November 2, 2025

CHIMING OF THE HOUR

WELCOME

PRAYER

Holy God,
in times of trouble and travail,
when we are weighed down by our transgressions
and struggle to serve our savior,
guide us back to the path you have set before us.
Open our eyes to watch for your signs
and invite us again to join in the building
of your holy vision,
that we might find hope living in you. Amen. 

PRELUDE               “Sine Nomine”                   Harold Rutz

CALL TO WORSHIP
The Lord answered me and said:
There is still a vision for the appointed time;
if it seems to tarry, wait for it;
it will surely come, it will not delay.
The righteous live by their faith.
Your laws are righteous forever.
Help me understand so I can live!
Learn to do good, seek justice,
rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan,
plead for the widow.
Your laws are righteous forever.
Help me understand so I can live!
Give thanks to God;
your faith is growing abundantly;
your love for one another is increasing.
Your laws are righteous forever.
Help me understand so I can live!

*HYMN No. 326                “For All the Saints”

1 For all the saints who from their labors rest,
who thee by faith before the world confessed,
thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

2 Thou wast their rock, their fortress, and their might;
thou, Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight;
thou, in the darkness drear, their one true light.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

3 O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle; they in glory shine;
yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

4 And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
and hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia! Alleluia!

5 From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Alleluia! Alleluia!

*CALL TO CONFESSION
Jesus eagerly embraces anyone
with a repentant heart.
Let us come before Christ
and offer ourselves in earnest confession.

*PRAYER FOR CONFESSION
Almighty God,
we confess that we cannot see your image
in each and every one of our neighbors.
We call each other “sinner”;
you call us by our names.
We misjudge one another,
we underestimate ourselves,
and we undervalue creation.
Pardon us, Holy One, by your grace.
Reveal to us your vision for the world
that we may see all people
through eyes of care
and hearts of compassion.

*SILENT PRAYER FOR CONFESSION

*ASSURANCE OF PARDON

This is what God’s love is like:
You are forgiven before asking.
You are saved without condition.
You are loved beyond measure.
Rejoice in the gospel!
In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven.

*RESPONSE No. 248, v.3           “Christ is Risen! Shout Hosannah”
3 Christ is risen! Earth and heaven
nevermore shall be the same.
Break the bread of new creation
where the world is still in pain.
Tell its grim, demonic chorus:
“Christ is risen! Get you gone!”‘
God the First and Last is with us.
Sing Hosanna everyone!

*PASSING OF THE PEACE OF CHRIST
God has received us, pardoned us and loved us;
let us forgive each other in love and share the peace of Christ.
Peace be with you.
And also with you.

ANTHEM                “Lord Make Us Holy and Pure”               David Lantz

CHILDREN’S MESSAGE

UNISON PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION
Faithful God, how blessed are those
who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Sanctify us by your Word and Spirit
so that we may glorify you
in the company of the faithful;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

SCRIPTURE           Luke 19:1-10
19He entered Jericho and was passing through it. ²A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. ³He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. ⁴So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. ⁵When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” ⁶So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. ⁷All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.”⁸Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” ⁹Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

Pause…

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God!!

SERMON                “Unraveled”

Jesus looks up, and suddenly, the world begins to unravel for both Zacchaeus and for those gathered on the Jericho road.

Presbyterian minister, Chris Keating tells the following story about leading a funeral service for a unique member of the community.  Keating begins: About a year ago, I was invited to officiate at a funeral of a man from our area who was not a member of a local church. These sorts of invitations happen frequently. I accept them as often as I have time as an expression of our church’s ministry of compassion and witness. While I didn’t know this man, I had spoken with his wife and learned a lot of things about his life. At one point, she said something along the line that he loved riding motorbikes and was in a bike club.

That remark came to mind as I pulled into the funeral home parking lot and saw it was covered with motorcycles. Dozens, if not more of Harley Davidson motorcycles were parked in neat lines across the parking lot. “That checks out,” I thought. “He had a lot of friends. He enjoyed riding,” I remember his wife saying to me.

