PIONEER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Worship
via Blog Eighth Sunday after Epiphany February
27, 2022
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
-
PNC
meets Monday at 8:00 am
-
Women’s
Spirituality meets Tuesday at 10:30
-
Great
Figures of the New Testament meets Tuesday at 7:00
-
Ash
Wednesday Service Wednesday evening at 7:00
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
The Word goes forth from the mouth of God.
Mountains and plains break into singing.
It
is good to give thanks to God.
We
will join in songs of gladness and praise.
Rain and snow water the earth.
Life is renewed and people are fed.
We
rejoice in God’s abiding faithfulness.
Let
all people declare God’s steadfast love.
Signs of God’s presence are all around us.
God’s purposes will be accomplished among
us.
We
will flourish like fruitful trees.
Our
work gains meaning as God strengthens us.
PRAYER OF THE DAY
Before the mystery of your grace and the
promise of immortality, we open ourselves to your light and leading, O holy
God. In your courts, we are renewed. Our limitations are transcended. Our
presumptions are modified. The foundations of our lives are rebuilt. Meet us
here, that your work may prosper among us and through us. Fill our lives with
the joy and peace that you alone can give. Amen.
OPENING
HYMN: “From the Sun’s Rising” LU #25
CALL TO CONFESSION
We who are quick to notice the flaws in
others often cannot see our own faults. When often feel we are right in
correcting someone else while failing to see our own wrong ways. This is a time
to bow humbly before our Creator, that God may help us to see ourselves as we
are and to become the persons we are intended to be.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
O
God, we are sinners, existing in deadening routines. We are afraid of change,
reluctant to grow, distressed when our discipleship is challenged. We listen to
your Word but do not really hear. Your will is evident to us, but we do not
live by it. Our lives are filled with thorns and brambles that we allow to
flourish. The good in us cannot bear fruit because it is choked out by weeds.
Hear us, O God; we want to change. (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: Luke 6:37-49
"Judge not, and
you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive,
and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you; good measure,
pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the
measure you give will be the measure you get back."
He also told them a
parable: "Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a
pit? A disciple is not above his teacher, but every one when he is fully taught
will be like his teacher. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's
eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to
your brother, `Brother, let me take out the
speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in
your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then
you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.
"For no good
tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree
is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are
grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good man out of the good treasure of his
heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil;
for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
"Why do you call me `Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you? Everyone
who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is
like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep, and laid the foundation
upon rock; and when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house, and
could not shake it, because it had been well built. But he who hears and does
not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation;
against which the stream broke, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that
house was great."
SCRIPTURE 2: Isaiah 55:1-9
“Come,
all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy
wine and milk without money and
without cost. 2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen,
listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I
will make an everlasting covenant
with you, my faithful love promised to
David. 4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a ruler and commander of the peoples. 5
Surely you will summon nations you know
not, and nations you do not know will come running to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has endowed you with splendor.”6
Seek the LORD while he may be
found; call on him while he is near.7 Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their
thoughts. Let them turn to the LORD,
and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. 8
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD. 9 “As
the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and
my thoughts than your thoughts.
SERMON “Priceless Bread” Rev. Jean Hurst
Have you ever noticed
how much our lives revolve around food?
Each Sunday along with the ‘coffee’ of coffee hour we also have a
wonderful assortment of treats. Labor
Day weekend we have a picnic worship service at Idlewild along with St. Andrews
and Peace Lutheran. The M&M Baked
Potato and Hotdog feeds, church potlucks and the annual Harvest Festival are
highlights of our year. When it’s the birthday of someone in the family, they
often get to pick their favorite meal. A
special occasion calls for dinner out.
When company comes, we go all out to fix them a nice meal. Thanksgiving and Christmas are events of
sanctioned gluttony. When family and
friends gather, it is generally around food.
Even aside from the basic necessity of food for survival, food is
central to our sense of community.
As it was in biblical times. Food has a prominent place in the Bible. While we tend to take food for granted and
are accustomed to fast food and take out as well as microwave and instant
products, it was not taken for granted by the people of the Bible. Gathering and preparing food was a labor
intensive effort. It took time--a
significant part of their lives to feed themselves. They were constantly facing the threat of
insufficiency with the perils of drought and flood and locusts and crop
failure.
Their bread was made from scratch. They couldn’t go down to Safeway and buy a
loaf of sliced bread from dozens of choices in type and content. Even something as basic as water took effort
for them. They didn’t just turn on a tap
or buy a bottle of water at the store.
Their water had to be drawn from a common village well or was hauled
from a stream or spring--one jar at a time.
Droughts were literally life-threatening.
