11TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST Worship Order of Service
ST. PETER’S EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH
PENTECOST 11 Coronavirus
08-16-2020 10:00AM Worship
(Welcome / Greeting by the Pastors)
OPENING SONG
THE OPENING RITE (based on today’s First Reading and Gospel):
L Our time of confession is an opportunity for us to try to see ourselves as God sees us and then to allow God’s mercy to change us. So let us confess before God and one another. [A brief silence is kept.]
O God, you have said that your house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.
O God, your love is extended far and wide, even to “foreigners” and “Canaanites” in today’s Scripture lessons.
C We confess that we aren’t nearly as inclusive.
Sometimes we want – not only our friends, our relatives, our neighbors, and our coworkers –
but also our churches
to look just like us,
to act just like us,
to think just like us,
to be just like us,
and every difference either horrifies or threatens us.
Forgive us our boundaries and our stereotypes, our conditions and our condemnations, our fine lines and our narrow minds, our inability, and our unwillingness to grow in love for others. Amen.
L The Bible reminds us that — in Christ – there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, or any other distinction between believers who are supposedly “in” and those rejected would-be believers who are considered “out”. The truth, my friends, is that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. So each of us, every one of us, can merely take our place on our knees – shoulder to shoulder and side by side with all the other sinners – clinging to God’s mercy and celebrating God’s grace. Today God embraces and loves you through his Son and our Lord (+) Jesus Christ.
PRAYER OF THE DAY:
Let us pray. God of all peoples, you reach out with mercy and love to embrace all who call upon you.
If Jesus could have a change of heart and mind this morning, then so can we!
Teach us as disciples of Jesus to continue to invite, include, welcome, and serve everyone.
Give us clean hearts, open minds, and arms with a long reach. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
FIRST READING: ISAIAH 56:1, 6-8 [God’s house is to be a place of prayer for all, even foreigners and outcasts. Humility, righteousness, and obedience define who belongs to the Israelite community – not race, nationality, or any other category.]
56:1 Thus says the LORD: Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed.
56:6 And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant–
56:7 these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
56:8 Thus says the Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered.
SECOND READING: ROMANS 11:1-2a, 29-32 [God’s salvation in Christ has not abandoned and rejected Israel. The call and gifts of God are irrevocable… and God has mercy upon all.]
11:1 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.
11:2a God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.
11:29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
11:30 Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience,
11:31 so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy.
11:32 For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.
GOSPEL VERSE:
“More about Jesus would I know, more of his grace to others show,
More of his saving fullness see, more of his love who died for me.
MORE, MORE ABOUT JESUS… MORE, MORE ABOUT JESUS…
MORE OF HIS SAVING FULLNESS SEE, MORE OF HIS LOVE WHO DIED FOR ME.
More about Jesus let me learn, more of his holy will discern;
Spirit of God, my Teacher be, showing the things of Christ to me.”
HOLY GOSPEL: MATTHEW 15:10-28 [Jesus teaches that sometimes people look, act, talk, and pretend “holy”…but fall far from the true heart and will of God. Then he is tested by his own teaching when an “outsider” – pagan and unclean – approaches him and begs for help. Even the “dogs” can eat the crumbs that fall from God’s table!]
15:10 Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand:
15:11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.”
15:12 Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?”
15:13 He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.
15:14 Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.”
15:15 But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.”
15:16 Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding?
15:17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?
15:18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.
15:19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.
15:20 These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
15:21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon.
15:22 Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”
15:23 But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.”
15:24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
15:25 But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
15:26 He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
15:27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
15:28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
THE SERMON: Pastor Gwen
SONG SELECTION
OFFERING PRAYER:
Lord God, thank you for making a way out of no way in my life! During this summer may I dedicate my leisure and my work, my rest and my travel, my service and my spending, my health and my wealth, my worship and my witness – all that I am and have and seek – to glorify You and to extend your Kingdom to others. Someone somewhere is in need of your Good News. Amen.
MUSIC SELECTION Dennis Fortune
THE PRAYERS
THE LORD’S PRAYER
SONG SELECTION
THE BENEDICTION:
Sisters, brothers, if you humbly trust today that God’s merciful and gracious love has included you, then you ought to also believe that God sends you and me to help create an increasingly inclusive circle of acceptance and love.
So go forth from this worship in the peace, the power, and the promise of (+) Jesus to help create a beloved community — and, in particular, to help gather the outcast and the lonely, the poor and the oppressed, those who count for nothing.
Amen! Amen! Amen!.