Worship Service at Church of the Dawntreader Thursday February 28, 2013 10:00 a.m. SLT
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
    Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™
    Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
    www.zondervan.com
"New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989,
Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved." Designated by the initials, (NRSV).

Invocation:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen
Confession and Absolution
We come before you, our Loving Father, Mother God, confessing most of all our need of you.
We confess that we have not always acknowledged just how much we depend on you.
We confess that we have not always loved you with all our heart, soul and mind.
We have not always loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We ask that you will forgive us and grant us your strength to conform more fully to your loving will for us.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Amen.
In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is my privilege to declare to you and to myself, the entire
forgiveness of all our sins.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen

Prayer of the Day
Let us pray.
Eternal God, your kingdom has broken into our troubled world through the life, death, and resurrection of your Son.
Help us to hear your word and obey it, and bring your saving love to fruition in our lives,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen

First Lesson: Exodus 3: 1 - 15 (NRSV)
1 Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jeth'ro, the priest of Mid'ian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness,
and came to Ho'reb, the mountain of God.
2 There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing,
yet it was not consumed.
3 Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up."
4 When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am."
5 Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."
6 He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."
And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
7 Then the LORD said, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters.
Indeed, I know their sufferings,
8 and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land,
a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Ca'naanites, the Hit'tites, the Am'orites, the Per'izzites, the Hi'vites,
and the Jeb'usites.
9 The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them.
10 So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt."
11 But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"
12 He said, "I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you:
when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain."
13 But Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, "The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me,
"What is his name?' what shall I say to them?"
14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM."
 He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, "I AM has sent me to you.'"
15 God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, "The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you':
This is my name forever,
and this my title for all generations.
Here ends the First Lesson

Psalm 103: 1 - 4, 6 - 8, 11 (NRSV)
1 Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name.
2 Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and do not forget all his benefits--
3 who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the Pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,

6 The LORD works vindication
and justice for all who are oppressed.
7 He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.
8 The LORD is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

11 For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Second Lesson: 1 Corinthians 10: 1 - 13 (NRSV)
1 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea,
2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
3 and all ate the same spiritual food,
4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.
5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness.
6 Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did.
7 Do not become idolaters as some of them did; as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play."
8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day.
9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents.
10 And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.
11 These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come.
12 So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.
13 No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength,
but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.
Here ends the Second Lesson.

Gospel Lesson: Luke 13: 1 - 9 (NRSV)
1 At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
2 He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?
3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.
4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Silo'am fell on them-
-do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?
5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."
6 Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.
7 So he said to the gardener, "See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none.
Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?'
8 He replied, "Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.
9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
Here end the Readings from Holy Scripture.

 - Sermon -

God provides the way out.
That is the promise we can see in our lessons for this week.
Sometimes the only way out is through,
and then God provides the safe path on which we can travel.
You have probably heard it said
that God will never allow us to have more hard times than we can bear.
In fact, that is not exactly the case.
I have seen many people burdened with more than they can carry,
experiencing things that they absolutely could not stand.
The promise is in our second lesson:
"God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength,
but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it."
Do you hear the difference?
Along with the testing, God will also provide the way out.
In the ultimate sense, Jesus is the way out.
From the beginning, God has provided His children the way out of evil and suffering.
The way of escape will not last forever,
but God will never give up on us,
and so in some sense it is never too late.
Yet the day of grace will come to an end.
The most universal feeling of God's people of the New Covenant is a sense of urgency.
The Lord Jesus is coming again soon,
so we want to proclaim to the world of the opportunities of escape that He has brought
He is bringing
and He will bring yet again.
Our first lesson provides a view of the way out at the very beginning of the Old Covenant.
The Old is like the New in more ways than we often realize.
Moses was a prophet of God
who told the people that another prophet like himself would arise someday.
The prophet like Moses grew into the expectation of the Messiah,
and all the strands of tradition about the One who was to come
converged in Jesus
and received a whole new meaning.
God revealed Himself to Moses and through Jesus in an absolutely unique way.
He showed Himself as He is
in the glory and light of absolute and eternal love.
Even the commandments of the Law begin with a reminder of God's love:
"I am the Lord your God," He said, "Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."
Therefore...
because of what I have already done for you...
"You shall have no other gods before me."
Our first lesson is the story of the burning bush,
where God showed love and mercy to Moses
and through Moses to the whole people of the Hebrews.
God provided them a way out,
over and over again,
and so He showed such love to them and for them
that they became His people from that day forward and forever.
God revealed His most personal, holy and sacred name to Moses,
and and through Moses to all the world.
His name is YHWH,
often pronounced Yahweh.
The Hebrew and Arabic languages have extremely complex systems of verbs.
Clearly YHWH is a form of the Hebrew verb "to be."
This particular form refers to the cause of the verb's action.
So God revealed His name to be Who He is:
the One who causes being.
God is the source of being,
the creator and cause of all that is, ever was or ever will be.
God alone can have this name,
the ground of all being,
and so the faithful of the Old Covenant, the Jews, to this day,
will often refuse to pronounce the sacred name,
even writing the word God as G-d
and referring to the Creator as HaShem, the Name, the One.
In our Gospel lesson a parable gives us yet another example of the way out.
A fig tree is about to be cut down and burned because of its failure to bear fruit.
The gardener provided a way out:
He dug around the tree and fertilized it and gave it tender, loving care
in the hope that in another season, it would bear fruit.
So is the loving care of our Savior for us.
He gives us the opportunity to bear fruit for Him
over and over again
with infinite patience.
Yes, the day of reckoning will come for us all.
We will face judgment,
and we will all fall short.
Our Savior will be there for us.
He will be the judge,
and He will also be our defender.
He already stood in our place in time,
giving us the way out of our sin,
and how much better our lives are
if we take the way out now
instead of waiting for the day of judgment.
But He will be there for us then,
no matter what,
and He will be
as He has always been
the way of our escape
when we are tested
when we are judged
and whenever we are threatened by despair.
Jesus rescues us from the ocean of despair that sometimes threatens to overwhelm us in this life.
We can be confident that He will be there for us then, too, on the other side of death
to bring us safely home.
Amen.

