To Be or Not To Be

Good Morning and Welcome to Worship! Worship is often the first place that new people come into contact with this growing community of faith. And so, if you are joining us for the first time, I say to you what is said every Sunday: You are welcome here. Here is a place where all are welcome. For such is the love of God for God’s Very Good Creation.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow; praise God, all creatures here below; praise God above, ye Heav'nly host: praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

God of Life and Love, we are grateful for all the gifts of this life that we are privileged to enjoy. May we see openly that you are present with us in the good times and that you walk with us amidst our times of struggle and pain. May our vision of your way of life increase in us the stuff that life is made for — faith, hope and love, but especially love — that we may be your body, the body of Christ working to bring paradise to earth. Amen.

God of all goodness, we live in times of stress and controversy, injustice and cruelty. We are tempted to cry to you for rescue even as you call to us to take up the work of the kin-dom.

We pray for leaders and nations around the world, that they may seek justice and act in mercy.

We pray for your body even as we are divided — that we might yet be knit together to be the love you seek for the world. We pray for victims of violence both at home and abroad; may we find ways for our prayers to bring healing and your mercy.

We pray for those trapped by natural disaster; embrace them with your calm and send them relief.

We pray for those who are ill or suffering, that they may feel the comfort of your love.

We pray for your creation, that the health of the earth may be restored.

We pray those who have been born this week and those who have finished their course in faith; may their lives be governed by loving choices.

God of wisdom, may your Holy Spirit who abides with us, enable us to be humble and kind in all things that we may be like the source of all love in the world. Amen.

Spirit of life, God of love, open our hearts and enter in, that hearing your word of love, we may become your love for others. Amen.

¹If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. ⁴Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. ⁷It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ⁸Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. ⁹For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; ¹⁰but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

In the Gospel lesson for this Sunday, Jesus illustrates the love of God and enrages those who hear his teaching. The teachings of Jesus continue to enrage people, especially those who claim most loudly that they are Christians. How do the words of Paul guide us to be the Love of God in a world so filled with hate?

We offer both white and red grape juice. If you are afraid of spilling red grape juice, a limited number of cups with white grape juice are provided.

Here at Community Church, we celebrate “Open Communion.” Anyone who wishes to commune may come to God’s Table. You do not have to be sinless; God forgives you. You do not have to be perfect; God encourages you to grow. You need not belong to any church; God invites all people to this meal. It is enough to love and follow God with all your heart. This is what God asks us to do. Come to God’s Table in faith this day. Go from this place to live, and never be the same again. Let us commune as siblings in Christ.

The Lord be with you. And also with you.

Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or you had formed the earth, from everlasting to everlasting, you alone are God. You created light out of darkness and brought forth life on the earth. You formed us in your image and breathed into us the breath of life. When we turned away from your way of love, and our love for you and your creation failed, your love for us remained steadfast. And so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven we praise your name and join their unending hymn:

Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ. Your Spirit anointed him to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to announce that the time had come when you would save your people.

He healed the sick, fed the hungry, and ate with sinners. By his teachings and practice of your way of love, he knit together this new body we call the church.

He prayed that we might be one, as he is one with you, and he asked that we might be known by the love we have for one another.

On the night in which he gave himself up for us, he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: “Take, eat; we are one body as we share in the bread together. Do this in remembrance of me.”

When the supper was over, he took the cup, gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said: “Drink from this, all of you; this is the cup of the new covenant, an ongoing sign of God’s love for you and all of God’s very good creation. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

And so, in remembrance of these your teachings and acts of love in Jesus Christ, we recommit ourselves to your way of love and pledge to live by the leading of your Holy Spirit, as we proclaim the mystery of faith. Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and fruit of the vine. Make them be for us the symbols of your love and desire for us to be your body knit together to build the new creation, your paradise here with us.

By your Spirit help the body of Christ be one. Help the left hand and the right hand work as one in ministry to all the world. Help the eyes and the ears sense your present and coming kin-dom. Bring the blessing of the diversity of the body to bear fruit until Christ comes in final victory and we feast at his heavenly banquet.

Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy church, all honor and glory is yours, Almighty God, now and forever. Amen.

Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.

The bread which we have eaten is a sharing in the bread of Christ. The cup over which we give thanks is the sharing in the cup of Christ.

Eternal God, we give you thanks for this holy mystery in which you have given yourself to us. Grant that we may go into the world in the strength of your Spirit, to give ourselves for others, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Siblings, let us love not only in our words but also in our actions. May our giving reflect your call for love and mercy and through these gifts may we build paradise around us. Amen.

Loving God, bless these gifts that we have been given and have returned to us as an expression of our commitment to participate in bringing your love to the world around us. May our neighbors see your love and your desire for a more perfect world that they too may participate in. Amen.

Empowered by God’s love for you, go out and love your neighbors, especially those neighbors who seem most different from you that you and they may see through the illusion to the paradise around us. Go into the world where things are being pulled down and overthrown, where things are being built and planted. Go this day, open to the leading of the Holy Spirit who may yet surprise you with what God is asking you to do! Go this day, with the love of God made visible in you. And may the love of God help you bear all things. May the love of Christ enable you to see all the possibilities. And may the Holy Spirit inspire you to act not in all things, but to act in those things that are yours to do. Amen.