Season of Pentecost! Season of Promise, Struggleand Growing Compassion!
October 10, 2021 – In Person and Live Services
PRELUDE: Let All Things Now Living— Hayes /Gaspard
UNISON CALL TO RETURN TO OUR SOULS
This is what compassion does: It challenges our assumptions! Our sense of self limitation! Our sense of being at the center of everything! Our lack of empathy for the vulnerable and marginalized. Or, conversely, when suffering, this is what compassion also does: It diminishes our sense of worthlessness, Of not having a place in the world, Our feelings of loneliness, Estrangement. Be compassionate whenever possible. It is always possible.
HYMN: All Who Love and Serve Your City GTG#351
RESPONSIVE PRAYERS OF CONFESSION AND COMMITMENT (plain text, leader—bold text, congregation)
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” (James Baldwin)
Sometimes we don’t want to hear the truth because we don’t want our illusions destroyed. (Friedrich Nietzsche)
Never forget where you come from, And always praise the bridges that have carried you over. (Fannie Lou Hamer)
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves,take up their cross and follow me. (Jesus of Nazareth)
I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger, because I knew— Slavery is the next thing to hell. (Harriet Tubman)
The greatness of a community is most accurately measuredby the compassion of its members. (Coretta Scott King)
Amen.
Brief Silent Meditation concluded by ringing of the gong, then
Unison Prayer:
Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive?Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.
–Henri Nouwen, Dutch priest, writer, professor
HYMN: Jesus, We Are Here/Jesu, Tawa Pano GTG#392
SCRIPTURE: Hebrews 4:12-16 Job 23:1-17
SUNG RESPONSE: Precious Lord, Take My Hand GTG#834
SERMON Job—A Play?A Poem? A Divine Abstract Drama For a Contemporary Stage?
HYMN: Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise GTG#12
WELCOMING
CHORAL ANTHEM: Create in Me— John Leavitt
PRAYER: Matthew 25 prayer—Lord’s Prayer—Congregational Sung Response
SUNG RESPONSE: Come, Bring Your Burdens to God(sing twice) GTG#851
OFFERTORY SOLO: Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child—traditional spiritual, arr. Lynn Shaw Bailey; Jennifer Weiman, mezzo soprano
UNISON PRAYER OF DEDICATION
May we know the honor of being a human being. (Jake Swamp, Haudenosaunee/Iroquois) May we share the honor of being a human being. Let us unite a frightened world by acts of kindness.Hate has no home here. (a 9 year old Muslim child wrote these words on a sign for a protest at Chicago’s airport when the January 27, 2017 travel ban from Muslim countries was announced)Let hate have no home where you are.Love your enemies. (Jesus) Replace apathy with curiosity, violence with community.(Fred Culver)May our capacity for God be reborn. Always remember— What you give, you have. (ancient Roman soldier) Amen.
HYMN: Nunc Dimittis
BENEDICTION
SUNG BENEDICTION RESPONSE: May the God of Hope Go with Us (sing in English and Spanish) GTG#765
POSTLUDE: We Plow the Fields and Scatter (with A Scottish Air)— Thomas Keesecker
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