18th Sunday After Pentecost Many prayers will look the same as last week's prayers...they are. The sermon is talking about last week's gospel lesson and I used the same prayers so that you could (hopefully) hear them differently in light of this different reading. CALL TO WORSHIP P: Whether we embrace God’s call in our lives or try to avoid it, C: God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. P: Whether we are long-timers or latecomers in the life of faith, C: God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. P: Whether our lives in Christ are comfortable or bring hardship, C: God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. We praise God’s name forever and ever! CONFESSION AND FORGIVENESS P: Because we do not always live our lives in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, we confess before God and one another our sins and shortcomings. In repentance, let us turn toward God’s grace and mercy. Silence is kept for reflection P: God of abundant goodness, C: we confess that we want your grace for ourselves but often wish punishment or exclusion on others. We judge the efforts and motives of others while ignoring the faults of our own. Forgive us, we pray, when we let jealousy overtake us. Forgive us, we pray, when we are petty even in the presence of your generosity. Forgive us, we pray, when we feel slighted by you. May we ask once again for your mercy? Will you help us to be more merciful toward one another? We pray in the name of Christ Jesus, by whose grace we are saved. Amen. P: People of God, hear the Good News: your sins are forgiven and you are reconciled to God. Let us therefore love one another with gratitude in our hearts and praise on our lips. C: Amen. HYMN “As Saints of Old” PRAYER OF THE DAY P: Generous God, you come to us again and again, no matter how late it is in the day or in our lives. Calling to us, gathering us in, you give us your good work to do, daily bread, and boundless grace. Increase in us a generous spirit so that we may do your work with joy alongside others whom you also love. We celebrate your salvation not only in our lives, but also in the lives of other people, even those we had not imagined would be included in the kingdom you are bringing. Align us with your ways and help us receive your gift of justice and mercy as good news. In Jesus Christ we pray. C: Amen. READING Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16 [Jesus said to the disciples:] 1“The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; 4and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. 5When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ 7They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ 8When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ 9When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. 10Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 11And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? 14Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 16So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” SERMON Rev. Lori E.L. Kitzing HYMN “Great God, Your Love Has Called Us” PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION P: God of unending mercy and steadfast love, we are grateful that you are slow to anger, for there is much in this world that is wrong and set against your purposes. P: Overcome our many injustices with your justice; overtake our lust for revenge with your great mercy. We pray for nations locked in hostility to be set free from old patterns and to embrace a new way of relating. We pray for people who wield economic power to take notice of those whom you notice and to have compassion for those who are vulnerable. We pray for day laborers and the unemployed and the homeless. P: We pray for healing and wholeness for Julie, Karla, Stephanie, Cammie, Nancy, Beverly, Micala, Murlene, Donald, Dale, and Eileen. Grant them your peace. P: Inspire us who have enough to share what we have, not in measured and resentful amounts, but gladly, abundantly, so basic needs do not go unattended. P: Gather up the first and the last, the least and the greatest, in the common work of your kingdom, until there is no more first or last at all, for all are one in your name. Help us all to see not only your grace at work in the world, but also your humor at work among us, the holy laughter that heals us and helps us see ourselves rightly. We thank you for the privilege of believing in Christ, of living in Christ, and of living for Christ. In all things, at all times, we give thanks to you, who never lets us go; through Jesus Christ our Savior. C: Amen. OFFERING PRAYER Financial gifts may be sent to the church. Throughout October WELCA is collecting “ultra soft” and “lotion” tissue boxes to be given to residents at our area nursing homes. P: God of the harvest, we are privileged to be counted among those whom you have called to be workers in the field. And we are graced to have been given your work to do. Our offering today is a portion of the gifts you have given to us, we give them back to the church today, to be used for your work in our community and in the larger world. In Christ’s name we pray. C: Amen. LORD’S PRAYER Spoken in Inuktitut BENEDICTION P: May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in + Christ Jesus. C: Amen. HYMN “Lord of All Hopefulness” CHARGE P: Go And...Ask! So that you can better love and serve God and others. C: Thanks be to God. Printed by permission oneliscense.net A-717495
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AuthorRev. Lori E.L. Kitzing Archives
April 2024
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