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ ⁷Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

⁸“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ ¹⁰Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church.
Thanks be to God!

Time for All Ages – Avatar

Meditation – “To Lament and Grieve”

Anthem – “Remember”

Offering / Response

For the gift of creation, the gift of your love,
And the gift of the Spirit by which we live,
We thank you and give you the fruit of our hands.
May your grace be proclaimed by the gifts that we give.

The Response

Prayers of the People

One: Loving God, even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallows a nest for herself, where she places her young near Your altar. You are attentive to all you have made. God, who listens to every living thing,
All: Help us to be present to you.

One: Loving God, help us provide refuge to every animal and plant with whom we live. Help us be attentive to all you have made. God, in whom all creation subsists,
All: Help us to be present to you.

One: Loving God, when Jesus cried out and gave up his Spirit, the earth shook and the rocks split. You are known by the whole of creation that listens to you. God, to whom all creation responds,
All: Help us to be present to you.

One: Loving God, help us hear and know you just as the earth and rocks do. Help us to learn from the way in which we see creation recognize your glorious beauty. God, to whom all creation responds,
All: Help us to be present to you.

One: Loving God, you are present in your creation and seek to heal her wounds. You can be found walking in the garden. Open our eyes to see you, the gardener. God, who is present with your creation,
All: Help us to be present to you.

One: Loving God, we often abandon your creation and cause its wounds. Help us to follow in your footsteps and learn to walk in the garden like you. God, who is present with your creation,
All: Help us to be present to you.

One: Loving God, who hears every voice, knows each cry of injustice, and is attentive to the suffering of the earth: teach us to listen. Bring healing to our lives, that we may protect the world and not prey on it, that we may listen to the world you have created and not close ourselves off from it. Heart now those whom we lift up to you this day…God, who listens to every living thing,
All: Help us to be present to you.

One: Let us pray the prayer that Jesus taught as brought to us by Maori theologians;
All: Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven: The hallowing of your name echoes through the universe! The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world! Your heavenly will be done by all created beings! Your beloved community of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth. With the bread we need for today, feed us. In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. In times of temptation and test, strengthen us. From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us. For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever. Amen.

Hymn – “O Beautiful Gaia”