July 4, 2021 Worship

 

PIONEER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Worship via Blog          6^th Sunday after Pentecost           July 4, 2021       

 

~~~~~~~~~~

PEOPLE’S CHOICE HYMNS

O Beautiful for Spacious Skies                                  Glory #338

My Country ‘Tis of Thee                                           Glory #337

 

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.

 

We will share the Lord’s Supper as part of this worship service. So please pause and gather your choice of bread and beverage. While the bread and grape juice served in community and led by the pastor in person is our tradition, we are facing times that call for us to do worship in new ways rather than being tied to rigid tradition—much like the early church.

 

-         Women’s Spirituality meets Tuesday @ 10:30 a.m.

-         Men’s Prayer Group meets Thursday at 8:30 a.m.

-         Bring your clean, usable sale items to the church (downstairs stage area). Sale is July 9-10.

-         July 11 hot dog feed, bring your lawn chairs

 

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 is our God and greatly to be praised.

Worship the One whose grace covers all our needs.

The God of hosts is with us here.

We praise, with joy, God’s holy name.

Ponder God’s steadfast love in the temple.

Practice sharing that love while we are together.

God’s love is amazing, beyond our understanding.

We seek to share the love we are receiving.

We are here to be equipped for the journey of life.

We have gathered that our daily witness might be empowered.

Sometimes we are not strong enough to love.

We pray that God will use our weakness for good.

 

PRAYER OF THE DAY

God of faithful leaders and followers, our sure defense and faithful guide, we thank you for your presence among us in this time of praise. Your name is proclaimed through all the earth, and by your hand we are made victorious over the unclean spirits and unbeliefs that stalk our paths. When we ponder your greatness, we are filled with awe. When we come to your holy mountain, we are amazed. Who are we to approach your majesty? How can we fulfill the covenant you offer us? Come, Spirit of truth, to show us the way. Amen.

 

OPENING SONG:              “He Is Exalted”                                       LU#33

 

CALL TO CONFESSION

Let us give voice to our anxiety before God. Let us bring to God the panic we feel when we measure our inner resources against the outward challenges of our frantic lives. Let us dare to confess the ways we fall short of God’s expectations. God already knows them, but we need to face them.

 

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

When we ponder the vast universe at your command, O God, we are astounded. We are nothing, except that you have given us life. How often we have squandered that gift in meaningless pursuits, killing time we might have invested in honoring you! Instead we have belittled your prophets and made light of your commands. We alternate between boasting over our personal accomplishments and near-panic at our inability to cope with life’s challenges. O God, we confess our desperate need for healing, forgiveness and a new perspective on life. (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

 

SCRIPTURE 1:  Mark 6:1-13

He went away from there and came to his own country; and his disciples followed him. And on the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue; and many who heard him were astonished, saying, "Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him? What mighty works are wrought by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house." And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief. And he went about among the villages teaching.

And he called to him the twelve, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. And he said to them, "Where you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. And if any place will not receive you and they refuse to hear you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet for a testimony against them." So they went out and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.

 

SCRIPTURE 2:  2 Corinthians 12:2-10

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven -- whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise -- whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows -- and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. On behalf of this man I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. Though if I wish to boast, I shall not be a fool, for I shall be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me.

And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

 

SERMON:           “My Grace Is Sufficient for You”           Rev. Jean Hurst

          Paul had a problem. Actually, Paul had lots of problems, but many of them followed a similar trajectory. Paul had a problem with credibility. His own. That can happen when you switch horses in the middle of the stream. That’s exactly what Paul did.

As he will retell many times, Paul was a persecutor of Christians. And he was good at it. He would hunt them down and have them arrested, beaten, and imprisoned. Sometimes, as with Stephen, he would have them killed. The crime that generated such action was being a follower of The Way. The Way was Jesus.

          But one day, on the road to Damascus, Paul had an encounter with the risen Jesus who asked why Paul was persecuting him. There’s more to the story in book of Acts. Today’s reading may reveal a different version of what happened that fateful day. Paul talks about having a friend who had this experience of going to third heaven and learning things that could not be told. General belief is that Paul was talking about himself. In that interaction with Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul may have had a near death experience. It was enough to change him.

          Paul became a Christian, a follower of The Way, and a defender and champion of the faith. But when he changed sides, he created skeptics among his fellow persecutors as well as among the Christians. With his reputation, who is going to believe that he’s really switched sides, that he’s had a change of heart? Understandably, people are suspicious of him.

          So they try to discredit him. He has a group of opponents who claim he’s not doing it right. The big debate in the early church was whether you had to follow the Jewish laws since Jesus was, after all, a Jew, as were the disciples. Paul became a missionary to the Gentiles, traveling town to town converting those he encountered and starting churches and declaring them free from the law.

          But dogging his heels were the naysayers. They said Paul wasn’t really an apostle since he didn’t walk with Jesus and furthermore, he was teaching them the wrong things. They tried to undermine Paul and his ministry in every way they could. Some speculate that this group was, in fact, the thorn in Paul’s side. Others suggest it could be a physical ailment like eyesight or perhaps a mental or emotional or spiritual struggle.

