Bulletin – Sunday, September 24, 2023 – Creation 3 / Orange Shirt Sunday
Sunday, September 24, 2023
Creation 3 / Orange Shirt Sunday
Approach
Welcome
Land Acknowledgement
One: Please join me in the land acknowledgement.
All: Indigenous peoples, for thousands of years, have walked on this land. We acknowledge the first peoples and their stewardship throughout the ages. The relationship with the land we worship and live on is part of Treaty 1 and is the center for our lives. Our water comes from Treaty 3 and our hydro from Treaty 5 territories. We acknowledge errors made in the past by those arriving from other lands and we pledge to work towards the right relationships with all First Nations people.
Lighting the Christ Candle
One: Be still and breathe in the light of God’s love and presence. Centre yourself in the peace and joy of Jesus. Christ is our Light.
All: We share the light and love of Christ.
Call to Worship
One: Here, we gather in preparation
All: calling on God’s name, singing praises to our Creator.
One: Here, we gather in anticipation
All: believing that to live for Christ is gain; to serve others in Christ is our calling.
One: Here, we gather in hope
All: that God will take away our fears; that the good news will transform our lives.
Hymn – “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” (VU #651)
Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but thou art mighty,
Hold me with they powerful hand.
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
Feed me till I want no more,
Feed me till I want no more.
Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing stream doth flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong deliverer, strong deliverer,
Be thou still my strength and shield,
Be thou still my strength and shield.
When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside,
Death of death, and hell’s destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side:
Songs of praises, songs of praises
I will ever give to thee
I will ever give to thee.
Prayer of Approach and Confession
One: You frustrate us, Confusing God. We think we have you all neatly wrapped in a box and you burst out with laughter on your lips and grace flowing from your heart. We grumble about how others seem to have more, forgetting how richly you have blessed us. We are hard pressed by the world to follow its seductive trail to empty hopes and false promises. We complete even with our best friends and closest neighbours, rather than offering encouragement and strength.
All: Forgive us, Providing God, for our failures to be your people. Help us to stop our grumbling, and to be bearers of grace to the broken; enable us to share compassion with those that need healing and hope; teach us to sing of your glory, to sing of your mercy and to sing of your Son, Jesus Christ in whom we have live. Amen.
Words of Assurance
Creation Connection
One: This week is the third Sunday in the Season of Creation. It is also the Sunday before National Truth and Reconciliation Day, or Orange Shirt Day. Today we are asked to consider how creation feeds us—physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Do we take more than we need to sustain us each day? As our physical, mental, and spiritual, and emotional lives in balance? Today we will be watching a video called, World Out of Balance
One: Let us pray.
All: God, as we enter uncharted territory around global climate change, help us to follow the words of Jesus, to love one another. Through our actions, help us to show our love for the whole of Creation, not just our tiny piece of it. When we do not know what to do, help us to learn and work together in your name. Amen.
Anthem – “This Path We Walk”
This path we walk through joy and tears,
A living Way of faith and fears,
Through each step’s risk, each sorrows pain,
When walked in love, we’ll rise again.
When life is shared together free
We’ll grow to be all we can be
A circle wide will call us home
When wrapped in love we’re not alone.
These gifts we bring, this light we hold,
Our songs of grace, our stories told,
Remain undone, told just in part,
Til shared in love, and know by heart.
When life is shared, together bound
God’s richest gifts together found.
Together walk the Spirit’s Way
When love’s the guide, we shall not stray.
Amen.
The Word
Prayer of Illumination
Scripture Reading: Exodus 16:2-18
2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, ‘If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat round pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.’
4 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.’
6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, ‘In the evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, 7 and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?’ 8 Moses also said, ‘You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.’
9 Then Moses told Aaron, ‘Say to the entire Israelite community, “Come before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.”’
10 While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked towards the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud.
11 The Lord said to Moses, 12 ‘I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, “At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.”’
13 That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 14 When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, ‘What is it?’ For they did not know what it was.
Moses said to them, ‘It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. 16 This is what the Lord has commanded: “Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.”’
17 The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. 18 And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.
Scripture Reading: Matthew 20:1-16
1 ‘For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 ‘About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the market-place doing nothing. 4 He told them, “You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” 5 So they went.
‘He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, “Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?”
7 “Because no one has hired us,” they answered. ‘He said to them, “You also go and work in my vineyard.”
8 ‘When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, “Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.”
9 The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 “These who were hired last worked only one hour,” they said, “and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.”
13 ‘But he answered one of them, “I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?”
16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’
Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church.
Thanks be to God!
Meditation – What is Fair? To What is Enough?
Hymn – “I Saw the Rich Ones” (MV #127)
I saw the rich ones, I saw what they gave;
The widow who offered two pennies she’d saved;
And I saw she was smiling and I knew she was glad,
And I wondered because she gave all that she had…
But with God the world is turned upside down;
The poor are embraced and the lost they are found.
Let’s work for a world where all people are free;
Where it’s good to feel good about God loving you and me.
I saw Zaccheus, a sinner they said,
But to his house I saw Jesus go to break bread;
And I knew something special had happened that day
When Zaccheus gave half of his riches away…
But with God the world is turned upside down;
The poor are embraced and the lost they are found.
Let’s work for a world where all people are free;
Where it’s good to feel good about God loving you and me.
The men in the vineyards were grumbling one day;
I knew they weren’t happy with what they’d been paid;
For the ones who came later were paid just the same
As the workers who greeted the dawn when they came…
But with God the world is turned upside down;
The poor are embraced and the lost they are found.
Let’s work for a world where all people are free;
Where it’s good to feel good about God loving you and me.
Offering
Offering Response – “For the Gift of Creation” (VU #538)
For the gift of creation, the gift of your love,
And the gift of the Spirit by which we live,
We thank you and give you the fruit of our hands.
May your grace be proclaimed by the gifts that we give.
The Response
Prayers of the People
One: God who dwells among us
All: God who dwells within us
One: God who calls us to dwell together. Let us now gather ourselves in prayer…
Time of Reflection…
One: Gracious God, guide us in the coming week, that we might be examples, not just of fairness, but of the just way of your kin-dom, here and now on earth. We offer these and all our prayers in the name of your love lived on earth through Jesus the Christ, who taught us to pray in the language of our hearts, saying together,
All: Our Father / Mother, who are in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
Hymn – “Spirit, Open My Heart” (MV #79)
Spirit, open my heart to the joy and pain of living.
As you love may I love, in receiving and in giving, Spirit, open my heart.
God replace my stony heart with a heart that’s kind and tender.
All my coldness and fear to your grace I now surrender…
Write your love, upon my heart as my law, my goat, my story.
In each thought, word, and deed, may my living bring you glory…
May I weep with those who weep, share the joy of sister, brother.
In the welcome of Christ, may we welcome one another…
Benediction
Response
Jesus, Lord, our true example, you have shown how we must live.
Teach us how to share with others everything we have to give.
Let our days be spent in service: bring us by your grace to know
Healing is the church’s calling, and the path that we must go.
(Sources: Gathering 2014, Gathering 2023)
