CCLI license #1913561
Lakeview Presbyterian Church Service, June 6, 2021
Second Sunday after Pentecost
Questions for Reflection: In the Book of Genesis the Tower of Babel story offers an explanation for the development of different languages. In your experience, is it easier to find common ground with those who speak the same language you do, or with those whose language is different?
“Spirit, Open My Heart” MUSIC: Trad. Irish, TEXT: Ruth Duck sung by Keisha Prime
Spirit, open my heart to the joy and pain of living. As you love may I love, in receiving and in giving. Spirit, open my heart. Write your love upon my heart as my law, my goal, my story. In each though, word, and deed, may my living bring you glory.
Call to Worship
Powerful Spirit, strong Wind:
Stir us to life; breathe hope into despair.
Warming Spirit, dancing Flame:
Kindle joy and fill us with courage.
Comforting Spirit, gentle Breeze:
Refresh our weariness, soften our grief.
Wise Spirit, blazing Fire:
Illuminate our path, cast out the darkness.
Holy Spirit, soaring Dove:
Call us to worship, fill us with love.
Hymn “I Come with Joy” #TPH 507 sung by Keisha Prime
Call to Confession Even before we speak, God knows our wrongs. Yet our repentance opens our hearts to God, who is waiting to hear us and forgive us. Let us confess all that separates us from God and others.
Litany of Confession
The breath of the Spirit does not abandon us, though sometimes we choose the rush of other winds.
In the winds of commerce and academics, the winds of fortune or poverty, the winds of controversy and activism, the winds of anxiety and despair, we forget whose we are and why we are.
Our confusion keeps us from recognizing the Spirit that blows within each of us and spreads to all, often because we do not expect the Spirit to be active in our lives, much less the world.
It seems easier to extinguish a spark than to give ourselves to the transforming fire, as witnesses for a new order.
The Spirit of what is holy incites us to witness;
But accepting the challenge of seeking and acting sometimes seems too hard for us in our weakness.
The Spirit fuses us in loving community with energies to empower our world.
But we tire of setting priorities, of being effective, of being intentional about the work God calls us to do in the world. Where is the Spirit’s wind and fire then?
Let us lift up our individual joys and sorrows, successes and defeats, as an act of awareness of the presence of the Spirit’s wind and fire in all of life… (a time of silent prayer)…
May God be with us,
And with our Spirits. AMEN
Declaration of Forgiveness
God’s love is steadfast and sure, even when we are not faithful in our covenant with God. Be assured: those who repent of their sin and turn to God are forgiven.
Thanks be to God!
Prayer for Illumination
Come, Holy Spirit, giver of life; breathe into us that we may hear a word of truth this day. Draw us into communion, enable us to love, conspire to make us one with you for the world you so deeply love. Amen.
Reading from the Epistles Ephesians 4:25-5:2NRS
So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice,and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
*Hymn “Breathe on Me, Breath of God” TPH #316 sung by Keisha Prime
Reading from the Gospels Mark 3:13-16a, 20-22, 31-35NRS
He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons. So he appointed the twelve:. Then he went home… and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, "He has gone out of his mind." Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you." And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" And looking at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."
Sermon “Has He Lost His Mind?” The Rev. Lois Lehman
Biblical Affirmation of Faith 2 Corinthians 4:14-14, 16-5:1 NRS
But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture-- "I believed, and so I spoke"-- we also believe, and so we speak,because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence…. So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
Sharing of Joys and Concerns
PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION
Mighty God,
We pray for people who long and wait for freedom and justice to come:
those trapped in the violence of war; those struggling against unjust laws and criminal justice systems; those weighed down by debt or long-term unemployment;
those bent low from hopelessness or grief.
Stretch out your arm, we pray, and set things right. Bring us out from every form of slavery into the abundant life you offer.
Healing God, you know our illnesses and limitations; our fears and secret pains;
our unclaimed gifts and discarded dreams. So make us well, we ask, and set us free.
Give us courage to face our challenge and to contend with past hurts. Help us to see ourselves rightly, putting to good use what you have entrusted to us and daring to go in the direction of your voice and vision.
God of Sabbath rest, grant peace to your world wearied by work and worry;
depleted by environmental degradation; beset by famine and fire and storm.
