Worship Resources for
the Center for Faith and Giving
Proper 7C
Call to Worship (inspired by Psalm 42)
One: Despite challenges and dismay, we hope in God.
Many: We gather to praise God,
even in times of disappointment and despair.
One: God is our rock!
Many: Our souls long for the living God.
One: God calls us in steadfast love, deep calling to deep.
Many: By day and by night, we pray to the God of Life!
Opening Prayer
God, in the midst of difficulties and in times of delight, we turn to you.
You have stood with your people by day and by night,
in confident celebrations and in seasons of chaos and confusion.
Thank you for your presence among us in this place.
Breathe your Spirit over us once more,
that in this time of worship, we might honor you, praise you,
and offer you our gratitude for your steadfast love,
which will never let us go! AMEN
Moment for Stewardship (inspired by Galatians 3:23-29)
Summer-time helps tap into the child-like delight within many of us, when we have a sense of space, time and opportunity to enjoy a slower pace and the wonder of discovering (or re-discovering) ways to simply have fun.
I particularly cherish times when I can ______________(fill in with your own cherished activity or setting).
Paul, writing to the church in Galatia, encourages believers to claim the joy of being clothed with Christ. No longer separated by race, gender or station in life, we are all ONE in Christ Jesus!
What energy comes when we’re able to identify ourselves as heirs. This inheritance is far greater than a long-lost uncle’s estate, however. This inheritance is God’s promise to be with us and make us a blessing to all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:1-3)
Your financial gifts today are one way in which we are a blessing! This offering will help us ____________________ (describe in a sentence one or two specific things which this offering will do).
“Joint heirs with Jesus, as we travel this sod.”
Let us share our tithes and gifts.
Prayer of Thanksgiving
Gracious God, thank you for bringing us into your one family. Thank you for claiming us as your children, and offering us such a remarkable inheritance.
Receive this offering and help us put it to use to share the blessing you’ve poured out for the world. Accept our intention not only to give, but to live our lives as your beloveds, even as we pray in Christ Jesus, our Lord. AMEN
Invitation to Communion
Very early Jewish teachings (no longer utilized in modern Judaism) included a prayer with three phrases, prayed each morning by Jewish men:
“Thank God I am not a gentile, a woman or a slave” (see note below).
Paul, seeking to communicate how Jesus crosses these boundaries, wrote to the Galatians “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female” (Gal. 3:28).
For us, we might find a prayer of inclusion more clearly stated “there is no longer black or white, poor or rich, cis-gender or GLBTQIA”.
This prayer becomes most visible here, at the Table. The Gospels report Christ ate with sinners, with women, with gentiles. And at the Last Supper, Jesus broke bread even with Judas Iscariot.
Friends, all are welcome here!
Come! For the Lord Jesus, Messiah and Christ, invites YOU to share in these gifts of bread and juice – signs, symbols and emblems of the love of God for one and for all.
Tosefta Berakhot 6:18 teaches in the name of Rabbi Yehuda ben Ilai (mid-2nd c. CE) that every (Jewish) man is obligated to recite three blessings daily. These express gratitude for ones station in life through the negative statements: thank God that I am not a gentile, a woman, or a slave (or in earlier formulations, a boor). This language echoes Greek prayers preserved first by Plato. Especially because this text also appears as a legal dictum in the Babylonian Talmud, Menahot 43b, these blessings, which modern scholars call the “blessings of identity,” gradually became part of the preliminary prayers to the daily morning service. They are found in the earliest preserved Jewish prayer books, from the end of the first millennium, but not yet universally as public prayers. https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/research_sites/cjl/texts/cjrelations/resources/sourcebook/shelo_asani_goy.htm