Order
Sunday, February 13, 2022
- Pre Worship Audio (10:15am) – ‘Calming Acoustic Guitar’
- Music 1 (10:30am) Lynn/Abbie
Open the Eyes of my Heart Lord
Come, Now is the Time to Worship
- Welcome/Prayer (Gallery View) Rick
- Music 2 Lynn/Abbie
Take My Life and Let it Be
- Scripture (No slides just reader) Online – Jake Musgrove
- Music 3 Lynn/Abbie
Take Time to Be Holy
- Message Rick
- Music 4 That’s Why We Praise Him Lynn/Abbie
- Benediction (signal to Segun when slides are ready) Segun
- Community (Gallery View) Rick
- Closing Peace Rick
- Closing Audio – ‘Calming Acoustic Guitar’
Words and Voices
Music 1 (13 Slides)
Open The Eyes Of My Heart
CCLI Song # 2298355
Paul Baloche
Chorus
Open the eyes of my heart Lord
Open the eyes of my heart
I want to see You
I want to see You
Verse
To see You high and lifted up
Shining in the light of Your glory
Pour out Your power and love
As we sing holy holy holy
Chorus
Open the eyes of my heart Lord
Open the eyes of my heart
I want to see You
I want to see You
Verse
To see You high and lifted up
Shining in the light of Your glory
Pour out Your power and love
As we sing holy holy holy
Verse
To see You high and lifted up
Shining in the light of Your glory
Pour out Your power and love
As we sing holy holy holy
Bridge
Holy holy holy
Holy holy holy
Holy holy holy
I want to see You
Chorus
Open the eyes of my heart Lord
Open the eyes of my heart
I want to see You
I want to see You
Come Now Is The Time To Worship
CCLI Song # 2430948
Brian Doerksen
Chorus
Come now is the time to worship
Come now is the time to give your heart
Come just as you are to worship
Come just as you are before your God
Come
Verse 1
One day every tongue
Will confess You are God
One day every knee will bow
Still the greatest treasure remains
For those who gladly choose You now
Chorus
Come now is the time to worship
Come now is the time to give your heart
Come just as you are to worship
Come just as you are before your God
Come
Verse 2
Willingly we choose to surrender our lives
Willingly our knees will bow
With all our heart soul mind and strength
We gladly choose You now
Chorus
Come now is the time to worship
Come now is the time to give your heart
Come just as you are to worship
Come just as you are before your God
Come
Ending
Come come just as you are come come
Welcome/Prayer (No Slides)
Lord, you call us to abide in you.
To walk blamelessly, to do what is right, and to speak truth in love.
God, you warn us to not slander, to not do evil, and to not condemn others.
Father, this is how we abide in your, this is how we honor you, this is how we fear you.
As we gather on this day, may we choose to recommit to a life of abide, may we strive to live in your tent on your holy hill.
Amen.
(Psalm 15)
Music 2 (4 Slides)
Take My Life And Let It Be (Hendon)
CCLI Song # 1390
Frances Ridley Havergal | Henri Abraham Cesar Malan
Verse 1
Take my life and let it be
Consecrated Lord to Thee
Take my moments and my days
Let them flow in ceaseless praise
Verse 2
Take my hands and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love
Take my feet and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee
Verse 3
Take my voice and let me sing
Always only for my King
Take my lips and let them be
Filled with messages from Thee
Verse 6
Take my love my Lord I pour
At Thy feet its treasure store
Take myself and I will be
Ever only all for Thee
Scripture (No Slides)
Now as Jesus went on his way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. Martha had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:38-42
Music 3 (6 Slides)
Take Time To Be Holy
CCLI Song # 93748
George Coles Stebbins | William Dunn Longstaff
Verse 1
Take time to be holy
Speak oft with thy Lord
Abide in Him always
And feed on His Word
Make friends with God’s children
Help those who are weak
Forgetting in nothing
His blessing to seek
Verse 2
Take time to be holy
The world rushes on
Spend much time in secret
With Jesus alone
By looking to Jesus
Like Him thou shalt be
Thy friends in thy conduct
His likeness shall see
Verse 4
Take time to be holy
Be calm in thy soul
Each tho’t and each motive
Beneath His control
Thus led by His Spirit
To fountains of love
Thou soon shall be fitted
For service above
Message – Taking Care of God (? Slides)
Mom grew up on a farm where everyone played a part – especially around harvest time when everyone work before the sun rose and long after the sun set. Time was always of the essence as heavy rains were a frequent destroyer of the crops, and therefore any possibility for financial security for the coming 12 months. Everyone old enough to be put to work participated. The women would be up, usually before the men, as a hearty breakfast was prepared and then served. As the men ate the women would begin work on a huge lunch. The men were working to pay the bills and keep the farm, the women were working to keep the men nourished and encouraged as they would face an exhausting 15 plus hour day. When the work was completed for the day, there would be a light dinner followed by a short time to relax and then to bed for a quick night of sleep. Then, the next morning everything would resume their work of supporting and taking care of each other. Nothing anyone was doing was busy work, it was all essential work and every person working was at the best place for them in that moment.
