A Gathering in Worship Offered by the People of the Church of Christ, Union
Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany 10:30 am
Meditation
There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool. ~ Francis Bacon
From There to Here: We Gather
Prelude
Welcome
¨ Call to Worship
One: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,”
All: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
One: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
All: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
One: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
All: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
One: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
All: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
One: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
God is ever with us, and even those most distressed are not far from strength and love far greater than our own. Blessed are those who seek, and blessed are those who rise to the need and blessed are those who have given more than they have or should, and blessed are those who are unsure, and unwise, and unwell. Blessed are we in God’s presence.
All: Come, let us worship together in blessing bound.
~ Adapted from the New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition (Friendship Press, 2021), Mt 5:1–12.
¨ Hymn Gather Us In Marty Haugen
¨ Prayer of Approach & Confession
One: God of Peace, we come to you recognizing that the people whom you love have not always been faithful to you.
All: In the wilderness, in foreign cities, in Jerusalem, and the Promised Land: it has always been difficult for your people to live in peace with one another.
One: Yet, your will for us is the peace that passes all understanding, the peace that only you can give.
All: Be with us now and gather us in. We confess the ways we weave and have woven with woe, not with blessing. We have condemned and pointed rather than sought healing. We have hungered and thirsted, but we have kept others from the table. Help us hear your voice anew. Help us walk humbly in the way of your justice and kindness, and feel your peace and power in our lives. Amen.
~Adapted from United Church Publishing House, Celebrate God’s Presence (United Church Publishing House, 2000).
¨ Words Of Assurance
¨ Passing the Peace of Christ
All who come to this sanctuary are welcome companions on the journey of faith. Please turn to those nearest you and greet them with words of peace.
Word and Worship
Special Music What Does the Lord Require? Jim Strathdee Union Church Handbell Ensemble
You’re invited to sing along!
1. What does the Lord require of you?
2. What does the Lord require of you?
3. Justice, kindness, walk humbly with your God.
Scripture Lesson Micah 6:1-8
Hear what the Lord says: Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. hear, you mountains, the case of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth, for the Lordhas a case against his people, and he will contend with Israel.
“O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.”
“With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?
~ New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition (Friendship Press, 2021), Mic 6:1–8.
Children’s Moment as the children return to their seats we sing
May God’s presence 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.
Scripture Lesson 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of the proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews ask for signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles,but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.
In contrast, God is why you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
~New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition (Friendship Press, 2021)
Sermon Because We Cannot Know Rev. Kent Gilbert
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.
A Chance for Generosity: www.easytithe.com/union
Our gifts help sustain this particular community of caring by sustaining the building, pastor 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 ministries.
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. Baskets are placed at the head and foot of each aisle for those who wish to make an in-person donation. Electronic donations can be made very simply and easily at: https//: www.easy tithe.com/union
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!
Silent Prayers and Prayers of the Community
Offering Music Beach Spring Ann Organ
Kim Kobersmith, flute
Community Prayer Opal Bailey, Reader
God of all the wise that ever were, hear our prayer to be more foolish and less correct. Hear our pleas to be O so much more loving, and O so much less peevish. Help us take more risks on blessing, on kindness, on your just and counter-cultural love. For we have been fools trying our own wisdom, and we have failed to drink from your everflowing streams. We pray to walk more humbly and to flow more easily in the ways of your heart, not our own alone. We pray that we could be wise to heal, to help, to unburden, to redistribute.
Help us to release all who are caught in the impossible snares of our pretensions and prisons of poor thinking and impoverished faith. For you are the God of extravagant generosity, and foolish blessings, and you are the maker of ways shunned by the worldly-wise!
Flowing like justice, loving like Jesus, and living the blessings you have placed in and around us, we ask you to make us fools for this life you intend, and crazy for the power of your love. In walking with you, humbly here and now, may we find all the wisdom needed to bear the world in blessings untold. This we ask in the name of Jesus, our brother, who taught us to pray to you as…
Our Lord’s Prayer
All: 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: We Depart
Community Connections
Announcements
We share opportunities for Beloved Community and ways to serve.
