Focus

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.

Loving ever present God, abide with us in this hour and in the days to come. Grant that we not be overtaken by anxious thoughts that can make us feel you are not near. Prepare us as we journey together continuing to learn to live beyond ourselves and see how you call us into deeper community with the world around us. Amen.

Creator God, as we look at the world you have made, we notice that the songs of love that wanted us to sing have turned into cries of abuse, oppression, and prejudice. We have abused the planet that you have provided for us to inhabit and share with other creatures. We have wasted the water, abused the land and poisoned the air. We have created borders and barriers that limit access and return your gift of hospitality with inhospitality. We pray for this world in need of restoration and as that you provide us with the tools and the intelligence needed to rebuild the world into your preferred kin-dom.

There is oppression in the world that we live in. We see it in the ways human beings treat one another, taking advantage of those considered to be of less value. We turn our eyes away when we see the needy being trampled on the pour being stashed out of sight. May your will be the last word, and the church effective agents of your love.

We are prejudice in our relationships, and we judge one another, not with justice and fairness, but with fear and misinformation. It is easier to demonize than to take time to listen and to establish new relationships. It is easier to assume than to ask questions or acquire knowledge. Make us people of peace who are filled with your love such that your love overflows from within us and transforms your world. Amen.

Open our hearts and our minds, so that we can understand the fullness of your Word. Fill us with the light of the Holy Spirit, and bless the servant you have chosen to share the Word proclaimed today. In the name of Jesus who taught us your way of live and light. Amen.

³⁸Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him. ³⁹She had a sister named Mary, who sat at Jesus’s feet and listened to what he was saying. ⁴⁰But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her, then, to help me.” ⁴¹But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things, ⁴²but few things are needed—indeed only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

What are we focused on? What are we distracted by? How do we stay focused on what we should be focused on when it is all too easy to be focused on the wrong things? What might practicing your focus do for you? And how might you better serve as God’s hands and feet when you are better focused?

We bring our gifts and our talents, even as we bring our hands and our feet; and even as we bring our listening ears and our calming voices, we bring all of whom we are to you loving God, in thanksgiving for the gift of your way of love. Let us offer our lives and our means to the God of love. Amen.

Loving God, we have given today in thankfulness and with the conviction that our gifts will continue to bless the world around us through this growing ministry. Give us wisdom as your body in the world that this offering is used to bring your love beyond our walls. In the name of the great teacher of the way — Jesus. Amen.

My siblings, go out into the world proclaiming the love of God in every corner, admonishing and teaching with all wisdom, so that everyone can comprehend fully the presence of God and the witness of the Holy Spirit who moves us and gives us the power to be God’s light in the darkness. Amen.