Prayer of the People
Please type your spontaneous petitions in chat.
Each prepared petition is intended to remind us of the things we need to pray about,
so a brief pause will be provided for us to pray our own petitions,
either sharing them in the chat window
or praying them in our own hearts.

Loving God, we pray for each other, for those who depend upon us for prayer, and for all people according to their needs.
We ask that your healing power may prevail in our lives.
We pray that those in positions of public trust may be worthy of that trust as they act as stewards of power and wealth
for the benefit of all.
We pray that conflicts may be resolved in the context of relationships,
so that violence of thought word and deed may be diminished all through our world.
We ask your blessing for all who bear witness to the Gospel, so that relationships with you may be deepened for all people.
All these things, and whatever else you see that we need, we ask that you will grant for the sake of your Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose name we pray.
Amen.
Our Lord's Prayer
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 sins as we forgive those who sin 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.
Benediction
May the Lord bless us and keep us.
May the Lord make His face to shine upon us and be gracious to us.
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, and give us peace.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen +

Worship Service at Church of the Dawntreader Thursday February 21, 2013 10:00 a.m. SLT
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
    Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™
    Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
    www.zondervan.com
"New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989,
Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved." Designated by the initials, (NRSV).

Invocation:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen
Confession and Absolution
We come before you, our Loving Father, Mother God, confessing most of all our need of you.
We confess that we have not always acknowledged just how much we depend on you.
We confess that we have not always loved you with all our heart, soul and mind.
We have not always loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We ask that you will forgive us and grant us your strength to conform more fully to your loving will for us.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Amen.
In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is my privilege to declare to you and to myself, the entire
forgiveness of all our sins.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen

Prayer of the Day
Let us pray.
God of the covenant, in the mystery of the cross you promise everlasting life to the world.
Gather all peoples into your arms, and shelter us with your mercy, that we may rejoice in the life we share in your Son,
Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen

First Lesson: Genesis 15: 1 - 12, 17 - 18 (NRSV)
1 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, "Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield;
your reward shall be very great."
2 But Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Elie'zer of Damascus?"
3 And Abram said, "You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir."
4 But the word of the LORD came to him, "This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir."
5 He brought him outside and said, "Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them."
Then he said to him, "So shall your descendants be."
6 And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness.
7 Then he said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chalde'ans, to give you this land to possess."
8 But he said, "O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?"
9 He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove,
and a young pigeon."
10 He brought him all these and cut them in two, laying each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two.
11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.
12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep and terrifying darkness descended upon him.
17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces.
18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying,
"To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,
Here ends the First Lesson

Psalm 27 (NRSV)
1 The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When evildoers assail me
to devour my flesh--
my adversaries and foes--
they shall stumble and fall.
3 Though an army encamp against me,
my heart shall not fear;
though war rise up against me,
yet I will be confident.
4 One thing I asked of the LORD,
that will I seek after:
to live in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the LORD,
and to inquire in his temple.
5 For he will hide me in his shelter
in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
he will set me high on a rock.
6 Now my head is lifted up
above my enemies all around me,
and I will offer in his tent
sacrifices with shouts of joy;
I will sing and make melody to the LORD.
7 Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud,
be gracious to me and answer me!
8 "Come," my heart says, "seek his face!"
Your face, LORD, do I seek.
9 Do not hide your face from me.
Do not turn your servant away in anger,
you who have been my help.
Do not cast me off, do not forsake me,
O God of my salvation!
10 If my father and mother forsake me,
the LORD will take me up.
11 Teach me your way, O LORD,
and lead me on a level path
because of my enemies.
12 Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries,
for false witnesses have risen against me,
and they are breathing out violence.
13 I believe that I shall see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the LORD;
be strong, and let your heart take courage;
wait for the LORD!
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Second Lesson: Philippians 3: 17 - 4: 1 (NRSV)
17 Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.
18 For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears.
19 Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.
20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
21 He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory,
by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.
4:1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.
Here ends the Second Lesson.

