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 Eternal One
the One who draws near to us but evades our grasp
the One who outshines our greatest hopes
to direct our attention to the story of God and the people of God
to enter the Story
and find our own stories transformed
seeking the Spirit of God to form us more fully in the way of Christ
to hold us together in our uncertainty
to hold us together in our love
to hold us together
Amen.
Scripture
Job 2:11-13; 3:1-10, 20-26
Now when Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite.
They met together to go and console and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads.
They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.
After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. Job said:
“Let the day perish in which I was born,
and the night that said,
‘A man-child is conceived.’
Let that day be darkness!
May God above not seek it,
or light shine on it.
Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.
Let clouds settle upon it;
let the blackness of the day terrify it.
That night—let thick darkness seize it!
let it not rejoice among the days of the year;
let it not come into the number of the months.
Yes, let that night be barren;
let no joyful cry be heard in it.
Let those curse it who curse the Sea,
those who are skilled to rouse up Leviathan.
Let the stars of its dawn be dark;
let it hope for light, but have none;
may it not see the eyelids of the morning—
because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb,
and hide trouble from my eyes.
“Why is light given to one in misery,
and life to the bitter in soul,
who long for death, but it does not come,
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures;
who rejoice exceedingly,
and are glad when they find the grave?
Why is light given to one who cannot see the way,
whom God has fenced in?
For my sighing comes like my bread,
and my groanings are poured out like water.
Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me,
and what I dread befalls me.
I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;
I have no rest; but trouble comes.”
Mark 10:35-45
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to Jesus and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”
But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”
When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.
But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
Prayer
This week’s prayer was from Søren Kierkegaard (The Prayers of Kierkegaard, p. 30):
Father in Heaven! Draw our hearts to Thee, that our heart may be where our treasure must be, that our thoughts may aspire to Thy kingdom where our citizenship is so that our departure when Thou shalt call us may not be a painful separation from this world but a blissful reunion with Thee. Still we do not know the time or the season; perhaps it is still far from us. But when at times our strength is taken from us, when lassitude overcomes us like a kind of fog in which our visions plunged as into a dark night, when our desires, our impatience, and our anger are stirred up, when our hearts tremble in anxiety awaiting what is to come, then, O Lord our God, teach us and strengthen this conviction in our hearts, that also in this life we belong to Thee. Amen.