What she did not say was that he was no ordinary motorcycle enthusiast. He was a member of a motorcycle club. It was not a social club for older guys who like to ride. No, the guest of honor at that day’s funeral was a lifelong member of the Hell’s Angels. And apparently, he was so well-respected member (if those terms can be used together), that members of a rival motorcycle club were also there to pay their respects. This was going to be no run of the mill Presbyterian service. I was, instead, introduced to a whole host of characters all of whom were wearing jackets emblazoned with the club’s logo. Their jackets identified them some of them with names like Crazy Al, Weird Mike, Chucky Gutter, Boss Man and Wildman.

The clubs sat on opposite ends of the chapel, which prompted me to ask the funeral director if I should be worried. He shrugged. Obviously, he was about as familiar with this clientele as I was. I began to sense that perhaps I was suddenly in a minority group of persons who had never been accused of homicide. I decided I wouldn’t be joining them for the luncheon, and texted my location to my wife just in case things did not go well.

The service went fine, and everyone behaved. But suddenly one of the club members came up to see me. I imagined that instead of getting paid I was about to get knifed. But instead, he turned his head toward me, took off his dark sunglasses, and with red eyes said to me, “Nice job, Reverend,” he said, “You did good. Billy was a good man.”

When you are in the company of the unraveled, distractions between people look a lot different.

It’s unlikely that we’ll ever see a congregation full of motorcycle gang members, unless some of you are holding back on your life’s secrets. But I wonder if we have defined membership in the kingdom of God in such a way that we would likely exclude some others – including a short little guy named Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus’ unraveling is different than the other characters we’ve met in Scripture. What happens if we start pulling at the loose threads of his expensive designer jacket? Where will that lead? He would be no more respectable than members of a motorcycle gang, or street thugs, common criminals, mobsters. As chief tax collector, Zacchaeus is wealthier than the man Jesus had met earlier in Luke 18 – the rich young ruler. When that man asks Jesus what it takes to enter the kingdom of God, Jesus quizzes him about the commandments, and then tells him to go and sell all that he has. That rich man is unraveled by the demands of Jesus, who tells the disciples, “How hard it is for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of heaven.”

What happens when the course you’re on takes a sudden change?

In his book “Canoeing the Mountains,” Presbyterian pastor Tod Bolsinger uses the story of Lewis and Clark’s expedition across the western United States as a metaphor for church leadership and ministry. As Bolsinger recounts the stories of Lewis and Clark, he reminds us that when they reached the Continental Divide, they were expecting to find a river. The river would allow them to paddle straight to the Pacific. But what they found was mountains. They faced the soaring cliffs of the Rocky Mountains. In this moment of unraveling, says Bolsinger, Lewis and Clark discovered paddling harder and faster was never going to cut it.

And, says Bolsinger, this is the exact same challenge we experience in our personal lives and in the lives of our churches. “It’s not going to do you any good to paddle harder,” he said. “You have to make an adaptation, and the key to adaptation begins with going back to your deepest core value.” Bolsinger tells pastors and churches that when you are looking at mountains larger than you have ever imagined, simply paddling harder and faster is not going to cut it.

This is what I think it means to discover faith in moments of being unraveled. And I think this is where we also meet Zacchaeus.

He may have been a wee little man, but don’t confuse that with nice. He was a collaborator with Rome in extracting expensive tariffs and taxes from the working class. He was a cheat and a fraud, despised and hated. Suddenly, the song we learned in Sunday School sounds just a bit quaint.

Suddenly, this is not just some jovial comic book character, a sort of Biblical Danny DeVito. He’s a thug, an enemy. He’s a squirrely little dude who has pushed his way to the top – no wonder the crowd won’t let him see Jesus.

I bet Zacchaeus had been the object of jokes and derision his entire life. Back in school kids probably called him names like Short-stack Zach, or said things like “Well, I’ve got to hand it to you, Zacchaeus…since you can’t reach it anyway.”

How short was he? Zacchaeus was so short he needed to climb up in a tree just so he could get a glimpse of Jesus.

The crowd squeezes together. Zacchaeus tries to push beyond the public humiliation. Up in the trees, he starts looking for Jesus. It’s a most unflattering position. But there he is: caught in the trees, looking for Jesus.

