WORSHIP RESOURCES

 

Ordinary Time (Proper 7)

Galatians 3:23-29

One in Christ

 

Additional Scriptures

1 Kings 19:1-15a; Psalm 42 and 43; Luke 8:26-39; Doctrine and Covenants 165:2b

 

Preparation

Consider having youth lead the Invitation to Worship. You could also have the Invitation to Worship sung as a solo. The Focus Moment video, “Missio Dei,” or “the Mission of God made flesh through the life of Jesus Christ” was produced by the Community of Christ and can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfZfUWLil88. 

 

Prelude

Gathering Hymn

“In Christ There Is No East or West”     CCS 339

OR “How Shall We Find You”    CCS 10

 

Welcome

Responsive Invitation to Worship

Leader:            Who is God—young or old?

All:                  near or far? she or he?

Leader.:           All of these and none at all,

All:                  loving all, loving me.

Leader:            God is young, God is old,

All:                  God is she, God is he,

Leader:            mother’s kiss and father’s hug,

All:                  loving all, loving me.

—Based on “Who Is God”, by Brian Wren, CCS 9,
© 1993 Hope Publishing Company

Hymn of Transformation       

“Who Is My Mother, Who Is My Brother?”     CCS 336

OR “Help Us Accept Each Other”                CCS 333

OR “Somos el cuerpo de Cristo/We Are the Body of Christ”      CCS 337

 

Prayer of Invitation

Response

Disciples’ Generous Response

Statement

We can help spread God’s love by being kind and sharing with others. Maybe by giving our money, we can be a rainbow for someone else and that can help God’s beautiful love shine for everyone to see.

If you have participants joining the worship online, remind them that they can give through www.CofChrist.org/give or through eTithing at www.eTithing.org (consider displaying these URLs).

Scripture Reading: Doctrine and Covenants 165:2b

Blessing and Receiving of Local and Worldwide Mission Tithes

 

Focus Moment Video: Missio Dei/Mission of God

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfZfUWLil88

Print or project these questions following the video. Allow time

for individual reflection or conversations in pairs.

·       What foundational moments have shaped your understanding of the Mission of God? What was it about these moments that made them significant?

·       When do you feel most alive? What most excites and compels you to continue to engage in God’s mission? (Why are you here? Why is it worth it to you?)

 

Scripture Reading: Galatians 3:23-29

 

Hymn of Confession

“Kyrie Eleison”     CCS 184

OR “Soften My Heart”      Sing twice.     CCS 187

 

Morning Message
Based on Galatians 3:23-39

 

Prayer for Peace

Light the peace candle.

            Peace Prayer

            “When we know that love for simple things is better,

then we know that God still goes the road with us,

then we know that God still goes that road with us.”

—From “When the Poor Ones/Cuando el pobre,”
CCS 290/291, by Jose A. Olivar and Miguel Manzano,
©1971 OCP

 

God of the Road,

Our world is filled with poor ones. The poor in spirit, poor in health, poor in love,  poor in food. At times it feels so lonely and hopeless. How can we help all the poor ones? How can we help when we, ourselves, feel like the poor ones?

 

Then we remember that you bless the poor in spirit! The poor in health show us how to care for one another. It is the poor in love who show us how to love others. The poor in food share generously, leading the way for us all. This is the work of peace. This is the work of your church. This is the work of your people.

 

May we cultivate love for the simple things. May we be willing to be comforted and led by the poor ones. And may we keep watch for you on the road with us.

 

In the name of Jesus, who walks with us on the road to peace. Amen.

 

Closing Hymn

“Christ Leads!”    CCS 28

OR “For All the Saints”  CCS 331

 

Sending Forth: Responsive Reading

Leader:            We are pilgrims on this journey, here together on the road.
All:                  We are here to help one another walk the mile and bear the                            load.

Leader:            Will you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you?

All:                  We pray that we might have the grace to let you be our                                    servant

too.

Leader:            I will hold the Christ-light for you in the nighttime of your fear.

All:                  We will hold our hands out to you and speak the peace you

long to hear.

Leader:            I will weep when you are weeping, when you laugh, I’ll laugh

with you.

All:                  We will share joys and sorrows…

…till we’ve seen this journey through.

—Based on “We Are Pilgrims on a Journey,” CCS 550, by Richard Gillard, ©1977 Universal Music-Brentwood Benson Publishing

 

Postlude

 

 

SERMON AND CLASS HELPS

Year C—Letters

Ordinary Time (Proper 7)

Galatians 3:23–29

 

Exploring the Scripture

Last week’s lection focused on justification by faith rather than by obedience to the law. Paul continues comparing law and faith by presenting the law as a necessary guardian and disciplinarian before Jesus’s arrival.

