June 7, 2020 — Trinity Sunday

WELCOME TO WORSHIP

 

CALL TO WORSHIP

Light and dark, sea and sky, all things vast and intricate,
These God created.
People and communities, ecosystems and empty space,
These God created.
Large and small, simple and complex,
God called it good.
All that is seen and unseen is filled with God's creative energy,
and God called it good. 
In the beginning, God created. 
Still God creates today, in us and around us and through us, 
and behold: it is very good. 

 

OPENING HYMN                                     Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord, God Almighty!                              AUDREY ASSAD

 

CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE OF GOD'S GRACE

 

CALL TO CONFESSION

Friends, we are made in the image of God, but that does not make us God. Though we often prefer to pretend we are perfect, when we ignore our sin we deceive only ourselves and there is no room for God's truth to dwell in us. When we confess our sin, we experience the grace and mercy of God in the here and now. Before God, with the people of God, let us confess our faults and our failings. Let us pray. 

 

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Creator God, with a word you formed us from the dust of the earth and breathed the breath of life into us. You call us to live as stewards, reflecting your glorious image into the world. 

When we have scorned your gift of creation, placing ourselves over and above rather than within and among, forgive us.

When we have walked away from neighbors in need, too wrapped in our own concerns, forgive us. 

When we have condoned evil, racism, warfare, and greed, forgive us. 

When we have ignored your gift of creativity, imagination and freedom, intellect and reason, and have turned them into bonds of oppression, forgive us. 

Silence

Gracious God, fill us again with your creative spirit, that your image may shine forth in our lives. We pray in the name of your creating Word made flesh, Jesus the Christ. Amen. 

 

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

In the beginning, God planted goodness deep within creation — and through the grace of God, poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we are able to live as the Body of Christ, showing that goodness to the world. Friends, live and believe this good news: In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Thanks be go God. Amen. 

 

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION

Creating God, you welcome us as we are, beautiful and broken, your precious children. Send your Spirit on us! Open our hearts and minds to your transformative power. May we be convicted of your Word today and, as the Body of Christ, follow your lead and work together to create a new reality of peace and unity. 

 

SCRIPTURE READING                                        Matthew 28:16–20

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, 

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." 

 

SERMON                                                           Go and Make Disciples                                            Dr. EnikĹ‘ Ferenczy

 

HYMN NO. 538                                        Hallelujah! We Sing Your Praises              HALELUYA! PELO TSA RONA

Hallelujah! We sing your praises;
all our hearts are filled with gladness. 
Hallelujah! We sing your praises;
all our hearts are filled with gladness. 
Hallelujah! We sing your praises;
all our hearts are filled with gladness. 
Hallelujah! We sing your praises;
all our hearts are filled with gladness.
Christ the Lord to us said:
I am wine, I am bread.
I am wine, I am bread: 
give to all who thirst and hunger. 
Now he sends us all out, 
strong in faith, free of doubt,
strong in faith, free of doubt.
Tell to all the joyful gospel. 
Hallelujah! We sing your praises;
all our hearts are filled with gladness. 
Hallelujah! We sing your praises;
all our hearts are filled with gladness.
Hallelujah! We sing your praises;
all our hearts are filled with gladness. 
Hallelujah! We sing your praises;
all our hearts are filled with gladness.

 

COMMUNION—GREAT PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

I pray that God in Community, the Holy Three in One be with you.
We sing praises to you, O God, who make us one with all creation, human and non-human neighbors.
You poured your imagination into chaos, you painted your dreams and hopes on the blank canvas of creation in the colors of the rainbow. Simply, faithfully, graciously, all was offered to those created in your image. Yet, we preferred the absence of color in sin, and painted our lives in death’s greyness.
 
You sent prophets and artists, singers and poets to point us back to your beauty and art, but we preferred bleak fantasies offered by temptation and foolishness. Finally, your Word of justice and love took on flesh to share the good news of your forgiveness and love with every word and deed.
 
For you, Jesus, shattered all the barriers we’ve devised to lord it over each other. You befriended the ones we have pushed to the margins, dehumanized, enslaved and exploited for our comforts and our greed, used and abused for our pleasure. You created a new community where the last become first. You revealed us a world where there is plenty for all God’s creatures. You resisted the powers that be and even defied their murder-scheme by breaking the power of sin and death, and making new life—a new reality possible.
 
Even now, Breath of God, you blow open our shuttered souls, purge what’s blocking us from being alive to you and one another. Come, Spirit of all that exists, touch the simple gifts of the bread and the cup with the sacredness of your peace. Stir us from our fear, bigotry and apathy.
 
Ma the bread we eat fill us with your strength,
so that we can go and offer freedom to the prisoner,
we can breathe hope into our dying neighborhoods,
we can be peace for an angry world.
 
May the cup we drink we filled with your grace,
so that we may silence all hatred,
we might put evil in the past,
we might renew your fragile creation.
 
And when we are gathered in that place to which you will direct us at the end of time,
we will join with our sisters and brothers in forever praising your glory, your love,
God in Community, Holy in One.  Amen.

 

PRAYER OF DEDICATION/OFFERING

Like the gifts of creation, we are but stewards of all we possess. And, like the gifts of creation, they are not to be hoarded, but shared with the hungry, the lonely, the lost, the struggling. As we offer our gifts, receive our thanks and praise in the name of Jesus. Amen. 

 

CLOSING HYMN NO. 379                                 We Shall Overcome                                   WE SHALL OVERCOME

 

CHARGE AND BENEDICTION

God calls us to be faithful stewards. 
May we take all that is good to places of brokenness. 
Jesus commissions us to be faithful disciples. 
May we follow Jesus to every place he leads us, to every person who will bless us.
The Spirit fills us with the breath of peace and grace.
May we join the Spirit in bringing life where there is fear, in offering love where hate seeks to take hold. Amen. 

 

*Notes: Call to Worship by Rev. Teri Peterson. Prayer of Great Thanksgiving and Benediction inspired by Rev. Thom M. Schuman. 

 

 

 

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