September 14, 2025

CHIMING OF THE HOUR

WELCOME

PRAYER

God of grace and mercy, we thank you for disregarding our foolishness and teaching us your holy wisdom. Instill in us the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus, who rejoices whenever what was lost is found. Amen.

PRELUDE “In the Sanctuary” G.F. Handel

CALL TO WORSHIP
The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
Though the strong wind of judgment blows, all is not ended.
God will renew stubborn hearts and soften stiff necks,
for Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them,
so we boldly come to make an offering of worship to the God of mercy,
who seeks and saves the lost.
Let us rejoice in the grace of our Lord!

*HYMN No. 487 “These Treasured Children”
1 These treasured children present now
are bound to us by sacred vow:
with love, we make a heartfelt claim
to welcome them in Jesus’ name.

2 Our ancient story we shall tell,
till these our children know it well
within their souls and minds and hearts,
for this is where their journey starts.

3 We long to trust as children do
and so entrust our days to you;
in their young lives we clearly see
a lesson in humility.

4 Come, Holy Spirit, help us be
a nurturing community;
empower us to realize
God’s kingdom through our children’s eyes.

5 Then, tender God, each child embrace;
God give them blessings, grant them grace.
Surprise them, God, with wonders still,
and gently guide them to your will.

THANKSGIVING FOR BAPTISM
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
O Lord our God, we give you thanks for the grace that is at work in us through the gift of our baptism— the sign of your threefold name, the communion of your faithful people, the promise of your glorious realm. By the power of your Holy Spirit, poured out upon us in baptism, let your grace and peace grow in us, until we gather at your heavenly throne to give you thanks and praise forever; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

*CALL TO CONFESSION
There is joy in the presence of the angels of God
over one sinner who repents.
Let the sound of our confession
cause celebration in heaven.

*PRAYER FOR CONFESSION
Create in us clean hearts, O God,
cast out any transgression you find there—
ransack, renovate, redecorate!
Deep in our hearts,
remove fearful features
and restore your original design.
The old lamps are dim;
bring new light into the darkness.
Make your dwelling place deep in our hearts,
and teach us wisdom,
so the hearts you transform may rejoice.

*SILENT PRAYER FOR CONFESSION

*ASSURANCE OF PARDON
The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ came into the world to save sinners. Believe the gospel. In Jesus Christ we are redeemed.

*RESPONSE No. 248 v.3 “Christ is Risen”
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 “The Water is Wide” arr. Gilbert MARTIN

CHILDREN’S MESSAGE

UNISON PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION
Please join me in the unison prayer…
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 15:1-10
15Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 3So he told them this parable: 4“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? 5When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.

6And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

8“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Pause…

This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God!!

SERMON
The parable of the lost sheep is one of my favorites. It is the lead story in the fifteenth chapter of Luke which is a chapter devoted to lost things being found. There is this story of the lost sheep, and then one about a lost coin, and then the main event – a story about a lost boy, the parable of the prodigal son.
A whole chapter devoted to “lostness”!
And it would be tempting to take this story and preach it from the perspective that you and I – people who were lost, but now are found – need to devote our lives to going out and saving the lost. I was going to visit one of our members in the hospital a while back and had to use the restroom. Well, I went in and found an empty spot and started in on what I needed to do when I noticed a wad of paper wedged between the piping apparatus. – just about eye-level. I could see some bold print on the paper and realized it was a pamphlet – actually a religious tract. And the words said something like, “Are You Lost?”

