Trinity-St. Andrew’s United Church
Order of Worship
September 22, 2024 – 18th After Pentecost
Prelude
Words of welcome, announcements
Lighting the Christ Candle
We light this candle as a sign of God’s Spirit that is still at work in the world. May its light brighten our spirits, and may the light of God shine through us to brighten the world.
Call To worship
Are you longing for more wisdom in your life? Do you face conflicts that need answers, tough situations that require special insight? Do you need more peace in your life? Do you long to bear good fruit in your life? Draw near to God, who is the giver of wisdom, and God will draw near to you. Come, let us join our hearts and voices together as we come before God in a spirit of prayer and praise.
Hymn Medley Lord, Prepare Me to Be a Sanctuary MV 18
Jesus, Your Spirit in Us MV 102
Lord, Prepare Me to Be a Sanctuary MV 18
Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary,
pure and holy, tried and true;
with thanksgiving, I’ll be a living
sanctuary for you.
Jesus, Your Spirit in Us MV 102
Jesus, your Spirit in us
is a wellspring of life everlasting.
Prayer of Approach
We draw near to you, O God, for you the source of all understanding. Teach us your wisdom that we may bear good fruit in our lives. We need this guidance because O God, we live our lives as best we can. Every day we deal with difficult relationships and situations. We try to put our failures and disappointments behind us, so we can move into each new day with as much goodwill as we can muster. But here, right now, we don’t have all the right answers. We confess that we seldom seek your higher wisdom in our lives. Forgive us for not being open to your insights. Fill us with your wisdom, we pray. Root us beside the streams of your wisdom, that our lives might bear the fruits of goodness that lasts. Amen.
Scripture Reader: Linda Boldt
First Scripture: Psalm 1
Gospel Reading: Mark 9:30-37
Hymn Praise the Lord with the Sound of Trumpet VU 245
- Praise the Lord with the sound of trumpet,
praise the Lord with the harp and lute;
praise the Lord with the gentle-sounding flute.
Praise the Lord in the field and forest,
praise the Lord in the city square,
praise the Lord anytime and anywhere.
Praise the Lord in the wind and sunshine,
praise the Lord in the dark of night,
praise the Lord in the rain or
snow or in the morning light.
Praise the Lord in the deepest valley,
praise the Lord on the highest hill,
praise the Lord, never let your voice be still.
- Praise the Lord with the crashing cymbal,
praise the Lord with the pipe and string,
praise the Lord with the joyful songs you sing.
Praise the Lord on a weekday morning,
praise the Lord on a Sunday noon,
praise the Lord by the light of sun or moon.
Praise the Lord in the time of sorrow,
praise the Lord in the time of joy,
praise the Lord every moment,
nothing let our praise destroy.
Praise the Lord in the peace and quiet,
praise the Lord in your work or play,
praise the Lord everywhere in every way!
Sermon “The Two Ways”
Special Music
The offering
We give thanks for everyone who continues to support TSA and our many ministries. Your gifts of support and encouragement mean a lot to us. You can get more information about making a donation by contacting the church office or by visiting our website. For all the gifts you share, for all the people you bless by your serving and giving as a disciple of Jesus, we give thanks.
Offering Song Know That God is Good MV 104
Know that God is good, (3x)
God is good, God is good.
Offering Prayer
Loving God, you are the generous one. You are full of mercy and compassion. You care for your beautiful creation. May your spirit of wisdom bless these gifts, that they may reach those who need your love and welcome. We offer you our hands and our hearts, our talents and our treasures. May you bring about a harvest of goodness through these gifts we have sown in peace. Amen.
Hymn O God, Send Out Your Spirit MV 25
Refrain: O God, send out your Spirit;
renew the face of the earth.
- We bless you, O God, for you are so great,
Your Spirit uncovers hidden beauty and grace.
Though times we deny all the pain and the tears,
your Spirit empowers us and soon we face our fears. Refrain
- Ev’ry prayer we pray, sacred word, sacred time,
is for the ones who are left waiting outside.
