May 17, 2020 — Sixth Sunday of Easter

INTROIT "At the River" from Old American Songs AARON COPELAND

Mark Hosseini, Baritone

CALL TO WORSHIP

O people, praise our God — the Artist of creation, the Lord of heaven and earth.

We worship our Maker with resounding praise!

In God we live and move and have our being; it is the Lord who gives us life and breath.

God has kept us among the living and not let our feet slip.

God formed all people to seek the Lord; indeed, our Creator is never far away.

Bless the Lord, who is faithful to us!

HYMN NO. 317 In Christ There is no East or West MCKEE

CONFESSION AND ASSURANCE OF GOD'S GRACE

CALL TO CONFESSION

In the waters of baptism, we are raised to new life in Christ, with Christ, for Christ. As people who bear the watermark of the cross upon our foreheads, let us come before God with humility, and confess the ways we have denied the faith of our baptism.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments," you said. And, in the same breath, you promised an Advocate would come to us. You, Lord, were faithful to your promise. But we — we have broken your law of love. We have hoarded resources, rather than feeding your sheep. We have stoked competition, rather than kneeling at others' feet. We have kept silent, rather than testifying to our belief. For not showing our love for you by loving one another, forgive us. Help us obey your commandments and keep us ever faithful to your Word by the power of your Spirit, who abides with and among us.

SILENT REFLECTION

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

Children of God, Christ does not leave us orphaned, but sends a Companion, the Spirit of Truth, who helps us, guides us, sustains us, renews us. Know that you are forgiven, and be at peace! Thanks be to God.

HYMN NO. 282 Come Down, O Love Divine DOWN AMPNEY

1 Come down, O Love divine,

seek thou this soul of mine,

and visit it with thine own ardor glowing;

O Comforter, draw near,

within my heart appear,

and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.

2 O let it freely burn,

till earthly passions turn

to dust and ashes in its heat consuming;

and let thy glorious light

shine ever on my sight,

and clothe me round, the while my path illuming.

3 And so the yearning strong,

with which the soul will long,

shall far outpass the power of human telling;

for none can guess its grace,

till Love create a place

wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling.

ANTHEM

PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

Living God, with joy we celebrate the presence of your risen Word. Enliven our hearts by your Holy Spirit so that we may proclaim the good news of eternal and abundant life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

SCRIPTURE

Acts 17:22–31 (NRSV)

²²Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.²³For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, ²⁵nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. ²⁶From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, ²⁷so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him — though indeed he is not far from each one of us ²⁸For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own pets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.' ²⁹Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. ³⁰While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, ³¹because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

1 Peter 3:13–22 (NRSV)

¹³Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? ¹⁴But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, ¹⁵but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; ¹⁶yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. ¹⁷For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God's will, than to suffer for doing evil. ¹⁸For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, ¹⁹in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, ²⁰who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. ²¹And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you — not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, ²²who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

John 14:15–21 (The Message (MSG))

The Spirit of Truth

^15–17"If you love me, show it by doing what I've told you. I will talk to the Father, and he'll provide you another Friend so that you always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can't take him in because it doesn't have eyes to see him, doesn't know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!

^18–20"I will not leave you orphaned. I'm coming back. In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you're going to see me because I am alive and you're about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I'm in my Father, and you're in me, and I'm in you.

²¹"The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that's who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him."

SERMON

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH

New life in Christ takes shape in a community in which people know that God loves and accepts them in spite of what they are. They therefore accept themselves and love others, knowing that no one has any ground on which to stand, except God's grace. _{Adapted from the Confession of 1967, 9.22}

PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION

We offer our prayers through Christ,

who lives and reigns forever,

and prays for us in heaven.