NO! I’m exactly where I want to be and need to be! I’d been thinking about getting to this exact place for the last ten minutes of my drive to the hospital!
Lost?
No! I’m FOUND!
But I could understand the motivation of the person who left the tract. Many of us think of the world having two types of people – lost sinners who need saving, and those of us who’ve been found. And we the saved think our job is to save the lost.
But it’s not. In fact, it is very dangerous to think of the world that way.
It’s interesting how this parable begins: “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. BUT…the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”
Religious people tend to divide up the world. We see people in terms of “saved” and “not saved”, “righteous” and “not righteous”, “believers” and “unbelievers.” And whenever you start dividing people up like that, you lose sight of God’s view of people.
We are God’s children! Every last one of us!
I don’t think you can even come close to understanding Jesus, let alone following Jesus, until you put away that divisive orientation. But I will caution you that divisiveness is ingrained into the Christianity you and I were brought up with. We can hardly help ourselves from practicing divisiveness. Not only were we nurtured with images of the “saved” and the “lost”, but we were immersed in the sectarianism of denominations.
We have been religiously trained to be divisive – if not by denomination, by doctrine. Have you ever driven through a town and seen that proverbial intersection with a church on every corner? There’s the First Bible Church, there’s the God’s Word Bible Church which is a splinter group of folks from the First Bible Church – there’s the True Believers Bible Church which is a bunch of people who broke off from the God’s Word Bible Church – and then there’s the True Believers That Believe The Bible Church that prides itself on being the only Bible church in town. Just the simple twist of a word in describing what someone believes about something like the Bible instigates division, schism and looking down on those who we think are lesser believers than we are.
Sectarian division, doctrinal division – we have been well-trained in these things – and along with all that – the interfaith divisiveness where we look at people of other religions as being completely “lost in shades of night” as one of our hymns puts it. And beyond all the sectarian, doctrinal, and religious division we foster, there are the lifestyle issues that tear us apart. What would happen if we let THOSE people (and you know who I’m talking about) into our church??
And that’s where the parable begins. Jesus is hanging out with THOSE kinds of people – LOST people in the eyes of the religious institution of the day. And the religious crowd – trained as they have been in the art of divisiveness – sits outside looking in, and saying, “This man welcomes tax collectors and sinners and even eats with them!”
This is NOT intended as a compliment to Jesus.
So Jesus asks them – and us – a question in the form of a parable.
“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”
Now we westerners often don’t understand the parables because we interpret them through the lens of modernity and not the filter of first century Palestine. Most of us have never come closer to being a shepherd than when we put on our bathrobes and came down the aisle in the Christmas Pageant. So the details escape us! But, if we were seated among those tax collectors and sinners that day, we would probably hear them begin to snort, and giggle, and go into great big belly laughs! Jesus is saying something really funny!
Think about it: You have a hundred sheep to take care of. They are worth a lot of money. One gets lost. You leave the ninety-nine behind in the open field where lions and tigers and bears lurk among the bushes while you go to find the lost one?
I don’t think so!
Or let me put this in the terms of a church youth group. You have 100 Junior High kids on a trip to Philadelphia and one of them gets lost. So, you LEAVE 99 JUNIOR HIGH KIDS IN THE MIDDLE OF READING TERMINAL MARKET to go and find the one? How absurd! I can remember the very moment in my

career when I realized I was getting too old to run the Youth Group by myself. We had a sleep over…AND I FELL ASLEEP! And 99 Junior High kids were on the loose! That’s not a pretty sight!
So, Jesus poses this question. “Does the shepherd not leave the ninety-nine in the open field and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”
NO!!!!!!
The logical answer to Jesus’ question is, “No!” NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! No shepherd in his right mind would do that! Any shepherd who would do such a thing would be fired from his job! Better to cut your losses and hold onto what you got. One sheep is certainly expendable for the good of the others!
And all of a sudden, we are face-to-face with our attitudes toward other people.
One person is expendable for the good of the others.
One group of people, one city of people, one nation of people, one culture of people, one religion of people…expendable for the sake of saving the others.
That’s how it is in our world. We divide people up into categories so that we can dismiss them and elevate ourselves.
But Jesus uses this parable to confront us with the folly of our ways. And Jesus shows us that what makes sense to humans doesn’t make sense to God, and what makes sense to God sometimes doesn’t make sense to us.
Who in their right mind would value the “lost” equally with the “found?”
God.
Only God.
A loving and gracious God who knows us only as his children and not according to the prejudicial labels we place on each other.
And Jesus says the angels sing a song and do the “wave” whenever one of the “lost” is found! In fact, there is more rejoicing in heaven over that person than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not think they need to be found.
And frankly, I think the end of the parable prompts a very provocative question.
Who do you think is REALLY lost in this story?
The tax collectors and sinners who are eating and fellowshipping with Jesus?
Or the religious crowd sitting outside, dividing up the world into lost and found?
Who do you think is really lost?
And then one more question.
Where do you find yourself in this story of the lost sheep?

