Thus Sunday we will have our second On Line Service on the Fourth Sunday in Lent.
Please note that our entire congregation far and wide is invited to join together for Joys, Concerns, Prayer Requests, Mutual Support and to say hello to one another at 10:30 AM Sunday morning by Zoom. The ideal way to do this is by video on your computer, but you can also call in by phone. The link for signing on, or the phone number, is at the end of this post.
The service will feature a beautiful Annemieke McLane classical piano piece plus recordings of two hymns you can listen to or sing along with, “Amazing Grace” and “When We Can See As God Can See.”
The Children’s Time will retell the story of Samuel anointing David to be the next King of Israel when he was just a boy shepherding his family’s sheep in the fields. (1 Samuel 16:1-13) It will connect the story to what our children and youth today are “anointed” to do.
The sermon will be entitled “Live As Children of Light,” taken from Ephesians 5:8-9 and will reflect on both the story in the Children’s Time and a story of Jesus healing a man who was blind from birth. (John 9:1-17) In those stories leaders of the people have gone astray, and the Spirit rises up to flow through new leaders to transform society to be more like the realm of God on earth.
We are in the midst of a Lenten wilderness not only in the church year but in our local and global society. We are in a time of transition. Transitions are not just physical journeys from one place or way of being to another, they are mental, emotional and spiritual as well, and the outer transitions will be incomplete and even disastrous if we do not attend to the inner transitions.
The children of Israel were tempted and tried, they had to learn to live by faith, they gained a new identity and a new perspective and new insights for the sacred way they would try to live in the Promised Land. The reason it took them forty years was not because of the physical transition—they could have made that journey in less than a year—it was the inner journey that took all that time. They faced many dangers that could have killed them, but the greatest danger was that they would not undergo the inner transformation to become true children of God, and that the new society they created would not aspire to the ideals of the realm of God.
Today the whole world has entered a deep, dark wilderness together, and there is great danger to us as individuals and to our society. Like all true wildernesses, we have no map and no way of knowing when and where and how we are going to emerge, but we know that we will truly emerge from this time not when everyone is healthy but when have undergone an inner transition of recovery, renewal and resurrection into a new form of being as individuals and a society. The crisis calls for us to have greater vision, greater wisdom, greater compassion, greater love and a truer sense of the oneness of all people and all the earth.
This calling is not new, as we will hear in today’s scriptures. What is new is the absolute, urgent necessity that we finally make this transition to full human maturity to have the heart and mind of Christ. Unfortunately, there is a counter-impulse to have a heart of fearful selfishness and coldhearted greed. This Sunday we will reflect on how we can make this wilderness journey as individuals and as a community so that we emerge more fully children of God and create a society more fully the realm of God on earth..
Please join us at 10:30 AM on Sunday morning on line on Zoom:
Topic: Joys, Concerns, Prayer Requests and Support
Time: Mar 22, 2020 10:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Every week on Sun, until May 3, 2020, 7 occurrence(s)
Join Zoom Meeting by clicking on:
Meeting ID: 110 184 919
Or call the New York number, or if that does not work, you can find your local number at the website below.
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+19292056099,,110184919# US (New York)
Dial by your location
+1 929 205 6099 US (New York)
Meeting ID: 110 184 919
Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/abGwRS2hem
Here is a sneak preview of the Call to Worship video for this Sunday:
United Church of Strafford, Vermont 