Word & Worship for the Second Sunday after Epiphany

 

Service of Word and Prayer for the Second Sunday after Epiphany

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. And also with you.

Psalm 139: 1-6, 13-18    (today’s Responsorial Psalm) 1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me. 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;     you discern my thoughts from far away. 3 You search out my path and my lying down,     and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue,     O Lord, you know it completely. 5 You hem me in, behind and before,     and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;     it is so high that I cannot attain it. 13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;     you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully       made.     Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you,      when I was being made in secret,     intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.     In your book were written     all the days that were formed for me,     when none of them as yet existed. 17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!     How vast is the sum of them! 18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand;       I come to the end—I am still with you.

Oration for the Second Sunday after Pentecost

Thanks be to you, Lord Jesus Christ, most merciful redeemer, for the countless blessings and benefits you give. May we know you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly, day by day praising you, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Gospel Reading: John 1:43-51

⁴³ The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” ⁴⁴ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” ⁴⁶ Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” ⁴⁷ When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”  ⁴⁸ Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” ⁴⁹ Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” ⁵⁰ Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” ⁵¹ And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

Sermon (added at the end of the document)

Thanks and Offertory

The Prayers of Church: (from the Celebrate)

·         For continued progress for the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine and treatments, let us pray. Have mercy, O God.

·         For our bishops, Susan and Michael and all in authority in the church, let us pray. Have mercy, O God.

·         For the congregation of Peace Christian Fellowship in Chatham and their interim pastor, Pr. Paul Sodtke, let us pray. Have mercy, O God.

·         For all the needs and prayers we hold in our hearts… (a time of silent prayer)… let us pray. Hear us, O God.

The Lord’s Prayer

Let us pray as Jesus taught us:

Our Father, who art in heaven,

    hallowed be thy name,

    thy kingdom come,

    thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread;

    and forgive us our trespasses,

      as we forgive those who trespass against us;

    and lead us not into temptation,

       but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power,

         and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

First Reading: 1 Samuel 3:1-10

3 Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.

² At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; ³ the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. ⁴ Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” ⁵ and ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. ⁶ The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” ⁷ Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. ⁸ The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. ⁹ Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

¹⁰ Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

Benediction and Sending

The Lord bless us and keep us.

The Lord make his face shine on us and be gracious to us.

The Lord look upon us with favor and give us peace.

                            Amen.

Go in peace. Share the Good News.    Thanks be to God

 

 

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 (The second reading is included for the sake of being complete.)

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

¹² “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. ¹³ “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,” and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. ¹⁴ And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. ¹⁵ Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶ Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.” ¹⁷ But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. ¹⁸ Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. ¹⁹ Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? ²⁰ For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.

Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

·         There’s a lot going on today’s Gospel reading. Jesus tells his first disciples to follow him, although he hasn’t preached any messages or performed any miracles as yet. There must have been something about Jesus himself that led those men –Philip and Nathanael- to follow him.

·         All Philip said was Come and see. With a little back-and-forth, that became enough for Nathanael.

·         What was it that drew us to Jesus in our own lives? We may have had an experience of the presence of God. Maybe the Gospels seemed to make sense to us or gave us direction. Maybe we were baptized as infants or as young children and we simply stayed around because it was expected. Still the question continues as it changes to “what continues to draw us to Jesus?”

·         That is surely one question that can only be answered by each person speaking for themselves. No one can answer that question for another. At the baptism of an infant, the parents and sponsors speak for the child who cannot speak for themselves. That child will have to discover their own answer as they grow. That answer may be simple or it may be complicated. No one can say but only the one who answers.

·         If we “come and see”, if we follow Jesus, the path may be rocky and wind-y. It will not always be easy. Some have likened it to a pilgrimage and pilgrimages often go over some rough country. It could be similar to the wandering of the Hebrew people after their escape from Egypt and before entering the Promised Land, where the people depended on the Lord for directions and for food.

·         There are even those who liken it to a spiral staircase, the kind you’d see in a tower or in a lighthouse. You go over the same place again and again and again, yet rising higher with each step.

·         I cannot say what the reality of discipleship and following Jesus is. It might depend on the person. It does seem to move along at times by “fits and starts” as the old saying goes. We try and we fail. We advance and we fall back. On this we’re in good company, with the likes of Peter, Paul, Thomas, and the other disciples all through-out the Scripture and history as examples. I’m don’t think that any disciple has had an easy time of it. The following of Jesus requires change, movement, and often some struggle, especially since the struggle is often against ourselves.

·         This is something we need to remember and accept. We are both justified and sinful at the same time. Forgiveness permits us to start again and that often means that there are lessons that need to be relearned.

·         The 14^th-century German theologian and teacher, Meister Eckhart said this: Be willing to be a beginner every single morning. Every day, each of us follow Jesus as a disciple and in a way, we start over. Problems, emotions, temptations, and distractions all get in the way and make it a necessity to start again. This is the way humans are and Jesus would understand since he endured all those things.

·         Failure is not taking a wrong turn, making a mistake, or even falling into sin. The real failure would not be to fall down, but to refuse to get up again.

·         Each day there is something new to learn about the love of God. Each day there is something to be experienced in that love that we have not experienced before, as hard as it might be to perceive.

·         Each day we are called to “come and see” once again. That call is both perpetual and patient. We can hear it every day, no matter how many times we’ve answered that call before. Philip may have said it to Nathanael in response to Jesus’ call to Follow me. That call to us is as real and as surprising to us as it was to those two original disciples.

Philip said to him, “Come and see.”