WELCOME
OPENING PRAYER
Our God who is
Our Creator God
Our Heavenly Father
Bless us with discomfort at easy answers,
half-truths and superficial relationships.
Bless us with anger at injustice,
oppression and exploitation of people.
Bless us with tears to shed
for those who suffer from pain,
rejection, starvation, and war.
Bless us with enough foolishness
to believe that we can make a difference in this world.
In the name of the Father
and the Son
and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
PRELUDE “Old 100th Psalm Tune” arr. Gerald Peterson
CALL TO WORSHIP
People will come from east and west,
from north and south,
and will eat in the kingdom of God.
Thanks be to God for welcoming us to the table.
*HYMN No. 385
“All People That On Earth Do Dwell”
1 All people that on earth do dwell,
sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;
him serve with mirth, his praise forth tell.
Come ye before him and rejoice.
2 Know that the Lord is God indeed;
without our aid he did us make;
we are his folk; he doth us feed,
and for his sheep he doth us take.
3 O enter then his gates with praise;
approach with joy his courts unto;
praise, laud, and bless his name always,
for it is seemly so to do.
4 For why? The Lord our God is good;
his mercy is forever sure;
his truth at all times firmly stood,
and shall from age to age endure.
*CALL TO CONFESSION
Sin is our stumbling block. Repentance clears the way to hear and receive God’s truth. Let us confess our sins together.
*PRAYER FOR CONFESSION
Gracious God, we are indebted to you and your generosity. But we fail to live as good stewards of all you have given us. We confiscate and consume far more than our fair share. We neglect the poor and trap people in poverty, claiming that debt forgiveness is unfair. God, liberate us from our spiritual and moral bondage. Free our world for jubilee. Re-order our priorities so all your nations and peoples may thrive. Amen.
*SILENT PRAYER FOR CONFESSION
*ASSURANCE OF PARDON
Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. The old life has gone; a new life has begun.
Know that you are forgiven and be at peace. Amen.
*RESPONSE No. 582
“Glory to God, Whose Goodness Shines On Me” x2
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
Although we believe and trust in God, we have forgotten the covenant which God made with our ancestors and sinned.
However, God shows the mercy promised to our ancestors, and remembers this holy covenant, giving us the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of our sins.
By the tender mercy of our God, the Dawn will break upon us, shining into the darkness and the shadow of death, guiding our feet into the way of peace.
Peace be with you.
And also with you.
ANTHEM “Old 100th Psalm Tune”
arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams
Commissioned for the coronation
of Elizabeth II in 1953
CHILDREN’S MESSAGE
UNISON PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION
Bless us, O God, with ears to hear your truth, vision to discern your path, and feet ready to move into action, responding to your call. Inspire us as we hear your Word read and proclaimed. Amen.
SCRIPTURE Psalm 90
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place[a] in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3 You turn us[b] back to dust and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”
4 For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past
or like a watch in the night.
5 You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning;
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.
7 For we are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your countenance.
9 For all our days pass away under your wrath;
our years come to an end[c] like a sigh.
10 The days of our life are seventy years
or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span[d] is only toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
11 Who considers the power of your anger?
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.
12 So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.
13 Turn, O Lord! How long?
Have compassion on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us
and as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be manifest to your servants
and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us
and prosper for us the work of our hands—
O prosper the work of our hands!
Pause…
This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God!!
SERMON “Days Like These”
What time is it? How do you measure time? There are plenty of folks who have written about time, but one of my favorites is from Canadian Priest Michel Quoist. He has a poem entitled “Time.”
TIME BY MICHEL QUOIST
All complain that they haven’t enough time.
They look at their lives from too human a point of view.
There is always time to do what God wants us to do,
but we must put ourselves completely into each moment offered now.
I went out, Lord. People were coming and going, walking and running.
Everything was rushing; cars, trucks, the street, the whole town.
Rushing not to waste time.
To catch up with time, to gain time.
Good bye, excuse me, I haven’t time.
I’ll come back, I can’t wait, I haven’t time.
I must end this letter – I haven’t time.
I’d love to help you, but I haven’t time.
I can’t accept, having no time.
I can’t think, I can’t read, I’m swamped, I haven’t time.
I’d like to pray, but I haven’t time.
You understand, Lord, they simply haven’t the time.
The child is playing, he hasn’t time right now… later on…
The schoolboy has his homework to do, he hasn’t time… later on…
The student had his courses, and so much work… later on…
The young man is at his sports, he hasn’t time… later on…
The young married man has his new house; he has to fix it up, he hasn’t time… later on…
The grandparents have their grandchildren, they haven’t time… later on…
They are dying, they have no…
Too late! They have no more time!
And so people run after time, Lord.
They pass through life running – hurried, jostled, overburdened, frantic,
and they never get there. They haven’t time.
In spite of all their efforts they’re still short of time.
Of a great deal of time.
Lord, you must have made a mistake in your calculations.
There is a big mistake somewhere.
The hours are too short, the days are too short.
Our lives are too short.
You who are beyond time, Lord, you smile to see us fighting it.
And you know what you are doing.
You make no mistakes in your distribution of time to men.
