Center for Faith and Giving
Lectionary Worship Resources
July 26, 2020
Lectionary Readings
Genesis 29:15-28
Psalm 105:1-11, 45b
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
Call to Worship (based on Psalm 105)
Leader: Give thanks to the Lord! Call on God’s name!
People: Sing praises to God! Tell of God’s wonderful works!
Leader: Seek the Lord; seek God’s presence continually.
People: Remember the wonderful things God has done.
Leader: God is mindful of God’s covenant with Abraham.
People: God is mindful of God’s covenant with us.
Leader: Today is a day for giving God all our thanks and praise.
People: Praise the Lord!
Opening Prayer
Holy God, we have so much praise to give you it overflows from our mouths and our hearts. You have remembered us in our time of need and set a table for us with your sacrificial love. May this time of worship draw us closer to you as we experience the blessing of worship. Amen.
Moment for Stewardship
Of all the Marvel superheroes that have flooded the big screen in recent years, the one that gets the least amount of attention is Ant-Man. He’s not big and green like the Hulk, doesn’t command national pride like Captain America, can’t do all the cool stuff with his suit like Iron Man. Ant-Man’s superpower is simply that he can get really, really small.
We don’t think of being small as having any relation to being powerful. And it doesn’t, if you think of power in the worldly sense. But as Ant-Man shows us, being small can have its advantages. He’s able to wiggle himself into tiny spaces, causing havoc by disrupting the inner workings of his foes. Big things come in small packages.
Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, the smallest of seeds that can wiggle its way into tiny spaces, disrupting the ecology with its growth. God can work miracles with tiny things. When you give your offering, remember that can take any gift – big or small – and multiply it ways that cause havoc on the status quo of this world. Big things come in small packages: a mustard seed, a baby in a manger, a weekly gift given in faith. Let’s receive our tithes and offerings.
Prayer of Thanksgiving
Great Big God, we have given you what we have. It may not be as much as we’d like to give, it may not be as much as we should give, but it is what we are giving today. Take these gifts and enlarge them in such a way that those in need can find a home in your kingdom. Amen.
Invitation to Communion
There are a lot of forces in this world that are seeking to separate us. We are physically separated – or at least we should be – as we provide safety and social distance from the virus that haunts us. We are racially separated as whites and people of color are at odds on how best to honor all lives while recognizing that some lives have been historically neglected and abused. We are spiritually separated as we struggle to reconcile our faith, our freedom, and our vote. Paul says in Romans that nothing can separate us from God’s love, but we can separate ourselves from each other.
This communion table is the salve that heals our wounds and the glue that binds us back together. Through the gift of the bread and the cup, we are re-membered as Christ’s body, no longer separated by distance or skin color or theology. There is so much on which we cannot agree, but we know this: God is bigger than any of our disagreements, and God is working to knit us back together.
When we take these elements, we are claiming our place in Christ’s body alongside those with whom we are in solidarity. But we are also claiming our place alongside those with whom we disagree, those who oppose us, those who speak a different spiritual language than us. Division is nothing new for God; God has been grieving our separation since Adam and Eve ate the fruit. And yet, if God is for us, who can be against us? Not even we have the power to undo what God has done at this table. Let us share in communion together.