Gospel Lesson: Luke 13: 31 - 35 (NRSV)
31 At that very hour some Phar'isees came and said to him, "Get away from here, for Her'od wants to kill you."
32 He said to them, "Go and tell that fox for me,
"Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work.
33 Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.'
34 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!
How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
35 See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say,
"Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'"
Here end the Readings from Holy Scripture.

 - and -

Luke 9: 28 - 36
28 Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.
29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.
30 Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Eli'jah, talking to him.
31 They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.
32 Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep;
but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.
33 Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here;
let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Eli'jah"--not knowing what he said.
34 While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.
35 Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"
36 When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

 - Sermon -

You can see that I have chosen to use two Gospel lessons for this week.
I talked about the lectionary a little bit last week.
We are in the third year of a three year cycle,
the year of Luke.
Most of the Gospel lessons are written in the Gospel of Luke for this year of the cycle.
Most churches use the same lessons,
but some choose specific readings that apply more to their own particular traditions.
The Roman Catholic Church celebrates Transfiguration on the Second Sunday in Lent.
Most Protestant churches celebrate it on the last Sunday after the Epiphany, the Sunday before Ash Wednesday.
Maybe we should all just be more honest and call it Mardi Gras Sunday or Carnival Sunday,
since I'm sure that is on a lot of people's minds at that time!
This year, we did not use the Transfiguration lesson on that day,
so I wanted to use it today.
However, if I did so, I would miss one of my favorite passages in the whole Bible,
one that I consider especially important for our time.
So how was I to choose?
I didn't!
I chose to use both lessons!
They are both short enough
so I won't be keeping you way past the normal schedule today.
In the Transfiguration,
Jesus was revealed to the executive committee of His disciples,
Peter, James and John,
in the form in which He has been with the Father from all eternity:
glowing with dazzling light
so that even His clothing shone out brightly.
The disciples must have been protected in some way,
as Moses was when God appeared to Him on Mt. Sinai.
Otherwise mortal humans would have been utterly destroyed,
consumed as by fire,
seeing the uncreated Light of God
face to face.
The cloud appeared;
it often hides the face of God when he is revealed to His mortal children.
From the cloud the voice spoke words very similar to those heard at our Lord's Baptism:
"This is my Son, my chosen; listen to Him!"
A word of command from the voice of God speaks to our hearts to this very day.
When we listen, what is He saying?
Above all, He is telling us that He loves us unconditionally.
He loves us no matter what.
We hear that message in the other Gospel lesson,
how He says,
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!
How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!"
The holy city has all too often been the place of most unholy deeds,
as it is in our own times.
So much hatred is there now!
People are so eager to kill their enemies
that they are willing to die in the process,
and their friends and families celebrate their deaths
as though suicide were martyrdom.
Such is the hatred on the other side
that homes are demolished
and ancient olive groves are destroyed
to make room for settlements of the "right" kind of people.
Jerusalem is growing,
but the city is growing in many ways and directions that are very wrong.
Jesus still longs to gather her people
the way a mother hen gathers her brood under her wings,
and Jerusalem is still not willing.
I am not talking about Jesus as representative of a religion.
He was not so then,
and He is not so now.
He is God in human form,
and in His human and divine heart,
He longs to show us the absolute love of a Mother for Her child.
Yes, Jesus represents to us
the eternal love of God for us His children
as the unconditional and boundless love of our Mother.
She will nourish and care for us now and forever,
even beyond the end of our lives,
even beyond the end of the world itself.
Amen.

Prayer of the People
Please type your spontaneous petitions in chat.
Each prepared petition is intended to remind us of the things we need to pray about,
so a brief pause will be provided for us to pray our own petitions,
either sharing them in the chat window
or praying them in our own hearts.

Loving God, we pray for each other, for those who depend upon us for prayer, and for all people according to their needs.
We ask that your healing power may prevail in our lives.
We pray that those in positions of public trust may be worthy of that trust as they act as stewards of power and wealth
for the benefit of all.
We pray that conflicts may be resolved in the context of relationships,
so that violence of thought word and deed may be diminished all through our world.
We ask your blessing for all who bear witness to the Gospel, so that relationships with you may be deepened for all people.
All these things, and whatever else you see that we need, we ask that you will grant for the sake of your Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose name we pray.
Amen.
Our Lord's Prayer
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 sins as we forgive those who sin 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.
Benediction
May the Lord bless us and keep us.
May the Lord make His face to shine upon us and be gracious to us.
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, and give us peace.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen +

Worship Service at Church of the Dawntreader Thursday February 14, 2013 10:00 a.m. SLT
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
    Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™
    Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
    www.zondervan.com
"New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989,
Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved." Designated by the initials, (NRSV).

