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Woship Resources 2009-2010 — Year C: Live Generously, Love Courageously
Return to Year C: 2009-2010
Resource Index
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Seek, Thirst, and Listen
World Hunger Emphasis
Third Sunday in Lent
Scriptures: Isaiah 55:1–9; Psalm 63:1–8; I
Corinthians 10:1–13; Luke 13:1–9; I Nephi 3:187; Doctrine and Covenants 163:8a–b
A week or two before this service invite the congregation to bring canned or
packaged food to share with a community service league or other local charity.
For the worship center preparation, include peaceful colors of blue to evoke
feelings of tranquility, restfulness, harmony, and fluidity. You might display a
fountain or pitcher of water with a loaf of bread for Communion.
Prelude
Show a video of creeks, rivers, and waterfalls set to meditative
music.
Invitation and Call to Worship: Psalm 63:1–4
*Hymn: “Seek Ye First” NS 44
OR “God, Who Touchest Earth with Beauty” HS 172
*Invocation: Seeking God through Prayer
*Response
Seeking God’s Spirit
Children’s Moment
Have children play a short version of a “Hide and Seek” game. Someone
dressed up as Jesus tries to find them. Mention how even when we are hiding
from him, Christ seeks to find us—continually drawing us toward him.
Ministry of Music: “Touch Me, Lord, with Thy Spirit Eternal” HS 409
OR “Open My Eyes, O Lord” HS 454
Scripture for Peace: Doctrine and Covenants 163:8a–b
Prayer for Peace
Testimony: “How do I seek the Lord?”
Before or after the testimony is shared, the person presiding might tie
this activity into an extension of the Children’s Moment by giving the
children a magnifying glass or binoculars, indicating this might be a way to
search for Jesus. Then show the Three-in-One Scriptures, explaining that the
Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants are special tools
that help us see Jesus.
Thirsting for Spiritual Renewal
Hymn: “Take My Life and Let It Be” HS 408
OR “Gather Us In” SP 4
Communion Message
Based on Isaiah 55:1–9
Scripture for Confessional Reflection: I Nephi 3:187
Lord, we often seek answers from you, without pausing to listen. Help us
hear our calling for ways to bring forth Zion.
Blessing and Serving of the Bread
Blessing and Serving of the Wine
Listen to What Is Good
Seek and Listen: “Praise God” Speech Choir
No matter where I go, no matter where I think to hide,
God is there, God is here, God is with me, God is within me.
I want a right relationship with God.
I will seek first the kingdom of God.
I will listen. Will I hear God covenant with me?
—Vickey Eagleton, 2008
Ministry of Music: “Listen! Listen! I Hear Jesus Calling Me”
Allow the children to contribute to the Ministry of Music by singing or
playing instruments. Ask the congregation to listen to the music, noticing
how the Lord speaks to us in this way. The words and music are found after
this worship outline.
OR “O Holy Dove of God Descending” HS 285
OR “Meet Me in a Holy Place” NS 36
Disciples’ Generous Response
Each Sunday, as part of the Disciples’ Generous Response, we ask you to
integrate the message of “share equally” between Local and World Ministries
Mission Tithes. Generosity stories are provided to keep the church in touch
with how contributions to Mission Tithes spread the peace of Jesus Christ.
Please use the stories, testimonies, and up-to-date contribution information
as part of your offertory ministry. Visit
www.CofChrist.org/generositystories to print a copy, or contact your
pastor, congregational financial officer, or worship coordinator for a copy.
Have children stand by baskets or boxes to receive the canned and
packaged goods. Have them say “thank you” as people contribute.
Blessing and Receiving of Mission Tithes and World Hunger Offerings
*Hymn: “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say” HS 134
OR “Light Dawns on a Weary World” R-3
OR “Song of Shalom” SP 40
*Closing Prayer: “Shanti Peace Prayer” Congregation
May there be peace in the higher regions;
may there be peace in the firmament;
may there be peace on earth.
May the waters flow peacefully;
may the herbs and plants grow peacefully;
may all the divine powers bring us peace.
May we all be in peace, and only peace.
And may that peace come unto each of us.
Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!
—The Power of Prayer around the World by Glenn Mosley and Joanna Hill
(Templeton Foundation Press, Nov. 2000), 46
*Response
*Postlude
Sermon Helps
Scriptures: Isaiah 55:1–9; Psalm 63:1–8; I Corinthians 10:1–13;
Luke 13:1–9
Exploring the Scriptures
This is a familiar passage from Isaiah, read often in worship to celebrate
the comforting, loving invitation of God to “return to the Lord.” We find it
easy to imagine ourselves among those invited—to find delight in good food,
satisfying labor, abundant pardon, and a new living word for us today. We
instantly take this to be one of the truly universal passages in scripture.
Because it is so easy to find ourselves among those invited, perhaps we will
learn something from considering with whom we would have been standing when the
original invitation was made. The players in this drama are the nation of
Babylon, the people living in exile from Jerusalem, and the voice of Yahweh. The
first part of the book of Isaiah, chapters 1–39, is admonition and judgment for
Judah, which has gone astray. It ends with the warning that Jerusalem will be
carried away to Babylon (39:6). Second Isaiah, chapters 40–55, begins about 160
years later, around 540 BCE, just as Babylon is giving way to Persia, the new
superpower. In 539 the Persian ruler, Cyrus the Great, began allowing the return
of the captives to Jerusalem. In this passage, God is speaking to the exiles,
who now have a decision to make.
It might seem that the decision would be easy. Why would captives, once set
free, not return to their homes in Jerusalem? Well, they’ve been captives for a
really long time; the deportations occurred between 597 and 582. Many of them
were born in Babylon, with only stories of Jerusalem to go on. While many people
remained in Jerusalem, the leading lights of Judah are in Babylon, including
both the author of Second Isaiah and Ezekiel. They had been permitted to build
homes, farms, and families. Probably they continued to worship together much as
they had, but without the temple and the ability to perform sacrifices. They had
settled in, but even more important, many must have felt that Yahweh had given
up on them. The gods of Babylon had won. In the first section, verses 1–5, God
seeks to get our attention, once again, over the kind of excitement created by
the worship of the gods of Babylon. God asks, “Do you remember what my water
tastes like? Are you really satisfied with that bread? Can you remember how you
once listened carefully to me and how delighted you were with what you heard?”
In the second section, verses 6–9, we are called to repentance and at the
same time assured that God’s mercy is there for us. In the last two verses we
are given, in simple words, an explanation for this need to repent. Our ways are
not God’s ways; our thoughts are not God’s thoughts. We are invited to seek to
be more like God in living our life. (Questions of this nature can be posed as
explicit or implicit connections to the Communion table. The invitation is to
eat together that which satisfies.)
Central Ideas
1. Captivity can be a comfortable place.
2. Filling up on what does not satisfy means leaving no space for what is
really good. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “It is the nature of grace always
to fill spaces that have been empty.” Simone Weil: “Grace fills empty
spaces, but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is
grace itself which makes this void.”)
3. We often settle for substitute gods, from which any generation and
culture have plenty to choose.
4. God will not settle for this situation; however, God will continue to
invite and offer that which really satisfies.
Questions for the Speaker
1. What are some of your substitute gods?
2. What are you seeking in life?
3. Do you eat bread that does not satisfy? What would life be like if you
insisted only on satisfying food that was good for you?
4. Have you had the experience related in Isaiah 55:3 (“Incline your ear,
and come to me; listen, so that you may live.”)? What is it you may need to
hear?
Sources
Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 40–66 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox
Press, 1998).
Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40–66 (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press,
1969).
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