This is a story I have had on my mind this week as I spent time with the story of Mary and Martha. A story where Martha was in the kitchen alone preparing the meal and her sister Mary was assumedly sitting in the living room with the men listening to Jesus. A story where Mary is consumed with the words of Jesus, while Martha, with each peak from the kitchen is becoming progressively more angry that she was doing all the work and Mary was just sitting in the living room like a queen. In Martha’s mind, fixing the meal, being in the kitchen, is alway the most important place to be (as well as for the other females), Jesus is their guest and they need to take care of him, Mary should be in there working and not making Martha do everything!
Martha’s thinking eventually did what that type of thinking usually does, it led her to do something that, in her right mind, she would have never done. She marched into the living room and tersely confronted Jesus.
[Slide] “Do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her to help me?”
It was a confrontation of Jesus, a complaint about Jesus to Jesus, it was an accusation against Jesus, an assumption about Jesus, an intense moment of anger towards Jesus. And then Jesus calmly responds,
[Slide] “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. – Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Jesus is saying that he is not going to take this moment from Mary, nor will the Spirit ever allow this to be taken away from Mary.
Passionately working on the meal, desiring to take good care of Jesus and to give him the best meal ever, was not a bad thing. Like all of us, Jesus liked to eat, and I am sure, also like all of us, Jesus loved to eat a great meal. On top of that, hospitality was a cultural expectation. Jesus himself had told his own disciples to ‘shake the dust off their feet’ when not shown hospitality in the places they went to minister. Yet, here, hospitality was not the best thing..
[Slide] The word “distracted”, periespato, means to be pulled or dragged in different directions, it is an active force operating against us. Jesus is sitting in their living room and will not be sitting there later – this is the moment when he is there. He will survive with a lesser meal, and there will be other times when a feast is needed, but now, it is a time to soak up Jesus, to let him take care of those present.
[Slide] “Both listening and doing, receiving God’s Word and serving others, are vital to the Christian life, just as inhaling and exhaling are to breathing. Yet how often do we forget to breathe in deeply? Trying to serve God without being nourished by God’s word is like expecting good fruit to grow from a tree that has been uprooted.” (Elisabeth Johnson, Theology Professor)
[Slide] Psalms 37 calls us to ‘Rest’ in the Lord, to cease from anger and to abandon wrath; to not get upset with another because such inner distractions lead only to evildoing. Martha reaches that point, she plows into the living room with utter disregard for the holiness of Jesus’ presence and expresses her frustration – a frustration which was originally targeted at her sister but now, Jesus has become the target.
Oddly, it is in this surreal moment when Martha let go and freely expressed herself. Now, Martha was free to reconsider what was really a priority in this moment. Jesus didn’t rebuke or correct her, he didn’t say she was doing the wrong thing, but, that she was not doing the best thing. Jesus didn’t even correct her attitude or her outrage – Jesus knew that this was Martha at the end of her rope. Arriving at the end or rope is a very common place that lands us in the living room at Jesus’ feet. She was realizing that her choice to take care of Jesus, had been in conflict with her desire to be nurtured by Jesus.
In high school I worked as a life guard. In our training we learned that when trying to save person who was drowning, you had to be very careful to not be caught up in their efforts to save themself. If the person was not at the end of their rope, willing to trust another to save them, there would be a danger of the taking the lifeguard down as well.
[Slide] “A drowning man cannot be saved until he is utterly exhausted and ceases to make the slightest effort to save himself.”
― Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life
It is often the end of our rope when we finally quit trying, we quit fighting, we quit doing, we quit arguing, we quit being distracted and, instead, we are silent, we listen, we allow Jesus to immerse us. To allow the Spirit to give us a moment of rest and focus. We may not feel anything but still we recenter, we pause, we get an objective moment to reprioritize, to see clearly, to let ourself BE in the midst of Jesus.
The prophet Amos spoke for God when he told the people to be silent. They were consumed with busyness all week, and then, when the day of rest came, they would pace and fret until they could get back to work. In not taking the moment of rest, when they returned to their busyness they returned even more disconnected from God, leading to even more actions in unlike God’s call, they were oppressive to the poor and needy. God’s message through Amos was to be silent, take the moment to let God renew you. They missed the moment and were then unable to abide with God.
This was Martha’s moment, the longer she was distracted with good busyness, the more she stepped further from the message of Christ. She needed to be in the living room instead of the kitchen.
In Psalm 15, the Psalmist calls on each of us to choose to fully dwell in God’s presence, to take up residence, to be fully there/fully present at the feet of Jesus.
Selah. Breath. Soak Jesus in.
