A Gathering in Worship Offered by the People of the Church of Christ, Union
Proper 20 of the Season after Pentecost 10:30 am
Meditation
“Don’t be tempted by the shiny apple
Don’t you eat of a bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth
’Cause all that you have is your soul…”
~ Tracy Chapman
From There to Here: We Gather
Welcome
Welcome to this service of worship! Please sign in using the pew folder, passing it back down the row so all can greet one another by name, and place the sheet in an offering plate. We’re glad you’re here! During the service, you are invited to rise in body or in spirit, standing or sitting, at points in the service marked “<>.”
¨ The Call Vivi Reynolds, Reader
One: On this International Day of Peace…
All: We come pursuing a peace that eludes us.
One: We come seeking wholeness…
All: Though we know all too much of brokenness.
One: In service of Peace and Wholeness…
All: We come for wisdom, insight, and inspiration.
One: May the God of all Peace meet us here. May Holy Wisdom come from our gathering. May teaching and reaching be light and love to us all in this hour with God.
All: We come, Lord. Meet us where we are.
¨ Hymn # 581 Lead Us from Death to Life World Peace Prayer
Refrain: Lead us from death to life, from falsehood to truth,
from despair to hope, from fear to trust.
Lead us from hate to love, from war to peace;
Let peace fill our hearts, let peace fill our world, let peace fill our universe.
1. Still all the angry cries, still all the angry guns,
Still now your people die, earth’s sons and daughters.
Let justice roll, let mercy pour down,
Come and teach us your way of compassion. Refrain
2. So many lonely hearts, so many broken lives,
Longing for love to break into their anguish.
Come, teach us love, come, teach us peace,
Come and teach us your way of compassion. Refrain
3. Let justice ever roll, let mercy fill the earth,
Let us begin to grow into your people.
We can be love, we can bring peace,
We can still be your way of compassion. Refrain
¨ Prayer of Approach and Confession
One: We have come for peace, but we are not always peacemakers. We have come for wholeness, but we have broken others even as we hoped for healing. Lord hear us as we confess our failings and ask for help as we turn toward you and each other as love demands:
All: Have mercy, O Lord of transforming grace, that we might make peace from pieces, whole cloth from torn intentions and raveled edges. Forgive us and renew our hearts and minds so our actions can light the way of your Christ. In Jesus’ name we pray: Amen.
¨ Words of Assurance
One: God doesn’t cherish your guilt, or seek your destruction. God seeks your life, good life, true life, a wider life for you and for all of us. When we’ve done wrong all of God’s power is set to help us make it right. Believe the good news of the gospel: anyone and everyone is beloved, can do better, and will have the help of the Lord.
All: Thanks be to God for a love like that! Amen!
¨ 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
Anthem Christ Has Broken Down the Wall Mark A. Miller
Christ has broken down the wall. Let us join our hearts as one. We’re accepted as we are. Through god’s love all is reconciled. Cast aside your doubts and fears. Peace and love, freely offered here. We will tear down the wall! We will tear down every wall! God has called us, one and all. Christ has broken down the wall.
Scripture Reading Amos 8:4-7
Hear this, you who trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah smaller and the shekel heavier and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and selling the sweepings of the wheat.” The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
~ New Revised Standard Version, updated
Children’s Moment as the children return to their seats we sing:
May God’s blessings 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 Reading Luke 16:1-13
Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’
So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’
Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’
And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly, for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone they may welcome you into the eternal homes. “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much, and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If, then, you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters, for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
~ New Revised Standard Version, updated
Sermon Taking and Giving: Robbing the Powers for Good Rev. Kent Gilbert
Video Reflection
A chance to take in what we have heard and reflect together.
Living Prayer
Call to Prayer
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 Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay; and our siblings at Wallaceton Baptist Church in our hearts, and pray for them today and throughout the week.
Ringing 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.
Embodied Prayer
You are invited to reflect and pray at the candle tables. You may also choose to source the essential ingredient of solitude and private prayer, remaining with your own thoughts in your pew.
For Reflection
Restoring Balance…
Sometimes what we give weight to and what we make light of are misaligned. The Hebrew prophet accuses the people of making the grain measure light and making silver coins especially heavy…all means of cheating others. For prayer today consider redistributing what is heavy and what is light so until all is in right relation: To start, breathe in. In your mind hold in your mind something that was the wrong weight, or got the wrong emphasis from you. Perhaps it was someone’s feelings you made light of, or maybe you took heavy offense at another’s action. Holding your breath, pause and consider; ask for wisdom and mercy to align. As you slowly let your breath out, imagine restoring the right measure or weight to your vision. What would that take? Before your next breath ask for what you need to make it so. Repeat this deep, slow, redistribution in your heart until a sense of holy balance comes to you. Don’t be surprised if God has work for you to do.
Immersion Therapy…
When the complexity of the world is too much with you, immerse in this prayer-mantra. Repeat it fast or slow, as many times as is helpful to feel God’s hold on you: “Lord Jesus Christ, you are the light of the world. Fill my my mind with your light and my heart with your peace.” When you feel your anxiety subside, slow your breathing and rest in the palm of God’s hand until you are shown what to do.
