This blog is a record of the call to worship, Scripture readings, and prayers from our Sunday liturgies. If you are interested in writing something for the liturgy, or if you have a concern about any aspect of our liturgy, please email jamie@ubcwaco.org.
Call to Worship
we have gathered to devote our attention to the Lord of all
to worship the God
revealed in Jesus Christ
to embrace what God would have us know
about who God is
and what God would have us know
about who we are
that we might be drawn into God’s story
and join with God in the work
of new life in the world.
Amen.
Scripture
Psalm 50:1-6
The Lord, the God of gods, has spoken;
and has called the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Out of Zion, perfect in its beauty,
God reveals Godself in glory.
Our God will come and will not keep silence;
before God there is a consuming flame,
and round about God a raging storm.
God calls the heavens and the earth from above
to witness the judgment of God’s people.
"Gather before me my loyal followers,
those who have made a covenant with me
and sealed it with sacrifice."
Let the heavens declare the rightness of God’s cause;
for God is judge.
Mark 9:2-9
Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.
And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”
He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.
As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
Poem
truth
by gwendolyn brooks
And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?
Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years—
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?
Shall we not shudder?—
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?
Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.
The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.
Prayer
This week's prayer was written by W. E. B. Du Bois:
In these first beginnings of new life in the world, renew in us the resolution to persist in the good work we have begun. Give us strength of body and strength of mind and the unfaltering determination to carry out that which we know to be good and right.
Forgive all wavering in the past service of Thy cause and make us strong to go forward in spite of our own distrust in ourselves.
Out of the death of winter comes ever and again the resurrection of spring: so out of evil bring good, O God, and out of doubt determination. Amen.