Paul prays about the thorn in his side. He says he prayed three times that the thorn would be removed, but to no avail. The answer Paul got instead was, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” We might tend to think that Paul, great Christian leader that he was, got short changed. Shouldn’t God have done better by him than that?

Yet, look at all Paul accomplished in his ministry. Was it despite the thorn in his side or because of it? God said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Whether Paul’s thorn was those who tried to undermine his mission or something else, somehow God used that ‘weakness’ to give Paul the strength he needed to go on and to carry out the purpose for which God called him.

          That verse of promise is for us as well. “My grace is sufficient.” But what is grace? And how does it play out in the midst of thorny issues? We recognize the grace upon which our faith and salvation are built. Ephesians 2:8 assures us, “For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God.” That speaks to our eternal salvation, but how does that apply to the thorny issues in our lives?

          Grace is something so big, so mysterious, so beyond our comprehension, it defies definition. Yet we try. Frederick Buechner says, “Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.” He goes on presuming God’s voice, “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you.”¹ That coincides with Philip Yancey’s definition. “Grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us more—no amount of spiritual calisthenics and renunciations, no amount of knowledge gained from seminaries and divinity schools, no amount of crusading on behalf of righteous causes. And grace means there is nothing we can do to make God love us less—no amount of racism or pride or pornography or adultery or even murder. Grace means that God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possibly love.”²

So the short definition is that grace is love. We can understand that in God’s act of love through Jesus who gave his life as an atonement for our sins. As the Ephesians passage states, it is not our doing that brings about our salvation, it is God’s love and it is freely given to us as a gift. Grace is also defined as a blessing and as God’s favor. Applied to our lives, and especially to our ‘thorny issues’, grace is experienced in as many ways as we have need.

          Consider those thorny issues for which we need grace in order to get through them. When we have to accept what we don’t want to accept, we need God’s grace. When we are faced with issues in life over which we have no control and which we cannot change, we need God’s grace. When someone else achieves the success we think due us, when we lose someone or something important to us, when we feel we’ve failed, when dreams crumble, when we feel worthless, we need that grace of God. When we sin…again, when we can’t forgive someone or can’t forgive ourselves, we have to rely on grace.

          Sometimes when our realities hand us something for which we’re not prepared, our response is “I can’t do it.” When life has already worn us down and we feel we don’t have the energy to go on, when we feel we’re not up to the challenge before us and that we don’t have anything to draw from, when we feel we just don’t have the strength to deal with it, that’s when we can fall back on this promise: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

          We all have our weaknesses and if we let them, they can stop us in our tracks. God’s grace, extended from that unfathomable love, takes those weaknesses and turns them into the power and strength that is needed to see us through. It is not of our own doing. It is God’s grace.

          We sometimes struggle with receiving that grace. We are independent and think we have to do things on our own. St. Augustine warns against that saying, “God gives where He finds empty hands.” A closed hand, a clenched fist is not able to receive anything.³

          God offers each one of us a special grace. There is no one size fits all. We each have our own unique problems and needs. Within those, it seems God creates strength from our particular weakness in order to help us through. It may not come in a form we expect, but trust that God knows what God is doing.

If we understand grace, we have to acknowledge that it is not us doing it. It is not our strength, it is God’s. We learn to lean into God’s love and mercy, knowing that God wants good for us, trusting that God will provide what we need, when we need.

          Claim the promise. When you are struggling with life’s thorny issues, remember this verse: My grace is sufficient for you. Then unclench your fists, open your hands and heart, and receive what God offers. Thanks be to God.

 

¹Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, p. 38-39, Harper Collins, NY, 1993

²Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, p. 70, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, 1997

³Philip Yancey, Grace Notes, p. 321, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, 2009

 

HYMN:                             “Resting in You”                                        LU #93

 

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE AND THE LORD’S PRAYER

          God of all creation, we praise you and thank you for all the ways that you have blessed us and sustained us. We thank you especially for your love and grace revealed in Jesus Christ and for the salvation we have in his name.

          You, O Lord, know our deepest feelings. Touch us where we are. Remove from us any spirit that is not yours; free us from being controlled by spirits that are hurtful to ourselves or to others. Fill us with your Spirit and direct our lives. Lord, help us as we struggle to forgive and love ourselves and others. We entrust to you our physical, spiritual, and emotional needs.

          On this day when we celebrate our nation’s freedom, we pray for those people and countries who suffer under oppressive rule. May our country continue to be a beacon of freedom and democracy for the world. Grant wisdom to our leaders at every level that the decisions they make would be according to your will and purpose for our country. Grant that we might develop and maintain healthy relations with other countries so that the good of all people could best be served.

          Guide us and teach us to reach out in love to all who need food, inspiration, direction, care, and healing. Fill us with your Spirit of love and grace and may we be ambassadors of hope.

