Bulletin – Sunday, September 18, 2022 – Season of Creation 3
Sunday, September 18, 2022
Season of Creation 3
Listening to the Voice of Creation and Lament
Approach
Lighting the Christ Candle
As we light this candle we are reminded that we gather in the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of the Earth and all creatures! Praise be to the Holy Trinity! God is sound and life, Creator of the Universe, Source of all life, whom the angels sing; wondrous Light of all mysteries known or unknown to humankind, and life that lives in all. You have created the wonders of the ocean, the fish, shells, reefs, whales, waves, corals. The oceans are warming and as they drown in plastic, their voices are being stilled. The water, the lakes, the rivers, the streams, the oceans that have been here since time immemorial, which we need to live, are being destroyed. As we light this candle today, let us remember God’s call to care for all Creation.
Call to Worship
One: God calls out through all creation.
All: Do we hear God’s call?
One: God weeps with each habitat destroyed and every mountain ripped apart.
All: Do we see God’s tears?
One: God laments human’s sense of superiority over all creation.
All: Do we feel God’s lament?
One: God grieves creation’s loss.
All: Do we grieve with God?
One: We come today to worship the God of all creation.
All: Let us hear God’s call, let us see God’s tears, let us feel God’s lament, and let us share God’s grief this day, so that tomorrow might be different.
Hymn – “A Voice is Heard”
Come, let us praise our God, come let us sing for joy,
With a heart that thanks we give honour.
You are a mighty God, you are the source of life.
Creator God, we give praise. From the deepest seas – a voice is heard.
From the highest hill – a voice is heard.
From the rich dark earth – a voice is heard.
All creation sings! God is heard!
Come, let us praise our God, come let us sing for joy,
With a heart of thanks we give honour.
You are a mighty God, you are the source of life.
Creator God, we give praise.
Through the darkest night – a voice is heard.
Through the breaking dawn – a voice is heard.
Through the heart of life – a voice is heard.
All creation sings! God is heard!
Come, let us praise our God, Come let us sing for joy,
With a heart of thanks we give honour.
You are a mighty God, you are the source of life.
Creator God, we give praise.
Prayer of Approach and Confession
O God who gives birth to all that we see, all that we know, all that we dream, all that is unseen, unknown, and unimagined. We celebrate your life that holds and nurtures the universe, we celebrate your love which joins creation as one and united all things with you. We give thanks for your life which is incarnated in Christ and which is revealed in every living thing, in everything that has been created.
We honour your presence which is limitless and welcoming and your Spirit which fills every moment of time and every fragment of matter. But even as we receive again the vision of life, we recognize that we have been blind to its universal heartbeat; even as we remember the connectedness of all things, we acknowledge that we have divided and separated ourselves and forgotten our part in your creation hide the signs of life, we pray, O God, for the courage to keep hoping in the renewed creation to come. We pray all this in the name of your son, Jesus. Amen.
Words of Assurance
Hymn – “Mother God, Our Mother Birthing”
Mother Earth, our Mother birthing every creature from the ground.
Jesus too was flesh and breathing, kin to all that’s green and brown.
Celebrate with all creation: God has formed the web of life.
Sister Air, our Sister lifting every creature born with wings;
Jesus shared the breath of forests, breath that makes our spirits sing.
Celebrate with all creation: God has formed the web of life.
Brother Water, Brother pulsing deep through every vein and sea,
Jesus drank the very raindrops for our wine and in our tea.
Celebrate with all creation: God has formed the web of life.
Father Fire, our Father burning with the sacred urge to live.
Jesus’ death completes the cycle, bringing life beyond the grace.
Celebrate with all creation: God has formed the web of life.
The Word
Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
18 My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. 19 Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land: “Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King not in her?” (“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?”) 20 “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” 21 For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me. 22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored? 9 1 O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!
Scripture Reading: Luke 16:1-13
1 Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ 3 Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ 7 Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ 8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.
10 “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? 12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? 13 No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church.
Thanks be to God!
Time for All Ages – “The Magnitude of All Things”
Meditation – “Grief and Loss”
Anthem – “The Time is Now”
Offering / Response
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: Holy Wisdom, we rejoice in the signs of your power in evolutionary creation and the unfolding cosmos, From the stardust of the galaxies to the plankton of the sea, from the oasis in the desert to the crowded city, all creation is infused with your power. Make us ever mindful of the inspiration that infuses all creation, we pray.
All: Hear our prayer.
One: Pain-bearer, we hear the cries of creation and of our brothers and sisters, human and every other kind, the world over: climate refuges, species in danger of extinction, victims of war and economic injustice, especially those people and places we name at this time (people and places). We remember also those in special need in our own community and families who we name at this time…Extend the balm of your healing power, we pray.
All: Hear our prayer.
One: Life-giver, we pray that your wisdom, revealed in all your works, may inspire us to live in right relation with Earth, our Mother, all her creatures, and the whole human family. May the harmony of creation be a model for our relationship with our neighbours near and far, teaching us that we are not self-sufficient, but only thrive through a constant exchange of energy and elements, love and language in the web of life, we pray.
All: Hear our prayer.
One: O Great Teacher, we give you thanks for the wisdom of Indigenous peoples, and the unique insights of the many expressions of faith and spiritual practice in the human family. Wherever there has been hatred, oppression, and exploitation bring truth-telling, reconciliation, and respectful communion, we pray.
All: Hear our prayer.
One: Help us always to pray and act in ways that are in harmony with divine wisdom and to use our talents and resources to serve the good of all. Let us pray the prayer that Jesus taught as brought to us by Maori theologians.
All: Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven: The hallowing of your name echoes through the universe! The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world! Your heavenly will be done by all created beings! Your beloved community of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth. With the bread we need for today, feed us. In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. In times of temptation and test, strengthen us. From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us. For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever. Amen.
Hymn – “Spirit God, Be Our Breath”
Spirit God: be our breath, be our song.
Blow through us, bringing strength to move on.
Our world seems inward, defensive, withdrawn…
Spirit God, be our song.
Patient God: soothe our pride, calm our fear.
Comfort us.
When we know you are near, we grow more certain, our vision is clear.
Patient God, calm our fear.
Loving God: be our voice, be our prayer.
Reaching out, joining hands as we share,
We seek your guidance through friendship and care.
Loving God, be our prayer.
Spirit God: be our breath, be our song.
Blow through us, bringing strength to move on.
Through change, through challenge, we’ll greet the new dawn.
Spirit God, be our song.
Benediction
May God who established the dance of creation, who marveled at the lilies of the field, who transforms chaos to order, Lead us to transform out lives and the Church. To listen to the voice of all creatures, that reflect God’s glory in creation.
Response
O beautiful Gaia,
O Gaia, calling us home.
O beautiful Gaia,
Calling us on.