Paul was a Jew and a Pharisee, trained to obey all Jewish laws strictly. He had studied the centuries-old rabbinical interpretation to apply the laws to everyday life. He was a keeper of Jewish customs and traditions, and he honored them. Until he met Christ, he would have viewed life under the law as freedom.

Paul’s encounter with the Risen Christ transformed him. He understood salvation as a gift from God, unconditional and life-affirming. In retrospect, he saw the law as a guardian of the customs and traditions he had honored. More than that, it had been a strict discipline, dictating right and wrong behaviors and making life uncomfortable. It could reveal where the people had gone astray, but it could not provide a satisfactory cure for those sins.

For Paul, the law came to represent confinement. Grace was freedom. Faith was a way of seeing the world—and life—through the lens of grace.

When Christ came, faith allowed all people to access God’s grace and live anew as children of God. There no longer was a need for a disciplinarian. Thus, the Gentile Christians to whom Paul wrote did not have to follow the Judaic traditions, laws, and customs to be full-fledged, active, and accepted Christians. Grace made them whole, just as grace made the Jewish Christians whole.

Being baptized into Christ meant they were “clothed” with Christ (v. 27). “Wearing” Christ’s presence as a cloak mitigates all the superficial distinctions that separate people, such as ethnicity, gender, and class. All those who are baptized Christians are of equal worth. “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (v. 28). The differences continue to be there, but they no longer define the individual. Christ defines each of us. The small groups to which a person belongs become secondary to the primary community of Christ.

Paul’s radical inclusiveness must have thrilled the Gentile Christians and threatened the Jewish Christians. God had promised the Jews that they were God’s chosen people from ancient times. As children of Abraham, they inherited all the promises God made in his covenant with Abraham: a multitude of offspring, a land of their own, and a special relationship with the Divine. But Abraham’s covenant did not include Gentile nations or peoples. Jewish Christians believed they still inherited those promises from their Jewish roots through Jesus, Abraham’s heir.

Through the years, the Jewish people publicly, loudly, and self-righteously renewed the dividing walls that separated them from Gentiles. Gentiles were outcasts, impure, religiously, and morally inferior to Jews.

But Paul declared that in Christ all divisions were abolished. Because they belonged to Christ, who was Abraham’s heir, Gentile Christians were considered children of Abraham. They were entitled to the promises made to Abraham and were equal to Jewish Christians. Their behaviors did not need to be governed by a disciplinarian, only by Christ, whose Spirit lives in them. They are new people creating a new community.

Our congregations inherited that call and challenge to be a new, inclusive community.

 

Central Ideas

1. Paul presents the law as a necessary guardian and strict disciplinarian, a forerunner to Jesus’s arrival.
2. For Paul, the law came to represent confinement. Grace is freedom. Faith is a way of seeing the world—and life—through the lens of grace.
3. Being clothed in Christ mitigates all the superficial distinctions that separate people, such as ethnicity, gender, and class. All are equal in God’s eyes.

 

Questions for the Speaker

1. What acts as a guardian or disciplinarian in your life? How can you center your life in Christ free you from that bondage?
2. What does it mean for you to be “clothed in Christ?” What does it mean for your congregation?
3. What would be the modern equivalent for “children of Abraham and heirs of his promises?” What promises can you claim as a Christian?
4. How is your congregation living Galatians 3:28?

SACRED SPACE: A RESOURCE FOR SMALL-GROUP MINISTRY

Year C Letters

Ordinary Time, Proper 7

Galatians 3:23–29 NRSVue

 

Gathering

Welcome

Ordinary Time is the period in the Christian calendar from Pentecost to Advent. This span is without major festivals or holy days. During Ordinary Time we focus on our discipleship as individuals and a faith community.

 

Prayer for Peace

Ring a bell or chime three times slowly.

Light the peace candle.

God of peace, bless this gathering of your people. Help us listen to each other—our blessings, our joys, and our wounds—that we might make peace between us. Help us remember to pray to you for help and peace.

Bless this Earth that sustains us. Help us know our place in the world as people of your peace. Help us stand against injustice and bigotry. Help us stand with those who are misunderstood because of their inability to tell their stories, for whatever reason.

Help us to declare often and loudly our love for you and the blessings you so richly have bestowed on us. As we light this peace candle, let your love burn so brightly within us that we cannot help but reflect your peace. Amen.

Spiritual Practice

Inner-healing Prayer

Read aloud:

In the scriptural reading for today, Jesus heals a man with demons inside him. These demons are called Legion, which in the time of Jesus, was another name for the Roman army. A Legion was the very thing that was causing oppression among people in the region.

