PIONEER
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Worship
via Blog 4the Sunday after Epiphany January
31, 2021
~~~~~~~~~~
WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Welcome to Pioneer’s blog worship service.
Though we are accessing this remotely and unable to look each other in the eye,
we are still the Pioneer faith community, gathered as children of God to
worship, to be spiritually fed, and to be equipped to go out to serve in
Christ’s name—though we do it differently during this pandemic.
Pioneer offers worship in several modes:
a)
The
blog.
b)
The
blog service mailed through US Postal service.
c)
Sermons
only, mailed to those who so request.
d)
Zoom
services at 10:00 Sunday mornings.
e)
Live
worship with masks and social distancing has plenty of room for additional
worshipers.
-
Deacons
meet following worship
-
Women’s
Spirituality meets Tuesday at 10:30
Now allow yourself a brief time of silence
as you open your hearts and feel God’s presence with you, right where you are.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BAPTISM: Friends, remember your baptism … and be thankful.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Great are the works of God and greatly to
be praised.
God’s righteousness endures forever.
We
come together as a congregation of believers.
We
give thanks to God with whole hearts.
God is gracious and merciful and
trustworthy.
At all times, God is mindful of the
covenant.
The
works of God’s hands are established among us.
We
can count on God’s righteousness and faithfulness.
Awe before God is the beginning of wisdom.
All who approach God in fear have good
understanding.
Holy
and awesome is God’s name.
We
call on God to empower our worship.
PRAYER OF THE DAY
God
of the prophets, help us to recognize your voice among the competing claims of
our day. Raise up in our midst authentic witnesses to your truth. Be present
with us now to guide our prayers and praise. Let us not presume to know your
message without careful listening or to speak your word without discerning the
Spirit. Light your fires within us so we may heed your summons and give our
best in your service. Amen.
OPENING
SONG: “Great and Mighty” LU#29
CALL TO CONFESSION
We are called to confession if we have
distorted God’s word, knowingly or unknowingly. We are invited to repent if our
freedom in Christ has led others astray. We join in prayer together because the
church is not yet the perfect body of Christ. Let us seek God’s forgiveness.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Faithful God, we have claimed to have more
knowledge than we really possess. We have presumed to judge others on the basis
of our limited understanding. By our actions, some of our sisters and brothers
are excluded, some are misled, and some are unjustly accused. If we have
violated another’s conscience, if we have caused someone to fall, we are deeply
sorry. For failing to do all Christ expects of the church, we repent and seek
your forgiveness. (continue with personal prayers………..) Amen.
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation.
The old life has gone; the new life has
begun.
Friends, believe the Good News!
In Jesus Christ we are forgiven and
restored to new life!
PASSING THE PEACE
May the peace of Christ be with you.
And also with you.
Let us extend the peace of Christ in heart
and prayer to one another.
GLORY
BE TO THE FATHER
TIME WITH CHILDREN
Good
morning Zoey and Fiona. Today we’re going to talk about what’s inside us. But
first we’ll start with what is inside other things. What things are filled with
makes a difference in how we can use them.
For
example, a music book and a storybook. The filling—what’s inside them--makes a
difference in deciding whether you will sing the words or listen to the words
as a story.
If
you are hungry, consider a sandwich. One is filled with peanut butter and the
other with shredded newspaper. Which would you rather eat? Which one will
nourish and satisfy you?
You
like to play games, right? So if you play with a balloon filled with water as compared
to a balloon filled with air, your game would be very different, wouldn’t it?
What
people are filled with makes a difference, too. We can be filled with hatred or
we can be filled with love. We can be filled with lies or we can be filled with
honesty. We can be filled with anger or we can be filled with hope. We can be
filled with lots of thoughts, feelings, attitudes and beliefs.
What
we are filled with makes a difference in what we can be used for, what we can
do, how we look at the world around us, and how we treat others.
One
of the things we do in church is try to learn how to choose well what we are
filled with so that God can use us. So we learn to be filled with God’s word
and love and caring. Let’s pray.
Jesus,
we want to be filled with the right things. We want God to be able to use us to
love and help other people. Help us to choose to fill ourselves with good
things. Amen.