[Slide] As was the case with Martha, ‘To take being in God’s presence seriously is both comforting and unsettling.’
(Craig A. Satterlee, Bishop)
[Slide] Those who dwell with God abandon trusting their ability to shape and control their lives and the world and instead put their full trust in God. They are ready and looking for the extraordinary holy ‘best choice’ moments found in the most unextraordinary moments.
Your moment may be when you realize that you, for the first time, desire to fully trust Jesus with your life. It may be a moment when you realize that you have been hiding in the kitchen and missing Jesus in the living room. Or, it may be you, at the end of your rope with nothing else you can do, recognizing just how far you are from God.
Let’s turn our thinking around for a moment.
What if the story is not about Martha versus Mary, what if it is not about Hospitality versus sitting at Jesus feet? What if it is a story about Mary and Martha and an opportunity to do something much greater than what they, or anyone else, would think was culturally possible? What if this moment was an invitation for both women to break barriers and to be disciples of Jesus? What if Jesus is inviting Mary and Martha to violate the gender expectations of their day and to sit at Jesus feet? What if Jesus is proposing that both of these women imagine themself as part of God’s Kingdom, called to bring about its presence here and now?
[Slide] What if this is an ‘invitation to Martha to be the impossible, a disciple? What if the better thing is the invitation to believe that you are who God sees you to be.’
(Karoline Lewis, Professor of Biblical Preaching)
[Slide] ’This is the sort of thing that Jesus does, breaking the cultural constraints and setting people free for the kingdom. That’s necessary if we are actually going to love our neighbors and love God. It has happened (and must continue to happen) in the face of slavery, and racism, and sexism, and homophobia. The church needs to be set free for such faithful listening and discipled violation of cultural assumptions so that we can love the strangers and sojourners among us, so that we can love our Muslim and Hindu and atheist neighbors, so that we can sit at the feet of Jesus and hear what he has to say to us.’
(Brian Peterson, Professor of New Testament)
What if…..
What if God’s desire is that we are in the place where we need to be? It may be in the living room or it may be in kitchen. It may be the exact place where we are most needed, or the place we most need to be. Finding that place is not a paralyzing experience, it is not a process of quiting life until we are sure. What if, like Martha, we usually know that we are supposed to be in the kitchen until everything inside of us screams that we need to be in the living room, until we walk into and ask, ‘why am I not in the living room!?’ Maybe the question is ‘What is keeping me from being where I am supposed to be at this moment?’ Maybe it is not even a questions of where but a question of What – ‘At this moment, Jesus is in the living room encouraging me to join him, what is the best use of my time, now?’
[Slide] “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
J.R.R. Tolkien
Let’s Pray
Music 4 (6 Slides)
That’s Why We Praise Him
CCLI Song # 2668576
Tommy Walker
Verse 1
He came to live live a perfect life
He came to be the living word our light
He came to die so we’d be reconciled
He came to rise to show His pow’r and might
Chorus
That’s why we praise Him that’s why we sing
That’s why we offer Him our ev’rything
That’s why we bow down and worship this King
‘Cause He gave His ev’rything
Verse 2
He came to live live again in us
He came to be our conquering King and friend
He came to heal and show the lost ones His love
He came to go prepare a place for us
Chorus
That’s why we praise Him that’s why we sing
That’s why we offer Him our ev’rything
That’s why we bow down and worship this King
‘Cause He gave His ev’rything
Bridge
Halle hallelujah
Halle hallelujah
Chorus
That’s why we praise Him that’s why we sing
That’s why we offer Him our ev’rything
That’s why we bow down and worship this King
‘Cause He gave His ev’rything
Benediction (6 Slides) (signal to Segun when slides are ready)
Leader: We welcome God into our lives, into our home, into our heart.
Response: Sometimes we are so busy we forget God is there.
Leader: We ask God for hope, peace, perseverance, and strength.
Response: Often times we forget that God is enough.
Leader: We seek God in our struggles, and in the struggles of others.
Response: Most of the time we fail to sit at God’s feet and to wait for God’s response.
Leader: We beg God for moments of joy.
Response: May we look for the joy in all our moments.
Leader: We cry out for moments of light.
Response: May we seek out the light in our darkness.
Leader: May we all, this week, take a break from our busyness and sit at Jesus’ feet.
Response: May we all, take a breath and recognize God in our moments.
Community (No Slides)
- March/April Bible Studies survey now up, deadline February 27
- Afghan info come and go February 20, noon to 3pm
- Contribution Statements rechecking (confusion w/quarantines)
- Next Sunday – Unnoticed Absurdity, Luke 20:27-38
Peace (3 Slides)
As you leave this place, may the peace of the Lord go with you.
And also with you.
We gather here because of God’s love for us, we go from here because of God’s love for everyone out there. Go in the peace of the Lord.
Order, Words, & Voices 