March 21, 2021, Worship Bulletin and Prayer Concerns

A Gathering in Worship Offered by the People of the Church of Christ, Union

Fifth Sunday of Lent

Meditation

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ―John Muir

The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe, the less taste we shall have for destruction. ― Rachel Carson

From There to Here: We Gather

Welcome

As the Berea community responds to the governor’s suggestion to avoid gathering in large groups, we worship online to limit the risk of exposure to Covid-19. We’re delighted to welcome you into this virtual circle of God’s healing love and light.

Sung Response Vessels Holy and Whole

Vessels, holy and whole; Broken, needing the One; Open, body and soul; Healer, come.

The Call Charles Hoffman

Good morning, I’m Charles Hoffman a member of the Finance Board at Union Church. As we begin worship together today we recall the long journey we are all on toward recovery, restoration, and healing. Wherever you are on that journey, let us enter this time together seeking the presence of God. 

Sung Response Vessels Holy and Whole

Like the journey, the demands of following Jesus are great. Sometimes we must make extraordinary efforts to move in a new direction. As we consider the health of humanity, we cannot ignore the need to heal the very planet that sustains us. 

Sung Response Vessels Holy and Whole

Prayer of Approach and Confession

We live in increasing chaos of a beleaguered environment and the hoarding of resources. We want to be “saved” by something or someone else, but we discover this week that we are part of the plan, part of the solution, part of God’s work. Together we protect the jewel that is our home, restoring something beautiful from scars of the past.

Sung Response Vessels Holy and Whole

Words of Assurance  

Passing the Peace at Home

Building the Community: News that Connects Us

Today we light the Justice Candle in honor of Ashley Judd. For more than a decade, Judd’s humanitarian work has focused on gender equality and the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls. In 2016, she was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for UNFPA, the United Nations agency charged with sexual and reproductive health (among other things). As of May 2018, she had so far visited UNFPA’s projects for women and girls affected by humanitarian crises in Jordan, Turkey, Ukraine, and Bangladesh, and its development work in India and Sri Lanka.

Judd has also travelled with YouthAIDS to places affected by illness and poverty such as Cambodia, Kenya, and Rwanda. She has since become an advocate for preventing poverty and promoting awareness internationally. She has met with political and religious leaders on behalf of the deprived about political and social change. Judd has also narrated three documentaries for YouthAIDS that aired on the Discovery Channel, in National Geographic, and on VH1.

In 2011, she joined the Leadership Council of the International Center for Research on Women. Other organizations Judd has been involved with include Women for Women International and Equality Now.She is also a member of the advisory board for Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an organization fighting sex-trafficking and inter-generational prostitution in India.

The Living Word Among Us    

Singing Together Touch the Earth Lightly

1. Touch the earth lightly, use the earth gently, nourish the life of the world in our care: gift of great wonder, ours to surrender, trust for the children tomorrow will bear.

2. We who endanger, who create hunger, agents of death for all creatures that live, we who would foster clouds of disaster–God of our planet, forestall and forgive!

3. Let there be greening, birth from the burning, water that blesses and air that is sweet, health in God’s garden, hope in God’s children, regeneration that peace will complete.

4. God of all living, God of all loving, God of the seedling, the snow and the sun, teach us, deflect us, Christ reconnect us, using us gently, and making us one.

Sung Psalm           Steve Bolster, cantor         Psalm 119:9-16

The psalms were originally musical compositions. During Lent we will pray the psalms in musical form with congregational responses. Please sing the response when invited.

Response: Teach me, O God, the way of your statutes.

How can young people keep their way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you: do not let me stray from your commandments. I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you. Blessed are you, O God; teach me your statutes. R

With my lips I shall declare all the ordinances of your mouth. I delight in the way of your decrees as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word. R

Hebrew Scripture Lesson Jeremiah 31:31-34 Grace McKenzie, Reader

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Children’s Moment              

Please join in singing as we bless children everywhere:

May God’s blessing guard, protect and guide you.  God bless you, God bless you. Our savior’s loving arms be ever ’round you. God bless you, God bless you. 

Gospel Lesson  John 12:20-33 Emmanuel J. Stokes, Reader

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.

‘Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—“Father, save me from this hour”? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

The word of God for all of us to ponder. Amen. 

Sermon Holy Vessels:The Heart of Hearts  Rev. Kent Gilbert

Living Prayer

A Chance for Generosity: www.easytithe.com/union

Our gifts help sustain this particular community of caring by sustaining the building, pastors and staff, and all the materials that make our ministry of healing, justice, and teaching available to all in need. In addition, a portion of our contributions flows out to aid those in need via many external agencies.

Many friends give online, and you can use your smart phone or computer and go to www.easytithe.com/unionhttp://www.easytithe.com/union. You don’t have to register to make a contribution, but if you do, it can make future generosity that much easier. You can even give by text! Text to 859-448-3403 (Example: Text “$50.00 Offering”)

Your contribution is love made visible. Thank you!