HYMN: “Jesus
Loves Me”
Jesus loves me,
this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him
belong, they are weak but he is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves
me. Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves
me. The Bible tells me so.
SCRIPTURE 1: Psalm 111
Praise the Lord. I
will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the company of the
upright, in the congregation. Great are
the works of the Lord, studied by all who have pleasure in them. Full of honor
and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever. He has caused
his wonderful works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and merciful. He
provides food for those who fear him; he is ever mindful of his covenant. He
has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the heritage of the
nations. The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are
trustworthy, they are established for ever and ever, to be performed with
faithfulness and uprightness. He sent redemption to his people; he has
commanded his covenant forever. Holy and terrible is his name! The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all those who practice
it. His praise endures forever!
SCRIPTURE 2: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Now concerning food
offered to idols: we know that "all of us possess knowledge."
"Knowledge" puffs up, but love builds up. If any one imagines that he
knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if one loves
God, one is known by him.
Hence, as to the
eating of food offered to idols, we know that "an idol has no real
existence," and that "there is no God but one." For although
there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth -- as indeed there are many
"gods" and many "lords" -- yet for us there is one God, the
Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus
Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. However, not all
possess this knowledge.
But some, through
being hitherto accustomed to idols, eat food as really offered to an idol; and
their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We
are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. Only take care
lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if any one sees you, a man of knowledge,
at table in an idol's temple, might he not be encouraged, if his conscience is
weak, to eat food offered to idols? And
so by your knowledge this weak man is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ
died. Thus, sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience when it
is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of my brother's
falling, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall.
SERMON: “What You Know Can Hurt You” Rev.
Jean Hurst
You’ve heard the expression, “What you
don’t know can’t hurt you.” That goes hand in hand with “Ignorance is bliss.”
Well, Paul seems to be telling us that what you know can hurt you ... as
well as others.
Paul
broaches the subject by way of the dinner table. In that Greco-Roman culture,
there were a plethora of idols. We know them from Greek and Roman mythology as
gods. You could name off a few, if only from some current movies. There’s Zeus,
Athena, Apollo, Poseidon, Diana, Jupiter, Venus and many, many more.
The Greeks
and Romans took their gods seriously—sort of. Truth to tell, most people
probably didn’t really believe in them but they hedged their bets by making
temples and altars and sacrificing to the god to which it was dedicated.
Sacrificing to a god didn’t really mean
that the entire carcass of the animal was burned up. There was a token amount
burned but the rest went on the dinner table. The wealthy people of the cities
loved the feasts. In these temple feasts, the entre was the prime meat left
from sacrifices to the gods—which Paul, and the rest of scripture—calls idols.
Also, much of that sacrificial meat was sold in the marketplace for the common
people to buy for their tables.
Lest we too
quickly condemn the Romans and Greeks for their shorting the gods on the
sacrifices, we can look to the Old Testament to see that practice was also held
in the Jewish faith. Certain parts of the animal were burned on the altar while
the priests retained the prime pieces for themselves. But their laws said
certain parts, including the fat, must be burned on the altar. Leviticus 3:17
instructs the Israelites, "You must never eat any fat or blood. This is
a permanent law for you, and it must be observed from generation to generation,
wherever you live."
Remember a couple Sundays ago when we talked about the call of Samuel,
the scripture said Eli’s sons were corrupt. One aspect of that corruption was
that they were taking the meat with the fat for themselves.
It’s one
thing to eat meat that is sacrificed to God and quite another to eat meat that
is sacrificed to idols. Many of the Jewish Christians felt that eating meat
sacrificed to idols would make them unclean and defile them. Their food purity
laws were very strict.
But to
refuse meat sacrificed to idols would leave people shut off from the social
life of the Corinthian society. Some of the Christians ‘knew what they knew’
and felt that eating that meat was fine. Their rationale took them to the
Shema, that most sacred of Jewish prayers which states “Hear O Israel, the Lord
our God is one Lord.” It goes on to talk about loving God with all your heart,
soul, and might, then to love your neighbor as yourself.