We all have insecurities and “demons” within us that keep us from being our whole selves. Today’s spiritual practice addresses our need to seek healing for the wounds within us, and those things that oppress and divide us.

Inner-healing prayer helps us focus on emotional wounds, deep needs, issues such as self-hatred, fear, inability to forgive, and need for approval. These wounds can be painful and difficult to face alone. We seek the presence of Christ, and encouragement from the community of faith to help us in this healing process.

As I read the following prayer from Psalm 46 allow it to sink deeply into your heart.

Read Psalm 46:1–5 NRSVue.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns.

I will read the passage again. This time ask yourself the following questions.

1.     What insecurities do I have?

2.     Where do I find it difficult to forgive others?

3.     Where do I find it difficult to forgive myself?

Read Psalm 46:1–5 a second time

Invite group members to choose a partner and share their answers. An alternative is to spend time in silent reflection. Allow five to six minutes for these activities.

 

Sharing Around the Table

Galatians 3:23–28 NRSVue

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be reckoned as righteous by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

Paul was a Jew and a Pharisee, trained to obey all Jewish laws. He was a keeper of Jewish customs and traditions and honored them. Until he met Christ, he would have viewed life under the (Jewish) law as freedom.

Paul’s encounter with the Risen Christ transformed him. He understood salvation as a gift from God, unconditional and life-affirming. In retrospect, he saw the law as a guardian of the customs and traditions, dictating right and wrong behaviors and making life uncomfortable. For Paul, the law came to represent confinement. Grace was freedom. Faith was a way of seeing the world and life through the lens of grace.

This perspective allowed all people to access God’s grace and live anew as children of God. Thus, the Gentile Christians to whom Paul wrote did not have to follow the Judaic traditions, laws, and customs to be full-fledged, active, and accepted Christians. Grace made them whole, just as grace made the Jewish Christians whole.

Being baptized into Christ meant they were “clothed with Christ. “Wearing faith and oneness in Christ as a cloak mitigates all the superficial distinctions that separate people, such as ethnicity, gender, and class. All those who are baptized Christians are of equal worth. “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (v. 28). The differences continue to be there, but they no longer define the individual. Christ defines each of us. The small groups to which a person belongs become secondary to the primary community of Christ.

Paul’s radical inclusiveness must have thrilled the Gentile Christians and threatened the Jewish Christians. God had promised the Jews that they were God’s chosen people from ancient times. But this covenant did not include Gentile nations or peoples. Jewish Christians believed they still inherited those promises from their Jewish roots. Through the years, the Jewish people publicly, loudly, and self-righteously renewed the dividing walls that separated them from Gentiles. Gentiles were outcasts, impure religiously and morally inferior to Jews.

But Paul declared that in Christ, all divisions were abolished. Because they belonged to Christ, Gentile Christians were equal to Jewish Christians. They were new people, creating a new community.

 

Questions

1. What “law of custom or tradition” might need to be reviewed or transformed in your life?
2. How do you tend to look for divisions or commonalities between yourself and others?
3. What does it mean for you to put on the cloak of Jesus?

 

Sending

Generosity Statement

Faithful disciples respond to an increasing awareness of the abundant generosity of God by sharing according to the desires of their hearts; not by commandment or constraint.

—Doctrine and Covenants 163:9

The offering basket is available if you would like to support ongoing, small-group ministries as part of your generous response. You also may give at CofChrist.org/give.

This offering prayer is adapted from A Disciple’s Generous Response:

Discipling God, as we navigate our world of debt and consumerism, help us to save wisely, spend responsibly, and give generously. In this way may we prepare for the future and create a better tomorrow for our families, friends, the mission of Christ, and the world. Amen.

Invitation to Next Meeting

 

Closing Hymn

Community of Christ Sings 359, “We Are One in the Spirit”

 

Closing Prayer

 

Optional Additions Depending on Group

• Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper
• Thoughts for Children

 

 

Thoughts for Children

Materials:

·       bowl

·       different kinds of fruit

Show the children the fruit (not yet in the bowl). Talk about each kind of fruit and ask what the children think of each one, how they are different or the same.

Put all the fruit in a bowl.

Say: The fruits belong to God, because God made them. Each has a different flavor and texture, but all belong to God, who made them.

Like the fruit, God made us all with different ideas, gifts, personalities, and shapes. As part of God’s community, we are diverse, but all are of equal value or worth.

Explain that this is why we appreciate our differences and work together.

We each add something different and special.

Share the fruit as a snack with the group. Thank the children for participating.