Invocation:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen
Confession and Absolution
We come before you, our Loving Father, Mother God, confessing most of all our need of you.
We confess that we have not always acknowledged just how much we depend on you.
We confess that we have not always loved you with all our heart, soul and mind.
We have not always loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We ask that you will forgive us and grant us your strength to conform more fully to your loving will for us.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Amen.
In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is my privilege to declare to you and to myself, the entire
forgiveness of all our sins.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen

Prayer of the Day
Let us pray.
O Lord God, you led your people through the wilderness and brought them to the promised land.
Guide us now, so that, following your Son, we may walk safely through the wilderness of this world toward the life you alone can give,
through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen

First Lesson: Deuteronomy 26: 1 - 11 (NRSV)
1 When you have come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it,
 2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the LORD your God is giving you,
and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.
3 You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, "Today I declare to the LORD your God that
I have come into the land that the LORD swore to our ancestors to give us."
4 When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the LORD your God,
5 you shall make this response before the LORD your God:
"A wandering Arame'an was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien,
few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.
6 When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us,
7 we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.
8 The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power,
and with signs and wonders; 9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
10 So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O LORD, have given me."
You shall set it down before the LORD your God and bow down before the LORD your God.
11 Then you, together with the Le'vites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with
all the bounty that the LORD your God has given to you and to your house.
Here ends the First Lesson

Psalm 91: 1 - 2, 9 - 16 (NRSV)
1 You who live in the shelter of the Most High,
who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
2 will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress;
my God, in whom I trust."
9 Because you have made the LORD your refuge,
the Most High your dwelling place,
10 no evil shall befall you,
no scourge come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways.
12 On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread on the lion and the adder,
the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.
14 Those who love me, I will deliver;
I will protect those who know my name.
15 When they call to me, I will answer them;
I will be with them in trouble,
I will rescue them and honor them.
16 With long life I will satisfy them,
and show them my salvation.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Second Lesson: Romans 10: 8 - 13 (NRSV)
8 "The word is near you,
on your lips and in your heart"
(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);
9 because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.
11 The scripture says, "No one who believes in him will be put to shame."
12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.
13 For, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."
Here ends the Second Lesson.

Gospel Lesson: Luke 4: 1 - 13 (NRSV)
1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,
2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.
3 The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread."
4 Jesus answered him, "It is written, "One does not live by bread alone.'"
5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.
6 And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me,
and I give it to anyone I please.
7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours."
8 Jesus answered him, "It is written,
"Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.'"
9 Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him,
"If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here,
10 for it is written,
"He will command his angels concerning you,
to protect you,'
11 and
"On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"
12 Jesus answered him, "It is said, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
13 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Here end the Readings from Holy Scripture.