You give each one time to do what you want him to do.
But we must not lose time
waste time,
kill time,
For time is a gift that you give us,
But a perishable gift,
A gift that does not keep.
Lord, I have time,
I have plenty of time,
All the time that you give me,
The years of my life, the days of my years, the hours of my days.
They are all mine.
Mine to fill, quietly, calmly,
But to fill completely, up to the brim.
To offer them to you, that of their insipid water You may make a rich
wine as you made once in Galilee.
I am not asking you today, Lord, for time to do this and then that,
but your grace to do conscientiously, in the time that you give,
what you want me to do.
“For time is a gift that you give us,
But a perishable gift,
A gift that does not keep.”
All good things have been given to you as a gift from God. Especially our time. Your treasure. Your talents and gifts. Your family. Your friends. All things are not your own, they are a gift from God to be used for his plans and pleasures. This Canadian poet nails this idea: Time is a gift. We are invited to use this gift for God’s work.
Over the next several weeks, we are going to consider our stewardship of TIME. This year at the Presbyterian Church, we are focusing our stewardship season upon time! 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?
So let’s begin…
Were you alive on 9/11?
Were you alive during the Gulf War?
The Space Shuttle explosion?
The Apollo 11 moon-landing?
D-Day?
Black Tuesday?
Few people today remember Black Tuesday: when the stock market crashed (1929). Yet in the scheme of things, these events happened over a very short period of time. Put them in the perspective of the American Revolution, the Reformation, and the Egyptian dynasties, and you will see how brief our lives on this planet are.
Moses, in one of the oldest Psalms, said, “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures… (Psalm 90:10).”
What is the solution to living for such a relatively brief time?
Moses prayed, “May the favor of our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us – yes, establish the work of our hands (Psalm 90:17).”
The word “establish” here means to confirm the work we do. It means to give our work permanence and meaning that will never fade away. If our work is to have purpose maybe we need to remember v. 12 from Psalm 90, “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” Count our days. Reflect upon how we use our time.
Many of our schedules are filled, often with frantic activity.
How often do you inventory your use of time?
Are you using it well?
The Lord, who has given you this time, entrusted it to you. He wants you to invest your time in things that will not pass away, like relationships, people, telling the gospel, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and other things that honor God. Don’t squander your time watching nonsense TV, petty video games, or scrolling aimlessly through social media. Use the time given you for eternity. Use this gift wisely.
Our time is not our own. It is a gift from God. Use it for the glory of him who gave it to you. I think that we forget that time is a gift from God.
There was an intriguing editorial about time in the New York Times from 1998, that probably could have been written yesterday, “Our Moments have All Been Seized.” Author Richard Ford states,
“The now—our experience of the present moment—feels under attack,” the author argued, “the ways in which the series of moments we describe collectively as our real lives is made insignificant, made ignoble or forgettable, made hellish, or made in essence non-existent by all sorts of outside forces . . . like those ubiquitous television sets in airport waiting areas broadcasting programs we don’t want to see or hear: unconscionable numbers of message on our email, all demanding replies, phone calls at the dinner hour on the subject of platinum cards, magazine subscriptions, mutual funds we don’t own and don’t want.”
In a threatening way, Ford wrote, these interruptions represent a turf battle for my soul and my time and what I’m going to be thinking about. Ford wants his “moments to be treated with care. Put simply, the pace of life feels morally dangerous to me. And what I wish for is not to stop or even to slow it, but to be able to experience my lived days as valuable days.”
Our lived days are valuable days. Our lived days are a gift from God. As we move into the Fall, I want us to reflect upon what we do with our minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years. Again, our theme for this stewardship season is TIME, and how we use the gift of time as members of the body of Christ. My hope is that each of us will consider giving our time to building the kingdom of God as part of this church.
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?
12 So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.
These are the days.
Natalie Merchant & Peter Buck
These are days you’ll remember.
Never before and never since, I promise, will the whole world be warm as this.
And as you feel it, you’ll know it’s true that you are blessed and lucky.
It’s true that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in you.
These are days you’ll remember.
When May is rushing over you with desire to be part of the miracles you see in
Every hour.
You’ll know it’s true that you are blessed and lucky.
It’s true that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in you.
These are days.
These are the days you might fill with laughter until you break.
These days you might feel a shaft of light make its way across your face.
And when you do you’ll know how it was meant to be.
See the signs and know their meaning.
It’s true, you’ll know how it was meant to be.
Hear the signs and know they’re speaking to you, to you.
Commentary and Liturgy from the Book of Common Worship (PCUSA), Michel Quoist, David L. Bartlett, NT Wright, Doug Bratt, John Buchanan, and Michael Bierbeck.
*AFFIRMATION OF FAITH The Nicene Creed
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son
is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
*HYMN No. 697 “Take My Life”
300th Anniversary Hymn
1 Take my life and let it be
consecrated, Lord, to thee;
take my moments and my days;
let them flow in ceaseless praise;
let them flow in ceaseless praise.
2 Take my hands and let them move
at the impulse of thy love;
take my feet and let them be
swift and beautiful for thee,
swift and beautiful for thee.
