A Gathering in Worship Offered by the People of the Church of Christ, Union
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost 10:30 am
Meditation
“Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.” ~ Thomas Merton
Prelude
Welcome
From There to Here: We Gather
¨ The Call
I go by a field where once I cultivated a few poor crops. It is now covered with young trees, for the forest that belongs here has come back and reclaimed its own. And I think of all the effort I have wasted and all the time, and of how much joy I took in that failed work and how much it taught me. For in so failing I learned something of my place, something of myself, and now I welcome back the trees. ~~Wendell Berry (Sabbath Day Poems 2006) IX
Hymn
¨ #309 Black We Are Your People Whitfield
1. We are your people, Spirit of grace, you dare to make us Christ to our neighbors of every culture and place.
2. Joined in community, treasured and fed, may we discover gifts in each other, willing to lead and be led.
3. Rich in diversity, help us to live closer than neighbors, open to strangers, able to clash and forgive.
4. Glad of tradition, help us to see in all life’s changing, where Crist is leading, where our best efforts should be.
5. Give, as we venture justice and care (peaceful, resisting, waiting or risking) wisdom to know when and where.
6. Spirit, unite us; make us, by grace, willing and ready, Christ’s living body, loving the whole human race.
Reprinted with permission using OneLicense #A-723786
¨ Prayer of Approach and Confession
One: In truth, in sincerity, in earnest, we seek to be authentic in our place, agents of love and grace. In truth, in sincerity, in earnest, we name now those ways we have put ourselves higher than we ought, and missed the mark of our holiest hopes. In truth, in sincerity, in earnest, we seek to make it right. We seek to turn around. We seek the better way. God forgive what errors we have made and those we perpetuate. By your mercy forgive and help us find our right place at your table. Amen.
¨ Words of Assurance
¨ Passing the Peace
Building the Community: News that Connects Us
Announcements
Lighting the Justice Candle
Today we honor Bill McKibben, founder of Third Act, which organizes people over the age of 60 for action on climate and justice.
His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages. He’s gone on to write 20 books, and his work appears regularly in periodicals from the New Yorker to Rolling Stone. He serves as the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he has won the Gandhi Peace Prize as well as honorary degrees from 20 colleges and universities. Foreign Policy named him to its inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers.
McKibben also helped found 350.org, the first global grassroots climate campaign, which has organized protests on every continent, including Antarctica, for climate action.
Word And Worship
Special Music Angels In Your Life Ruth McLain Smith Al, Alice & Ruth
Epistle Lesson Hebrews 13:1-8,15-16
Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured. Let marriage be held in honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’ So we can say with confidence,
‘The Lord is my helper;
I will not be afraid.
What can anyone do to me?’
Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever. Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
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 Luke 14:1,7–14
On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely. When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honour, he told them a parable. ‘When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honour, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, “Give this person your place”, and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher”; then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’
He said also to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’
Sermon Humble or Humiliating?
Visual Reflection
Living Prayer
Call to Prayer and Offering
Ringing of the Peace Bell
The Union Church Peace Bell was created by Jeff Enge in honor of Union Church member Carl Eschbach (1904-1998). A twin bell hangs in Berea’s sister province in Japan and is also rung in the hope of peace for all nations.
Offering Music Give Me Jesus trad. Esther Tuwe, soloist
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/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”)
You can also use US mail! Mail to: 200 Prospect St., Berea, KY 40403
Your contribution is love made visible. Thank you!