Offertory
A Chance for Generosity: easytithe.com/union
A community of caring relies on support. Your recurring or one-time donation will make a ministry of healing, justice, and teaching available to all in need.
¨ Use your smart phone or computer and go to easytithe.com/union. No registration required, but registering once makes future generosity simply entering an amount and a click.
¨ Baskets for checks or cash are located at the head of each aisle for those who wish to make an in-person donation.
¨ Give by Text. Text an amount to 859-448-3403 (Example: Text “$50.00 Offering”).
¨ Give by Mail to: 200 Prospect St., Berea, KY 40403.
Your contribution is love made visible. Thank you!
¨ Doxology Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying Ken Medema
Silent Prayers and Prayers of the Community Vivi Reynolds, Reader
Source of irrepressible life, fount of possible impossibles, giver of joy and healing of harm, we come to you in those moments when the world stills and words fail. You know the burdens we carry, and you know the wit and wile we will need to help build a kin-dom here on earth. Help us then, once again, holiest of holy dreamers. Be our balm in the Gilead of greeds and needs. Turn our acumen for gain to advances for those left behind.
Rearrange, reverse, reveal our expectations and our priorities, and by your grace heal the broken places in ourselves, in our lives and work, and in the way we treat one another. You who seek the shalom of all, come. Rest in and on your people that we might know that in you there is no end to extravagant generosity, nor any limit to love. We are full of your grace and we humbly lift those who can’t feel it yet to your tender care. In Christ’s name we pray and in the way he taught us to reach to you as…
Our Lord’s Prayer
Our Maker, Our Mother, and Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; Thy kin-dom 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 kin-dom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
¨ Hymn #306 The Church of Christ, in Every Age Wareham
1 The church of Christ in every age, beset by change but Spirit-led, must claim and test its heritage and keep on rising from the dead.
2 Across the world, across the street, the victims of injustice cry for shelter and for bread to eat, and never live before they die.
3 Then let the servant church arise, a caring church that longs to be a partner in Christ’s sacrifice, and clothed in Christ’s humanity.
From Here to There
Community Connections
Announcements
We share opportunities for Beloved Community and ways to serve. Please see the listing of church & community events, prayers, and notices in the pages following the service.
Lighting the Justice Candle to Lead us Forth
Today we light this candle for our Jewish brothers and sisters. Tomorrow begins Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. t starts a ten day period of soul searching and contemplation. that ends with Yom Kippur. Traditionally, this period of time is for individuals to think about their behavior during the previous year, asking forgiveness from those they may have wronged, and pledging to make positive changes for the coming year.
Incidents of antisemitism, including holocaust denial, are increasing. Recently, The Antisemitism Act of 2025 passed and was signed into law. This bill requires the “Department of Education to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism when investigating discrimination complaints on college campuses. The goal is to provide a clear standard for identifying antisemitic harassment and to ensure that such incidents are recognized as unlawful discrimination, not protected free speech, according to proponents.”
To read more about the bill and why some groups opposed it go to thefire.org
Blessing the Luke 10 Team
Joy Gritton, Stephen Black Bear LaBoueff, Maranda Weckman, Betsy Whaley
The Joy of Welcoming New Members
Partnership & 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
¨ Benediction Response God Has Work for Us To Do Miller, Daw
Our Prayers for Others
¨ Dave Reilly’s nephew, Herb Post, ill with kidney cancer that has spread to his lung.
¨ Joe Tarter is doing well after his heart surgery and recovering at home.
¨ Kelly Mehler and all supporting him.
¨ Bonnie Donelly, grandma of Tennant Kirk’s daughter-in-law Carlie, on hospice care with pancreatic cancer.
¨ Charlie Hoffman, recovering from hernia surgery.
¨ Matt and Nettie Willis, whose dear friend, Alan Wasdahl, died suddenly last week.
¨ Chip Bailey, at the death of his first cousin, Rev. Brion K. Williams, pastor at Oakey Mountain Baptist Church in Clarksville, GA.
¨ Friends, family and church family members of Rev. Gerald “Jerry” Cooper, who died on Tuesday, at 91.
¨ JoAnn Russell, Reda Hutton’s aunt, facing several medical challenges.
¨ 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 affected by the devastating losses in the current conflict, and starvation of those in Gaza.
¨ We pray for our country, and those who are directly affected by the actions and inaction of our government to address the needs of its people and the world.
¨ Our church family members in nursing homes or who are homebound: Jan Hamilton, Betsy Hoefer, Dorie Hubbard, Susan Kramer, Lois Morgan, Sara Parker, Cheryl Payne, Alva Peloquin, Laura Robie, Theresa Scherf.
¨ Celebrations with Prayers of Joy!
Birthdays: Sept. 21 – Renee Wellinghurst; 24 – Claudia Munson-Schrumph; 25 – Brice Catlett; 28 – Pat Barrett
If we haven’t got your important dates, let us know. We’ll help you get connected in FellowshipOne Go!
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