Worship – July 8, 2012
Worship on the Sixth Sunday after Pentecost – July 8, 2012
Preparing and Setting the Altar
Be present among us, Lord. Fill this place with your Spirit.
Lighting of the Christ Candle
Sharing our Stories
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us—sinners that we are—and hear these ours prayers:
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
As we learn from our Lord who lived, died, and was raised for us, let us sing.
Singing
Our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us.
Psalm 123
To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us.
Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt.
Our soul has had more than its fill of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.
Our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us.
Ezekiel 2:1-7
Our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us.
Mark 6:1-13
Our eyes look to the Lord our God, until he has mercy upon us.We Listen and Interpret Together
Annie Dillard, the 20th and 21 st century author and professor, wrote in her Teaching a Stone to Talk, “On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, making up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offence, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”
Prayers for OthersThe Lord’s Prayer
Singing
Go courageously from this place into a world that so desperately needs the passion and calling that God has planted deep within your soul. Our sister Harriet Beecher Stowe insisted, “All serious daring starts from within,” so go forth with daring and confidence that the God who dwells here with us is already waiting for you out there in the world.
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you.
May he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm.
May he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you.
May he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.
Amen.