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.
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"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 +