The
rationale was that since there is only one God—the Lord—that those entities to
which sacrifices were being made were not, in fact, gods, since there is only
one true God. So the sacrifices really meant nothing. And the Gentile
Christians would not hold the same concerns as their Jewish counterparts about
how the animal was slaughtered. They weren’t bound by the same ritualistic food
laws. So eating the meat of sacrifices in temple feasts or bought in the
marketplace was a no-brainer.
The issue
wasn’t so much about the meat itself and how they justified their stance one
way or the other over these issues, but the fact that it was dividing them.
They were losing focus over what it was that united them in their faith. They
were becoming polarized over what was not truly an essential tenant of their
beliefs. In other words, it just wasn’t that important. And yet each side
seemed to feel that their issues were critical and that the other group was
wrong for failing to practice their faith in the same way.
They pitted themselves against each
other--one being right, the other wrong. It was a situation of traditionalists
against progressives; those scrupulous in their adherence to what they saw as
the rules of their faith versus those who deemed themselves enlightened and
free from such rules; those who upheld unbreakable principles versus those who
embraced flexible guidelines; those who saw in terms of black and white and
those who saw in shades of grey; the conservatives versus the liberals.
Has much changed since then? Don’t we
encounter that same thing today? Our multiple denominations within
Protestantism prove it. Some denominations are struggling and splitting over
divisive issues. We see it within our own denomination. We are all Christ’s
church in the world, yet so many Christians are fully convinced that they are
the ones who have it right and the others are failing to live a Christian life.
We
try to make light of it. A person arrives in heaven and is being given the
grand tour by St. Peter. They pass a closed door and hear sounds of a group
celebrating. When asked about it, St. Peter says, “Sshhhh. Those are the
Presbyterians. They think they’re the only ones here.” Each denomination can
fill in its own name.
I came across an example of difference
in church beliefs in Pioneer’s one hundred year history book. Surprise--it was
about politics. In 1982, letters were sent to the governments of the USA and
the USSR with a resolution to call a halt to the nuclear arms race. Yet, in a
December 21, 1898 issue of the newspaper, the following news item appeared:
“The Reformed Presbyterian Church met at Newburg, North Carolina and decided
that it was ungodly for members to vote or to participate in government.” Two strong differences. Who is right?
But it’s not just in religious
doctrine that we fall into the trap of ‘knowing what we know’ and knowing that
anyone who differs with us is wrong. Two big and obvious examples of it in our
culture today are politics and covid. One day the pandemic will be over, but politics,
like the poor, will always be with us. Unless we proclaim ourselves to be
apolitical and actually live by it, we are going to continue to have
differences in how we think the world ought to be run.
That is knowledge we need to
examine. What do we do with those differences? Might we be wise to pay
attention to what the apostle Paul is saying? “Knowledge” puffs up, but love
builds up. Do we want to be ‘right’ for the sake of being right, which is an
ego thing or do we want to preserve relationships? Do we want to be right in a
way that exalts ourselves and diminishes another? Do we want to build walls
between us or build love between us?
What
is more important to us? And do we have to make a choice between standing by
our convictions and maintaining relationships that are important to us? Might
there be ways to hold to our convictions without alienating the other person?
The classic approach to that is to ‘agree to disagree’.
You
folk who are married know about disagreements. Those of you with siblings know
about disagreements. Put three people in a room and you’ll have four opinions.
That’s okay. It doesn’t make you any less because the other person sees things
differently.
Paul offers this caution to believers
in concern for how it might affect the faith of another person—become a
stumbling block, as he puts it. While our differences or our holding tightly to
what we think politically or around any other topic may not be a stumbling
block to others in the way Paul was pointing out, it can, nevertheless, affect
others in significant ways.
When passion about
an issue reigns, other people’s words or actions are often interpreted in light
of that issue. Everyone walks on eggshells. It can break down relationships. It
can shut people out. It can make people feel they don’t belong. Conflict builds
walls between us. In doing that it can it can make people question the value of
faith when what they see are Christians arguing amongst themselves. We are
admonished in 2 Timothy 2:14 “Warn them before God against quarreling about
words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen.”