Unraveled, Zacchaeus has been driven up a tree. He had so much, but hidden in that tree, he is desperately poor – friendless and sidelined, ignored and forgettable.

Maybe this is where the great unraveling begins. Or maybe it began earlier that morning when he got up and realized that the path of his life was leading nowhere. Maybe the way he has been living his life has caught up with him, and like the Hells Angel member at the funeral, he was suddenly wiping tears from his eyes. Maybe he had suddenly realized that all of the dignity and status he had worked to obtain had not brought him meaning at all.

Maybe he had heard about Jesus – the one who welcomed sinners, who eats with the outcast, and who heals the forgotten. Maybe he had heard that there might be something in Jesus that could change his life.

He tries hard to remain unseen. But Jesus sees things others miss. Jesus sees beyond Zacchaeus’ highly polished veneer. Jesus, as we have come to see, does sees possibilities where we see dereliction. He sees hope while others see defeat. So, Jesus does the unexpected. He welcomes him, calling him out of the tree. Jesus speaks with urgency, looking up at Zacchaeus and saying, “Get down here!”

By now, Zacchaeus’ unraveling is complete. He stumbles to the ground, trying to figure out how he’ll tell Mrs. Zacchaeus they’re having company for dinner. All of a sudden, his world has changed.

But the crowd is also unraveled by Jesus’ actions. Jesus has looked beyond the respectable, the worthy, the faithful and has embraced a sinner. He invites the equivalent of a biker gang member to not only join the church but to begin serving as an usher and greeter. The crowd seethes with anger.

Look what happens: Zacchaeus is a changed man. “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.” That’s the way it is translated by some. Other scholars, however, remind us that the verbs used here are ambiguous. They could also be translated in the present tense. It’s possible that while Zacchaeus is repenting, he is also telling Jesus, “Look, Lord, I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I repay them four times as much.” Either translation is possible.

What happens when you are unraveled? I guess it depends on whether you are looking for Jesus. We know, of course, that he never stops looking for us. Amen.

*AFFIRMATION OF FAITH                    “The Apostles’ Creed”

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,
And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

HYMN No. 529                  “Draw Us in the Spirit’s Tether”
1 Draw us in the Spirit’s tether,
for when humbly in your name
two or three are met together,
you are in the midst of them.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Here we touch your garment’s hem.

2 As disciples used to gather
in the name of Christ to sup,
then with thanks to God the giver
break the bread and bless the cup,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
so now bind our friendship up.

3 All our meals and all our living
make as sacraments of you,
that by caring, helping, giving,
we may be disciples true.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
We will serve with faith anew.

THE SACRAMENT OF HOLY COMMUNION
Invitation to the Table
Brothers and sisters in Christ,
the gospels tell us that on the first day of the week,
the day on which our Lord rose from the dead,
he appeared to some of his disciples
and was made known to them
in the breaking of bread.

Come, then, to the joyful feast of our Lord.

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Lord has prepared his table for all who love him
and trust in him alone for their salvation.
All who are truly sorry for their sins,
who sincerely believe in the Lord Jesus as their Savior,
and who desire to live in obedience to him,
are now invited to come with gladness
to the table of the Lord.

Great Prayer of Thanksgiving
Children of God, lift up your hearts.
We lift them to the One who heals us
at the Table of brokenness.
Children of God, give thanks to the Lord our God.
We will sing our praises
to the One who restores us to life.

We do not bring silence to you,
Holy One of all people,
but shouts of praise and laughter
for your gracious love.
Your healing river flowed through creation,
bringing life and joy to all
who would drink from it.
But we preferred to splash
in the sewers of the world,
rejecting all that you intend for us.
Yet, you never grew weary
of bearing the burdens of your children.
When you could have shaken
the dust of our sin from your feet,
you chose to lead us out of the Pit
of our rebellion and sin.

Joining with those who sing your praises,
lifting our voices with faithful ones
of every time and of every place,
we sing our thanks to you forever.

Holy, holy, holy are you, God the Creator!
The mountains sing your praises,
the valleys echo your glory.

We welcome the One who comes in your name, who comes to call us to life.

