Purple Chalice Month
Welcome to the Mantua Center Christian Church! We are so glad that you joined us online and hope you will be blessed by the service today. This is our Purple Chalice month and every week we are exploring how we might unite together as Christians to be the people Christ has called us to be. There can be a lot of tension and division in our culture, but the church is a place to come together to follow Jesus Christ. God’s grace and peace be with you and welcome to worship!
Prelude - “The God of Abraham Praise” Sarah Park
Welcome to the Mantua Center Christian Church
We are a community seeking to have open minds, open hearts, and open arms.
Greet with your neighbors… Thank you for joining us here in the house and online. Welcome to everyone!
Scripture Reading - Psalm 30
10 Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me!
O Lord, be my helper!’11 You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth
and clothed me with joy,
12 so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.
*Welcoming Song - “Come and Find the Quiet Center” #575, v. 1
Come and find the quiet center in the crowded life we lead,
find the room for hope to enter, find the frame where we are freed:
clear the chaos and the clutter, clear our eyes, that we can see
all the things that really matter, be at peace, and simply be.
*Call to Worship - Linda Idoine
ONE: We come today to listen for hope, to pray for strength, and to experience God’s love.
ALL: As the deer longs for flowing water in the wilderness, we long to drink deeply of God’s promise for us.
ONE: Knowing God is here, we join together on our journey.
ALL: Lead us to your still waters, O Lord.
ONE: With shouts of praise and songs of thanksgiving, we come to celebrate the God of hope, the Spirit of peace, and the Christ of redeeming love.
ALL: Clothe us in the love of Christ, O Lord. We come to worship and praise!
~ written by Sarah Dunning Lambert
*Opening Hymn - “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” #16, vs. 1-3
1 Come, thou Fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it, mount of thy redeeming love.
2 Here I raise to thee an altar; hither by thy help I've come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure, safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood.
3 O to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter, bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, how I feel it, prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.
Invitation to Generosity
Invitation - Linda Idoine
Offertory
*Response #47 - “Praise God from Whom All Blessing Flow”
Praise God from whom all blessings flow; praise God, all creatures here below;
praise God above, ye heavenly host: praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Offering Prayer - Linda Idoine
Children’s Moment - Rev. Chad Delaney
- 4th for the 4C’s
Pastoral Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer - Rev. Chad Delaney
Pastor: Please reveal your compassion,
Response: Loving God, bring wholeness to all.
Encircling Others with Prayer— written by Bruce Prewer
Please reveal your compassion,
Loving God, bring wholeness to all.
God of all things seen and unseen, if you had insulated yourself from the pain of the world, then your name could not be love and our condition would be without hope. Thank you for being so personally involved, for revealing your complete commitment in Jesus of Nazareth. Through him we pray with hope, in him we pray with love.
Let your healing love be known this day by all who suffer ailment of body, or distress of mind, or agony of spirit. Let your intimate love be known today by all who feel forgotten or lost, and all who are walking in the dark valley of despair.
Please reveal your compassion,
Loving God, bring wholeness to all.
Let your fierce love this day redress the wrongs of all who suffer exploitation, injustice, abuse, neglect, violence or unwarranted imprisonment. Let your nurturing love today encourage those who are gathering resolve to make tough decisions, take on new responsibilities, or break free from some bondage.
Please reveal your compassion,
Loving God, bring wholeness to all.
Let your relentless love this day upset congregations that have become self-centred or even contemptuous of other churches. Let your reconciling love today gather together the separated Christians, and make them aware of the fellowship and mission of the one, universal body of Christ
Please reveal your compassion,
Loving God, bring wholeness to all.
Thank you for hearing us, most loving God. With the whole body of believers in time and eternity, we want to love, praise and serve you, today and evermore.
Hear now our silent prayers…..
Unite us together in the prayer Jesus taught us…
Communion
Meditation - Roger Cram
Communion Hymn - “Seed, Scattered, and Sown” #395, vs. 1, 3
[Refrain]
Seed, scattered and sown, wheat, gathered and grown,
bread, broken and shared as one, the Living Bread of God.
Vine, fruit of the land, wine, work of our hands,
one cup that is shared by all; the Living Cup, the Living Bread of God.
1 Is not the bread we break a sharing in our Lord?
Is not the cup we bless the blood of Christ outpoured? [Refrain]
3 As wheat upon the hills was gathered and was grown,
So may the church of God be gathered into one. [Refrain]
Prayer - Steve Hurd
Words of Institution - Steve Hurd
Music: “Nearer, My God, to Thee” [by L. Mason] - Sarah Park
Scripture - Colossians 3:12-17 (The Message translation)
Purple Chalice Weekly Villager
So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.
Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.
Sermon - Unite in Love
Anyone have a “Golden boy?” In the famous Seinfeld sitcom there is an episode where Jerry talks about his “Golden Boy.” It's his best t-shirt, his favorite t-shirt. It's the t-shirt he says is the first shirt he wears out of the laundry. The shirt that goes out there and plays every game!
Do you have a Golden Boy or Golden Girl? (another great show)
In the episode Jerry’s Golden Boy is only 6 years old. Well I got a Golden boy that is about 32 years old. It's a basketball t-shirt I got from an Eastbay catalog in 1992. It says on it: “Yo…by the time you read this I will have scored on you.” Yes…I was SOOOO cool back in the day. I actually can still wear it today because in 1992, when I wasn’t barely 100lbs, I wore an XL shirt. Super baggy because that was the style at the time.