In truth,
there are many things that cause difference between us—politics, gender,
economics, values, lifestyles, sexuality, ethnicity. But Jesus came to break
down the barriers between us, to unite us in the family of God through God’s
love and grace.
If God, through
Christ’s intercession, accepts us all into the household of God, how, then, can
any one of us deny another? We cannot separate our relationship with God from
our relationship with other people. We are all the family of God, God’s beloved
children, with one unified mission--that all might come to know the peace and
love and grace of the God who calls us into belonging. Thanks be to God.
HYMN: “O
for a World” Glory
#372
PRAYERS OF THE
PEOPLE AND THE LORD’S PRAYER
Holy God, speak your word to us. Help
us not just to listen but to truly hear. Plant your word in our hearts, that we
may draw on it in time of need. Jesus teaches us to love, but we too quickly
forget. Remind us. Show us. Lead us.
Lead us to those who are hurting,
those who are cast aside and rejected by our society, those who live in
darkness and despair, those in poverty and want. Give us eyes of faith that
perceive the pain and the heartache of the world and the will to respond with a
word of hope, an act of compassion. Remind us that we have all been called to
Christian service, to discipleship, to evangelism—sharing the ‘good news’ of
Christ’s love by what we say and do.
You call us to pray and so pray for an
end to Covid, and end to violence in home and street and between nations. We
pray for the healing of our country and for unity among our people.
We pray for Stephen Meinzinger …
Phyllis Bauer … Beverly Patterson … Lois White … Virginia … Cherry … John Matthews … Margaret
Dunbar … Darlene … Trisha … Dave … Jacob … George and Joyce … Jennifer … Chuck
… Courtney … Ethel … Helen. (Additional prayers …………)
God
who guides our lives, we entrust to you these prayers and those that remain yet
in our hearts as we pray the prayer Jesus taught: 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 forever. Amen.
CALL TO OFFERING
An important way to give thanks to God is
through sharing the bounty we have been honored to receive. We can never do
enough to earn God’s generous blessings. We can only express our gratitude by
passing on our gifts. Consider now what of your resources, your time, your
talents you bring to God as a thanksgiving offering.
DOXOLOGY
PRAYER OF DEDICATION
As the body of Christ, we seek to be a healing force
in our world. May the offerings we present be used in ways that offers hope and
transformation to the world. Receive us and our gifts, we pray in Jesus’ name.
CLOSING HYMN: “I’m
Gonna Live So God Can Use Me” Glory #700
CHARGE AND BENEDICTION
Your charge this week is to be an
observer. Watch and see where there is heartache or loneliness or need where
you can make a difference by word or deed. Then do it.
As you do the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is with you now
and always. Amen.
CHORAL RESPONSE
May the Lord, Mighty God, bless and keep you forever.
Grant you peace, perfect peace, courage in every endeavor. Lift up your eyes
and see his face and his grace forever. May the Lord, Mighty God, bless and
keep you forever.
~~~~~~~~~~
LOOKING
AHEAD
January 31 following worship Deacons
February 2 10:30 a.m. Women’s Spirituality
February 9 6:00 p.m. Session
February 14 following worship M&M
February 16 10:30 a.m. Women’s Spirituality
February 21 following worship Worship & Music
February 23 noon PPW
lunch meeting
February 28 following worship Deacons
PRAYER
CARE:
Tasha Sizemore (Chrohn's
Disease), Stephen Meinzinger
(Covid-19), Lois White (lymphoma), Virginia DesIlets (broken hip), Darlene
Wingfield (heart valve, pulmonary fibrosis, breast cancer), Margaret Dunbar
(fall/broken tailbone), John Matthews (cancer), Trisha Cagley (health
problems), Dave Clark (kidney cancer), Jacob Cunningham, George Sahlberg
(infection in knee), Joyce Sahlberg (health issues), Jennifer Schirm
(Parkinson’s), Chuck VanHise (leg/walking rehab), and Courtney Ziegler
(Huntington’s).
LECTIONARY
FOR 1/24/21
Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Psalm 62:5-12; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31;
Mark 1:14-20
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