Ev’ry sermon we preach, ev’ry Spirit-filled tune;
Love says, “Remember why we do the things we do.” Refrain
- Ev’ry time a person reaching out is turned away
by the racist prejudicial attitudes of hate,
we are called to break the silence,
sanctioning the shame, stepping across the lines
of this sometimes unholy game. Refrain
- Sources of oppression that we haven’t really faced;
human inhumanity upon the human race.
Spirit ever faithful, Spirit ever true,
rain down all around, and ev’ry heart renew. Refrain
Pastoral Prayer, The Lord’s Prayer
Hymn Let All Things Now Living VU 242
- Let all things now living a song of thanksgiving,
to God our Creator triumphantly raise;
who fashioned and made us, protected and stayed us,
by guiding us on to the end of our days.
God’s banners are o’er us, pure light goes before us,
a pillar of fire shining forth in the night;
till shadows have vanished and darkness is banished,
as forward we travel from light into Light.
- By law God enforces, the stars in their courses
and sun in its orbit obediently shine;
the hills and the mountains, the rivers and fountains,
the depths of the ocean proclaim God divine.
We, too, should be voicing our love and rejoicing;
with glad adoration a song let us raise:
till all things now living unite in thanksgiving,
to God in the highest, hosanna and praise.
Benediction
May God bless and keep you. May God give you strength to keep the faith through troubled times. May Christ fill you with grace equal to every need. May the Holy Spirit grant us a spirit of wisdom for the living of these days. So you may go in to the world to seek justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Go now in peace. Amen.
Choral Amen Wherever You May Go MV 216
Refrain: Wherever you may go, I will follow,
and your people shall be my people too.
Wherever you may go, I will follow,
for I would be faithful, loyal and true.
- Say the word and I will stay,
I will never go away,
we will travel side by side
and God’s love will be our guide. Refrain
- From beginning to the end
I will always be your friend,
when you need me, I’ll be there,
you can trust my faithful care. Refrain
Postlude
The Two Ways. Text: Psalm 1, Mark 9:30-37.
by Rev. James Murray at Trinity-St. Andrew’s United Church, Renfrew, Sunday, September 22, 2024
There’s an old folk song from 1899 that says: “There’s a dark and a troubled side of life, there’s a bright and a sunny side too. Though we meet with the darkness and strife, the sunny side we also may view.” “Keep on the Sunny Side” was made popular by the Carter Family at the beginning of the Great Depression. It became an anthem of hope during a very difficult decade of darkness. When people sang it, they knew very well what the darkness was. Farms were being foreclosed at an alarming rate. The stock market had collapsed, taking down many businesses. Unemployment was at record high rates. Millions of people were displaced and they travelled the country looking for work. Where our country had been very welcoming of immigrants, during the depression immigration was brought to a standstill. The government began looking for ways to deport as many recent immigrants as possible, which fuelled racist tensions. The low point came in 1939 when the Canadian government turned away a boatload of Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi Germany. There were 907 people on board, and Canada refused to accept them. The boat was sent back to Germany. A third of the people on that boat later died in the Concentration Camps.
In the depression, people knew very well what the ‘dark and troubled side of life’ looked like. To sing “Keep one the Sunny Side” was an act of defiance. It was to believe in hope. The church was one of the few places where immigrants were welcomed in, and where the hungry were fed. It was sung to encourage people to keep living in hope and not turn to the nastiness of despair. This song is still sung today, but it is sung out of nostalgia for a simpler time. Today it is considered to be almost child-like in its naïveté. Without the presence of the darkness, the light can sometimes lose its meaning.
We live in a world today which has its own share of darkness. It’s there on the news every night as we see wars and hatred that never seems to end. It’s there in the lives of people struggling to make a living.
The dark side of life is especially close at hand when you are battling addiction. I was talking with one of my friends over the summer. He had just celebrated an important anniversary. He has been sober for twenty five years. He credits Alcoholics Anonymous for keeping him sober. He still goes to meetings every week. He was telling me some stories of the people he has known and worked with in AA over the years. He has seen some people go through the program many times, only to leave and fall off the wagon one more time. I asked him how many of the people who go through AA are able to go back to drinking alcohol responsibly. He said it was maybe 5% because most don’t have a support system to help keep them accountable. He says that in AA you are surrounded by people who do not forget what it is like to be out of control. They are taught to always remember the pain their drinking caused, so they can daily make the choice to not go back to that painful time. They strive to help each other stay in control. It is only by keeping one eye on the darkness, that the light is able to help them.
