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 worship the Risen Lord
Boundless Love, Embodied
to be drawn into God’s story
and find our own stories transformed
to bear the marks of the Risen Christ
that our lives might embody
the hope of Resurrection
amen.
Scripture
Psalm 4
Answer my prayers, O True God, the righteous, who makes me right.
I was hopelessly surrounded, and You rescued me.
Once again hear me; hide me in Your favor;
bring victory in defeat and hope in hopelessness.
How long will you sons of Adam steal my dignity, reduce my glory to shame?
Why pine for the fruitless and dream a delusion?
Understand this: The Eternal One treats as special those like the Eternal.
The Eternal will answer my prayers and save me.
Think long; think hard. When you are angry, don’t let it carry you into sin.
When night comes, in calm be silent.
From this day forward, offer to God the right sacrifice from a heart made right by God.
Entrust yourself to the Eternal.
Crowds of disheartened people ask, “Who can show us what is good?”
Let Your brilliant face shine upon us, O Eternal One, that we may know the undeniable
answer.
You have filled me with joy, and happiness has risen in my heart, great delight and unrivaled
joy,
even more than when bread abounds and wine flows freely.
Tonight I will sleep securely on a bed of peace
because I trust You, You alone, O Eternal One, will keep me safe.
Luke 24:36b-48
Jesus himself stood among the disciples and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.”
Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.
Prayer
This week's prayer was from The Iona Community Worship Book:
O God,
Early in the morning,
When the world was young,
You made life in all its beauty and terror;
You gave birth to all that we know.
Hallowed be Your Name
Early in the morning,
When the world least expected it,
A new born child crying in a cradle
Announced that You had come among us,
That you were one of us.
Hallowed be Your Name
Early in the morning,
Surrounded by self-interested religious leaders,
Anxious statesmen
And silent friends,
You accepted the penalty for doing good,
For being God:
You shouldered and suffered the cross.
Hallowed be Your Name
Early in the morning,
A voice in a guarded graveyard
And footsteps in the dew
Proved that You had risen,
That You had come back
To those and for those
Who had forgotten, denied and destroyed You.
O God, bring new life,
Where we are worn and tired,
New love,
Where we have turned hard hearted
Forgiveness,
Where we have wounded,
And the Joy and freedom of Your Holy Spirit
Where we are the prisoners of ourselves.
Amen