March 27, 2022 Worship

                                                     Pioneer Presbyterian Church

Fourth Sunday of Lent

10:00 a.m.                                                                                                                         March 27, 2022

 PRELUDE

 WELCOME & ANNOUNceMENTS

 CHOIR INTROIT

 Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

Therefore, let all who are faithful offer prayer to you at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them.

You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance.

 

*PRAYER OF THE DAY

 

* Hymn of Praise (Opening):          “Rejoice, Ye Pure in Heart!”         Glory #804

 

CALL TO CONFESSION

 

Prayer of Confession

 Merciful God, we confess that we have strayed from your ways. Like prodigals, we have wasted our divine inheritance. You gave us the earth for our home, but we squander Earth’s resources and hoard its bounty. You gave us neighbors to love, but we pursue selfish ambitions. You gave us commandments that lead to human flourishing, but we break your law and forsake your love. Forgive us, we pray, and bring us to heart change. Draw our wandering hearts back to you that we may find freedom and joy in obedience to your love. Through Jesus, your Son, our Savior, Amen.

 

Assurance of Pardon

 

      As God welcomes home a wayward child,

             

              so God embraces all who return in true repentance.

    

     Friends, believe the good news, and rejoice!

             

              In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven!

 

passing the peace

 

GLORY BE TO THE FATHER

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

 

TIME WITH CHILDREN

 

CHOIR ANTHEM                    “Because of Love”                     by Thomas Chesterton

 

Gospel Lesson: Luke 15:1-3; 11-31

 

 Message:        “Becoming Like the Father”                            Pastor Daryl R. Wilson

 

Hymn of Response:        “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy”           Glory #435

 

 PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE AND THE LORD’S PRAYER

 

CALL TO OFFERING

 

*DOXOLOGY

 

*PRAYER OF DEDICATION

 

*Closing Hymn:            “amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound”          Glory #649

 

CHARGE AND BENEDICTION

 

CHORAL RESPONSE

 

LOOKING AHEAD

                       

3/27      following service        DEacons meet

3/31      5:30 p.m.                    4th Lenten Service & Soup Supper

4/9       1:00 p.m.                    Jean’s Memorial Service at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 

                                               777 Coburg Road, Eugene, OR (541) 343-3140

4/10     following service        M & M meets

4/10    1:00 p.m.                    Prayer Shawl meets

4/17    following service        Worship and Music meets

 

 

PRAYER CARE:

For the people of Ukraine, Ralph Sawyer in St. Charles with serious health issues, Blaze Carol Sawyer’s nephew with a head injury, Summer Bauer undergoing cancer treatments, Darlene Wingfield, Mary and Ray Swarthout, George and Joyce Sahlberg, Margaret Dunbar dealing with declining health issues. Our thoughts and prayers are with our friends and family near and far.

LECTIONARY For  3/27/22:   Joshua 5:9-12,  Psalms 32, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

 

March 20, 2022 Worship

Pioneer Presbyterian Church

Worship  March 20, 2022

Third Sunday of Lent

 

Call to Worship: Psalm 63:1-8

       O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry       

       and weary land where there is no water.

              So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.

       Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.

             So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name.

      My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips when I   

      meditate on you in the watches of the night;

            for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy. My soul    

            clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

PRAYER OF THE DAY

Hymn of Praise (Opening):                “We Praise you, O God”                              Glory #612

CALL TO CONFESSION

Prayer of Confession

      Holy God, we confess that we are complacent in our response to you. You call us to a  

      banquet table spread with your gifts of peace, justice, and mercy, but we turn away,    

      distracted by lesser things that leave our souls hungry. You call us to serve the poor and

      needy, but we indulge our own desires. Forgive us for falling short of your claim on our 

      lives. Disturb our comfort and ease and deepen our desire for a life that honors you. Give 

      us the courage and grace to put first things first, and to live each day with the single

      purpose of pleasing you. We pray these things in the matchless name of your Son, our   

      Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon

      God’s love is steadfast and sure, always providing a way out, a way through, a way back to  

      God.

              Through the waters of baptism, we have died with Christ and been raised with him.  

              With gratitude, in faith, we will walk in the way of Jesus.

     Friends, believe the good news, and rejoice!

              In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven!