Offering Music Lament J. Krug

Maria Hartz, Robert Rorrer, and Rina Tanaka, handbells; Bernardo Scarambone, piano    

Our Prayers for Others

You are very welcome to email or phone prayer requests to the office for the bulletin. Please do so by 10 am Thursdays, and be sure you have permission to share the information.

¨ Each week we join millions of Christians who pray for one another through the ecumenical prayer cycle and, locally, the Berea Ministerial Association’s prayer cycle. Let us hold the people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; and our brothers and sisters at the Holy Pentecostal Sanctuary in our hearts, and pray for them. Please hold these concerns in your prayers, today and throughout the week.

¨ All those seeking a new and just society and those fearful that they will be supplanted, may God open their hearts and include them in grace.

¨ Families and Friends in Crises…may God be present to every need and heal every rift and wound and those who care for them.

”Judith Singleton’s daughter, Stephanie, due to undergo surgery tomorrow

¨ Teri VanPelt, with a difficult medical diagnosis.

¨ Robert Rorrer, undergoing treatment for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

¨ Richard Olson, recovering from surgery.

¨ Lois Morgan, recovering from a broken wrist.

¨ Our church family members in nursing homes or who are homebound: Alva Peloquin, Loyal Jones, Jennie Kiteck, Mary Miller, Lois Morgan, Barb Smith, Jan Hamilton

¨ JoAnn Russell, Reda Hutton’s aunt, facing several medical challenges.

¨ Dale Brown, at Fred’s death

¨ Children in detention centers, that they may be reunited with their families soon.

¨ Those affected by the Covid-19 virus, their families and friends living with fear, anxiety, and feelings of isolation, may God bring peace to all who love them; and our wider community as we cope with the new realities of living, including the  over 5500 Kentucky residents, and one hundred Madison County residents, who have died to date from Covid-19.

Prayers of the People Charles Hoffman

Healer of our fractured creation, hear our lament for our failure to understand. Remind us that you are in the boat with us in the midst of difficult times and help us to change course when a new way is needed. We pray especially for those most impacted by dwindling resources. We pray that we will continue to learn and see and know how our actions affect others, not just ourselves. We give thanks for all who help us wake up to this storm and to see that it is within our power to calm the fury and restore wholeness. We ask for courage and encouragement  to chart our course in the direction of Love. We seek this as we pray the words you taught us, reaching to you as..

Our Lord’s Prayer

Our Maker, our Mother, and 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. Amen.   

From Here to There

Taking Our Prayers into the Week

The words we hear from both prophet and Messiah are that the Love of God demands more than the pull of the world. The greater purpose outweighs both our apathy and our fears. We move forward not because we are certain, but because in our heart of hearts, the restoration, the healing, the service beats more strongly than anything that would hold us back. We are led by the Healer, the heart of God’s heart, who can offer us faith in the midst of fear.

And so this week for our symbolic ritual as we take our prayers into the week, we are going to restore some beauty by adding to the beauty of our glass pieces. If you have or can get some thin craft wire this week, wrap some of that wire around one of your pieces of beach glass, creating a pendant that can be hung in a window or as a necklace, a constant reminder of our role as those who must “take care,” must care for and contribute to, rather than diminish, the beauty of this earth. You might also want to affix a piece of your glass to another creation of yours: surround it with a painting a frame, or add a pin to the back to wear.

Let me invite you to take a photo if you can and share it with us at office@union-church.org; https://www.facebook.com/UnionChurchBerea, unionchurchbereaky on Instagram. We will use these images in our worship next week.

Invitation to Connection

Sending & Blessing

Sung Response Vessels Holy and Whole

Vessels, holy and whole; Broken, needing the One; Open, body and soul; Healer, come.

OUR FELLOWSHIP PRINCIPLES:

“Union Church welcomes all followers of Christ and works with all who work with Him; respecting each person’s conscience; working by love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.”

Annual  Meeting today—link to Annual Report https://bit.ly/3d40p07

· Come to Coffee Hour after worship! https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87387600761

· Sundays, 9:30 am! Book Study led by Steve Connelly Register here so we can send you a link 

· Tuesday, Thursday &  Saturday Meditations with Rev. Shannon Abbott  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpIl_p8CabDEIS9ytj-xXm2vVDg_hyN03

· Wednesday, 10:00 am – Coffee Hours with Rev. Kent,. Registration link will be sent in Monday Announcements.

· Wednesdays, 6:30 pm—Kentuckiana Assocation of the United Church of Christ, worship services during Lent  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88690638991?pwd=MFBXVkpGL1REcSsrTkxXQVkwejE4dz09

· Thursdays, 10:30 am – Bible Study with Rev. Carla, 10:30 am. Register here

· Join the Union Church Facebook Group – it’s a bit less church business, a bit more fellowship and cat videos, administered by our Community Life & Growth Board – Union Church Facebook Group