WORSHIP RESOURCES
Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50
Make Room for Emerging Life
Additional Scriptures
Genesis 45:3-11, 15; Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40; Luke 6:27-38; Doctrine and Covenants 163:11a
Preparation
Instead of a sermon, today’s main message comes from the people assembled. Three people need to “rehearse” the mime. A large Band-Aid is needed.
Prelude
Welcoming Hymn
Encourage participants to sing in languages other than their own.
“Great and Marvelous Are Thy Works” CCS 118
OR “Sing of Colors/De colores” CCS 332
Call to Worship
Amanda Berry Smith (1837-1915) was born a slave in Maryland and eventually gained her freedom in Pennsylvania. The following is an excerpt from her conversion story.
Preacher: “When you go to bed at night you don’t fix any way for yourself to breathe.”
Amanda: “No,” I said, “I never think about it.”
Preacher: “You go to bed, you breathe all night, you have nothing to do with your breathing, you awake in the morning, you had nothing to do with it.”
Amanda: “Yes, yes, I see it.”
Preacher: “You don’t need to fix any way for God to live in you: get God in you in all His fullness and He will live Himself.”
—An Autobiography: The Story of the Lord’s Dealings
with Mrs. Amanda Smith the Colored Evangelist.
In Her Words, Amy Oden, editor;
Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1994.
Hymn
“There’s a Church within Us” CCS 278
OR “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” CCS 99
Invocation
Response
Reflection “Fingerprints”
When the Word spoke and creation began to take form
Each particle taking form, caught in the breath of creation,
continued to become anew something else than what it had first
appeared to be
Such is the spirit of evolution
The Spirit continues to breathe and form shifts to take on more
than the first form appeared to be
New, different, but not
Some compare creation to a painting always in process
Subtle rendering of form and focus
Continual reshaping, re-purposing of the breath
flowing eternally from the Word
Nature shows the unique image projected by the Word
each snowflake, blossom, seed,
unique and individual
Equal in the flowing breath of the Word
Such is the nature of the Spirit
imprinting the Word on all that has come forth
Each carrying its own unique identity
Each having unique fingerprints to its form and function
All bearing one common source
All having the same source placed on form
All having the same source placed on function
All bearing the fingerprints of the Word
—Dean L. Robinson
Used with permission
Prayer for Peace
Peace Hymn
“Ososŏ/Come Now, O Prince of Peace” CCS 225
Sing several times
Encouraging participants to sing in languages other than their own.
OR “He Came Singing Love” CCS 226
Light the peace candle.
Peace Prayer
Dreamer of Reconciliation,
We come before you desperate for peace in a world so torn by hatred, violence, and carelessness. Brother and sister do not speak, neighbors build higher fences, and communities pick up weapons of words and steel. The hungry yearn for a piece of bread, the grieving yearn for compassion, and the refugees yearn for a safe pillow for their head.
We mourn for the pain of the world.
May we learn to use our words as a balm for these wounds. May we learn to use forgiveness to weave Your dream of peace, as forgiveness is what will heal the tears in the tapestry of humanity. May we thread love over anger, fold generosity over hunger, and braid grace overpayment. Strengthen our hands for this weaving, for the tapestry is as wide as it is beautiful.
We look for the possibility of peace amid pain.
In the name of Jesus, the master artist of peace. Amen.
—Tiffany and Caleb Brian
Ministry of Music or Congregational Hymn
“In the Bulb There Is a Flower” CCS 561
OR “O for a World” CCS 379
The Sharing Together
Print or project the questions.
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:35-38
Take the time to allow the worshipers to stand and witness about the times they’ve changed or grown. What is the seed for you? What seeds do you sow?
“Band-Aid” mime for three people
Needed: One Very Large Band-Aid.
Do not rush. Give observers a chance to take in what is happening.
Person 1 enters, crying with a hurt elbow.
Person 2 comes and puts a Band-Aid on the elbow and kisses it. Person 2 exits.
Person 3 enters, stumbles, falls, and cries with a hurt knee.
Person 1 takes off their Band-Aid and puts it on Person 3’s hurt knee and kisses it.
—Debra Bruch From “Christian Drama for the Worship Service
Used with permission.
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:42-45
Take the time to allow the worshipers to stand and witness of the times they’ve changed or grown.
- When did you experience growth from a negative experience?
- As a disciple of Jesus, when have you been able to do something beyond that which you thought you were capable?
Called to Dance
A few days ago, I was sitting in my car in a parking lot when I saw a family in distress. The grandmother was pointing at the back window of her car and yelling. She then stomped to the driver’s side and got in. Her daughter placed her very young child in the back seat of the car, in the middle, and went and looked at the problem. Just then a 12-year-old boy came and looked at the problem while his mother yelled at him.