PASSING THE PEACE

GLORY BE TO THE FATHER

TIME WITH CHILDREN

CHOIR ANTHEM

Gospel Lesson: Luke 13:1-9          

MESSAGE:                             “The Two-Minute Warning”                          Pastor Daryl R. Wilson                                                                                      

    Many Presbyterian churches (including the one I served until last Sunday), follow a custom some of you will be familiar with. For others, it will be new. When the Scriptures are read in worship, the reader concludes by saying, “The Word of the Lord.” If the text is from the first four books of the New Testament—Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John—the reader concludes with, “The Gospel of the Lord.” Then the people respond with a unison, “Thanks be to God.” That is, “Thank you, God, for making yourself known to us in your written word, the Bible, and in your Son Jesus who is the living Word. Thank you for revealing your deep love for us. Thank you for your faithfulness in all things.”

    Responding to the Word with, “Thanks be to God,” is a fitting expression of gratitude. But I just tossed you a live grenade of a reading! First, there was an eyewitness report about a government-sponsored massacre of Jewish worshipers in Jerusalem and the profane desecration of a sacred ritual. Then Jesus mentioned another headline story from those days: A tall building near the temple collapsing onto a crowd of people, killing 18. In both cases people were asking him, “Where is God in all this?” Then our passage ended with Jesus telling a grim little story about a barren fruit tree and an ax-wielding landowner bent on turning it into firewood. Are you feeling thankful yet?

    In truth, our feelings are far less important than the underlying reality we affirm every time we say, “Thanks be to God.” We’re affirming that no matter how we may be feeling in the moment, no matter whether a particular Bible passage comes to us as good news, bad news, or something in-between, the deep truth is that God is present in all of it, in every passage and in every experience, every encounter, every event, every moment in our lives, whether we feel like it or not.

    Pastor Jean has a bronze-colored plaque on the wall in the pastor’s study. It’s inscribed with the Latin words, Vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit, which means, “Whether or not you ask for him, God is present.” Enjoying the sunshine of good health and good friends? “Thanks be to God!” Storms blowing, darkness all around, and you’re scared to death? “Thanks be to God!” We don’t want to be fair-weather Christians or to think we can avoid bad news by being good.

    Today’s Gospel reading opens with a report of some very bad news. The Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, has ordered a killing of Jesus’ countrymen at the Temple in Jerusalem. His soldiers complied, then scooped up blood from the dead and dying Jews and mixed it with the blood of their sacrifices to God. They were killed in the act of worship, which horrified people back then in the same way the mass killing during Sunday morning worship at a Baptist church in Texas in 2017 or the Thursday night massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston in 2015 horrified us. Where was God? Why didn’t he stop the slaughter of innocent victims? What could it all mean? Jesus’ response suggests the people around him thought God was punishing the victims for their sins (an early, ugly example of victim-blaming and shaming!).

    If you have the stomach to watch what passes for “Christian” TV these days, you’ve heard screeds like this from some angry televangelist or another, telling you that September 11^th was God’s punishment for abortion in America or that God was so ticked off about riverboat casinos in the Big Easy that he unleashed Hurricane Katrina in a fit of righteous rage. This cruel, unbiblical response to tragedy sucks people in because we want to believe there’s a formula for avoiding/evading disaster. If we conclude that there are no accidents and everything happens according to a divine plan, then God is a stone-cold killer (which we don’t want to believe). Alternatively, perhaps God only targets bad people with heart attacks, hurricanes, drunk drivers, Russian missiles, and the like. If that second part were true, we could ensure our safety by being a little less bad than other people. Let God pour out the full cup of his wrath on nasty folks, leaving none for us to absorb. Keep your nose clean and you’ll stay out of the fallout zone. That’s the flip side to the televangelist’s lie.

    Jesus was having none of this rot. He says the spiritual accountants who are busy toting up people’s records so they can assign blame for pain and suffering are full of hot air and understand nothing about God or the world God has made and loves. He tells the crowd that those who died weren’t any better or worse than any of them. The victims didn’t go to worship expecting to be killed any more than we do, except in our worst nightmares. And those poor folks shopping in the markets of the Old City had no reason to believe a tower would collapse on top of them. The people interviewing Jesus thought God drops buildings on people who displease him, like a Kansas twister dropped Uncle Henry and Aunt Em’s house on the Wicked Witch of the East in The Merry Old Land of Oz.