3 Take my voice and let me sing
always, only, for my King;
take my lips and let them be
filled with messages from thee,
filled with messages from thee.
4 Take my sliver and my gold;
not a mite would I withhold;
take my intellect and use
every power as thou shalt choose,
every power as thou shalt choose.
5 Take my will and make it thine;
it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is thine own;
it shall be thy royal throne,
it shall be thy royal throne.
6 Take my love; my Lord, I pour
at thy feet its treasure store;
take myself and I will be
ever, only, all for thee,
ever, only, all for thee.
THE SACRAMENT OF THE LORD’S SUPPER
INVITATION TO THE LORD’S TABLE
Friends, this is the joyful feast of the people of God!
They will come from east and west,
and from north and south,
and sit at table in the kingdom of God.
According to Luke,
when our risen Lord was at table with his disciples,
he took the bread, and blessed and broke it,
and gave it to them.
Then their eyes were opened
and they recognized him.
This is the Lord’s table.
Our Savior invites those who trust him
to share the feast which he has prepared.
GREAT THANKSGIVING
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
It is truly right and our greatest joy to give you thanks and praise, eternal God, our creator.
You have given us life and second birth in your Spirit.
Once we were no people, but now we are your people.
You claimed Israel as your chosen nation
and raised up the church as a witness to the resurrection, breathing into it your life and power.
From worlds apart, you gathered us together.
When we go astray, you welcome us home.
Always, your love has been steadfast.
Therefore we praise you, joining our voices with the choirs of heaven and with all the faithful of every time and place
who forever sing to the glory of your name:
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.
You are holy, O God of majesty,
and blessed is Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord.
In love with you and in compassion for all,
Jesus healed and taught, challenged and comforted, welcomed and saved.
He formed a community,
promising to be with his disciples wherever two or three were gathered, and sending them on his mission of hope and healing in the world.
Jesus trusted his life to you, and went freely to his death,
so the world might be set free from suffering and sin.
You raised him from death and raise us also to live a new life with him. In the power of the Holy Spirit,
you send us out to make disciples as he commanded.
Remembering all your mighty and merciful acts,
we take this bread and this wine from the gifts you have given us and celebrate with joy the redemption won for us in Jesus Christ. Accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving
as a living and holy offering of ourselves,
that our lives may proclaim the One crucified and risen.
Great is the mystery of faith.
Christ has died,
Christ is risen,
Christ will come again.
Gracious God, pour out your Holy Spirit upon us
and upon these your gifts of bread and wine,
that the bread we break and the cup we bless
may be the communion of the body and blood of Christ. By your Spirit unite us with the living Christ
and with all who are baptized in his name,
that we may be one in ministry in every place. As this bread is Christ’s body for us,
send us out to be the body of Christ in the world.
O God, today you have called us together to be the church.
Unite us now at your table, and in one loaf and a common cup, make us one in Christ Jesus.
Let your Spirit empower the life we share and ignite our witness in the world.
With all who have gone before us, keep us faithful to the gospel teachings and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Give us strength to serve you
until the promised day of the resurrection, when with the redeemed of all the ages
we will feast with you at your table in glory.
Through Christ, all glory and honor are yours, almighty God, with the Holy Spirit in the holy church, now and forever. Amen.
THE LORD’S PRAYER
As Christ our Savior taught us, we are bold to pray:
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.
BREAKING OF THE BREAD
The Lord Jesus, on the night of his arrest, took bread, and after giving thanks to God,
he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying:
Take, eat.
This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way he took the cup, saying:
This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it,
do this in remembrance of me.
Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the saving death of the risen Lord, until he comes.
COMMUNION
PRAYER AFTER COMMUNION
Gracious God,
may we who have received this sacrament
live in the unity of your Holy Spirit,
that we may show forth your gifts to all the world.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
STEWARDSHIP MOMENT Denise & Tori Campo
OFFERING OF TITHES & OFFERINGS
We are inspired to be generous by a generous God. We are inspired to give by the greatest of givers. In gratitude to God, let us present our tithes and offerings.
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
Holy God, bless these gifts for your good use. May these tokens of our gratitude be of service in blessing the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing and sheltering those struggling to survive. Use these gifts to further Christ’s mission and ministry in a hurting world. Amen.
*HYMN No. 687
“Our God, Our Help In Ages Past”
1 Our God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast,
and our eternal home:
2 Beneath the shadow of thy throne
thy saints have dwelt secure;
sufficient is thine arm alone,
and our defense is sure.
3 Before the hills in order stood,
or earth received its frame,
from everlasting thou art God,
to endless years the same.
4 A thousand ages in thy sight
are like an evening gone,
short as the watch that ends the night
before the rising sun.
5 Time, like an ever rolling stream,
bears all our years away;
they fly forgotten, as a dream
dies at the opening day.
6 Our God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
be thou our guard while life shall last,
and our eternal home.
*BENEDICTION
Filled and fed by the bounty of God’s table,
the Spirit sends us into the world to live, and love, and serve as Christ’s disciples.
As we go, may God bless us with faith, hope, peace and love.
Amen.