United Church of Strafford, Vermont

Welcome to this service.  You will find an “Orientation to this Service and Announcements” after the first few items.

Prelude French Suite V, Allemande, J.S. Bach; Annemieke McLane, piano:

Introit “The Peace of the Earth,” traditional Guatemalan, translated by Christine Carson, arranged by John L. Bell, sung by the United Church of Strafford Choir

“The peace of the earth be with you…Deep peace falling over you, God’s peace growing in you.”

Scripture Lessons:

Luke 24:44-53
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you–that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.  And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

Acts 1:1-11
In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Call to Worship and Mel Goertz’s Haiku

You can read the text of this Call to Worship video by clicking here.

Hymn  “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name”  I listened to a dozen different YouTube recordings, all but this one performed by large choirs or gospel bands, and some were quite impressive, but then I came to this young man in what looks like a dorm room and somehow this moved me more even than the polished city choruses with their soaring descants.  If this doesn’t do it for you, feel free to search YouTube—it will be time well spent!

Orientation to this Service and Announcements

Welcome to this online worship service of the United Church of Strafford, Vermont for May 24th, 2020, the Seventh Sunday of Easter and Ascension Sunday.

You can respond with thoughts about the service or with anything you would like to say by using the comment feature at the end of the post or by emailing us.  You can also bring others into this experience by sharing the link to this service by email or social media.

Today we have a series of videos including:

• the Prelude, Introit, Call to Worship and Hymn above;
• Children’s Time for all ages;
• the New Lord’s Prayer;
• a Hymn to sing along;
• the Sermon;
• a Hymn;
• a moving video of youth from South Africa;
• a sung benediction from Indonesia;
• a Postlude.

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[You can watch a video recording of this Call to Worship at the end of this text. To see the entire service, click here.]

We are still in the Easter season one last Sunday, and I still have echoing in my heart one of the music videos from Easter morning: “After all the things I’ve been through, I still have joy.”  I am glad to find that refrain persisting because this hard time we are in is feeling harder as it drags on and we see more clearly the challenges of the next phase.

I also am glad that the church year offers us the wild story of the Ascension of Christ on this Sunday of Easter, because in the end we can imagine the disciples singing, “After all the things we’ve been through, we still have joy.”

The Ascension takes place just 40 days after everything fell completely apart.  One of the most trusted disciples betrayed the loving, healing teacher who had transformed their lives.  The leading disciple denied Jesus three times.  The men had all run away.  Only a few leading women had remained courageous and faithful.

They felt guilt and shame, horror and deep grief, and then Jesus suddenly reappeared, walking through locked doors, turning their sense of reality upside down and cracking it open to reveal powers and realms they had never imagined.

And then came today, forty days after he rose from the dead.  Jesus led them out of the city to the Mount of Olives, tradition has it, and they saw him—they saw him rise into the sky before their very eyes.

So now they were alone, uncertain where things were going or what they were going to do.  It was still only five weeks since Jesus was arrested, tortured and executed.  They had no reason to think it wouldn’t happen to them, too, if they went openly into the city, and yet the story in Luke says that after Jesus ascended, the disciples “returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.”

“After all the things I’ve been through, I still have joy!”

Who knows how much of this story is factual, but we do know that the devastation and danger that first church faced was real, and we know that their joy was true and infectious.

So if they could feel great joy, maybe we can, too, even though, like them, our world has been turned upside down and it feels unsafe to venture out of our homes, and like theirs the leadership of our nation is autocratic, hostile and unstable and our future looks grim.  What made great joy possible for them that could also make it possible for us? Read More

Welcome to this service.  You will find an “Orientation to this Service and Announcements” after the first few items.

Prelude Impromptu, Op. 90 No. 2 by Franz Schubert; Annemieke McLane, piano:

Introit “Be a Candle of Hope” by Becki Slagle Mayo, sung by the United Church of Strafford Choir

Be a candle of hope, be a candle of light,
a beacon of truth in a dark, hopeless night.
Share the light with a friend and watch the flame grow.
The more light we give, the more love we’ll know.
When you light another candle, you keep your light, but give it away.
Yet the flame grows even brighter as the darkness turns into day.
Be a candle of hope, be a candle of light,
a beacon of truth in a dark, hopeless night.
Share the light with a friend and watch the flame grow.
The more light we give, the more love we’ll know.
The more light we give, the more love we’ll know.

First Scripture Lesson, Acts 17:22-30:

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.  The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth…. so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him–though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.…’  While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to undergo metanoia*.

[*metanoia: a spiritual awakening and opening to expanded consciousness, inadequately translated as ‘repent’]

Call to Worship and Mel Goertz’s Haiku

You can read the text of this Call to Worship video by clicking here.

Anthem  “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize, Hold On,” a song of the American Civil Rights Movement based on an African-American spiritual, performed by Sweet Honey in the Rock

Orientation to this Service and Announcements

Welcome to this online worship service of the United Church of Strafford, Vermont for May 17, 2020, the Sixth Sunday of Easter and Pentecost Preparation Sunday.

You can respond with thoughts about the service or with anything you would like to say by using the comment feature at the end of the post or by emailing us.  You can also bring others into this experience by sharing the link to this service by email or social media.

Today we have a series of videos including:

• the Prelude, Introit, Call to Worship and Anthem above;
• Children’s Time (for adults, too);
• the New Lord’s Prayer;
•  Sermon;
• a moving South African Freedom Song;
• a Benediction video;
• an uplifting South African Freedom Song as our Choral Benediction;
• a Postlude, Brahms’ Intermezzo in A major, Op. 118 No. 2, Annemieke McLane, piano audio only

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