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Ordinary 2C-8C

illumination: you knew us

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Holy God,
you knew us before we knew ourselves.
You consecrate us even now to be your servants.
Create in us hearts worthy to be your prophets
that we might go where you send us,
and speak the Word that you give us.
Through the power of your Holy Spirit,
place your words upon our lips
and your grace upon our hearts
so that we might pluck up and pull down,
destroy and overthrow,
build and plant,
as you, alone, have commanded. Amen.
inspired by Jeremiah 1:4-10, the Old Testament lectionary passage for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany (year C)
submitted by Stephen Fearing, student at Columbia Theological Seminary

confession: Love

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Call to Confession:
Whether we have the gift of beautiful speech, or the gift of understanding and knowledge, or the gift of faith or of generosity or of any other good thing—if we do not love, even our most precious talents are as nothing. And if we believe Love to be a only feeling or a thought, still we miss the Truth. Before God, with the people of God, let us confess the ways we have fallen short of God’s Love. Let us pray.

One:    Love is patient and kind
All:     and we are in a bit of a hurry…
One:    Love does not insist on its own way
All:     but really, God, my way is clearly best.
One:    Love is not envious or resentful
All:     and yet we hoard it as if there might not be enough.
One:    Love is all these verbs—rejoices, bears, believes, hopes, endures—
All:     but we are so tempted to confine it where we can understand and control, domesticating love into romance or intellect.
One:    God is Love, and those who abide in Love abide in God.

silence

One:    When we have not lived in your love, when we have insisted and hurt and believed ourselves to know fully even as we know only in part,
All:     Forgive us, O God.
One:    When we have thought, spoken, and acted in childish ways even as you call us to grow in your grace,
All:     Forgive us, O God.
One:    Draw us again into your embrace, that we may abide in faith, hope, and love.
All:     Amen.

Assurance of Forgiveness:
Friends, hear this good news: Though now we see dimly, as through a tinted window, Love is clearing the way for us to know God just as fully as God knows us. We will live the good news: in Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Thanks be to God! Amen.

CTW: formed, known, appointed

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One:    The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, as it had come to many others before him:
All:     I formed you, I know you, I appoint you.
One:    And Jeremiah, like many others before and since, protested.
All:     But God doesn’t take excuses, and sent him to go and speak and build and plant.
One:    God put the words into his mouth, that he might proclaim good news.
All:     Still God puts God’s word out into the world through human mouths!
One:    The word of the Lord comes to us, too, in this place and this time: I formed you, I know you, I appoint you.
All:     And so we come to worship, to be made yet again into the builders of God’s kingdom.

 

Submitted by Rev. Teri Peterson, the Presbyterian Church of Palatine, IL.

Sunday’s Coming: working toward February 3

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Ah, Souper Bowl Sunday! Are you doing anything special for this day? Do you participate in the Souper Bowl of Caring? Do you have a liturgy for that? Do you incorporate it into the communion? Or just let it be?

With just two Sundays left before Lent, it probably shouldn’t be surprising that we have Jesus getting into trouble. And, as is typical in Luke, he’s getting into trouble for challenging the status quo of exclusivity and “chosenness.” He uses the moment of adoration to give a challenging word, and the people appear to have been listening–and they definitely had a reaction. What is the good news for your context in this story?

We also have this week the call of the prophet Jeremiah, who apparently considered himself too young for the task. Or perhaps he’d simply internalized the message that young people should be seen and not heard. Either way, God went for “I have put my words in your mouth” as the solution to the problem–a much quicker way than with the whole Moses-and-Aaron situation, but equally uncomfortable and challenging for one who wasn’t sure about the whole thing! Especially since the task given to Jeremiah is one that will have the people in uproar…pluck up and tear down, build and plant. Again, challenging the status quo is never popular, and Jeremiah certainly did that.

The psalm seems perfectly matched to these two texts–it’s only by keeping their eyes on the one who called them were Jeremiah or Jesus able to pass through the midst of the people who reached out to stop their message. It’s hard work to be a prophet, and it’s nearly impossible work if our hope is misplaced.

And then we have the infamous love chapter. While many cringe when it’s included in weddings, perhaps here is a chance to redeem it for everyday grace. (Sort of like how I love when Psalm 23 comes up so I can rescue it from funerals.) Aside from the usual tricks of replacing the word love with God, or with your own name, or whatever–how can you imagine this might be used in our liturgy? I can imagine reading it responsively as we often do the psalms, or making it the basis of a prayer of confession (because come on–how often do we love like this?). Perhaps there’s an affirmation of faith in there? Or even the ground of a full service worth of liturgy?

What are you thinking about for this week?

(I’m away from the internet this week, so please get to work in the comments so I can have something to work with when I get home! LOL.)

confession: opposites

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Holy God,
you have brought us together as one body with many members,
each of us with gifts given according to your Spirit.
We confess that we struggle to discern what role we are called to do.
We speak when you call us to listen.
We listen when you call us to walk.
We walk when you call us to wait.
We wait when you call us to do.
Through the power of your Holy Spirit,
show this community who you have called us to be.
Guide us through this tension of One and yet many
that we might strive for the greater gift of unity
and play the part of disciples of the one Spirit.  Amen.

Submitted by Stephen Fearing, student at Columbia Theological Seminary