 - Sermon -

Our readings from Scripture week by week through the Church Year
are on a three year cycle.
We are in year C, as it is called,
and the Gospel readings are mostly written in the Gospel according to St. Luke.
I have spoken previously about how Luke wrote 22 percent of the whole New Testament in his two volume work, Luke and Acts.
His is a unique Gospel, from a unique point of view.
He was a companion of st. Paul on at least one of the missionary journeys that Paul made.
He was clearly a Gentile believer, very likely a convert from the preaching of Paul or one of Paul's helpers, such as Barnabas.
Church tradition also tells us that St. Luke was a physician.
If you want some fascinating reading about Luke,
I recommend the novel by Taylor Caldwell,
_Dear and Glorious Physician_.
It is full of speculation, of course,
but Taylor Caldwell wrote beautifully and in a most fascinating and vivid manner
about life in the ancient world.
Her description of the ancient port of Alexandria on a sunny day
will give you the feeling of having been there.
If you choose to read the book, you will feel as though you are now acquainted with St. Luke.
One of the recurring themes in Luke's Gospel
is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of our Lord and His disciples.
It is Luke, after all, who, in the book of Acts, gives us the clearest and fullest account
of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost.
Luke and Luke alone tells us that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit
as He went out into the wilderness, led by the Holy Spirit,
and so able to face the temptations of the Enemy.
Jesus fasted for a long time in the desert.
Forty days simply means a long time.
Don't press the details as though they recorded literal facts, a literal passage of time.
It is simply a colorful figure of speech.
Just imagine fasting for forty days!
In fact, in that length of time, one would starve to death.
However long it was,
our Lord was famished at the end of His fast.
The Enemy tempted Him to use His almighty power for His own benefit.
That was something He simply would not ever do.
His wonder working power was only for the service of His Father.
He performed miracles as signs pointing clearly toward the kingdom of God.
In the desert,
who but Jesus and the Enemy would see a sign or be able to follow it?
By faith, our Lord knew clearly who He was.
The Enemy knew as well.
The test of His temptation was useless for our Lord,
but He submitted to it,
as to all the experiences of His life and even His death,
for us.
He was tempted for us.
We also are tempted,
and we fail, over and over again.
He was tempted, and He overcame the temptations for us.
He did not use His almighty power to do good for Himself,
not even when He was facing trial at the hands of His enemies,
and not even when He was unjustly executed by them.
He accepted the full experience of being human,
and He lived the one and only perfect, fully human life,
not only showing us how we could be,
but also lifting us up by His grace
to His own level.
All of the temptations of our Lord were of the same pattern.
The Enemy tried to get Him to be a different Messiah than He was meant to be.
He could have so worshipped power in this world
that He would have been made king of the world
ahead of the time that God intended.
He alone could have led a successful revolt against Rome,
and He could have established a Kingdom of God on Earth.
He could have enforced the will of God
by the power of Law,
but that was never His way, to this very day.
He could have jumped off the highest pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem
and demonstrated to the world Who He was,
but that was not His way, either.
People even now must come to Him by faith
or not at all.
He will never give up calling to us in our hearts and minds
by the power of the Holy Spirit with Whom He was filled.
Because He overcame the power of the Enemy by whom He was tempted,
we ourselves are able to trust His power to save us from our own failures and sins.
Because He was willing to be God's suffering servant,
not His conquering Messiah,
we can trust Him to return
to usher in His glorious and gentle rule
in God's own time.
Then we will all live forever
under His loving care
in the new Heaven and the new Earth
which God Himself will make to be our perfect Home.
Amen.

Prayer of the People
Please type your spontaneous petitions in chat.
Each prepared petition is intended to remind us of the things we need to pray about,
so a brief pause will be provided for us to pray our own petitions,
either sharing them in the chat window
or praying them in our own hearts.

Loving God, we pray for each other, for those who depend upon us for prayer, and for all people according to their needs.
We ask that your healing power may prevail in our lives.
We pray that those in positions of public trust may be worthy of that trust as they act as stewards of power and wealth
for the benefit of all.
We pray that conflicts may be resolved in the context of relationships,
so that violence of thought word and deed may be diminished all through our world.
We ask your blessing for all who bear witness to the Gospel, so that relationships with you may be deepened for all people.
All these things, and whatever else you see that we need, we ask that you will grant for the sake of your Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose name we pray.
Amen.
Our Lord's Prayer
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 sins as we forgive those who sin 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.
Benediction
May the Lord bless us and keep us.
May the Lord make His face to shine upon us and be gracious to us.
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, and give us peace.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen +

Worship Service at Church of the Dawntreader Thursday February 7, 2013 10:00 a.m. SLT
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
    Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™
    Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
    www.zondervan.com
"New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989,
Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved." Designated by the initials, (NRSV).

Invocation:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen
Confession and Absolution
We come before you, our Loving Father, Mother God, confessing most of all our need of you.
We confess that we have not always acknowledged just how much we depend on you.
We confess that we have not always loved you with all our heart, soul and mind.
We have not always loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We ask that you will forgive us and grant us your strength to conform more fully to your loving will for us.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Amen.
In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is my privilege to declare to you and to myself, the entire
forgiveness of all our sins.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen

Prayer of the Day
Let us pray.
Most holy God, the earth is filled with your glory, and before you angels and saints stand in awe.
Enlarge our vision to see your power at work in the world, and by your grace make us heralds of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen

First Lesson: Isaiah 6:1-13 (NRSV)
1In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple.
2Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet,
and with two they flew.
3And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.

5And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips;
yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
6Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.
7The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”
8Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”

9And he said, “Go and say to this people: ‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.’
10Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.”
11Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people,
and the land is utterly desolate;
12until the Lord sends everyone far away, and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land.
13Even if a tenth part remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled.”
The holy seed is its stump.
Here ends the First Lesson

Psalm 138 (NRSV)

1I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise;

2I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness;
for you have exalted your name and your word above everything.

3On the day I called, you answered me, you increased my strength of soul.

4All the kings of the earth shall praise you, O Lord, for they have heard the words of your mouth.

5They shall sing of the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord.

6For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly; but the haughty he perceives from far away.

7Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve me against the wrath of my enemies;
you stretch out your hand, and your right hand delivers me.

8The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Second Lesson: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (NRSV)
1Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received,
in which also you stand,
2through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—
unless you have come to believe in vain.
3For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received:
that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,
4and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,
5and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.
7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
8Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
9For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.
On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.
11Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.
Here ends the Second Lesson.