Lighting the Justice Candle to Lead us Forth
This morning’s Justice Candle is in honor of Dean Quinn Cornett of Paint Lick, KY (May 18, 1918 – May 28, 2003).
Dean was daily point of light # 182, presented by President Bush in the White House on June 29, 1990. In 1991, she was one of 19 to receive the President’s Volunteer Action Award. Founder and Director of Friends of Paint Lick Inc. in 1988, Dean’s motto – on her pickup truck – was “Press On Regardless”.
The Friends of Paint Lick is a volunteer organization that provides several services. It is a clothing and home-goods donation center, offers GED and computer skills classes through Eastern Kentucky University’s adult-education program, a food pantry, has a monthly book club and offers weekly art classes. It also provides volunteers who are always willing to meet community needs.
Maybe even more notably, Dean is also known as the founder of the Paint Lick Clinic which opened in 2000. Dean had worked in social work for many years and, of all the challenges that folks had, none was greater than the health issue. Yet the health issue, especially the access to the medical community, seemed a major barrier for most of the folks Dean worked among. She dreamed of having a local doctor and clinic that would be much more like the family doctors of the past. Like the ones who had played such a vital role in the history of the community called Paint Lick. She found that person in Dr. John Belanger.
Both organizations are vital and alive today, thanks to her leadership and good will.
Hymn Let Us Build a House Marty Haugen
Partnership and Purpose
Today presents an opportunity to covenant together! All who would like to are welcome to join the church family – you will be received in joy.
Questions of the Congregation and New Members
¨ Covenant of Welcome
And we, the members and faithful friends of this church, renewing our own covenant to God and to each other, do now heartily welcome you to our fellowship, promising to watch over you in love, and praying that you, and we, may be true witnesses for Christ, a light in the world, and continue to increase in usefulness and joy in his service.
¨ Benediction
Postlude
You are welcome to be seated to appreciate the music following service, and to show appreciation at the end with applause.
Our Prayers for Others
¨ 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 (Link to World Council of Churches Ecumenical Prayer cycle. (union-church.org/ministries/prayer/). Let us hold the people of Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Western Sahara, and Tunisia and our brothers & sisters at Mt. Zion Christian Church in our hearts, and pray for them. Please hold these concerns in your prayers, today and throughout the week.
¨ 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.
¨ Dodie Murphy’ granddaughter, Caroline, passed her licensing exam! She starts her position as a children’s psych nurse on Feb. 6. Both of us are grateful for all of the prayers.
¨ J.R. & Kelly Anderson, at the death of JR’s father
¨ Andrea Wescott, at the death of her step-mother.
¨ Those recovering from recent Covid Infections
¨ Love and comfort for the family and friends of Leah Pillsbury, colleague and friend of Corey Chao who died of her depression and long Covid. May God give her peace and rebuild the broken hearts of those missing her.
¨ Lisa Shroyer and all the family, at the passing of her mom.
¨ Hazel Morris’ niece-in-law, diag-nosed with cancer
¨ Ally Nurre’s sister hospitalized in Wales
¨ Rita Barlow
¨ JoAnn Russell, Reda Hutton’s aunt, facing several medical challenges.
¨ Our church family members in nursing homes or who are homebound: Jan Hamilton, Doug Hindman, Betsy Hoefer, Dorie Hubbard, Loyal Jones, Lois Morgan, Cheryl Payne, Alva Peloquin, Laura Robie, Betty Wray, Sally Zimmerman
¨ Patsy Boyce, sister-in-law of Bob and Jean Boyce, undergoing chemotherapy.
¨ Celebrations with Prayers of Joy! Birthdays: today, 29 – Gwen Hensley; 31 – Steve Bolster; Feb. 4 – Sandy Bolster, Donna Eder, Donna Rath
Anniversaries: Feb. 3 – Thomas & Sarabeth Brownrobie; 4 – Ronald & Annie Sims
If we haven’t got your important dates, let us know. We’ll help you get connected in FellowshipOne Go!
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