Virtual Worship for January 30, 2022
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Worship at 9:00 a.m.
The congregation reads the boldface responses.
Once the prelude has begun, please cease all conversation
as we prepare our hearts and minds for worship.
PRELUDE
Will You Let Me Be Your Servant - Richard Gillard
INTRODUCTION
The glory of God is often revealed when and where it is least expected. God uses our lips to declare that glory, inexperienced and hesitant though they may be. God uses our love to demonstrate that glory and so urges us to exercise it. God uses Jesus of Nazareth, water and the word, bread and wine, to reveal God’s glory where and when God chooses. Take heed, lest the glory of God slip through our midst unnoticed.
GATHERING
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Please stand as you are able.
GATHERING HYMN
Christ Be Our Light (ELW 715)
1. Longing for light, we wait in darkness.
Longing for truth, we turn to you.
Make us your own, your holy people,
light for the world to see.
Refrain
Christ, be our light!
Shine in our hearts.
Shine through the darkness.
Christ, be our light!
Shine in your church gathered today.
2. Longing for peace, our world is troubled.
Longing for hope, many despair.
Your word alone has pow'r to save us.
Make us your living voice. Refrain
3. Longing for food, many are hungry.
Longing for water, many still thirst.
Make us your bread, broken for others,
shared until all are fed. Refrain
4. Longing for shelter, many are homeless.
Longing for warmth, many are cold.
Make us your building, sheltering others,
walls made of living stone. Refrain
5. Many the gifts, many the people,
many the hearts that yearn to belong.
Let us be servants to one another,
signs of your kingdom come. Refrain
Text: Bernadette Farrell, b. 1957
Text © 1993 Bernadette Farrell. Published by OCP Publications. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
CONFESSION AND FORGIVENESS
All may make the sign of the cross, the sign that is marked at baptism, as the presiding minister begins.
Blessed be the holy Trinity, ☩ one God,
who creates us,
redeems us,
and calls us by name.
Amen.
Let us confess our sin in the presence of God and of one another.
Silence is kept for reflection.
Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
and your beloved children.
We have turned our faces away from your glory
when it did not appear as we expected.
We have rejected your word
when it made us confront ourselves.
We have failed to show hospitality
to those you called us to welcome.
Accept our repentance for the things we have done
and the things we have left undone.
For the sake of Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.
Forgive us and lead us, that we may bathe
in the glory of your Son born among us,
and reflect your love for all creation.
Amen.
Rejoice in this good news:
In ☩ Christ Jesus, your sins are forgiven.
You are descendants of the Most High,
adopted into the household of Christ,
and inheritors of eternal life.
Live as freed and forgiven children of God.
Amen.
GREETING
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
The love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
And also with you.
PRAYER OF THE DAY
Almighty and ever-living God, increase in us the gifts of faith, hope, and love; and that we may obtain what you promise, make us love what you command, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
A PRAYER FOR THE CALL COMMITTEE
Holy Spirit, touch our call committee, that they may discern as they interview candidates to be our pastor. Fill their hearts with grace, their minds with wisdom, and their souls with faith, and grant them patience and love. Help them to see the gifts and strengths that are in others. In the name of Jesus.
Amen.
Please be seated.
WORD
FIRST READING
Jeremiah 1:4-10 (NRSV)
God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet and consecrates him in the womb. Jeremiah’s task is to preach God’s word amid the difficult political realities of his time, before the Babylonian exile. He is to make God known not only to Judah, but also to the nations.
4Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
5“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
6Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” 7But the Lord said to me,
“Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’;
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you.
8Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
says the Lord.”
9Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,
“Now I have put my words in your mouth.
10See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.”
The Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
PSALMODY
Psalm 71:1-6 (NRSV)
(Read responsively.)
1In you, O LORD, I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame.
2In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
incline your ear to me and save me.
3Be to me a rock of refuge,
a strong fortress, to save me,
for you are my rock and my fortress.
4Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
5For you, O LORD, are my hope,
my trust, O LORD, from my youth.
6Upon you I have leaned from my birth;
it was you who took me from my mother's womb.
My praise is continually of you.
SECOND READING
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 (NRSV)
Christians in Corinth prided themselves on their spiritual gifts. Paul reminds them that God gives us many gifts through the Holy Spirit, but the purpose behind all of them is love, the kind of love that God showed us in Jesus Christ.
4Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
The Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God.
Please stand as you are able.
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION
GOSPEL
Luke 4:21-30 (NRSV)
The Holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you, O Lord.
21Then [Jesus] began to say to [all in the synagogue in Nazareth,] “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” 23He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’ ”
24And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”
28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
Please be seated.
SERMON
Gracious Words Can Quickly Turn
Pastor Brown
Please stand as you are able
HYMN OF THE DAY
O Word of God Incarnate (LBW 231)
1. O Word of God incarnate,
O Wisdom from on high,
O Truth unchanged, unchanging,
O Light of our dark sky:
we praise you for the radiance
that from the hallowed page,
a lantern to our footsteps,
shines on from age to age.
2. The church from you, dear Master,
received the gift divine;
and still that light is lifted
o'er all the earth to shine.
It is the chart and compass
that, all life's voyage through,
mid mists and rocks and quicksands
still guides, O Christ, to you.
3. Oh, make your church, dear Savior,
a lamp of burnished gold
to bear before the nations
your true light, as of old;
oh, teach your wand'ring pilgrims
by this their path to trace,
till, clouds and darkness ended,
they see you face to face.
Text: William W. How, 1823-1897, alt.
APOSTLES’ CREED
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION
The Spirit of the Lord is poured out upon us in abundance; so we are bold to pray for the church, the world, and all that God has made.
The response to “Lord, in your mercy,” is “hear our prayer.”
The prayers conclude:
Since we have such great hope in your promises, O God, we lift these and all of our prayers to you in confidence and faith; through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Amen.
Please be seated.
OFFERING
OFFERTORY
How Far Is the Star - Bradley Ellingboe
Adult Choir
Please stand as you are able.
OFFERING PRAYER
Blessed are you, O God,
Sovereign of the universe.
You offer us new beginnings
and guide us on our journey.
Lead us to your table,
nourish us with this heavenly food,
and prepare us to carry your love
to a hungry world,
in the name of Christ our light.
Amen.
LORD’S PRAYER
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 and ever. Amen.
SENDING
BLESSING
God, who leads you in pathways of righteousness,
who rejoices over you,
and who calls you by name,
☩ bless your going out and your coming in,
today and forever.
Amen.
SENDING HYMN
God With Us (Song of the Month)
Jayme Thompson | Sarah Hart
Verse 1
You are higher than all of our questions
You are deeper than all of our needs
Wider than all that we can imagine
You are greater than anything
Chorus
You are holy holy God Almighty
God with us
You are holy holy God Almighty
God with us
God with us
Verse 2
You are stronger than all of our burdens
You are sweeter than all of our dreams
Closer than all the air that surrounds us
You are greater than anything
Chorus
Bridge
Ever before us and ever beside us
Ever above us and ever behind us
Ever around us and ever within us
And always God with us
Verse 3
You bring joy into all of our sadness
You bring peace into all of our pain
Shining light into all of our darkness
You are greater than anything
Chorus 2X
DISMISSAL
Go with Christ into a weary world.
Share the good news.
Thanks be to God.
POSTLUDE
God Has Chosen Me – Bernadette Farrell
From sundaysandseasons.com. Copyright © 2021 Augsburg Fortress. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission under Augsburg Fortress Liturgies Annual License #SB125183.
Permission to reprint, podcast, and / or stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-738200. All rights reserved.
Permission to reprint, podcast, and / or stream the music in this service obtained from CCLI with licenses #2332347and #20946066 . All rights reserved.”