          Let your healing love and presence be felt by Pedro Zabala who has been diagnosed with cancer, for Sandy Cargill … Larry Koskela … Linda and Bill Kaesemeyer … Somer Bauer … Tasha Sizemore … Beverly Patterson … Lois White …  Virginia … Margaret Dunbar … Darlene … Trisha … Dave … Jacob … George and Joyce … Jennifer … Chuck … Courtney … Ethel. (Additional prayers …………)

          We ask in the name of Jesus who taught us 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 forever. Amen.

 

CALL TO OFFERING

Some take offence when asked to give, but all of us are eager to receive. Jesus Christ turned these priorities around, giving thanks for the generosity of God’s covenant with humanity, but finding greatest joy in the opportunity to share. In gratitude and joy, we bring our offerings.

 

DOXOLOGY

 

PRAYER OF DEDICATION

Thank you, God, for your steadfast love. We offer our praise; may it reach to the ends of the earth. We ask that our gifts empower ministry in this place and wherever our influence can reach. Let unbelief be turned to faith, ignorance to knowledge, sickness to health, brokenness to wholeness, both in us and in our neighbors near and far. Guide us, as we seek to invest our best for the sake of Christ. Amen.

 

THE LORD’S SUPPER

 

   Song of Preparation:          “Gather Us In”                           Glory #401

 

          Invitation to the Table

          The Lord’s table is not a piece of wood with clay dishes, but a place in our hearts that connects us to our Lord Jesus. It is a place to which we come as we remember his sacrifice, as we seek to experience his presence, as we are nourished to continue his work, as we recognize our community in him despite whatever distance or disease or obstacle that might separate us. It is the place we come to renew our commitment to continue his ministry and mission. Our Lord invites us to the table without condition, simply because we are loved. Come with grateful hearts. Come with joyful hearts.

 

The 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 indeed right, O Holy God, to give thanks for your amazing grace, to praise you for who you are, for who you created us to be. We marvel at the truth that you are with us wherever we may be. Though we worship from home, separated and for some, isolated, it is still in you that we find life and purpose. We are children of grace and nothing can separate us from your love.

          You have given us the gift of your Holy Spirit who unites us, binding us together as one body across the miles. By your Spirit of grace transform our social isolation and distance into a holy community, connecting us to each other by your sacred presence.

          Bless the elements we each have gathered, elements common to our ordinary lives. Let them represent for us the body and blood of our Savior who gave himself for us. Amen.

Words of Institution

          As we share these symbols of bread and cup across the distance, we remember the story of Jesus with the disciples that last night before he was arrested. He took the bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to them saying “Take, eat, this is my body, given for you.” And with the cup he said, “This cup is the new covenant, my blood poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink of it, remember me.”

          And so we do. As we lift up many pieces in scattered places rather than sharing the same loaf and as we drink from separate cups instead of one, we do so remembering that throughout history God’s people have often been scattered and in exile. Through the power and mystery of the Holy Spirit, we are made one in Christ Jesus. These are the gifts of God for us the children of God.*

          The Bread of Life……………..

          The Cup of Salvation …………….

 

*portions of prayer adapted from prayer by Rev. Steve Kliewer, Interim General Presbyter, EOP

 

Unison Prayer of Thanks

          Gracious God, you have made us one with all your people in heaven and on earth. You have fed us with the bread of life, and renewed us for your service. Help us who have shared Christ’s body and received his cup, to be his faithful disciples so that our daily living may be part of the life of your kingdom, and our love be your love reaching out into the life of the world; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

CLOSING HYMN:     “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past”     Glory #687

 

CHARGE AND BENEDICTION

As disciples of Jesus, you are blessed and empowered. Yes, you will face challenges and struggles. Yet through it all, God is faithful and God’s grace is sufficient to see you through whatever you might face.

          So go forth, living faithfully, knowing that 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

July 6                            10:30 a.m.                    Women’s Spirituality

July 8                            8:30 a.m.                       Men’s Prayer Group

July 11                                                                no M&M

July 13                          6:00 p.m.                      Session

July 15                          8:30 a.m.                      Men’s Prayer Group

July 18                                                                no Worship & Music

July 18                          1:00 p.m.                      Prayer Shawl Ministry

July 20                          10:30 a.m.                   Women’s Spirituality

July 25                          following worship       Deacons

July 27                          noon                             PPW lunch meeting

 

PRAYER CARE:

Pedro Zabala (colon cancer), Sandy Cargill (pre-cancer surgical procedures), Larry Koskela (stomach and joint issues), Linda and Bill Kaesemeyer (Bill’s heart/breathing issues), Somer Bauer (breast cancer), Tasha Sizemore (Crohn’s), Lois White (lymphoma), Jacob Cunningham, Trisha Cagley (health problems), Dave Clark (kidney cancer), Virginia DesIlets (age 99!), Margaret Dunbar (aging issues), George and Joyce Sahlberg (health issues), Jennifer Schirm (Parkinson’s), Chuck VanHise (infection, leg/walking rehab), Darlene Wingfield (pulmonary fibrosis, breast cancer), and Courtney Ziegler (Huntington’s).

 

LECTIONARY FOR 7/11/21

Amos 7:7-15, Psalm 85:8-13; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29