We Are Risen

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 Love, you call us to your everlasting springs to be drenched and reformed. Keep us near to you that by the power of the bond between us and the light of your Word we might drink of your living water, know true joy, and share that joy into the world around us. Amen.

Jesus prayed that we might be one. Let us then pray for the needs of the world with the understanding that the needs of the world are our needs and our needs are to be the needs of the world. Let us Pray.

God, our source of love and our light, you show us your new creation every day. You feed and clothe us and give us joy in your good earth. We praise you our home and our true blessing.

We pray for unity among all peoples — the body of Christ, rent by conflict, that we may be one; for people of all faiths to honor one another; and for the end of religious wars.

For peace among nations, between tribes, on school yards, in academic halls, within legislative bodies, and around kitchen tables in every home.

For the church’s mission to live the love of God into the world, that the world might know the new life possible in turning our lives from selfishness to loving one another.

For the well-being of the earth and its creatures; for the oceans and rivers, heavens and depths, soil and dust; for plants and fish and birds and mammals, who together with ourselves are fed and blessed each day by the air, food, and water you provide.

For all people who cry out to you in this hardened time; for the people who do not have work, those who have no safety net; those without dining tables or beds; those who do not have enough food or the ability to get their own food.

For those concerns we name now silently or aloud …

Into your hands, Gracious God, we pray all these things, asking you to hear our thanksgiving’s and our pleas, knowing you hear more than we are comfortable to share and will abide with us through all things as they transpire. Amen.

Holy God, whose voice is heard in the thunder and in the silence, speak to us now, by the power of your Spirit, that we may hear your word for us today. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Acts of the Apostles 16:16-34 ¹⁶ One day as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a female slave who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. ¹⁷ While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” ¹⁸ She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. ¹⁹ But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. ²⁰ When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men, these Jews, are disturbing our city ²¹ and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us, being Romans, to adopt or observe.” ²² The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. ²³ After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. ²⁴ Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. ²⁵ About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. ²⁶ Suddenly there was an earthquake so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. ²⁷ When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. ²⁸ But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” ²⁹ The jailercalled for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. ³⁰ Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” ³¹ They answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” ³² They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. ³³ At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. ³⁴ He brought them up into the house and set food before them, and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

²⁰ “I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, ²¹ that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, ²³ I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ²⁴ Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵ “Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you, and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶ I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.”

What drags you down? What holds you back? What keeps you from experiencing the love of God completely? What keeps you from living the love of God fully?

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 with Jesus,

who showed us the way of God’s love.

Let us give thanks to 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. 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, and our love failed, your love remained steadfast. You delivered us from captivity, made covenant to be our sovereign God, and spoke to us through your prophets. 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. By his life and teachings, you have revealed your love for us, your co-creative ask upon us, and the gift of the Holy Spirit to empower us. By your great love for us we are born anew to a living hope and to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Once, we were no people, but now we are your children, declaring your wonderful deeds in Jesus, who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. When the Lord Jesus ascended, he promised to be with us always, in the power of your Word and Holy Spirit.

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.”

On the day you raised him from the dead he was recognized by his disciples in the breaking of the bread, and in the power of your Holy Spirit your Church has continued in the breaking of the bread and sharing of the cup. And so, in remembrance of these your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving as a holy and living sacrifice, in union with Christ’s offering for us, 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 preferred future for 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.

THE LORD’S PRAYER – Celtic Version:

Holy One beyond all names, Eternal Wellspring, May love rise again in us today, with food for every table, shelter for every family, and reverence for every life. Forgive us our failings in love, and free us from all falseness. That the light of our souls may shine, and the strength of our spirits endure — for Earth and all its

people — this day, tonight, and forever. Amen. - John Philip Newell

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.

Give now with generous hearts that all people may know God’s love and be helped by our hands and the ripples of God’s love emanating from us. Amen.

Eternal God, who brings joy out of sorrow, plenty out of want, life out of death: we thank you for the treasures of this earth, your creation filled with your blessing, for it was in company with these earthly things that your son came to dwell, showing us the enormousness of your love. As we rise with you in our journey toward complete love, may these gifts serve as the yeast for others to rise with us. Amen.

May you go forth this day with joy to live as one body with the God who sends you out on the wind to raise the world around you. Let the love that is in you ripple out that the Holy Spirit may lift up those around you. Amen.