Third Sunday of Lent
Many Things Can Be Medicine
March 20, 2022
Order of Worship
Let us be as open vessels that God’s spirit may enter.
The Community Gathers: Experience God’s presence in the assembly. Please greet one another with joy and welcome new friends into our community of love.
You are welcome here…come and worship!
Focus: “The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty — it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There’s a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”
― Mother Teresa, A Simple Path: Mother Teresa
Welcome: As we continue our look at what it means to release oppressive expectations about perfection in our lives and in our faith, this week we turn to a harmful idea that the prescription for our fear of failure is to simply work harder. This Lent, we are taking some time to slow down, to tend our souls gently and lovingly, tilling the soil and fertilizer, and embracing our holy, “good enough,” lives.
Gathering Music: Good Enough (Marcia McFee/Marsha Moors/Chuck Bell)
-Michelle Currie
Call To Worship:
One: Come, everyone who thirsts,
Come to the waters. Come to the wells.
All: Our souls thirst for you, O God.
We lift up our hands and call on your name
One: Come, without money. Come without cost.
Incline your ears and listen for good news.
All: Our flesh faints for you, O God.
Our lips sing praises, beholding your glory.
One: Come and eat. Come, feast upon true riches.
Be filled with that which sustains you.
All: Our souls are satisfied in you, O God.
In the shadow of your wings, we sing with joy.
Opening Hymn: There Is a Balm in Gilead
(Refrain)
There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole
There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul
1.Sometimes I feel discouraged and think my work’s in vain
but then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again. (Refrain)
2.Don’t ever feel discouraged for Jesus is your friend
and if you lack for knowledge he’ll not refuse to lend. (Refrain)
3.If you can not preach like Peter if you can not pray like Paul
you can tell the love of Jesus and say “He died for all”. (Refrain)
Opening Prayer:
Holy One, Our Balm, Our Feast
we lift our hands and call your name,
in need of healing–thirsting and hungry.
Your steadfast love is better than life.
Open us this day to your nourishment
in the songs of the land, in the beauty of the sky–
in the simple and good enough moments that fill our days. Amen.
Lord’s Prayer
Awakening: Come to the Water (by John Foley) -Michelle Currie
Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-9, Luke 13: 1-9 -Rev. Nancy Bancroft
Sermon: What Brings Healing? Rev. Paula Norbert
Music: Instrumental ~ Michelle Currie
Musical call to Prayer: (two times) Hush now in quiet peace, be still your mind at ease. The Spirit brings release, so wait upon the Lord. Michelle Currie
Prayers of the People
Silent Prayers Pastoral Prayer
Closing Music: How Can I keep from Singing
1.My life flows on in endless song above earth’s lamentation.
I hear the clear though far off hymn that hails a new creation.
(Refrain)
No storm can shake my in most calm while to that Rock I’m clinging.
Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth how can I keep from singing?
2.Through all the tumult and the strife I hear that music ringing
It finds an echo in my soul How can I keep from singing? (Refrain)
3.What though my joys and comforts die? I know my savior liveth.
What though the darkness gathered round? Songs in the night he giveth. (Refrain … then Repeat vs 1)
A Blessing
“…blessed are we who stop—okay, maybe not stop entirely,
who are we kidding—but who slow down.
We who discover rest and new life and renewal
when we step off the treadmill (or at least turn it down).
We who remember that the world keeps spinning without us. And thank God for that. We who remember we are loved, loved, loved. Just being us.”
Benediction:
And now, may the God who loves all of creation, and you–without price, and Jesus, our companion along this crooked path called life,
and the Holy Spirit, who loves to improvise in surprising ways,
go with you, dwell among you, and give you joy. Amen.
Postlude: Good Enough (Benediction)
God is still here and somehow, this faith is good enough
God is still here and somehow, this faith is good enough
Worship Materials Marcia McFee © www.worshipdesignstudio.com/goodenough. Used and adapted with permission.
“Good Enough” theme song by Marsha Charles, Marcia McFee, Chuck Bell. Used with permission of Worship Design Studio.
“A Blessing for a Joyfully Mediocre Journey” from Good Enough: 40’ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie.
Our Scripture Readings:
Isaiah 55:1-9
55:1 Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
55:2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
55:3 Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.
55:4 See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples.
55:5 See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
55:6 Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near;
55:7 let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD.
55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Gospel Reading Luke 13: 1-9
At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.
Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’
He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”
.
A Word of God that is still speaking,
Thanks be to God.