Food and water for them carried spiritual significance as
well. Meals were linked to the forming
of covenants. Food sacrifices were part
of worship--not just the killing of animals but also sacrifices of grain and
oil. Food was tied to faith--trusting in
God’s providence; manna and quail in the wilderness, water from a rock, rain
provided or withheld.
You’ll remember readings of Jesus fasting for forty days
in the wilderness and then being tempted to change stones into bread. Jesus taught his disciples to pray, including
‘give us this day our daily bread’. And
Jesus taught with stories of farming and shepherding, seeds, barns, banquets,
wheat, and figs. He taught using
illustrations that connected the people and their faith to the ordinary and
basic elements of their lives.
It is to that faith that the prophet Isaiah calls the
people back. God speaks through Isaiah
proclaiming, ‘Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who
have no money, come, buy and eat! Come
buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and
your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight
in the richest of fare. Give ear and
come to me; hear me that your soul may live.’
That call to come to the table had a double
meaning--literal and a spiritual. It was
during this time in Israel’s history that the people were in exile in
Babylon. They had been granted their
freedom to return to their homeland, but a great many of them had become
assimilated into the Babylonian culture.
Rather like the cats at my mother’s house. Stray cats regularly found their way to her
doorstep. Mom always had a soft spot for
cats. So what happens when you feed a
stray? Right. It’s yours.
Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann affirmed that, saying, “Whoever
feeds, owns.” The exiled Israelites had
been taken captive initially but discovered that life was rather good
there. They were in danger of becoming
obligated to their captors. They were
intermarrying, accepting their gods, and forgetting their own.
So many of the people who were breaking free of that
Babylonian culture and coming home from exile couldn’t see anything happening
in the rebuilding of Jerusalem and doubted that anything would ever
happen. The prophet Isaiah reassured
them that God’s unfailing love would not be shaken and God’s covenant of peace
would not be removed. In this call to
return God promises food--nourishment for body and soul, new life.
‘Come back; seek the Lord; call on him; turn to God and
God will have mercy and will freely pardon.’
Along with the promise of a life-giving food and abundant new life, God
also tells them their restoration isn’t going to be according to their
expectations. ‘My thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.
As the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your
ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’
We see the fulfillment of that statement in the life,
death, and resurrection of Jesus. The
Israelites looked to a Messiah who would be a great military leader, restoring
Israel to its prior glory, bringing peace--shalom--wholeness. They didn’t expect that Messiah to be their
very God who would come not in the power they expected but in gentleness, as a
servant, self-giving, self-sacrificing.
They didn’t expect that the Messiah would be the promised bread.
Jesus said, ‘I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me
will not hunger, whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’ Many of his followers took him literally
when he said, if you would live, you must eat my body and drink my blood; they
walked away. The night he was betrayed
he took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples saying,
“Take, eat, this is my body, given for you.”
Bread for life, bread for soul.
We come to the table and we are fed, nourished, strengthened. Each time we come, we experience that real
presence of Jesus and we are renewed.
And we are strengthened to go out and be the body of Christ in the
world, to be the bread of life, Jesus’ means of feeding and nourishing all
God’s children.
As with the days of Isaiah, God’s ways are not our
ways. We like flashy, impressive,
attention getting ways. God consistently
uses the simple, the ordinary, the unexpected.
A story of two very small boys is an example.
Marsha Bishop, a Disciples of Christ minister, told of a
time when she drove a route regularly for Meals on Wheels to a housing project
in Dallas. Her children were
preschoolers and usually stayed with a sitter.
On this particular day the sitter didn’t show so she had to take the
kids with her. She grabbed several old
magazines to share with the elderly on the route and they set off. The boys were a bit hesitant at first, but
after several stops they were enjoying the experience.
There was an older woman on the route who was, as Bishop
put it, a real pain in the neck. She had
broken her hip and the experience had apparently soured her toward everything
and everyone. If there was nothing to
complain about, she’d bark out, ‘Just put the meal in the refrigerator, I’ll
get to it later.’ Bishop had tried
talking to her on previous visits, but she was so rude, it was hard to be nice.
Garnett, the five year old, picked up a couple of
magazines and said, “I’ll bet she will really like a magazine.” Fat chance, Bishop thought. Andrew, who was only two and a half, wanted
to carry something so she gave him the milk, but that was not enough to suit
him so he stopped and picked a couple of dandelions.
Bishop knocked on the
door. The cranky voice said, ‘You’re
late today. Come on in, it’s
unlocked.’ Bishop opened the door and
the boys pushed past her and ran to the woman.
‘We brought you some neat magazines, see?’ Garnet shouted.