What was the style in your time? Jeans and a leather jacket? Bell-bottoms or psychedelic print? Platform shoes or polyester suit? Pegged pants or spandex shorts? Nike shoes and hoodie?
Yes, we will be captured by the various styles at the time and of course there will be rebellious strands within us that will want to be counter-cultural as well. Our clothes can be a way to make a statement. They can be a way to blend in or hide. Away to be comfortable. A way to become smarter???
In 2012, a couple of social scientists named Adam Hajo and Adam Galinsky published a study that put forward the idea of “enclothed cognition.” They wanted to look at “the symbolic meaning of the clothes and the physical experience of wearing them”. So for the experiment they had two groups asked to focus on a task. One group wearing a white coat which was described to them as a “Lab coat.” The other group got the same white coat, but it was described to them as a “painter’s coat.” They found that the people who thought they were wearing a lab coat were more attentive and focused than the other group. If we associate those clothes with being astute, precise, focused, and scientific...we will behave as such. Interesting how the external can impact the internal and visa versa.
They made a couple conclusions:
- Wearing certain clothes can enhance your cognitive performance and
That the cultural MEANING of the clothing matters and will influence your behavior if it's relevant to what you are doing. If the test were about who can be the best painter, perhaps the painter’s coat would have worked better for them! What we wear matters to how we perceive ourselves and what we are doing.
So what does this mean for us as people of faith? Do we need to focus more on clothes?
Do we need to press people to wear certain clothes when they come to church on Sundays?
Do we need to make sure everyone is wearing Christian t-shirts, hats, necklaces, etc?
Do we--as Christians--need to be outfit trackers and fashion consultants?!
Or…..maybe this might give us insight into our passage today.
As it turns out, in the Bible, the Apostle Paul mentions clothes multiple times:
- Romans 13:14 - Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ
- 1 Cor 15:53 - For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable
- 2 Cor 5:2 - We long to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling
- Gal 3:27 - For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ
Paul is all in on Christians having a Dress Code. Have you ever gotten dress coded? No shirt, no shoes, no service? Ooops…this was a black tie event? Every school, work places, businesses, campgrounds, churches…there’s always a dress code. Sometimes spoken, sometimes not. What is the Christian dress code? Pauls says in our passage:
“dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you---compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline.” THESE are the clothes God wants us to wear.
And if the DRESS CODE of the Christian is compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline… If that is the case, much of American culture is gonna get Dress Coded. The political discourse will get Dress Coded. The cruelty, the indifference, the way we talk and think about one another needs to dress coded. We need a new wardrobe! To put on what God has picked out for us!
In the language of the study, we might conclude:
- Wearing God’s Wardrobe can enhance our spiritual performance
- Wearing God’s Wardrobe matters and influences our behavior in all the contexts of our lives.
Compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Can we unite around those? Can we unite around LOVE which holds all of them together?
Because these values and ways of being are the church’s Golden Boys! These are the best and nicest shirts we got. These are our dresses and suits for special occasions. These are our favorite house pants and hoodies for relaxing. These are our casual clothes for everyday use. These are the first items we put on out of the laundry. The ones that go out there and play every game!
But hey, when we look in the mirror sometimes we have to admit that sometimes some of our Christ clothes don’t really fit. Maybe they haven’t for awhile.
Richard Rohr once said, “Christians are usually sincere and well-intentioned people until you get to any real issues of ego, control power, money, pleasure, and security. Then they tend to be pretty much like everybody else. We are often given a bogus version of the Gospel, some fast-food religion, without any deep transformation of the self.”
Indeed, we are called to that inward transformation so our outward expression of faith would be honest, authentic, and really reflect the life of Jesus. To put on Christ, is to be more like him every day.
And there’s only one person we can work on when it comes to this. Ultimately, we can’t dress someone else. But we can dress ourselves. As someone at Wednesday's study said, “We can wear love everyday. To always accessorize with Love!” So this week, as you get dressed…maybe take an extra moment to put on “Compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline….and love.”
We finish with Paul’s powerful words from the Message translation: “And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it. Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives.”
Let’s put our Christ clothes on and get to work!
*Closing Hymn - Take My Life #609, vs. 1-2, 6
1 Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days;
let them flow in ceaseless praise,
let them flow in ceaseless praise.
2 Take my hands, and let them move at the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be
swift and beautiful for thee,
swift and beautiful for thee.
6 Take my love, my Lord, I pour at thy feet its treasure-store.
Take myself, and I will be
ever, only, all for thee,
ever, only, all for thee.
Benediction - Rev. Chad Delaney
- United in Christ, we are called to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world.
- Blessed with music With Jon and Sarah
- Sunday Chats
- Wednesday studies
- The Sanctuary will be open for prayer between 6-7pm…
Desmond Tutu
"We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God's family."
Go, then, clothing yourself with love, accessorizing with kindness, and uniting around the life and teachings of our Savior Jesus Christ. Go in Peace.
Benediction Response - “Blest Be the Tie that Binds” #433, v. 1
1 Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.
Postlude - “God Be With You Till We Meet Again” [by William G. Tomer] - Sarah Park