WELCOME
OPENING PRAYER
In you alone we put our hope,
God the Father, Creator and Sustainer,
who gives all good things
seen and unseen.
In you alone we put our hope,
God the Son, Savior and Redeemer,
who died for our sins
and rose again.
In you alone we put our hope,
God the Spirit, Teacher and Comforter,
who moves us to sing
“Our God reigns!”
In you alone we put our hope.
PRELUDE “Something for Thee” Robert Thygerson
CALL TO WORSHIP
Hallelujah! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart.
Great are your works, O Lord, pondered by all who delight in them.
Majesty and splendor mark your deeds, and your righteousness endures forever.
You cause your wonders to be remembered; you are gracious and full of compassion.
*HYMN No. 170 “You Walk Along Our Shoreline”
1 You walk along our shoreline
where land meets unknown sea.
We hear your voice of power,
“Now come and follow me.
And if you still will follow
through storm and wave and shoal,
then I will make you fishers
but of the human soul.”
2 You call us, Christ, to gather
the people of the earth.
We cannot fish for only
those lives we think have worth.
We spread your net of gospel
across the water’s face,
our boat a common shelter
for all found by your grace.
3 We cast our net, O Jesus;
we cry the kingdom’s name;
we work for love and justice;
we learn to hope through pain.
You call us, Lord, to gather
God’s daughters and God’s sons,
to let your judgment heal us
so that all may be one.
*CALL TO CONFESSION
Jesus calls us to enter the joy of discipleship, the joy of following in his way. But sin clings closely, and we struggle to respond fully to Christ’s invitation. Let us seek God’s forgiveness so that we may know more deeply the joy God intends.
*PRAYER FOR CONFESSION
Merciful God, in Jesus, we have seen your glory. Yet our sinfulness often blocks out the light of Christ. We are quick to accuse and slow to confess. We find faults easily in others while ignoring our own shortcomings. We have squandered your gifts. We have turned from your ways. We have ignored your Word. Have mercy on us, compassionate God. Pour out your Holy Spirit on our sinful lives. Wash us with your love and cleanse us with your grace that day by day we might move closer to the people you would us be. Amen.
*SILENT PRAYER FOR CONFESSION
*ASSURANCE OF PARDON
Relentlessly God seeks us out with abundant grace and boundless mercy. This is good news!
In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven!
*RESPONSE No. 619
“Praise, My Soul, the God of Heaven” v.4
Angels, teach us adoration;
you behold God face to face.
Sun and moon and all creation,
dwellers all in time and space:
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Praise with us the God of grace!
*PASSING OF THE PEACE OF CHRIST
When Jesus left his disciples, he did not leave them alone. He promised that the Holy Spirit would be present in their lives, and he gave them an amazing gift: his peace, the peace of Christ. Through the Spirit, this gift lives still, and it is ours to share with others. May we be reminded of the gift Christ offers with these words:
“The peace of Christ is yours today!”
And also with you.
ANTHEM “None Like You” Craig Courtney
CHILDREN’S MESSAGE
UNISON PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION
Gracious God, illumine these words by your Spirit that we might hear what you would have us hear and be who you would us be, for the sake of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. Amen.
SCRIPTURE Matthew 9:18-26
18 While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. 20 Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak,21 for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” 22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the woman was made well from that moment. 23 When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion,24 he said, “Go away, for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26 And the report of this spread through all of that district.
Pause…
This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God!!
SERMON “A Girl Restored to Life and a Woman Healed”
Jesus, immediately aware that power had left him, asked who touched his clothes.
The disciples said, “Jesus, buddy. Who didn’t touch your clothes? You’re kind of a big deal and in the middle of a rather large crowd.”
I support their cluelessness in this moment.
Jesus, however, keeps looking around in the crowd. And the woman knows that he knows. And she pushes the crowd out of the way, falls at his feet, and tells him the whole truth.
The Gospel doesn’t tell us what she said, but like the woman at the well in John’s gospel, we’re told their conversation was ‘the whole truth’. Jesus was asking for a testimony, for her to share her story of being made well.
Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed.
And in the time, he was talking to the woman, Jairus’ receives a report that his daughter is dead. So, Jesus leaves the daughter who had touched his garment and heads off to the other daughter. When he gets there, he takes Jairus’ daughter by hand and tells her to get up.
In both of these stories, and throughout the gospels, Jesus was willing to be interrupted. He’d been doing one thing when Jairus fell to his knees and begged for healing for his daughter. Jesus changed his plans to go to her. And Jesus was even willing to be interrupted enroute to this life-or-death situation to find out who had touched his robe.
Do we have time to be interrupted?
There are moments when I’ve pushed myself against a deadline so close that I do not have time to be interrupted, and I can be frustrated when interruptions happen when I’ve planned my time poorly. I try to leave interruptible time in my schedule during the week, not because I need to go heal people like Jesus did, but because many of the best interactions in my week are the ones I didn’t know would happen, when people stop by my office in the week, and we get to catch up.
I often write my sermons in “whole and grounded” coffee shop, where I won’t be interrupted by the things around my house that can distract me. When I have a sermon to write, I discover a love of organizing my sock drawer. But I am occasionally interrupted at the coffee shop too. Recently, a young man came up to me and asked if I had time to talk with him. He’d seen my bible on the table and had some questions about Jesus and wasn’t a church person.
I’ve spoken with him a few times. And I don’t know how it has been for him, but I have enjoyed our conversations and am thankful he took the initiative to interrupt me. Being interrupted can lead to sacred and healing connections.
Jairus was a leader of the synagogue, and the situation his daughter was in was critical. So, he was a leader who was used to asking for what he needed, and his need was urgent and dire. I can imagine he didn’t think much about whether he should interrupt Jesus. I suspect he just did it.
But our bleeding woman. I wonder about her. She isn’t named for us in the story. She’d been bleeding for 12 years, which must have excluded her from parts of society and kept her from being a commanding leader like Jairus. She’d been to every doctor and spent all her money on cures and nothing had helped. We know people who have been in similar situations, and keeping their hope alive is a challenge when nothing is working, nothing is bringing healing.
I wonder how hard it was for her to take the initiative to reach out to interrupt Jesus. She doesn’t actually want to interrupt him. She knows he’s busy. She probably thinks, ‘who am I to think he would want to hear about my health problems?’.
Women today face similar challenges. I was raised not to talk about the fact (begins to whisper….) that women bleed every month. The culture around me taught me to not make people uncomfortable by bringing up ‘women’s business’. Like in a sermon. Like right now.
It makes no sense, really. Women’s bodies create human life because they bleed. But people get uncomfortable when it’s brought up.
In truth, we don’t know why the woman in our story was bleeding. It could have been Crohn’s disease, or cancer, or who knows what. But we do know that the boldest she felt she could be – was to just touch the hem of his garment.
One daughter is dying—and we can boldly ask Jesus for help with that. But the other daughter is also in need of healing, and I wonder how the disciples felt when Jesus stopped and asked for her testimony. Jesus, we’ve got more important places to go. Like right now. She’s been ill for 12 years; she can wait a day.
I love that Jesus won’t prioritize one person’s healing over another’s. In God’s kingdom, there is space for everyone to bring who they are to Jesus for healing. And there is power enough for everyone.
In our economy, that’s not quite true. We prioritize who gets healed all the time. I have good insurance, and so I could get a flu shot for free this fall. The people we are holding in detention at the border—no flu shots for them, almost no access at all to health care. We feel differently about a 16-year-old homecoming queen and straight A student getting a kidney transplant than we do about a man in prison getting a kidney transplant.
And maybe in our world, we choose to have our priorities about who gets treated and who doesn’t. I still wish we could change our system, so we have room to heal more people. But Jesus won’t choose. He heals them both.
We are both people — in need of healing, as the woman and Jairus’ daughter were AND we are the Body of Christ, able to offer Christ’s healing touch to the world. Let us go seek healing and offer it to a world so desperately in need of it. Amen
Commentary and Liturgy from the Book of Common Worship (PCUSA), “Call to Worship” Website, AJ Levine, John Buchanan, David Lose, Teri McDowell Ott, Marci Glass, John Wurster, and The New Interpreter’s Commentary
*AFFIRMATION OF FAITH
from A Brief Statement of Faith
We trust in God,
whom Jesus called Abba, Father.
In sovereign love God created the world good
and makes everyone equally in God’s image,
male and female, of every race and people, to live as one community.
But we rebel against God; we hide from our Creator.
Ignoring God’s commandments,
we violate the image of God in others and ourselves,
accept lies as truth, exploit neighbor and nature,
and threaten death to the planet entrusted to our care.
We deserve God’s condemnation.
Yet God acts with justice and mercy to redeem creation.
In everlasting love,
the God of Abraham and Sarah chose a covenant people
to bless all families of the earth.
Hearing their cry,
God delivered the children of Israel.
from the house of bondage.
Loving us still,
God makes us heirs with Christ of the covenant.
Like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child,
like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home,
God is faithful still.
*HYMN No. 402 “How Lovely, Lord”
1 How lovely, Lord, how lovely
is your abiding place;
my soul is longing, fainting,
to feast upon your grace.
The sparrow finds a shelter,
a place to build her nest;
and so your temple calls us
within its walls to rest.
2 In your blest courts to worship,
O God, a single day
is better than a thousand
if I from you should stray.
I’d rather keep the entrance
and claim you as my Lord
than revel in the riches
the ways of sin afford.
3 A sun and shield forever
are you, O Lord Most High;
you shower us with blessings;
no good will you deny.
The saints, your grace receiving,
from strength to strength shall go,
and from their life shall rivers
of blessing overflow.
THE PASTORAL PRAYER & THE LORD’S PRAYER
Holy God, eternal yet immediate, beyond yet near, we praise you for all that you have made, for grace that amazes, for mercy that cleanses, and for love that never lets us go. Hear our prayers, our shouts and our sighs, our whispers, and our cries, and that which we can only speak deep within. Hear our prayers, for we long for all to be well, for all to be right, for all to be whole.
Comfort the sick and encourage those who strive to heal them.
Hold the mournful and grant them peace that passes understanding.
Enlighten our leaders and give them a vision that promotes the common good.
Shelter those reeling from stormy blasts. Sustain those starting on new adventures. Satisfy those who hunger and thirst for justice.
We pray for teachers and students, for parents and children, for caregivers and care receivers, for gifts of knowledge and wisdom passed one to another.
Refresh your church. Give us a creative spirit as we travel together, shar- ing life and ministry. Renew our commitment to using well your abiding gifts of faith, hope and love.
You have shown us in Jesus an example of courageous compassion and risky generosity and bold truth-telling. Help us to follow in his way so that we might know the fullness of life you intend for us all.
God of each day and all days, hear us, hold us, and keep us, for the sake of Jesus our Savior, who taught us to pray like this: “Our Father….”
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.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
OFFERING OF TITHES & OFFERINGS
With gratitude for God’s faithfulness and with thanksgiving for all that we have received, let us bring our gifts to God.
OFFERTORY
*RESPONSE N0. 607 “Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow”
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
praise Christ, all people here below;
praise Holy Spirit evermore;
praise Triune God, whom we adore. Amen.
*PRAYER OF DEDICATION
O God, with faith and hope, we offer these gifts. Use them, even as you use us, to accomplish your purposes in Jesus Christ, the Head of the church and the Lord of our lives. Amen.
*HYMN No. 39 “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”
1 *Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
there is no shadow of turning with thee.
Thou changest not; thy compassions they fail not.
As thou hast been thou forever wilt be.
Refrain:
Great is thy faithfulness!
Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning, new mercies I see.
All I have needed thy hand hath provided.
Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!
2 Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,
sun, moon, and stars in their courses above
join with all nature in manifold witness
to thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.
(Refrain)
3 Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide,
strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow:
blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!
(Refrain)
*BENEDICTION
Let us go from this place trusting that in Jesus Christ God is with us and for us in every place.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God, and the companionship of the Holy Spirit be with you and abide with you this day and forever- more. Amen.
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