Liturgy and Commentary provided by The PC(USA) Book of Common Worship, The Presbyterian Outlook, Teri McDowell Ott, Marty Singly, & Call to Worship.

*AFFIRMATION OF FAITH
Adapted from the Confession of 1967, 9.32–33
The life, death, resurrection, and promised coming of Jesus Christ has set the pattern for the church’s mission. His human life involves the church in the common life of all people. His service to men and women commits the church to work for every form of human well-being. His suffering makes the church sensitive to all human suffering so that it sees the face of Christ in the faces of persons in every kind of need. His crucifixion discloses to the church God’s judgment on the inhumanity that marks human relations, and the awful consequences of the church’s own complicity in injustice. In the power of the risen Christ and the hope of his coming, the church sees the promise of God’s renewal of human life in society and of God’s victory over all wrong. The church follows this pattern in the form of its life and in the method of its action. So to live and serve is to confess Christ as Lord. Amen.

*HYMN No. 713 “Touch the Earth”
1 Touch the earth lightly,
use the earth gently,
nourish the life of the world in our care:
gift of great wonder,
ours to surrender,
trust for the children tomorrow will bear.

2 We who endanger,
who create hunger,
agents of death for all creatures that live,
we who would foster
clouds of disaster,
God of our planet, forestall and forgive!

3 Let there be greening,
birth from the burning,
water that blesses and air that is sweet,
health in God’s garden,
hope in God’s children,
regeneration that peace will complete

4 God of all living,
God of all loving,
God of the seedling, the snow, and the sun,
teach us, deflect us,
Christ reconnect us,
using us gently and making us one.

THE PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
Trusting in the power of God to deliver us,
let us make our prayers of intercession for all,
saying: God our Savior, hear our prayer.

We pray for the church . . .
Make us good shepherds for your sheep
and good stewards of your gifts,
so that the lost may be found in you.
God our Savior, hear our prayer.

We pray for the world . . .
Look with mercy upon ruined lands,
fields of desolation, cities of rubble.
Restore the glory of your good creation.
God our Savior, hear our prayer.

We pray for this community . . .
Strengthen us to serve you in this place,
sharing the good news of your saving love
with our friends, neighbors, and strangers.
God our Savior, hear our prayer.

We pray for loved ones . . .
According to your steadfast love
have mercy on those who are suffering.
Let them know joy and gladness again.
God our Savior, hear our prayer.

Merciful and mighty God, as you are one,
make us one with you through Jesus Christ,
whom you have sent to redeem us,
and in whose holy name we pray.

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. Forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

TITHES & OFFERINGS
God has offered us our lives and bestowed us with mercy, grace, and love. Let us now respond to God’s offering to us by returning to God in part what is God’s in whole.

OFFERTORY ANTHEM

*RESPONSE N0.609
“Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow”
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.
Praise God, all creatures high and low.
Alleluia, alleluia!
Praise God, in Jesus fully known:
Creator, Word, and Spirit one.
Alleluia, alleluia!
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

*PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING
We give because we have been given so much. Lord, take these gifts and use them to faithfully transform others. Allow your work to be continued in the world where it is most needed. Amen.

*HYMN No. 852
“When the Lord Redeems the Very Least
1 When the Lord redeems the very least,
we will rejoice.
When the hungry gather for the feast,
we will rejoice.

Refrain:
We will rejoice with gladness.
We will rejoice.
All our days we’ll sing to God in praise.
We will rejoice!

2 When the Lord restores the sick and weak,
we will rejoice.
When the earth is given to the meek,
we will rejoice. (Refrain)

We will rejoice with gladness.
We will rejoice.
All our days we’ll sing to God in praise.
We will rejoice!

3 When the Lord revives the world from death,
we will rejoice.
When the word of God fills every breath,
we will rejoice. (Refrain)

We will rejoice with gladness.
We will rejoice.
All our days we’ll sing to God in praise.
We will rejoice!

4 When the Lord returns in victory,
we will rejoice.
When we live in glorious liberty,
we will rejoice. (Refrain)

We will rejoice with gladness.
We will rejoice.
All our days we’ll sing to God in praise.
We will rejoice!

*BENEDICTION
Go out with joy to love God,
love yourself,
and love your neighbor.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
be with your spirit. Alleluia! Alleluia!

*POSTLUDE