Bulletin – Sunday, May 9, 2021
Sunday, May 9, 2021
Sixth Sunday of Easter / Mother’s Day
Approach
Lighting the Candle
This is the season of Easter. It is the season when the light of resurrection shines brightly in our lives. As we light this candle we remember the story of Jesus. We remember all that he did in this world to bring hope, peace, love, mercy, and light to a world of darkness. As we gather in the glow of this candle, we commit to being resurrection people, living in the light of resurrection, loving as Christ loved, living as Christ lived, bringing light to a world of darkness.
Call to Worship
One: We’ve come to worship God,
All: who loved us before we were yet born.
One: Who knows us even better than we know ourselves,
All: whose presence never leaves us, and whose love for us never ceases.
One: This is our God.
All:Let’s worship together!
Hymn – “Come, Children, Join to Sing”
Come, children, join to sing: Hallelujah!
Praise to our Servant King: Hallelujah!
Let all with heart and voice, saved by God’s gracious choice,
Now in this place rejoice: Hallelujah!
Prayer of Approach
God with a mother’s heart, you gather us as your children. You comfort and hold us in your warm embrace. When we hurt your arms enfold us. When we are afraid your wings protect us. When we are hungry you feed us with the bread of life.
God with a mother’s heart, your love surrounds and supports us, in good times and in tough, in the midst of joy and pain, always and everywhere. You will never leave nor abandon us.
Yet, God with a mother’s heart we abandon you. We walk away, we turn our backs on you, we think that we have all the answers, and we thank that we know the way. We don’t hear your voice, or head your call to be your children. We don’t follow your example of loving support, but instead we turn our backs on those around us, looking out only for ourselves. Help us to remember that you are always there for us and always loving us even when we wander. God eternal and loving one, God with a mother’s heart, we thank you this day, for being part of your family. Amen.
Response
Mother and God, to you we sing:
Wide is your womb, warm is your wing.
In you we live, move and are fed
Sweet, flowing milk, life giving bread.
Mother and God, to you we bring
All broken hearts, all broken wings.
Words of Assurance
Time for All Ages
Anthem – “Love Grows Here”
The Word
Scripture Reading:
Psalm 139:1-18
1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you.
Isaiah 66:10-13
10 Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her—
11 that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious bosom.
12 For thus says the LORD: I will extend prosperity to her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse and be carried on her arm, and dandled on her knees.
13 As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
Matthew 23:37
37 How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church.
Thanks be to God!
Meditation – “Mothering God”
Anthem – “God Gives Us Those Who Love Us”
The Response
Prayer
One: Compassionate God, we pray for vulnerable people all over this world, people without power who live in places of terror and violence, fear and oppression. Protect them, God; we feel so powerless ourselves to help them. Encourage and empower us to work for peace and freedom from fear in our own contexts.
Hear us as we pray.
All: And in your love answer.
One: God of grace, we pray for those whose lives have been turned upside down by various disasters: floods, fire and drought-driven famine. Bring courage and hope to them; through their pain, may they remain connected to you in prayer.
Hear us as we pray.
All: And in your love answer.
One: We pray for those who say there is no God; may we through the living of our own lives demonstrate the joy and peace of a Spirit-centered existence.
Hear us as we pray.
All: And in your love answer.
One: God of community, we pray for our own congregation; may we be a source of hope for our neighbourhood. Help us to discern needs and work to fulfill them. Strengthen and unify our congregation and show us how we can be the disciples you envision us to be.
Hear us as we pray.
All: And in your love answer.
One: God of presence, we pray for those in this community whom we hope feel the light of your presence in their lives at this time. Return the sick to health and well-being and relive the suffering of those who have lost loved ones, are unable to find meaningful employment and fear the challenges of old age. As we lift up to you those for whom we pray…
Hear us as we pray.
All: And in your love answer.
One: Guide us, Mothering God, into your paths of right relationships. As we continue to pray as Jesus taught us:
All: Our Father who art 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, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
Hymn – “Would You Bless Our Homes and Families”
Would you bless our homes and families, source of life who calls us here;
In our world of stress and tension teach us love that conquers fear.
Help us learn to love each other with a love that constant says;
Teach us when we face our troubles, love’s expressed in many ways.
When our way is undemanding, let us use the time that’s ours
To delight in simple pleasures, sharing joys in gentle hours.
When our way is anxious walking and a heavy path we plod,
Teach us trust in one another and in you, our gracious God.
From the homes in which we’re nurtured, with the love that shapes us there,
Teach us, God, to claim as family every one whose life we share.
And through all that life may offer, may we in your love remain;
May the love we share in families be alive to praise your name.
Let us reach beyond the boundaries of our daily thought and care
Till the family you have chosen spills its love out everywhere.
Help us learn to love each other with a love that constant says;
Teach us when we face our troubles love’s expressed in many ways.
Benediction
“As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.” (Isaiah 66:13)
Go now in the comfort and peace of the One who gave birth to us. Go in the assurance that the Comforter is with us always. Go to give comfort and peace to others. Diving Wisdom guide us as we go forth on Her paths of peace.
“May She give us blessings more precious than silver of gold” (Proverbs 3:13-15, 17)
May we find joy in sharing these blessings with others. May Wisdom empower us to change our world! Go into the world, knowing that you are loved, comforted, and blessed. Amen.
(adapted from Jann Aldridge Clanton)
Response
May the blessing of God go before you.
May her grace and peace abound.
May her Spirit live within you.
May her love wrap you ‘round.
May her blessing remain with you always.
May you walk on holy ground.