Gospel Lesson: Luke 5:1-11 (NRSV)
1Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God,
2he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.
3He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore.
Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
4When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
5Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”
6When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.
7So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.
8But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
9For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken;
10and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.
Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”
11When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
Here end the Readings from Holy Scripture.

 - Sermon -

Our lessons for this week teach us about the universality of the grace of God.
In our first lesson, the prophet had a vision in the temple.
The Lord of Hosts spoke to him, calling him to carry a message to the people of Judah.
At the time, the message was not exactly hopeful!
The unfaithful people of God were to be carried off into exile.
Yet forgiveness awaits them.
As the prophet himself recognized,
he was unclean and so were his people.
One of the holy angels brought a burning coal and touched it to the prophet's mouth.
The holy angel then told the prophet that his sin had been blotted out.
The message of the prophet was truly from God,
for the people were indeed carried off into exile.
This happened to the people of God in the northern kingdom of Israel, and the northern kingdom was never fully restored.
It also happened to the people in the southern kingdom of Judah,
and they did return home.
Their return was that of a remnant,
and after that experience, God's people of the Covenant have never again turned away from God
to the worship of the gods of other nations.
Their understanding of God expanded
so that they came to realize that He was God
not only in Jerusalem
but also in Babylon
and anywhere in the world that they might find themselves.
That understanding is crucial in our faith,
and still expanding,
as we are coming to realize that even the universe as we know it does not contain all things.
There are many universes -
maybe even an infinite number of them -
and the God whom we worship,
the God who is revealed to us in our Lord Jesus Christ
is the maker, redeemer and sustainer of all universes.
As the Qur'an calls Him,
God is the cherisher of all the worlds.
Yet the universal creator who loves all the universes He has made
loves also each and every one of us,
no matter how humble we may think we are.
You, yes you, and I, even I,
are loved with an infinite love,
the love that can only come into our hearts
from the One Who made us.
As our Psalm sings in our hearts,
"Though the Lord is high, He regards the lowly."
We are assured in the final verse of the Psalm,
God will fulfill His purpose with us.
Yes, I believe that God has a purpose for each of us.
We may not fulfill it,
but He will.
Again, in the words of the Psalm, His steadfast love endures forever.
That steadfast love of God is the universal grace that loves us all unconditionally.
It is the love described in our second lesson for last week as agape.
In the very last phrase of the Psalm,
we hear the assurance that God will not forsake the work of God's own hands.
God has created us and called us home at great cost.
God will never forsake us or abandon us.
In our Second Lesson, St. Paul gives us his very personal witness
of what he had been taught of the living Christ.
He was told that Jesus lived and preached in Galilee and Judea,
that He was prosecuted under the law of Rome and executed,
and that God raised Him from the dead.
Paul was not a witness to these great events himself
until Christ appeared to him personally,
as to one "untimely born."
Indeed, Paul saw the risen Lord as many believers have seen him since,
after the Ascension,
in a very personal revelation.
The living Christ is made known to believing hearts in many ways,
and a privileged few get to see Him and hear Him
while still in this world.
Paul was converted from a persecutor of the believers in Christ
to a believer himself, and,
using his own words,
the least of the Apostles.
Yet God was able to use Paul
as a witness to the nations
and to us to this very day
through his letters to the churches.
In fact, in many ways,
Paul, the least of the Apostles,
is in fact the founder of the Christian religion as we know it,
for better and for worse.
Finally, in our Gospel lesson for this week,
Jesus gives us a beautiful picture of the Kingdom of God at work.
He was trying to preach on the shore of the Lake of Genessaret,
also known as the Sea of Galilee.
It is in fact, a large fresh water lake,
the source of the Jordan River.
The people around Jesus were about to push him right out into the water,
so anxious were they to hear His words of love and hope.
He prevailed upon a fisherman to take him out into the water in his boat,
and the boat became His pulpit.
After the time of teaching was done,
he and the fishermen went out into deeper water.
Although the fishermen had not caught anything before,
they suddenly began to bring in more fish than the nets and boats could hold.
Much like the reaction of the prophet hundreds of years before,
St. Peter was terrified, bless his heart.
He fell on his knees before Jesus,
pleading for mercy because he was a sinner.
Jesus promised him a new calling.
From that point on, Jesus said,
Peter would be fishing for people.
No longer would those caught in the nets be taken for food.
They would be captivated by a love that is the source of all life and every love.
They - and we -
find ourselves amazingly taken into the greatest joy and peace of all the worlds.
Nothing would be the same.
The universal love of God would be ours,
not to keep to ourselves,
but to share with everyone else.
Those fishing nets of ancient Galilee have come represent the ever expanding reach of the Kingdom of God, to this very day.
Now we have been caught,
and we, also, have our nets,
woven with strands of love,
to draw in all kinds of people
into the love of the One Who first loved us
and Who will love us forever.
Amen.