We need to hear the stories of people who face such darkness, because Christianity is a religion of light. The light that shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it is one of the main metaphors we have to talk of God. The first thing God creates in the beginning ls light. God leads Moses and the runaway slaves out of Egypt with a pillar of fiery light every night. God is our light and our salvation. God brings justice to light. We are encouraged to turn aside from the works of darkness. We are invited to live in the light of God. We are to be the children of light. As important as the light is, we sometimes forget what we are supposed to do with the darkness. Some say that if we dwell in the light of God then we will never have to face darkness ever again. Some say that the presence of any darkness, illness or misfortune is a sign that you have sinned and you have turned away from the light of God. Sometimes we get so used to being in the light we forget what the darkness really is, to the point that we start to believe there is no such thing as evil in the world. We start to believe that we are the source of the light and we don’t need God in order to be good. These are rather simple ways of speaking of the dark which are not always helpful. Because God never promises to take all darkness away.
While we say Jesus is the light of the world, Jesus knew the darkness all too well. He knew his work challenged the religious and political establishment that was designed to keep people locked down in their place. For this reason he repeatedly warns his disciples that living a life of love can be a risky adventure that may cost you your life. He tells his followers that if you want to be great in God’s eyes, then you have to be willing to be as helpless and innocent as a child. Only then will you be free to love others without fear.
This struggle between light and dark is also acknowledged in our New Creed, which is a contemporary statement of faith for the United Church of Canada. We use it, along with the older Apostle’s Creed as a way of stating what it means for us to have faith today. One of the most interesting lines in the New Creed says “We are called to be the church, to seek justice and resist evil.” We are called to resist evil. Not destroy it. Not conquer it. But to resist it. There is Evil in our world and it will never be eliminated because we human beings are very good at sinning and hurting each other. But we can resist such evil and push back against it every day. By being the church, by doing the things Jesus taught us to do, we can share the light which gives life. When we welcome in the stranger and the outsider, when we feed the hungry, we can bring light in a time of fearful darkness. This struggle between light and dark is as old as human history. This morning we read Psalm number one, which is called “The Two ways”. This is ancient wisdom that is thousands of years old. This psalm teaches us that there is a better way to live. It advises us not to walk in the well worn path taken by people who are blind as a bat. It advises us not to stand with people who are good for nothing. We are not take a seat among the know-it-alls who get angry and judgemental about everything. It teaches us that we really blossom when we stand for something, instead of just letting ourselves be blown around by the winds of public opinion.
In order to give light and love where it is needed, this means we have to keep one eye on the darkness. We have to know what evil is doing in this world if the light is to be helpful. So how can we sing “Keep On the Sunny Side” and truly understand its deeper meaning? If we are to be pragmatic and realistic about our situation, we need to be able to tell the harsh truth about ourselves. We need to admit that we do live in a world where there is both darkness and light. That we do live in a country where immigrants are feared once more. Where we are afraid to face up to the harm we have done to others. Where the wealth and privilege of the few outweighs justice for all. Where ignorance is used as a defence for not caring.
The next step is to choose the light. The gospel message can be the good news we need in order to stand against such darkness of injustice. This light is strong enough to create communities of welcome. Together we can support those who are vulnerable. For the light of God is strong enough to stand against the darkness of fear. We need to show that we are willing to die to our old prejudices and learn to love the stranger, the outcast, the needy. This living word is a gift we are invited to share every day in every situation we face. We can dare to have hope, even as we keep one eye on the darkness which is all around us. For when we share this living word, this true light, we share the power to become children of God.
Let us greet with a song of hope each day, Though the moments be cloudy or fair.
Let us trust in our Saviour always, To keep us, every one, in His care.
Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side, Keep on the sunny side of life.
It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way, If we keep on the sunny side of life.