‘I brought something too,’ chirped Andrew, practically falling
into her lap with his two bedraggled dandelions. The mother apologized for her sons’
rambunctious behavior. When they were
leaving, Garnet romped down the stairs and Bishop turned to take her son
Andrew’s hand. ‘Bye-bye’ he said,
waving. She glanced back. The old woman had pulled herself up,
clutching the two dandelions in the hand that held onto her walker and was
waving with the other. The bitter
expression on her face had melted into a smile that brightened the tears
rolling down her cheeks.
That old woman was fed that day. As God had promised through Isaiah, her soul
delighted in the richest of fare. And
her soul got back a little bit of its life through the innocent generosity of
those two little boys who didn’t know this bitter old woman wasn’t worth the
bread of their childish offerings. God
sent the manna in the wilderness. God
sent water pouring forth from a rock.
And God sent two little boys. And
you know something? That old woman
wasn’t the only one God fed that morning.
Come, God said.
Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no
money, come, buy and eat! Listen to me
and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Come to me that your soul may live. Come, buy without money. This bread is not earned, cannot be purchased
with money, it is a free act of God’s grace.
Come, Jesus said.
I am the bread of life. Come to
me and you will not hunger; come to me and you will not thirst. Come to the bread of life that will restore
you. Then go out and be that bread to a
hungry world. Discover that you are fed
in the giving as well as the receiving.
Thanks be to God.
HYMN: “Help
Us Accept Each Other” Glory
#754
PRAYERS OF THE
PEOPLE AND THE LORD’S PRAYER
God of our lives, we come before you in
thanksgiving. You have loved us and believed in us despite all the ways we have
failed to live up to your vision for us. Rather than give up on us, you took on our
form and came among us to show us the way. In Jesus you died for us and then did
the incredible—you conquered death so we might live. Your ultimate promise
is that we will return to you, that we will come home, that we will live with
you. Thank you, amazing God.
Until that time of homecoming,
empower us by your Holy Spirit to live lives of discipleship that will be
pleasing to you. Touch those places in us, tender God, that are lonely and
anxious and confused and uncertain. Lift us above our times of pettiness and
resentment and suspicion. Heal those wounded places within us that are so deep
and so painful we cannot even speak of them. Bring us into fullness and joy of
life. Pour out your love of the world through us and guide us in serving your
people in ways that bring light and hope to those in need.
God, the world is full of your children
who struggle and hurt, who live in darkness and despair, who don’t know how
they will face tomorrow. We pray for them now. And Lord, we pray for those who
would call us enemy, those we might call enemy. We ask that you would bless
them and work in their lives and our lives for good so that the word ‘enemy’
would no longer be used.
We pray for our congregation, our
community and our families. We lift up: Ron Schirm, Tina Bossuot, Mary and Ray Swarthout, Somer Bauer,
Trisha Cagley, Virginia DesILets, Margaret Dunbar, George and Joyce Sahlberg,
Darlene Wingfield, Courtney Ziegler, Verna's sister, Tasha Seizemore and
continued prayers for those in our congregation dealing with chronic
conditions.
We pray 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
All the treasures God entrusts to us are
meant to produce good fruit among us. Today we give as we have been blessed.
DOXOLOGY
PRAYER OF DEDICATION
We give thanks, O God, that our wealth and our hands
can support your work in the world. Your abundant gifts fill us with joy in
sharing. Open our eyes to the opportunities around us to provide teaching,
healing, and faithful service. When we see what you would have us do, help us
make a faithful response. May this offering reach out to people in need of your
love. Amen.
CLOSING HYMN: “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less” Glory #333
CHARGE AND BENEDICTION
This week, each time you find yourself
ready to be critical or judgmental of another person, instead give them a
silent blessing; perhaps something like, “Child of God, be blessed.”
As you do, know 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
February 28: PNC @ 8:00am
March 1: Women’s
Spirituality @ 10:30
Great Figures Class @ 7:00pm
March 2: Ash Wednesday Service @ 7:00pm
March
10-Easter: Every Thursday @ 5:30 will be
the Lenten Service & Soup Supper
PRAYER CARE:
For Ron Schirm
(complications from surgery), Tina Bossuot (Alzheimer's) Mary and Ray
Swarthout, Somer Bauer (breast cancer), Trisha Cagley (additional health
concerns), Virginia DesILets, Margaret Dunbar (Ashley Manor), George and Joyce
Sahlberg, Darlene Wingfield (pulmonary fibrosis and breast cancer), Courtney
Ziegler (Huntington's), Verna's sister (COPD), and Tasha Seizemore (Crohn's). Continued
prayers for those in our congregation dealing with chronic conditions.
LECTIONARY
FOR 3/6/22
Deuteronomy 26:1-11;
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke
4:1-13
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