Welcome - Roger Cram, MCCC Elder
We are a community seeking to have open minds, open hearts, and open arms, building community in a fragmented world.
- We want to welcome everyone who is in the house today, everyone online, and everyone downstairs watching our live telecast. We are grateful for all the many ways you can join us for worship on this Lord’s Day.
- Let’s prepare our hearts and minds for worship with our Opening Scripture Reading…
Prelude - Dove of Peace by Harry Strack, piano by Jan Green
Opening Scripture - Colossians 3:12-14
12 As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
*Response - Weave
Weave, weave, weave us together,
Weave us together, in unity and love.
Weave, weave, weave us together,
weave us together, together in love.
*Call to Worship - Roger Cram
ONE: You who are poor, why have you come?
ALL: To hear good news.
ONE: You who are brokenhearted, why have you come?
ALL: To heal our hearts.
ONE: You who are captive, why have you come?
ALL: To hear words of freedom.
ONE: You who are prisoners, why have you come?
ALL: To be released from what binds us.
ONE: You who mourn, why have you come?
ALL: To receive comfort.
ONE: ALL are welcome here in this place,
at this table, where Jesus offers blessing for all.
ALL: Amen
~ written by Joanna Harader
Opening Hymn - Holy, Holy, Holy #4
1 Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee:
holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
Invitation to Generosity - Roger Cram
Children are very impressionable. The things they see at a young age often profoundly change their lives.
Such was the case with Hannah Taylor. At the age of five, she was traveling with her mother to a shopping mall when she saw a homeless man going through a garbage can.
“Mommy, Mommy. Stop the car!” Hannah shouted. “What is that man doing!”
Her mother replied, “He is looking for something to eat. He does not have a home. He is hungry.”
Hannah, at her tender age, never heard of such a horrible thing. She immediately opened the car door and, to her mother’s disbelief, ran up to the homeless man. Hannah had a small change purse, and she emptied its contents into the homeless man’s hand—two nickels, three pennies, one lint ball, and a tiny, wooded ladybug. Hannah’s mom then “rescued” her, and they went into the shopping mall.
The homeless man saw the ladybug among the coins and felt Hannah did not mean to give it to him. He wanted to return it to her. He spent the next several hours looking for her throughout the mall. Finally, as Hannah and her mother were leaving the mall, the homeless man saw them and returned the toy ladybug to Hannah.
Hannah was shocked to learn there were homeless people. She told her parents she wanted to help all the homeless people in the world. Her parents did not say, “You’re too young to understand that you can’t do that. Instead they said, “Go for it!”
Hannah then asked her first grade teacher if she could speak to the class about the homeless man. She wanted other kids to help her. Hannah’s class started a bake sale, an art sale, and a clothing drive. All the revenue was given to a local homeless mission.
At age 6, Hannah started the Ladybug Foundation. She painted her younger sister’s empty baby food jars to look like ladybugs with a slit cut in the lid for donations. She distributed these jars throughout the Winnipeg school system.
At age 11, she was traveling throughout Canada giving speeches and raising money for the homeless. One of her meetings was with the prime minister of Canada.
A homeless shelter for men, women, and children now existed in Winnipeg named after Hannah.
At age 11 she started “Big Bosses Lunches” where she invited many large corporation CEOs to a noon meal. At these gatherings, she drew pictures of ladybugs with crayons and auctioned them off to the CEOs. The cheapest bid was $10,000.00.
At this point, Hannah’s Ladybug Foundation had raised over four million dollars.
At age 13 Hannah was named as one of the most influential women in Canada.
When Hannah was 15 years old, I was in charge of finding a keynote speaker for our local Rotary Club District Conference. I called Hannah on the phone. She was in Amsterdam with her father giving fund-raising speeches for the homeless. She said she would be flying home the day before I needed her to speak, and she would be happy to reschedule her flight to stop in Cleveland on her way to Winnipeg.
I got busy and painted forty empty baby-food jars to look like ladybugs, one for each table at the Rotary Conference dinner.
Hannah’s speech was amazing. After our dinner, I counted over $1,000 had been stuffed into the ladybug jars. I gave this money to Hannah’s father.
Let us pray:
Dear Lord, we have learned that children do not have enough life experience to know they can’t do things. When their goals are too grandiose to be possible, they don’t know this, so they simply do it anyway.
When our adolescent children have an idea to save the world, let us use caution with our practical and logical minds. Let us not say, “You’re too young. That can’t be done. You’ll understand when you are older” Instead let us say, “Go for it!”
Let us not discourage with practical thoughts the grandiose endeavors of our children. We might be discouraging another Hannah Taylor from emerging into our world..
Children’s Moment - Pam Auble
Pastoral Prayer - Jon Secaur
Communion
Meditation -MaryEllen Hamlin
Communion Hymn - We Come as Guests Invited #386, v.3
One bread is ours for sharing, one single, fruitful vine,
our fellowship declaring renewed in bread and wine:
renewed, sustained, and given by token, sign, and word,
the pledge and seal of heaven, the love of Christ our Lord.
Prayer & Lord’s Prayer - MaryEllen Hamlin
Words of Institution - Roger Cram
The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and after giving thanks to God, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying: Take, eat. This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way he took the cup, saying: This cup is the new covenant sealed in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this in remembrance of me. Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the saving death of the risen Lord, until he comes.
Scripture - Luke 4:14-30
14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ 22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ 23He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.” ’ 24And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Sermon - "The Ins and Outs" - Jon Secaur
Closing Hymn - In Christ there is No East or West #687, v.1 & 4
1 In Christ there is no east or west, in him no south or north,
but one community of love throughout the whole wide earth.
4 In Christ now meet both east and west, in him meet south and north:
all loving hearts are one in him throughout the whole wide earth.
Benediction - Roger Cram
Dear Lord,
We leave our church family now having been enriched with the spirit of giving. We have been reminded to clothe ourselves with compassion and kindness, to forgive each other; just as the Lord forgives us, and to surround ourselves with love, for it is love that binds us together in perfect harmony.
AMEN
Postlude - They’ll Know We are Christians by Edward Broughton, piano by Jan Green