Prayer of the People
Please type your spontaneous petitions in chat.
Each prepared petition is intended to remind us of the things we need to pray about,
so a brief pause will be provided for us to pray our own petitions,
either sharing them in the chat window
or praying them in our own hearts.

Loving God, we pray for each other, for those who depend upon us for prayer, and for all people according to their needs.
We ask that your healing power may prevail in our lives.
We pray that those in positions of public trust may be worthy of that trust as they act as stewards of power and wealth
for the benefit of all.
We pray that conflicts may be resolved in the context of relationships,
so that violence of thought word and deed may be diminished all through our world.
We ask your blessing for all who bear witness to the Gospel, so that relationships with you may be deepened for all people.
All these things, and whatever else you see that we need, we ask that you will grant for the sake of your Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose name we pray.
Amen.
Our Lord's Prayer
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 sins as we forgive those who sin 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.
Benediction
May the Lord bless us and keep us.
May the Lord make His face to shine upon us and be gracious to us.
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, and give us peace.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen +

Worship Service at Church of the Dawntreader Thursday January 31, 2013 10:00 a.m. SLT
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
    Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™
    Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
    www.zondervan.com
"New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989,
Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved." Designated by the initials, (NRSV).

Invocation:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen
Confession and Absolution
We come before you, our Loving Father, Mother God, confessing most of all our need of you.
We confess that we have not always acknowledged just how much we depend on you.
We confess that we have not always loved you with all our heart, soul and mind.
We have not always loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We ask that you will forgive us and grant us your strength to conform more fully to your loving will for us.
We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Amen.
In obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is my privilege to declare to you and to myself, the entire
forgiveness of all our sins.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen

Prayer of the Day
Let us pray.
Almighty and ever-living God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and love; and that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
Amen

First Lesson: from Jeremiah 1 (NRSV)
1 Now the word of the LORD came to me saying,
5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
6 Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy."
7 But the LORD said to me,
"Do not say, "I am only a boy';
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you,
8 Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
says the LORD."
9 Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me,
"Now I have put my words in your mouth.
10 See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant."

17 But you, gird up your loins; stand up and tell them everything that I command you. Do not break down before them, or I will break you before them. 18 And I for my part have made you today a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall, against the whole land--against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. 19 They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the LORD, to deliver you.
Here ends the First Lesson

Psalm 71 (NRSV)
In you, O LORD, I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame.
2 In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
incline your ear to me and save me.
3 Be to me a rock of refuge,
a strong fortress, to save me,
for you are my rock and my fortress.
4 Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
5 For you, O Lord, are my hope,
my trust, O LORD, from my youth.
6 Upon you I have leaned from my birth;
it was you who took me from my mother's womb.
My praise is continually of you.

15 My mouth will tell of your righteous acts,
of your deeds of salvation all day long,
though their number is past my knowledge.

17 O God, from my youth you have taught me,
and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Second Lesson: from 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 (NRSV)
12:31 But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
13:1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,
but do not have love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease;
as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part;
10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child;
when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part;
then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Here ends the Second Lesson.

Gospel Lesson: Luke 4:21-30 (NRSV)
21 Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?"
23 He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, "Doctor, cure yourself!'
And you will say, "Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Caper'naum.'"
24 And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown.
25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Eli'jah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months,
and there was a severe famine over all the land;
26 yet Eli'jah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zar'ephath in Si'don.
27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Eli'sha, and none of them was cleansed except Na'aman the Syrian."
28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage.
29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built,
so that they might hurl him off the cliff.
30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Here end the Readings from Holy Scripture.