Holy are you, God of compassion,
for when death threatened your children
and sin vowed to turn the universe
back over to chaos,
you sent your Son, our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ,
to heal the brokenness of the world.
He did not grow weary
of doing the right things,
but confronted the wrongs of the world;
he endured the violence of sin,
that we might receive the gentleness
of life with you forever;
he carried our sins to the cross,
that we might bear the burdens
of our sisters and brothers;
he went ahead of us into death,
that we might walk with him
into the kingdom.

As we dance to the Table
to be embraced by hope,
we remember all that Jesus has done for us,
and all that we have been called to do in his name.
Great is the mystery of faith.

Lord Jesus, you call us: open our eyes that we may see you, open our souls that we may long for your presence, open our hearts so we may follow you.

Flow through us, Holy Spirit,
as we drink deeply of Christ’s cup.
You never grow weary of feeding us
with the Bread of life,
but transform our brokenness by this meal.
And as we turn from the Table,
send us forth:
to bring healing to the sick,
freedom to the oppressed,
to speak peace
to the human household,
to carry the kingdom with us
wherever you would lead us.
For we will not keep silent,
but praise you forever and ever,
God in Community…

The Lord’s Prayer
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 debts, as we forgive our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Communion
The Lord Jesus, on the night of his arrest, took bread, and after giving thanks to God, broke it and said: “This is my body, which is for you; do this, remembering me.”

In the same way, he took the cup after supper, and said: “This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood.  Whenever you drink it, do this, remembering me.”

Every time you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes.

Elements
Jesus said, I am the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry; whoever believes in me will never thirst.

Jesus said: I am the vine, you are the branches.  Cut off from me you can do nothing.

Closing Prayer
God our help, we thank you for this supper shared in the Spirit with your Son Jesus, who makes us new and strong, who brings us eternal life.  We praise you for giving us all good gifts in him, and pledge ourselves to serve you, even as in Christ you have served us.  Amen.

PASSING OF FELLOWSHIP PADS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

TITHES & OFFERINGS
We are called to participate in God’s abundance through the choices we make with our time, our talents, our emotions and our physical resources. Let us honor God with our offering.

OFFERTORY ANTHEM

*RESPONSE N0. 717                  “For the Life that You Have Given”          Sing Twice

For the life that you have given,
for the love in Christ made known,
with these fruits of time and labor,
with these gifts that are your own:
here we offer, Lord, our praises;
heart and mind and strength we bring;
give us grace to love and serve you,
living what we pray and sing.

For the life that you have given,
for the love in Christ made known,
with these fruits of time and labor,
with these gifts that are your own:
here we offer, Lord, our praises;
heart and mind and strength we bring;
give us grace to love and serve you,
living what we pray and sing.

*PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

Holy God, you are the source of all love, power and justice. Our world is broken, in need of your love, your light. Take these offerings and multiply them so they may bless others. Bless those who give and those who receive, that they may know you better.

 

*HYMN No. 694                “Great God of Every Blessing”
1 Great God of every blessing,
of faithful, loving care,
you are the fount of goodness,
the daily bread we share.
How can we hope to thank you?
Our praise is but a start:
sincerely and completely
I offer you my heart.

2 Your Word is our salvation,
the source of endless grace,
in death and life extending
your covenant embrace.
In Christ we are one body;
each member has a part:
sincerely and completely
I offer you my heart.

3 Your Spirit is our teacher,
the light that guides our search,
transforming broken people
into the holy church.
For feeding us with mercy,
for wisdom you impart:
sincerely and completely
I offer you my heart.

*BENEDICTION

In “Last Scraps of Color in Missouri,” poet Karen Craigo writes about her desire for a spot of color while surveying a cold, wet landscape in late fall. After gazing at a sea of bare trees, she found that if she shifted her gaze from the tops of the tallest trees towards the forest floor, there were smaller trees with golden leaves nearly glowing. “Some blessings find us when we move to them — they’re waiting only to be seen,” she reflects.

May we move toward the blessings in our lives. May God direct us to shift our perspective, to witness and grow what is beautiful, to move towards reconciliation. And may God bless you and keep you, may God’s grace shine upon you and bring you peace. Amen.

*POSTLUDE