Renew the face of the earth, we pray. Renew the faces of those whose hollow eyes and swollen stomachs call us to account for our casual wastefulness. Renew the faces of those who wander among us homeless or without legal status while we lie down in ease.
Bring us to the day of your designing when all things in heaven and on earth will be reconciled, and your great shalom shall fill all in all. We ask this and all things in the name of Jesus Christ, who is our hope. Amen.
Statement about Offering our Gifts
Let us give of yourselves, our time, and our possessions out of love for this creation and in thanksgiving for what we have been given.
Donations can be mailed to Lakeview Presbyterian Church at 1310 22 nd Av S, St Petersburg, FL, 33705 or given online through our website lakeviewpresbyterianchurch.org
Prayer of Dedication
Gracious God, your son Jesus teaches us that a house divided cannot stand.
Together, we offer ourselves and our gifts, that they may be used to extend your grace to others for your glory, through Jesus our Lord. AMEN
THE SACRAMENT OF HOLY COMMUNION
The Invitation
We come again to the Lord’s Table, to celebrate, and to participate in this great feast which has been prepared for us. Here we confront again the power, the mystery, the wonder, the glory of Christ’s presence with us: the hope, the joy, the love and the peace that comes when God is present and guiding our lives.
God is always with us, supporting and sustaining us, but sometimes the crush of circumstances causes us to forget. So we come to this table, again and again, to rekindle the light of God’s presence so that it touches and changes our lives, and so that we carry that light out into the world with us. Come, for our Lord invites us.
The Words of Institution
On the night of his death, Jesus came to the table with those he loved. He took bread, and gave thanks to God. He broke the bread among his disciples and said: ‘Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is my body, given for you.’ When the supper was ended, he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God. He passed the cup among his disciples and said, ‘Take this, all of you, and drink from it. This is the cup of the new covenant sealed in my blood for the forgiveness of sin. Do this in remembrance of me.’
Now, whenever we eat and drink at this table, we celebrate Christ’s death and resurrection until he comes again.
The Great Thanksgiving
The Lord be with you. And also with you.
Lift up your hearts. We lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give our thanks and praise.
Hymn (please remain seated) “For the Bread Which You Have Broken” TPH #508
Holy God, creator of the universe, with joy we praise you and give you thanks. You brought light from darkness and drew land from the sea. You made us in your image to live with one another in love. You promised yourself in covenant with us, you told us your purpose in your law and called for justice through the prophets. Through long generations you have been faithful to your people.
Holy, holy, holy Lord, the Lord God Almighty, who was and is, and is to come. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!
We praise you for your love: bringing order out of chaos, breathing life into dust, leading captives into freedom, calling wandering children home, giving bread to the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, raising the dead to life. We thank you, Lord for Jesus: Word made flesh, light of the world, living water, shepherd and gate, way and truth, bread of heaven, cup of salvation, resurrection and life.
Spirit come – come and live in us: in this bread, in this cup, in your people, one in the body, one in the blood; one with Christ, one in ministry, in this place, in every place; in this world, in the world to come. AMEN
Partaking the Elements
When we break bread, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?
When we give thanks over the cup, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ?
Jesus said: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Prayer after Communion
Holy God, we thank you for this feast of grace and life. Send us out to answer the summons of our Lord Jesus Christ to a new life, and to follow him with joy and gladness. Set our feet in his holy way that our lives may be signs of his life and all we do may show forth his love. AMEN
The Lord’s Prayer (sung)
Charge and Blessing
In a world filled with doubt, that looks to the letter of the law, go now as the letter of love, sharing the hope and the joy of life in Jesus Christ.
Postlude “Every Time I Feel the Spirit” African American Spiritual sung by Keisha Prime
Refrain
Every Time I Feel the Spirit moving in my heart, I will pray,
Every Time I feel the Spirit, moving in my heart I will pray.
Upon the mountain, when my God spoke, Out of God’s mouth came fire and smoke.
Refrain
All around me, it looked so shine, I asked my Lord if all was mine.
Refrain
‘Ol Jordan River, chilly and cold, It chills the body but not the soul.
Refrain
There ain’t but one train that’s on this track, It runs to heaven and runs right back. Refrain