Community Prayer
One: Mighty host of the mighty feast, help us see where all those who are invited. Relax in us the tension of our apprehensions, the bind of our egos and insecurities. We are thankful to be at the table, and wherever we are seated we will give you the glory and accept the grace as a gift. Help us find the right seat, making room for all the guests and enjoying the company of sister and brother whatever end of the table you invite us to inhabit. Feed all with the daily bread we need. We come to your house some wounded and broken; some weighed by unspeakable burdens. Please feed and heal those who worries only you know. Strengthen them with caring family and ease them with healing of heart, body, and soul. You are the healer, and we humbly ask to help. You set the table, and we only hope to serve and love. In the way of your son Jesus we ask these things, and pray as he 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
¨ Hymn #539 Black Won’t You Let Me Be Your Servant? Servant Song
Won’t you let me be your servant Let me be as Christ to you? Pray that I may have the grace To let you be my servant too
We are pilgrims on a journey We are travelers on the road We are here to help each other Walk the mile and bear the load
I will hold the Christ-light for you In the night time of your fear I will hold my hand out to you Speak the peace you long to hear
I will weep when you are weeping When you laugh I’ll laugh with you I will share your joy and sorrow Till we’ve seen this journey through
When we sing to god in heaven we shall find such harmony, Born of all we’fe know together of Christ’s love and agony.
Won’t you let me be your servant Let me be as Christ to you? Pray that I may have the grace To let you be my servant too
Reprinted with permission using OneLicense #A-723786
¨ Benediction
Postlude Come, Christians, Join to Sing Madrid, arr. Larry Sue Debbonnaire Kovacs, Pearl Marshall, Robert Rorrer, Handbells
(you are welcome to be seated and enjoy the Postlude)
Bulletin Cover:
Lange, Dorothea. Children in a Democracy — On Arizona Highway 87, Maricopa County, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55632 [retrieved August 26, 2022]. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:On_Arizona_Highway_87,south_of_Chandler._Maricopa_County,_Arizona._Children_in_a_democracy._A_migra...-_NARA-_522527.jpg.
Announcements here: https://union-church.org/announcements-for-aug-28/
Especially In Our Prayers
¨ 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 Cape Verde, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Senegal and our brothers & sisters at Berea Baptist Church in our hearts, and pray for them. Please hold these concerns in your prayers, today and throughout the week.
¨ 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 now over 16,600 Kentucky residents, and 289 Madison County residents, who have died to date from Covid-19.
¨ Prayers for all the people of Ukraine for their safety and sovereignty. Prayers also that the government of Russia will turn to reason & respect for their own peoples’ lives as well as for Ukrainian families.
¨ 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.
¨ Our church family members in nursing homes or who are homebound: Jan Hamilton, Betsy Hoefer, Dorie Hubbard, Loyal Jones, Lois Morgan, Alva Peloquin, Laura Robie, Betty Wray, Sally Zimmerman
¨ Families and Friends in Crises…may God be present to every need and heal every rift and wound and those who care for them.
¨ Annriette Stolte and all the family, at the death of Bill on August 26.
¨ Sara Murphy, at the loss of her brother, Robert Arthur Abney, at 74, on August 19.
¨ Bill Roberts, at the loss of Howard Stevens on July 18.
¨ Keith Gilbertson, suffering from a serious illness of unknown origin. May God’s healing come swiftly.
¨ The families and friends and for all the emergency responders to the floods in our Eastern counties: that safety return, that homes be rebuilt, that all needed help will come.
¨ JoAnn Russell, Reda Hutton’s aunt, facing several medical challenges.
¨ Children in detention centers, that they may be reunited with their families soon.
¨ Hazel Morris, being treated for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL)
¨ Raymond Binkley, Betty Wray’s brother, aged 94, and in ill health.
¨ Michelle, beloved nurse at Morning Pointe, undergoing treatment for cancer.
¨ Jess Burton & Jake Graber and their little girl, Lila, who has serious gastric issues.
¨ Important dates—if we haven’t got yours, let us know. We’ll help you get connected in FellowshipOne Go!
Birthdays: August 29 – Jen Eich, Sofia Saderholm; September 2 – dodie Murphy, Hamrick Walters
Anniversaries: September 1 – Gene & Dorothy Chao; 3 – Greg & Adria Sutherland
Leave a Reply