The Celebration of the Gospel
June 19, 2016 —Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Jesus asked the demon, “What is your name?”
He said “Legion.”
— Luke 8.30
________We Gather as the Body of Christ______
GREETING
PRELUDE Trusting Jesus Ira Sankey, arr: Ethel Tench Rogers
[As we listen to the music we quiet our minds and bodies,
listen for our hearts’ deepest desires,
and become present to the Holy One who is lovingly present for us.]
* CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: Holy One, your Spirit breathes in us.
All: The heart of your love beats in our hearts.
We breathe in the pain of the world.
We breathe out your mercy.
We breathe in the sorrow of the world.
We breathe out your mercy.
You breathe your mercy in us.
Your deep mercy we breathe for the sake of the healing of the world. Amen.
* SONG Have Thine Own Way Blue hymnal # 382
CHILDREN’S TIME
____________We Attend to the Word__________
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Pastor: The grace of God is with you.
Congregation: And also with you.
Trusting in God’s tender mercy, let us confess our sin to God with one another.
God of love, we need you. This world needs you. We are broken.
Spirits of hate and fear haunt us.
Demons of violence and injustice possess us.
We are part of a hurting and hurtful world.
We are horrified by evil and yet we contribute to it, though we know not how.
Forgive us, for we know not what we do.
Forgive us, heal us and grant us your mercy,
in the name and the Spirit of the crucified and risen Christ.
SILENT PRAYER … THE WORD OF GRACE
RESPONSE Come and Fill Our Hearts Black hymnal #2157
PRAYER OF THE DAY
Loving and gentle God, amid the shouts in the streets and the voices in our heads, we want to hear your still, calm voice. Speak to us, heal us with your Word, and call us to new life in the name of Christ. Amen.
OLD TESTAMENT 1 Kings 19.1-15
[The prophet Elijah has killed the prophets of Baal, and to escape retribution he has fled to the wilderness, where he expects to die. But an angel feeds him and sends him to Mt, Horeb, where he encounters God—not in the earthquake, wind or fire, but in utter silence. God sends him back to Damascus to get to work.]
Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “May the gods deal severely with me, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.
But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.
At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” God said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.
And after the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a sound of deep silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.” Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way.
+
PSALTER Psalm 42
[A cry of longing for God. “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul is thirsty for you.” Despite all suffering and sorrow, we hope in God, who gives us life. ]
As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and behold the face of God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”
These things I remember, as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,
and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise God,
my help and my God.
My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands steadfast love,
and at night God’s song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?”
As with a deadly wound in my body,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?”
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise Yahweh, my help and my God.
+
NEW TESTAMENT Galatians 3.23-29
[The law was a disciplinarian, teaching us right from wrong, but we are justified before God not by our obedience, but by God’s love. Our faith, our trust in God’s grace, is what saves us. There is no distinction between Jew and Gentile—those who follow the law and those who don’t. There aren’t any distinctions at all. We are all God’s children.]
Now before faith came, we had to be chaperoned by the law until faith would be revealed. The law was our disciplinarian. But then Christ came so that we might trust our belovedness in God. Now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God. All we have to do is trust that. You who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. We no longer make distinctions between Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham and Sarah’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.
+
GOSPEL Luke 8.26-39
[Jesus goes across the Sea of Galilee to the Gentiles, where he heals a man possessed by evil spirits. He sends the spirits into a herd of pigs (probably kept to feed the Roman Army) who rush into the lake and drown. The people are so upset they make him leave. ]
Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”— for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.)
Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.
+
SERMON
SONG The Heart of Heaven Steve G-H
There’s a heart in heaven that knows you,
and speaks your name in love from heaven’s throne,
that has laughed and labored here beside you,
and says “I know your journey as my own.”
There are eyes in heaven that adore you,
and weep with joy at the beauty of your soul,
for they see the courage of your living,
and share your deepest yearnings to be whole.
There’s a tear in heaven that remembers;
there’s a deep, weary sigh that understands.
There are gentle, wounded hands that know the struggle
to do the work of God with human hands.
There’s a voice from heaven within you,
a spring of life-giving water flowing free.
let it flow; let grace and peace shine in you
with heaven’s loveliness for all to see.
Oh, the heart of heaven is within you.
The universe embraces you in love.
For the humble one who walks beside you
is the One who rules the sun and stars above.
* AFFIRMATION OF FAITH From Romans 8.35-39 Blue hymnal # 887
PRAYER SONG Veni Sancte Spiritus [Latin: “Come, Holy Spirit”]
THE PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
[Anyone who wishes may share a prayer concern at the microphone.]
THE PRAYER OF JESUS
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
PASSING THE PEACE
THE WORD IN SONG Dona Nobis Pacem arranged by Margaret R. Tucker
______ We Are Sent in Ministry to the World_____
OFFERING OUR GIFTS Nearer, My God, To Thee Lowell Mason, arr: Brian Buda
* OFFERING SONG
O God of love, we bring these gifts to thank you for your grace that lifts,
your love that heals, your Spirit’s flame that bids us serve in Jesus’ name.
O bless these gifts and bless us, too, that we may bear your love for you,
that we may do what love commands, that we may be your feet and hands.
* PRAYER
Gracious God, we give you these gifts as symbols of our lives. Receive them with love, bless them with grace and use them according to your will. Send us in love to bear healing to the world. Send us with courage to speak truth, to resist violence, and to cast out demons for the sake of the healing of the world in the name of Christ. Amen.
THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD
* SONG Goodness Is Stronger than Evil Black hymnal #2219
* THE BLESSING AND SENDING FORTH
* RESPONSE We stand and sing to our neighbors:
May the grace and peace of Christ be with you my friends.
Go and share the love of God, love that never ends.
POSTLUDE All Glory Be To God On High — J. S. Bach
[During the postlude there are people ready to pray with you at the candles in the corners.]