    The reality, of course, is God doesn’t have a kill list, as much as we might hope or fear he does. Folks who try to keep even accounts with God are as foolish as those who pay no attention to God. Both sorts of people fail in the same way: They refuse to trust in the One whose whole mission in life is to redeem and save the undeserving. They’ll meet their end without God lifting a finger. They’ll do it to themselves, persisting in willful blindness to their barren, accidental lives.

    Now we come to the Parable of the Fig Tree. The Gospels of Matthew and Mark tell a different version than Luke. They describe an event during the last days before the crucifixion. Jesus was tired and hungry, so he walked over to a fig tree in leaf and reached for a sweet piece of fruit. But he came up empty, so he cursed the fig tree--the only thing on earth he ever cursed—and it withered to its roots right then and there. If Luke knew that version of the story, he left it out of his Gospel. Maybe he felt uneasy about showing such a vulnerable, human side of Jesus, a man with passions and bursts of anger like the rest of us. In any case, Luke’s version isn’t a story about Jesus; it’s a tale told by Jesus on his way to Jerusalem. A corrective for those who believe God punishes people for their sins by dropping buildings on them or killing them in church. The parable starts out like the other fig tree stories: a man looks for fruit and finds none.

    This isn’t a stranger’s fig tree standing by the side of the road, though. This is the landowner’s own tree, planted and cared for in his orchard. Every year he looks for fruit but finds nothing except leaves. What good are they? You can’t eat fig leaves, but the Bible says if you’re caught out in the garden naked you can stitch some together to protect your modesty (see Genesis 3). Anyway, the man decides the tree must go, right now. Not because it’s bad but because it isn’t good. Catch the difference? Its purpose is to bear fruit and it’s giving nothing but shade. The man’s had enough. “Cut it down,” he snaps at the gardener.

    The owner belongs to John the Baptizer’s church, where every tree that doesn’t bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. But his gardener belongs to a different church, because he pleads for mercy for the tree. “Let it alone,” he says. “Give me one more year with it, then I’ll stand aside while you chop it into kindling.” Did you notice how the gardener subtly moves from negotiation to subordination? “You can cut it down,” he vows, “but I won’t do it now or later. Wanna kill the tree? Find an axe and do it yourself!”

    Some preachers can’t stand the unresolved tension and paradox in this story, so they assign a meaning they like, such as, “This is an allegory where God is the angry owner coming at us with a roaring chainsaw. Jesus is the brave gardener who steps in just in time to save the day.” Or they’ll generalize more broadly and claim this story is Luke’s (or Jesus’) way of contrasting the (so-called) vengeful God of the Old Testament with the (so-called) loving God of the New Testament. This misinterpretation turns God into a homicidal anti-Semite with a frightfully split personality, but hey, what’s a little mayhem, murder, and madness among friends? Especially if it ties up loose ends so we don’t have to live with mystery?

    Thankfully, Jesus is a wiser teacher (and better storyteller) than those guys. He doesn’t finish the story. He leaves it as a cliffhanger. He trusts his listeners—then and now—to find the good news in the story. So, let’s take a stab at it. As frightful as it sounds, we need a clear view of the axe lying near all our roots—not because God wants to chop us down and burn us up, but because the grass withers, the flower fades, and we have a finite space of time, the merest blink of an eye, really, to find the life God intends for us, and then our times run out.

    Sometimes we sleepwalk through life. We need something jarring to wake us up and get us asking good questions about why we’re here. Is it to chase empty dreams of power, wealth, or fame? Is it to seek security above all else, as if with our religion, our 401Ks, our guns, or our well-laid plans we can shield ourselves from pain, loss, and finally, death? The great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy once put it this way: “What meaning has my life that the inevitability of death does not destroy?” That’s a question to keep you up at night, if you’re wise enough to consider it. Is it too late to do the things that matter, to love the people who’ve been waiting to be loved, to seek the God who wants to be found?

    The deepest human longing is for significance; to leave an imprint that remains past our death. This passage is like a two-minute warning for our souls. It’s saying, “Pay attention. There’s not much clock left. Use your timeouts wisely and call the best plays you can. Don’t waste time on trivial things. Go for the win!” Listen, God won’t drop a building on you. But our clocks will expire. Jesus invites us to pay attention to our hearts and lives while we still can. How will we spend our brief and fleeting days before the last trumpet sounds? By his grace, let’s cultivate the good fruit that brings his healing love into the world. 

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

Hymn of Response:                         “Jesus, Lover of My Soul”                                  Glory #440

 

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE AND THE LORD'S PRAYER

CALL TO OFFERING

DOXOLOGY

PRAYER OF DEDICATION

Closing Hymn:                                “Be Thou My Vision”                                           Glory #450

 

CHARGE AND BENEDICTION

CHORAL RESPONSE

LOOKING AHEAD

                         Worship and Music meets  following the morning service

                          Prayer Shawl meets today at 1:00

                         PNC meets Monday the 21^st at 8:00 a.m.

                        PPW Luncheon Meeting, guest speaker Jennifer Williams, Crossroads Ranch,   Equine Healing Therapy the 22^nd at Noon

                        Great Figures of the New Testament meets the 22^nd at 7:00 p.m

                         Lenten Services & Soup Supper Thursday the 24th at 5:30

Jean’s Memorial Service April 9^th at 1:00 p.m. Westminster Presbyterian Church, 777 Coburg Road, Eugene, OR (541) 343-3140

PRAYER CARE:

For the people of Ukraine, Ralph Sawyer in St. Charles with serious health issues, Blaze Carol Sawyers nephew with a head injury, Summer Bauer undergoing cancer treatments, Darlene Wingfield, Mary and Ray Swarthout, George and Joyce Sahlberg, Margaret Dunbar dealing with declining health issues. Our thoughts and prayers are with our friends and family near and far.

 LECTIONARY FOR 3/27/22

Joshua 5:9-12, Psalms 32, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

 

March 13, 2022 Worship

PIONEER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Worship via Blog                                         2^nd Sunday in Lent                                         March 13, 2022

 PRELUDE

WELCOME AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

-          M&M meets following worship

-          PNC meets Monday at 8:00 a.m.

-          Women’s Spirituality meets Tuesday at 10:30

-          Great Figures of the New Testament meets Tuesday at 7:00

-          2^nd Lenten Meditation Services Soup Supper Thursday at 5:30. We also need individuals to sign up in the Fireside

                         room for the rest of the soup suppers.

 

Now allow yourself a brief time of silence as you open your hearts and feel God’s presence with you, right where you are.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CHOIR INTROIT

 

*CALL TO WORSHIP            Psalm 27:1-6

         

         The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold

         of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

                         

                        When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh—my adversaries and foes—they 

                         shall stumble and fall.

        

         Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise up

         against me,  yet I will be confident.

                          

                  One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the  

                  Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in

                  his temple.

        

          For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover

          of his tent; he will set me high on a rock. 

                         

                 Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his    

                 tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord.

 

*PRAYER OF THE DAY

            Loving God, you save all who seek refuge in you. Grant that we who know your salvation may walk always in your light, take courage in your faithfulness, and rejoice in your astounding goodness to us. Through Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen.

 

*OPENING HYMN: :       “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven”                           Glory #620

                                            

                                                         

CALL TO CONFESSION

            The Lord is our light and our salvation; whom shall we fear? With humble hearts,

            let us confess our sins to God and one another.

 

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Merciful God, your grace has made us citizens of heaven, but we confess that we have set our minds on earthly things. Our desire for security squeezes out our commitment to justice for the poor. Our aversion to risk causes us to ignore your command to love and pray for our enemies. Our love of worldly possessions dulls our generosity to needy people. Our craving for status causes us to hide our secret sins. Yet to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the power of your Holy Spirit, that we may be shaped more and more into the likeness of Jesus and may become his body for the sake of the world. Amen.  (continue with personal prayers………..) Amen.

 

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

            God our light and salvation does not forsake us or leave us with our sin.

                         Through our Savior Jesus, God forgives us and offers us the gift of healing repentance.

            Friends, believe the Good News!

                        In Jesus Christ we are forgiven!

 

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                                                                                                  Glory #580

 

                        Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

 

TIME WITH CHILDREN

                                               

CHOIR ANTHEM

GOSPEL LESSON:    Luke 9:28:43a

 

MESSAGE:                                       “The View From the Bottom”                       Pastor Daryl R. Wilson

 

Near where my wife Cathy and I live in Southeast Boise are signs advertising a new hilltop

neighborhood called Harris North. To build up there, the developer cut off the top of the mountain, like

the coal barons do in Appalachia. And now his signs boast of “The View from the Top.” But at what

cost? The top is gone! Today, Jesus is high up on a mountain. But he’s not contemplating the view from

the top. He’s counting the cost of The View from the Bottom. 

Let’s set this event in context. All three Gospel accounts of the transfiguration

(in Matthew, Mark, and Luke) take place just after Peter’s great confession of Jesus as God’s Messiah. “Who do you say I am?” Jesus asks. And Peter replies, “The Messiah of God.” Wow. That’s amazing; that’s very big news. But right away Jesus turns their expectations upside down. He says there’s no victory parade in their future. Instead, he says that rejection, suffering and death are on the horizon (followed by resurrection) because giving his life for others is the Messiah’s mission and the task of his followers (9:18-27). And then Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up the mountain to pray.  

 As Jesus prays, a sudden, miraculous change comes over him. His face and clothes begin to glow with a dazzling brightness. Shaking off their sleep, the disciples see Jesus shining like the sun. They also see two men—Moses the great lawgiver, and Elijah the great end-times prophet—talking with Jesus. Now they know that Jesus is indeed the Chosen One of Israel, the fulfillment of the Law (Moses) and the Prophets (Elijah). The veil dividing heaven and earth is lifted for a few moments, and the three disciples see Jesus, shining in the light of his glory. The sight fills them with awe, wonder, and holy fear. 

Peter blurts out, “Master, this is great; Moses, Elijah and you—that’s pretty good company. What do you say we build a monument for each of you right here at the summit?” It’s human nature to seek mountaintop experiences and to try to hold onto the good feelings we have up there. We don’t want to leave those places of high excitement or peak experience to face life (or death) in the valley. But Jesus knows he can’t stay on top savoring the view. He and Moses and Elijah talk, but not about the good life high up in the mountains close to God. No, their focus points downward. And then, even as Peter is speaking, a thick cloud envelops the mountain, obscuring his view. Then out of the cloud a voice speaks; a voice as clear as the light that had filled the mountaintop just moments before; a voice as awesome as the thunder that shook Mt. Sinai when Moses went up to receive God’s commandments: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” 

And then there’s silence. The cloud lifts and the darkness gives way to light. The sun shines. The birds sing. Jesus stands alone, close by. They can see again into the valley below, where the other disciples are waiting for them. Some experiences are really hard to explain, so Peter, James and John tell no one what they’ve seen and heard—until later. But the memory of this shining moment, this divine stamp of approval on Jesus as the Suffering Messiah, stayed with them and shaped their lives. In Second Peter, the apostle wrote 

We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain (2 Peter 1:16-18).

In the prologue to his Gospel, John points back to this same event:  

The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth (1:14).

“We were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”

“We have seen his glory.”

The majesty is that Jesus looked down from the mountain. And when he looked down, he saw us. The glory is that he didn’t stay up there, beyond our reach. He led Peter, James and John down from the mountain and into the life of the world. Remember when you were a small child, and you lived in a land of giants? All the action took place above you. Important decisions as well as desirable things, like the cookie jar, were beyond your reach. Adults would stare down at you, and even if they were smiling they looked kind of scary because they were so big. But every once in a while a grownup would get down on your level and look you in the eye. They didn’t seem so scary then, down at eye level, and it made you feel important like maybe they were really listening to you.

Jesus came down to our level. He comes down the mountain and into the valley to teach, to help and to heal, and so that he may climb a hill outside Jerusalem to keep an appointment with death. He comes down from the throne of the majesty on high and enters the depths and darkness of human sorrow and alienation and pain. By going all the way to the cross he shows his complete identification with us in our struggles, our suffering, and our sin. He doesn’t play it safe. He doesn’t sit in a shiny headquarters somewhere over the rainbow. He doesn’t maintain an aloof detachment. He doesn’t stay on the mountain, he comes down to where we are so that we can reach him and he can reach us. 

And so whenever we reach out to touch another person in the midst of their pain, when we risk ourselves, our comfort, or our reputations on behalf of another, there is the Lord. Whenever you do this, you’re becoming like Jesus. And that’s what really counts, isn’t it? Dr. Joanna Seibert is a Pediatric Radiologist in Little Rock. She has spent forty-five years caring for young cancer patients. Here is something she wrote recently: 

Today I visited an eight-year-old girl dying of cancer. Her body was disfigured by her disease and its treatment. She was in almost constant pain. As I entered her room, I was overcome almost immediately by her suffering—so unjust, unfair, unreasonable. Even more overpowering [however] was the presence of her grandmother lying in bed beside her with her large, warm body embracing this precious, inhuman suffering.

I stood in awe, for I knew I was on holy ground…The suffering of innocent children is horrifying beyond words. I will never forget the great, gentle arms and body of this grandmother. She never spoke [a word] while I was there. She was holding and participating in suffering that she could not relieve, and somehow her silent presence was relieving it. No words could express the magnitude of her love. 

Some people make the Christian life more complicated than God intends. Some folks say you must believe the right things, and they have the list. Others claim that you must do the right things, worship this way and not that way, follow the rules, keep your nose clean. In the end both these approaches fall short, because our true calling is to be like Jesus. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Give up the quest for power and prestige and find real life on the path of self-giving love. This is much harder than acing a theology test and far more demanding than mere rule-keeping. It goes against our grain to forgive those who hurt us, to love the unlovely, to wash people’s feet, to seek the lost, to welcome the prodigal, to carry the cross. But it’s the Jesus Way. To be like Jesus is to get down in the dirt and dust of real human life in its brokenness, sin and pain—not to avoid those things but to embrace them in the grace, mercy and love of God.

In Jesus, God comes right down to where we live, in the valley of the shadow of death, where we struggle with pain and doubt and loneliness, where we battle with depression and worry about our kids and grandkids, about our future and our health, and where we grapple with questions we can’t answer. He comes down to our level with our wounded hearts, broken relationships, and faltering dreams, down to where all of us must finally die. Here, in the midst of our struggles and our defeats as well as our hopes and our victories, Jesus offers us himself, his own body, as God’s embrace of our frail humanity. Jesus comes down. He’s here today. In the power of his Word spoken, he reaches out to seek you, to find you, to embrace you. 

The view from the top is lovely—and safe. High up on the mountain, shining like lightning, shrouded by a cloud of the glory of God, Jesus is Lord. Down in the valley, surrounded by ordinary, needy, struggling people who he reaches out to touch, to heal, and at last to save, he becomes our Savior. A blazing light keeps people at a distance. But love gets close. Love comes down. Then it climbs a hill called Calvary. On the mountain, only a few may draw near. On the cross the whole world may approach. 

We adore

you, Lord

Jesus Christ,

in all your churches throughout

the world, and we bless you, for

by your

holy cross

you have

redeemed

the world.

Amen.

 

HYMN:                                     “Swiftly Pass the Clouds of Glory”                                        Glory #190

                                                   (to the tune of “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee”)

 

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE AND THE LORD’S PRAYER

 

          Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done,  on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from the evil one. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.         

 

CALL TO OFFERING

 

*DOXOLOGY                                                                                                           Glory #606    

  

            Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; praise God all creatures here below;

            praise God above, ye heavenly host; praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

 

PRAYER OF DEDICATION

 

CLOSING HYMN:                         “Lord, Dismiss Us With Your Blessing”                           Glory #546

 

CHARGE AND BENEDICTION

 

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

                    2^nd Lenten Meditation Services Soup Supper Thursday at 5:30. We also need individuals

                      to sign up in the Fireside                        

                         PNC meets Monday the 21^st at 8:00 a.m.

                        Great Figures of the New Testament meets the 22^nd at 7:00 p.m.

                        3^rd Lenten Soup Supper next Thursday at 5:30

                        Worship and Music meets next Sunday following the morning service

                        Prayer Shawl meets next Sunday at 1:00

           Jean’s Memorial Service April 9^th at 1:00 p.m. Westminster Presbyterian Church,

           777 Coburg Road, Eugene, OR  (541) 343-3140

 

PRAYER CARE:

Our thoughts and prayers are with our friends and family near and far as we continue to hold them in prayer. For the people of Ukraine, Sandra Borden dealing with infection in her lymph system, Summer Bauer undergoing cancer treatments. For Darlene Wingfield, Mary and Ray Swarthout, George and Joyce Sahlberg, Margaret Dunbar who are dealing with declining health issues. And for continued prayers for those in our congregation dealing with chronic conditions.

 

LECTIONARY FOR 3/20/22:

 

Isaiah 55:1-9; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:1-9

 

 

*please stand