Worship Service at Church of the Dawntreader Thursday May 23, 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.
God of heaven and earth, before the foundation of the universe and the beginning of time you are the triune God:
Author of creation, eternal Word of salvation, life-giving Spirit of wisdom.
Guide us to all truth by your Spirit, that we may proclaim all that Christ has revealed and rejoice in the glory he shares with us.
Glory and praise to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever.
Amen

First Lesson: Proverbs 8: 1 - 4, 22 - 31 (NRSV)
1 Does not wisdom call,
and does not understanding raise her voice?
2 On the heights, beside the way,
at the crossroads she takes her stand;
3 beside the gates in front of the town,
at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
4 "To you, O people, I call,
and my cry is to all that live.
22 The LORD created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of long ago.
23 Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
24 When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.
25 Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth--
26 when he had not yet made earth and fields,
or the world's first bits of soil.
27 When he established the heavens, I was there,
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
28 when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
29 when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
30 then I was beside him, like a master worker;
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
31 rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.
Here ends the First Lesson

Psalm 8 (NRSV)
1 O LORD, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9 O LORD, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
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 5: 1 - 5 (NRSV)
1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Here ends the Second Lesson.

Gospel Lesson: John 16: 12 - 15 (NRSV)
12 [Jesus said,] "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth;
for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
14 He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
Here end the Readings from Holy Scripture.

 - Sermon -

This week on the church's calendar is the celebration of the Holy Trinity.
The faith of the Christian church
is built on the idea of a love relationship at the heart of all being.
One way of approaching this understanding
has been to picture God from eternity
thinking a perfect thought of God's own self.
That perfect thought is a reflection of God,
begotten of God from all eternity,
and that perfect thought - reflection of God is the
Second person of the Holy Trinity, God the Son,
who became flesh in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
From eternity, the Father and the Son have loved one another
with a perfect love,
and that perfect love is the Third person of the Trinity,
God the Holy Spirit.
The concept, the doctrine, of the Trinity
is the least we can say about God
based on our experience of God, based on the stories of our relationship with God
as recorded in the Bible
and as we experience the presence of God in our lives of faith.
The Holy Trinity is not the last word;
it is simply the least that we can say.
In light of our understanding of God's ongoing work in Creation,
in light of the coming of Christ among us to save us from despair,
and in light of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit,
leading us to faith in Jesus and sustaining our faith,
we can only stand in awe
and confess by faith
that God is One and God is three Persons,
the Holy Trinity.
We may as well not try to prove the doctrine of the Trinity
on the basis of Scripture,
for it simply is not there.
Certainly there are many very powerful hints.
My favorite is the Song of Creation.
In the opening verses,
we are told that God created the Heavens and the Earth,
that the Spirit of God moved over the face of the Deep,
and that God called all things into being
by His Word
when He said, "Let there be light,"
and there was a big bang (!)
and the universes came into being.
There we see the Holy Trinity at the very beginning.
God the Creator is God the Father,
the Spirit of God, the One Who moved over the face of the waters is the Holy Spirit,
and God's Word, through Whom all things were made, is God the Son.
Likewise, the doctrine of the Trinity is implied in our Gospel lesson.
There, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ is speaking.
He calls our attention to the Father and the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit guides us into all the truth of Christ.
All that the Father has belongs also to the Son.
Here is the implication of both oneness and absolute equality
that would eventually become parts of the church's doctrine of the Holy Trinity.
The doctrine is not the important thing.
Our experience of God is what really matters.
The Father - Mother is our Creator whom we praise for calling us and all the worlds into being.
All the beauty we see around us comes from the Father's loving hands and the Mother's loving heart.
Even the beauty we find in Second Life has God as its ultimate source:
Our minds and our imagination come from God, and our creativity reflects the mind, heart and hands of our Creator.
We are made in God's own image, male and female, with the ability to create beauty,
and so what we create is truly a creation of God as well.
The Son of God, our Lord Jesus, is God Who became one of us to bring us home to our true and eternal family.
He is our Savior Who lives in us to remake us in His own image
and to enable us to be our true selves.
The Holy Spirit is the source of our life.
Every breath we take is the sustenance made possible by the Spirit of God.
As our First Lesson speaks of the Wisdom of God,
so the Holy Spirit is the Holy Wisdom that creates faith in our hearts.
Our breath is breathed into our bodies by the Holy Spirit.
Our faith is breathed into our souls by the same Holy Spirit
to bring us into eternal life.
The words with which we open our worship services here at Dawntreader
reflect our experience of faith,
the experience that leads us to speak in terms of the Holy Trinity:
The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God,
and the Communion of the Holy Spirit
be with you all.
In these words,
the Holy Trinity is invoked,
not only by name,
but by the Love
which each person of the Holy Trinity
brings into our lives of faith
and experience of God's presence.
Grace, that love which we can never deserve,
comes to us through our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Son of God,
the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.
It is based on the Love of God the Father,
the First Person of the Holy Trinity,
from which God created us
and because of which God sent His Son
to live and die as one of us
to bring us back to Him.
The Communion of the Holy Spirit
is none other than the community of believers,
the church,
the people of God,
drawn together by the common experience
of the presence of God in our lives
as we live them every day.
The recognition of God's presence with us
and the trust that engenders
is made possible by the presence and work
of the Holy Spirit in us and among us.
The Christian community exists
because the Holy Spirit has created it,
and the Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.
One God, three persons, are in a perfect love relationship with each other,
the ultimate Holy Family,
and they are our family, too!
God is our Father and Mother,
in my own mind represented as God the Father and God the Holy Spirit,
and God is our Brother,
our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who became one of us
to bring us home.
Our hymn for today celebrates the One True God,
Whom we Christians recognize
in the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity.
I will always associate this hymn with Trinity Sunday, and maybe you do too.
Please feel free to sing it along with me.

1. Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

2. Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee,
Who was, and is, and evermore shall be.

3. Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye made blind by sin Thy glory may not see;
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in pow’r, in love, and purity.

4. Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy; merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!

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 +