9 July 2023
God Invites Us To Gather
Words of Welcome
Our Christ Candle is lit. We give thanks for the light of Christ in our life and in the work and worship we do together. If you are at home I invite you to light your own candle to celebrate the light that lives in our world. Let us prepare our hearts and minds for our worship, as we listen to our prelude.
Prelude:
Acknowledgment of the Land –
Today we are worshiping on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, to the Attawandaron and the Haudenosaunee. These are the treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit. The indigenous people have had a deep connection to the land as well as the waters in this area – Lake Ontario, Sixteen Mile Creek, The Credit River and all of the creeks and tributaries that flow through this land. We acknowledge the relationship the first peoples had with the land and waters here and we acknowledge the importance of these continuing relationships, and the relationship between all peoples.
Call to Worship
God, you hear our cries and reach out to us with hope.
Speak to us now with words of comfort, challenge, and call.
Capture our attention and call us out of our routines,
That we might catch a vision of your love,
And take our place in our unfolding promise of hope and justice
Be with us in our worship, God
Quiet our resistance,
Orient us to action,
And in all things, root us in your love.
Come, let us worship God!
*Hymn: Morning Has Broken. VU 409
Prayer of Approach & The Lord’s Prayer
God of creation and God of new life
We gather this summer morning to feel your closeness,
To reconnect with your healing and encouraging energy
that challenges us to recognize our place as your children,
recognize our place in creation,
recognize our place in relation to others.
We pray that in this time, relationships may be strengthened
and that we may be nurtured and nourished,
that your call will be placed on our hearts to help justice flow like a river
throughout our world.
Help us God
to be stronger in faith, more giving in love and able to share hope with all we meet beyond these doors,
both people we know well and those that you send to cross our path for just a short while.
These prayers we bring in the name of Jesus who taught us to pray together saying
Our Creator
in heaven
Hallowed be your name
Your kindom come
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil
for yours is the kindom
The power and the glory
Forever and ever
Amen.
Children leave for Light Connection with Alex
Prayer of Confession
God of justice, you repeatedly call us to action, but we so often fail to respond.
Your word calls to us, reminding us that inaction is just as harmful as wrong actions.
God of mercy, forgive us for the times we’ve been silent in the face of injustice,
when we’ve turned a blind eye toward suffering and brokenness.
Renew our passion for the marginalized
and all who suffer
as we silently confess our mistakes to you now.
Time of silent reflection.
Amen.
Assurance of Pardon
May God bless you with a restless discomfort
so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.
May God bless you with holy anger
at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.
May God bless you with the gift of tears
to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, or the loss of all that they cherish,
so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.
You are forgiven, live into new life, and live with love, to make a difference in this world.
The Word of God Proclaimed
Prayer of Illumination (Arnaud Panvin)
Living God, as we listen to your word today
Give our hearts the wisdom to receive
the love that is offered.
Send your Spirit to fill us with hope and your resurrection promise.
Amen.
Reading: Amos 5:6-15, 23-24. From The Message
So seek God and live! You don’t want to end up
with nothing to show for your life
But a pile of ashes, a house burned to the ground.
For God will send just such a fire,
and the firefighters will show up too late.
7-9 Woe to you who turn justice to vinegar
and stomp righteousness into the mud.
Do you realize where you are? You’re in a cosmos
star-flung with constellations by God,
A world God wakes up each morning
and puts to bed each night.
God dips water from the ocean
and gives the land a drink.
God, God-revealed, does all this.
And he can destroy it as easily as make it.
He can turn this vast wonder into total waste.
10-12 People hate this kind of talk.
Raw truth is never popular.
But here it is, bluntly spoken:
Because you run roughshod over the poor
and take the bread right out of their mouths,
You’re never going to move into
the luxury homes you have built.
You’re never going to drink wine
from the expensive vineyards you’ve planted.
I know precisely the extent of your violations,
the enormity of your sins. Appalling!
You bully right-living people,
taking bribes right and left and kicking the poor when they’re down.
13 Justice is a lost cause. Evil is epidemic.
Decent people throw up their hands.
Protest and rebuke are useless,
a waste of breath.
14 Seek good and not evil—
and live!
You talk about God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
being your best friend.
Well, live like it,
and maybe it will happen.
15 Hate evil and love good,
then work it out in the public square.
Maybe God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
will notice your remnant and be gracious.
When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
That’s what I want. That’s all I want.
Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.
Thanks be to God.
Sermon: Water and Faith: Making God’s Dream Our Dream
Hymn: Spirit of Gentleness VU 375
Our Response to God
Offering Prayer – Let us now give thanks and offer to God the gifts given throughout the week.
We ask you to bless these gifts that we share, God, that we might bring hope to your world and nourishment to all who need it. Though our actions may others experience hope in unexpected and ordinary places. Amen.
Meditative Music
Prayers of the People
God of new life and new beginnings,
We give thanks for the opportunities that you give us to be strengthened with your life giving spirit,
For the nourishing love and hope that you reach out to us with
That helps us to grow into the people you dream of us becoming.
We give you thanks for opportunities you send us to help nurture life and relationships.
We ask that you help us to trust in your presence, trust that you will shine your light of hope and guidance on our path.
Help us to have courage and perseverance when we have a vision of what might be,
Help us to see new life where only old growth seems to exist,
Help us to see you in new ways amidst all of our familiar places and faces.
Help us to recognize that every place you bring us to is sacred, not just in this sanctuary, not just in times of worship, but every moment we have breath is sacred time to draw closer to you and enter into deeper relationship.
Every moment is a new opportunity to enter into your dream, for us and our world.
As we reflect on your dream for us and our world,
we give thanks that you know all your children and the burdens on their hearts.
This day in the silence of our hearts, or spoken aloud, we hold up to you our own concerns ….
Be with all who are struggling with ill health and medical procedures:
We pray for those who can’t be with us today
Be with all who are lonely, all who are afraid, all who dream of new life but do not know where to begin.
As we go into this new week God may we find hope and courage to not only recognize and name injustices,
But to be co-creators with you of a world transformed by love and justice.
Thank you God for your infinite patience and love,
for your wisdom and call to us.
May we be filled with love and courage to reach out to others as you have reached out to us.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
*Hymn: I Feel the Winds of God. VU 625
*Benediction
Sung Blessing: Go Now In Peace
