Worship Guide - 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Worship with 1 Click

NOTE: If you'd like to try watching all of this Sunday's worship service in a series of linked videos, one after the other (with text included), you can begin by clicking this link. Just press the button that says "PLAY ALL" and sit back and relax. Otherwise, proceed as normal through the sections.

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For whenever I speak, I must cry out,
   I must shout, “Violence and destruction!”

How different these words from Jeremiah sound in this day of Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police and Enough is Enough!
 
The prophet laments the lack of voices that speak out for God’s justice in the world. And, in the gospel, Christ reminds we who dare to be disciples: “nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.”

Sign at the “We Want to Live” march – June 7, 2020, Seattle, WA

It is not too late to find our voice. Now is the time. This is the place. Enter into the hope that is worth shouting from our housetops.  As a rush of awareness shifts our political realities, we in the church who seek to act as Christ’s embodied presence in the world are suddenly struck by our own complacency, and yet, of the Spirit-led possibilities for newness in our own time.
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Now is the time to seek justice. Now is the time to hold fast to the hope of salvation: “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” Enter in. Encounter the God who is justice and peace. Encounter the God who is all comfort.

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Connections with Andrea

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Prelude

If you have prayers you would like to share, please do so here. These will be shared by email to our St Andrew prayer list so that we pray for what you hold by name. This information is not shared online in a searchable form.

Gathering Song

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God of the covenant,
your compassion reaches beyond
the mere making and keeping of promises.
Teach us to listen to one another with your heart,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Hymn

Paul looks across the ages, and asks: How can we who died to sin go on living in it? As much as we do, we know it destroys us. And yet we have the confidence that we are promised newness of life through repentance and forgiveness. So let us turn to God and toward the world, confessing our sin:
 

Hear our cries to you, O Lord: 
for our lack of compassion toward the poor, 
have mercy on us; 
for our failure to end the destruction of air, water, soil, and creatures on Earth, 
have mercy on us; 
for our disbelief in your power to make us whole, 
have mercy on us; 
for making war, 
have mercy on us; 
for all that we have done and have not done out of hardened hearts, 
have mercy on us. 
Forgive us and renew us. 
Guide us into ways that do not deny you but lead to peace. 
Amen.

Do not be afraid! The One who was and is and is to come knows you through and through and has overcome death and sin to forgive you, so that you might be delivered into joy that has no end. Your sins are forgiven. You are alive to God in Christ Jesus.
 

Send a text to a couple of people. Make a call. Who comes to mind for you? Wish them well. More than that, wish them the peace that comes with justice. Then click below.

The Word

O Lord, send now your Spirit into our midst
to entice us and overpower us with the strength of your word.
We beg for the strength to hear your call
and live according to your will.
Amen.

Jeremiah 20:7-13 † Psalm 69:7-18 † Romans 6:1-11 † Matthew 10:24-39*
*In the season after Pentecost (also known as Ordinary Time, or "Proper" Sundays, the first reading can follow one of two tracks—either a semi-continuous track that stays with a story over a number of Sundays or a paired track that companions more closely  the gospel reading. This summer we are mostly using the paired readings.

Psalm Response

Reflection

A printed version of this meditation can be found here.

You can also find the link to the video Scott references here.

Song of Response

Note: This song from the Glory to God Hymnal (#340) is was originally prepared by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program for Pentecost Sunday, but speaks powerfully to realities that continue to unfold around us. Add your voice to the song!

The Presbyterian Peacemaking Program embarked on this project to bring together a global virtual choir of peacemakers, including past International Peacemakers and their hosts, participants in our Travel Study Seminars and Mosaic of Peace Conferences in Israel and Palestine, and friends and colleagues of our Program. As we join our voices in song, we join our hearts and efforts in a continuing and resolute desire for peace in and between every land. “So hear my song, o God of all the nations, a song of peace for their land and for mine.” 

Give Thanks, Give Praise, Give Back

If you haven’t already, set the elements—some bread, some juice or wine—in the room where you worship electronically in these days with our faith community. Bring them with joy, giving thanks for God’s provision.

​If a joy or a concern has come to mind, please share it with the assembly here so you do not carry it alone. These will be shared by email to our St Andrew prayer list so that we pray for what you hold by name. This information is emailed to a curated group, not shared or posted online in a searchable form.

As we respond to God's grace and new life, consider those ways you can express gratitude, thanksgiving and blessing. And remember that we continue to keep our financial commitments to our mission partners and staff. Thank you for remembering to send in your financial pledges and offerings!

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Sending Song

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Blessing and Charge

Take as a blessing and charge for this week, "Weather," a recent poem by Claudia Rankine published in the New York Times. Especially, for us, this:
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We are here for the storm that’s storming
because what’s taken matters.

On a scrap of paper in the archive is written
I have forgotten my umbrella. Turns out
in a pandemic everyone, not just the philosopher,
is without. We scramble in the drought of information
held back by inside traders. Drop by drop. Face
covering? No, yes. Social distancing? Six feet
under for underlying conditions. Black.
Just us and the blues kneeling on a neck
with the full weight of a man in blue.
Eight minutes and forty-six seconds.
In extremis, I can’t breathe gives way
to asphyxiation, to giving up this world,
and then mama, called to, a call
to protest, fire, glass, say their names, say
their names, white silence equals violence,
the violence of again, a militarized police
force teargassing, bullets ricochet, and civil
unrest taking it, burning it down. Whatever
contracts keep us social compel us now
to disorder the disorder. Peace. We’re out
to repair the future. There’s an umbrella
by the door, not for yesterday but for the weather
that’s here. I say weather but I mean
a form of governing that deals out death
and names it living. I say weather but I mean
a November that won’t be held off. This time
nothing, no one forgotten. We are here for the storm
that’s storming because what’s taken matters.

Claudia Rankine

Capitol Hill, Seattle: Image of protesters holding umbrellas to block possible tear gas from the police.