Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost Worship Bulletin
St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
PENTECOST 17 – Coronavirus
09-19-2021 10:00AM Zoom Worship
OPENING SONG:
THE OPENING RITE:
L May the steadfast love of God, the life of (+) Jesus Christ, and the growth of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
C And also with you.
L Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” But this sounds too much like humility and sacrifice and self-surrender to us. Let us be truthful and admit that our thoughts, motives, and actions as Christians are not always so pure.
C O God, we call Jesus our Savior and say that he’s our Lord.
We claim that we want to be faithful in our living and fervent in our loving.
But sometimes we are too ambitious and too jealous to be very good at discipleship.
Sometimes we want so much to be first and the greatest and the most.
Sometimes we are too easily hurt, too easily angered, and too easily divided.
And that war that is inside of us often becomes conflicts and disputes among us.
Lord, we confess our sin and ask for your mercy.
Turn us from evil thoughts and deeds, cure us of bitter envy and selfish ambition.
Teach us again the meaning of cross and resurrection, and chase the devil out of . Amen.
L My brother, my sister, draw near to God and God will draw near o you.
God understands and forgives us… and God helps us to turn from evil and leave it behind us.
If you are willing, know that God is surely able.
Today Jesus calls you to live like a child, with humility and trust in God…
to live like a child, without the striving and the selfishness…
to live like a child, and free and alive with the love of God.
THE PRAYER OF THE DAY:
Let us pray.
Dear God, tenderly take me into your arms as my Father, as my Mother.
Help me to lean on your compassion, and to learn how to love and serve like Jesus, your Son. Amen.
FIRST READING: JEREMIAH 11:18-20 [God’s servants find both their bruises and their blessings in being faithful.]
11:18 It was the LORD who made it known to me, and I knew; then you showed me their evil deeds.
11:19 But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. And I did not know it was against me that they devised schemes, saying, “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will no longer be remembered!”
11:20 But you, O LORD of hosts, who judge righteously, who try the heart and the mind, let me see your retribution upon them, for to you I have committed my cause.
SECOND READING: JAMES 3:13 – 4:3, 7-8a [Does ambition outrank mercy, is jealousy better than compassion?]
3:13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.
3:14 But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth.
3:15 Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish.
3:16 For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.
3:17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.
3:18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
4:1 Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?
4:2 You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask.
4:3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.
4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
4:8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
GOSPEL VERSE:
“There is strength in the name of the Lord…
There is power in the name of the Lord…
There is hope in the name of the Lord…
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”
THE HOLY GOSPEL: MARK 9:30-37 [Not prestige but humility, not self but servanthood.]
9:30 They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;
9:31 for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”
9:32 But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
9:33 Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”
9:34 But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.
9:35 He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
9:36 Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them,
9:37 “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
SERMON: Pastor Gwen or Pastor Neil
SONG SELECTION
AN AFFIRMATION OF OUR FAITH:
We confess our FAITH in the God who has given us love and new life…
I trust in God who has made me his own. I know that God loves me. To God I am as precious as his own Son, Jesus Christ, who lived and died in obedience to his Father’s will. Jesus suffered our pain, and through his suffering and death has brought us into fellowship with God.
I believe that God through his Spirit will give me strength when I am oppressed and weary… will give me love when I am afraid and lonely… and will guide his Church to make people free at last.
I believe that God lives in the fellowship of those who trust him, and that God wants all people to be brought into that fellowship.
I believe that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Living in hope and trust, I will deny myself, take up my cross, and walk the Jesus walk of faithful servant love.
Amen.
OFFERING… Jesus might wonder what you have been discussing most along your life’s journey. Let us each pray that, for each of us, it has been about how to use our lives and invest God’s blessings in humble loving service.
THE OFFERTORY SONG:
“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.”
OFFERING PRAYER (see Philippians 3:10-11):
Dear God, I want to know Christ inside and out. I want to experience the power of his resurrection and join him in his suffering. I want to be like him in his death and be raised like him from death. As I grow in the grace of Christ, make me strong in my faith, bold in my witness, and fervent in my servant-love. There is no better life than life in Christ! Amen.
MUSIC SELECTION: Dennis Fortune
THE PRAYERS… We pray for NEW LIFE in the Spirit and for the MISSION of the Church to the world!
THE LORD’S PRAYER
SONG SELECTION
THE BENEDICTION… We are sent forth to be and become the BODY OF CHRIST for the world!