 - Sermon -

The lessons for this week are very important for our worlds political and cultural situations.
The first lesson speaks of the prophet having been known by God even BEFORE he was formed in his mother's womb.
God knows and calls each of us before we are created.
God loves us and cares for our lives intimately
before we are born, even before we are conceived.
Verses like this are often used these days in a political way.
The issue of abortion seems uppermost in the minds of a lot of believers.
I can assure you that this verse and others like it say nothing at all on the subject.
We can construe them as we like,
but no one's particular interpretation can be taken as the final word.
Even if some believers come to think that abortion is wrong under any or even all conditions,
they do not have the right to try to impose thier opinions on anyone else.
That is a key understanding of the separation of religious principles from political ideologies.
Our faith informs everything we think, say and do.
It does not require us or anyone else to take particular political or cultural positions.
It is possible to be a faithful Christian and be totally opposed to abortion.
It is equally possible to be a faithful Christian and believe that every woman has the right to make her own choices
regarding her own body and her own reproductive life.
What is not possible
is to be a faithful Christian and have no compassion.
The love of God for us
calls us all to love Him
and to love each other.
Our psalm sings of God's compassion for us,
delivering us from the wicked and unjust.
As always, God's favorite way of delivering His children from those who have no compassion
is to teach them to have compassion.
God has compassion for them, too!
Our second lesson teaches us all about compassion.
It tells us what God's love is like.
It shows us the kind of love we are being called to have.
In the Greek language, in which this lesson was first written,
there are at least four words for love.
The love being described here
is called agape.
It is the kind of love that purely and simply cares.
If you say that you care about another person,
and you always want what is best for him or her,
then you are loving that other person with agape.
This love is patient and kind.
It does not seek what it wants.
In second life terms, we would say that it avoids drama!
The love of God for us always seeks what is good for us,
especially our freedom.
When we say that we love someone,
we may think that we want what is best,
but that just might not include freedom,
especially if that freedom includes the right to do something that we do not want them to do.
We know that God's love for us includes exactly that.
We are free to do God's will and obey Him.
We are also free to disobey Him and rebel, in other words, to sin.
Of course, if we do so,
ultimately we will diminish our own freedom.
There are many examples of how this works,
but even in human society we can see it in something as simple as speed limits.
If we drive our city streets within the law,
we enhance our own freedom and everyone else's freedom too.
We provide for our own safety in that way and the safety of others.
If we drive recklessly, we will diminish our own freedom and the freedom of others.
The likelihood of an accident is much greater if we do not drive within the law.
Even if we don't have an accident,
we might get a traffic ticket, costing us money that we then would not have the freedom to spend on other things.
If we get too many traffic tickets, we might lose the right to drive,
and our freedom would be diminished in that way, too.
So even in a very mundane example,
we see that our freedom is enhanced by our obedience to law.
In terms of God's law of love,
the prinicple is even more true,
though it may be a lot less obvious.
By loving others,
by caring about the well being of everyone we meet,
we ourselves are more likely to be loved and cared for,
since love tends to call to love and bring more love into being.
As the saying goes,
Love is the one thing that you get more of when you give it away.
Our Lord Jesus was the perfect example of love in action.
When He preached in His home synagogue in Nazareth,
He told His people
that the words of hope from the lesson He read
had been fulfilled in His hearing.
There was controversy in His preaching,
for people were reluctant to accept one of their own as a true prophet.
The same thing happened to the prophet Mohammed.
He was widely loved and respected by the tribes of Arabia,
but his own tribe, the Quraysh, was the last to accept him.
The words of our Lord have been proven true over and over again,
"Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown."
Love given is not always reciprocated.
Jesus was nearly killed by the people of His own home town,
but His time had not yet come.
He would be killed by those who rejected His love,
but it was not on that day
in which He preached in His own hometown synagogue.
It would be on another day
in Jerusalem
when the political and religious leaders of His time
turned against Him
because they found His message threatening to their way of life and their ideologies.
Separation of religious principles from political ideology would have served Him well, but it was not so in His time.
It is not always so in our time, either,
but it serves well for people who think differently to live together in peace and harmony.
In the U.S. it is called the separation of church and state,
and it is being seriously threatened here.
Not only here, but all over the world,
there are people who believe that they can impose their religious principles on others through the force of law or war.
That false concept is at the heart of deep conflicts in places like Egypt, Mali, Syria, and even France, Turkey, and the U.S.
We all need more love for our neighbor and less judgment.
When we heed the call of our Lord to love one another as He has first loved us,
our own freedom and the freedom of others all over the world will be enhanced.
Human community can be built on love.
It has happened over and over again
in marriages
in friendships
in neighborhoods
in cities and states
in nations
where compassion is the goal of human relationships.
Communities built on love are a foretaste of that great community of love
we know as Heaven.
Amen.

Prayer of the People
Please type your spontaneous petitions in chat.
Each prepared petition is intended to remind us of the things we need to pray about,
so a brief pause will be provided for us to pray our own petitions,
either sharing them in the chat window
or praying them in our own hearts.

Loving God, we pray for each other, for those who depend upon us for prayer, and for all people according to their needs.
We ask that your healing power may prevail in our lives.
We pray that those in positions of public trust may be worthy of that trust as they act as stewards of power and wealth
for the benefit of all.
We pray that conflicts may be resolved in the context of relationships,
so that violence of thought word and deed may be diminished all through our world.
We ask your blessing for all who bear witness to the Gospel, so that relationships with you may be deepened for all people.
All these things, and whatever else you see that we need, we ask that you will grant for the sake of your Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose name we pray.
Amen.
Our Lord's Prayer
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 sins as we forgive those who sin 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.
Benediction
May the Lord bless us and keep us.
May the Lord make His face to shine upon us and be gracious to us.
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon us, and give us peace.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen +