October 22, 2023
21st Sunday after Pentecost
10:00am
WELCOME
OPENING PRAYER
We come before you today, O God,
to worship you in your holy splendor.
Our hearts tremble before you,
mindful of your goodness and mercy.
Show us your glory, we pray.
Reveal your presence with us
that we may be strengthened and sustained,
now and for the journey to come;
in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
PRELUDE “Quiet Peace” Gerard Peterson
CALL TO WORSHIP
In this sacred hour of worship when we name things for what they really are,
we give to God what is God’s.
Between the demands of this last week and the demands of the one ahead
we give to God what is God’s.
With open hearts and hands and minds, every innate gift from our loving Creator,
we give to God what is God’s.
*HYMN No. 716 “God, Whose Giving Knows No End”
1 God, whose giving knows no ending,
from your rich and endless store,
nature’s wonder, Jesus’ wisdom,
costly cross, grave’s shattered door:
gifted by you, we turn to you,
offering up ourselves in praise;
thankful song shall rise forever,
gracious donor of our days.
2 Skills and time are ours for pressing
toward the goals of Christ, your Son:
all at peace in health and freedom,
races joined, the church made one.
Now direct our daily labor,
lest we strive for self alone.
Born with talents, make us servants
fit to answer at your throne.
3 Treasure, too, you have entrusted,
gain through powers your grace conferred:
ours to use for home and kindred,
and to spread the gospel word.
Open wide our hands in sharing,
as we heed Christ’s ageless call,
healing, teaching, and reclaiming,
serving you by loving all.
*CALL TO CONFESSION
Sin tricks and traps us a hundred times a day. So we turn to God, whose business is freedom. Trusting that God will free us from our sin and deliver us to safety, let us confess our sins with courage and hope.
*PRAYER FOR CONFESSION
Creator God, we are commanded
to give to you what is branded as yours. But since we cannot see your face,
we confess to a miserable confusion. Where is your image printed?
Not on our coinage or our calendars.
Not on any of the things we buy in the store or in the ad-laden videos that stream by us. No, the only place we can see your face,
is in our neighbor and in the mirror.
We’re the ones created in your image. Honestly, we’d rather pay you taxes, God, than give up our whole selves.
But if we are what you want,
heart, mind, soul, and strength —
we’ll do our best, God.
We’ll give our all to you.
Amen.
*SILENT PRAYER FOR CONFESSION
*ASSURANCE OF PARDON
Hear the good news! Our God, lover of justice, glories not in punishment but in redemption.
Christ has broken the power of sin and rescued us from our shame.
Be at peace: you are forgiven, and you are free.
To God be the glory! Alleluia! Amen.
*RESPONSE No. 582
“Glory to God, Whose Goodness Shines on Me”
1 Glory to God, whose goodness shines on me,
and to the Son, whose grace has pardoned me,
and to the Spirit, whose love has set me free.
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. Amen.
*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 “Thou Gracious God Whose Mercy Lends” Mack Wilberg
CHILDREN’S MESSAGE
UNISON PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION
Holy Spirit, as did the people in the Temple that day long ago, may we gather to listen to the wisdom of the Christ-child through the reading of your holy word. Amen.
SCRIPTURE Luke 2:41-52
41 Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. 42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. 43 When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents were unaware of this. 44 Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents[a] saw him they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.” 49 He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house/interests/business?”[b] 50 But they did not understand what he said to them.51 Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them, and his mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years[c] and in divine and human favor.
Pause…
This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God!!
SERMON “Commitment”
I have long been intrigued by this story.
Don’t you wonder what kind of child Jesus was?
What did he know and when did he know it?
Did he think of himself as special or different?
The passage raises all kinds of questions about Jesus and his own sense of identity. From this little piece of the story offered by Luke, at the very least Jesus seems rather precocious, and wise beyond his years. He seems to have been especially sensitive to spiritual things. We’ve all known children like that. Some of them grow up to be clergy, but not all of them. There’s another set of questions the emerge, and those questions have to do with the task of parenting a child like this. It’s possible that he was not the easiest child to raise. Maybe he asked lots of questions, especially religious ones. Again, all we can do is speculate.
For those who emphasize the divinity of Jesus, what does it mean for Jesus to grow in wisdom?
What was it he needed to learn?
Here’s what we do know, from Luke’s perspective: It took three days for Mary and Joseph to find Jesus—in the Temple—and when they finally found Jesus sitting in the Temple, they discovered him talking theology with the teachers of Israel. Luke says he was both listening and asking questions. What is more intriguing here is that these teachers and their students were amazed at Jesus’ level of knowledge.
So, when his parents find him in the Temple, they, like most parents, ask for an explanation.
Why didn’t he stay with their traveling group?
Why did he wander away?
When my parents found me in the toy department, I remember being disciplined. In fact, I think my punishment was going to bed without dinner. They were none too happy with me, and I paid for it. I’m assuming something of the same was in store for Jesus. It’s not so much that the parents were angry. They were worried, as parents would be. So, they ask him:
“Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.”
Indeed, Jesus had caused his parents a lot of grief. After all, they were from a small town in the north, and losing your child in the big city is definitely anxiety-producing. Most parents would expect their children to answer them by apologizing for causing them so much distress.
That would be honoring your parents, wouldn’t it?
When Jesus answered his parents, he didn’t apologize. He responded to their question with one of his own:
“Why were you searching for me?
Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
Jesus’ questions for his parents, at least on the surface, sound rather insolent. This isn’t the kind of response that would ingratiate me with my parents. I want to get back to the statement, which I believe stands at the heart of the passage, but it’s important to note two things. First, his parents don’t understand his questions. They’re mystified by what he’s saying. The second is that he returned home and was obedient to them. That is, from that point on -he behaved as was expected of a child in first-century Judaism. He obeyed (honored) his parents, as was required of him by the Torah. Luke says for a second time that Mary “treasured these things in her heart.” Luke notes the same thing earlier, while the Holy Family was in Bethlehem. Having returned home to Nazareth, Jesus continued his childhood movement toward adult maturity. According to Luke, he continued growing in wisdom and stature. He grew in favor with God and with his neighbors.
So, back to Jesus’ original response:
“Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
What did he mean by this?
He seems confused by his parent’s anxiety and failure to understand where he would be (how different his choice of place to be was from my own—Temple or toy department?). The King James Version puts it this way: “How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”
Could it be that the KJV rendering is more to the point?
It’s not just that Jesus was in his Father’s house, but that he was in the Temple doing his “Father’s business.” In other words, Luke has Jesus identifying himself not with the Temple as a place of learning, but he was doing the work to which his “Father,” that is God, had called him. Jesus is growing into the person that person he is supposed to be – called to be.
How about our call as followers of Jesus?
How about our growth as followers of Jesus?
How about our call to be about our Father’s business?
How about our time spent about our Father’s business?
If God has given us 168 hours each week, a tithe (10%) of our time would be about 17 hours. If we believe in giving tithes to God because every cent of our finances came from God and if we believe that every minute and hour is a gift as well, should we not also give to God a portion of our time as we do with our income?
How do you give of your time
to be about God’s business?
How much of your time each week do you spend at church services, communing with God, serving in the life of the church, or intentionally growing alongside other believers? Being about God’s business?
“How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”
Commentary and Liturgy from the Book of Common Worship (PCUSA), “Call to Worship” Website, David Lose, Michel Quoist, Carol Holbrook Prickett, Michael K. Marsh, Ronald J. Allen, and Scott Hoezee
*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.
*HYMN No. 708 We Give Thee But Thine Own”
1 We give thee but thine own,
whate’er the gift may be;
all that we have is thine alone,
a trust, O Lord, from thee.
2 May we thy bounties thus
as stewards true receive,
and gladly, as thou blessest us,
to thee our firstfruits give.
3 The captive to release,
to God the lost to bring,
to teach the way of life and peace:
it is a Christ-like thing.
4 And we believe thy word,
though dim our faith may be;
whate’er we do for thine, O Lord,
we do it unto thee.
THE PASTORAL PRAYER & THE LORD’S PRAYER
God, we know that you see everything that happens in this world; nothing we pray about is news to you. Yet still we pray, asking that your peace and wisdom rest on us, and your presence transform our lives.
We pray for those across the world and in our communities who are scared today; for those who face violence, because of where they live or where they work or who you have created them to be; for those whose future seems dark; for those whose anxiety eats away at them and who cannot find peace. Spirit, living flame, encourage them.
We pray for those who hurt today; for the sick, the hungry, the abused, the grieving, the lonely. We pray for those who struggle with pain in body or mind or spirit. We pray for the compassionate, who hurt because the world hurts. Jesus, healer, comfort them.
We pray for those who woke up angry today. We pray for those who feel excluded, overlooked, trapped. We pray for those who feel entitled, unappreciated, out of control. We pray that where anger leads to pain, you would bring peace, but that where anger leads to justice, you would bring wisdom. Jesus, table-turner, guide them.
We pray for those who are full of hope today. We pray for those who
are beginning new relationships or careers or working to get clean. We pray for those who see sprouts of your kingdom poking up through cracks in the sidewalk. We pray for those who are a light in the darkness. Strengthen them, Holy Spirit.
These prayers we lift you always, that we might be attuned to the needs of your children. We also lift to you now the specific concerns of this day:
God, there is much we have forgotten to pray for today, yet we know that nothing escapes your notice. Direct our eyes this week, we pray, that we might come to know your heart more fully.
We pray now as you taught your disciples, saying, “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, for ever. Amen.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
STEWARDSHIP MOMENT Connie Tighe
OFFERING OF TITHES & OFFERINGS
Scripture praises the “work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.” We give now not for the flash or the fame but in quiet, steadfast hope that every dollar might serve to build up the body of Christ in this congregation, and the beloved community in the world. Your offerings matter. Make them with confidence.
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
Lord, we dedicate our all to you;
not just the money that we no longer call ours (whether it’s sitting in the plate
or whizzing along digital paths),
but our thoughts, our plans,
our time, our dreams, our days.
It’s all yours, God. It always was.
Help us to rejoice in that.
Amen.
*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
Go now into the world, inspired by the
radiant love of God. Live generously,
with open hands, loving one another
as if your lives depended on it.
Be good stewards of the gifts you have received,
so that God may be glorified in all that you say and do.
And may the abundant love of God surround you,
may the extravagant grace of Jesus Christ sustain you,
and may the constant presence of the Holy Spirit
inspire and encourage you in every good deed and word.
Live this week praising the name
of the Father,
of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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