The mother got into the back seat and the boy also got into the back seat of the car, with the baby in between. Then she hit him in the face. It was a glancing blow, so she hit him again. That time it hurt. It got me thinking.
It seems that we hit one another all the time. Sometimes it’s out of anger. Sometimes it’s unintentional. Sometimes it’s so we can feel important or good about ourselves. But we bump and crash and bang and hit and step on toes and do just about everything else when we relate to one another.
We do it to strangers. We do it to people we don’t like. We do it to people who hurt us. We do it to people who love us. We do it to people we love. We flail and hit and manipulate. Sometimes it’s a sneak attack. Behind-the-back attack. Crash, crash, crash.
But it doesn't end there. China and France and Iran and Brazil—crash, crash, crash!! Rich people, poor people—got a different view than me? Crash, crash, crash!! People get hurt bumping into one another. Some people get killed bumping into one another.
We are called to do, yes, and we are called to dance. In the movies sometimes we see a downward camera view of a group of people dancing. It’s pretty. It’s beautiful. Here are these people doing—in action—moving to the rhythm.
And not bumping into one another. Not colliding. Not crashing or banging or stepping on toes. Not hitting. Not hitting.
We’ve all been beat up, but we can choose to dance. “Step up ladies and gentlemen! The field is ripe and ready to harvest! So do something! You, here! You, over there! Come on up! You! Dance! It doesn’t matter how you move! Listen to the rhythm of the One!”
There! I can see it! I can see it! There’s one kind of dance, there’s another kind, and another and another and another. Different people, different dance, all dancing to the same rhythm, the same music—the song of the Spirit.
And there’s no collision at all. None. I see people weaving—arms and legs and hearts—sensing one another, a common call, a different dance—with nobody colliding. Just the beauty of motion.
Maybe it’s just a dream—when nobody stumbles or crashes or bumps—or hits. But I think maybe this dream can become real. Maybe when we decide to move to the rhythm of God.
I can imagine a day when we dance.
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:46-50
Hymn
“O Christ, My Lord, Create in Me” CCS 507
OR “God, the Source of Light and Beauty” CCS 593
Disciples’ Generous Response
Scripture Reading: Doctrine and Covenants 163:11a
Statement
Life takes space and time to grow. We look at the seed and we see the plant. We look at the child and we see the adult. All emerging life needs resources. We need to support all of life for all of life to grow. As we do, we also emerge to be who God wants us to be.
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).
Today is the Special Offering for the 2025 World Conference.
Visit the https://www.Cofchrist.org/2025-world-conference and the online worship helps for more information.
Blessing and Receiving of Local and Worldwide Mission Tithes
Closing Hymn
“My Life Flows On in Endless Song” CCS 263
OR “Though the Spirit’s Gifts Are Many” CCS 334
Benediction
Postlude
SERMON AND CLASS HELPS
Year C—Letters
Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany (Proper 2)
1 Corinthians 15:35–38, 42–50
Exploring the Scripture
We find ourselves at the end of the first letter to the Corinthians amid Paul’s arguments on the nature of the resurrection. Within the community, there is confusion about the physicality of the resurrection. A perspective that is materialistic and literal can infer a reanimation of corpses.
Paul tries to suggest a deeper spiritual reality. His view takes the body seriously as intrinsic to life but also implies the importance of transformation in life that is yet to be. He uses “two kinds of analogies (seeds and kinds of bodies) to argue for both somatic continuity and transformation” (Stephen C. Barton, Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, p. 1,348).
The first metaphor is of a seed. The substance of the seed both continues and changes as it is transformed in the dark of soil to become something new. “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies...you do not sow the body that is to be but a bare seed,” is a clear call to the continually transformative nature of life in Christ. When resurrection is considered a regular happening throughout the Christian life, people might ponder how the seed of who they are has broken open time and again for something new to emerge.
There is a cyclic, or spiraling, invitation to the deepening journey of life in Christ. This invitation bids disciples continually to plant the bare seeds of their lives in the soil of God’s love to be broken open into a new life. But the new life, too, is made of the substance of what has come before. This principle is true for individuals and communities.
We carry all the material from our personal and collective histories, our loves and losses, learning and thriving. It becomes part of what is to be even as we are transformed. A deep and personal continuity to resurrection honors the body and the essence of life while contributing to forming a new creation. Yet, the call to change also is unending and invites the death of one form to become another. Living the resurrection life is an embrace of this fundamental pattern of the Christian life.
Today’s text also echoes the protestor and activist’s chant, “they tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds” (This quote is originally by the Greek poet, Dinos Christianopoulos, often credited as a Mexican saying). We also find resonance in the words of Rubem Alves:
Such disciplined love is what has given prophets, revolutionaries, and saints the courage to die for the future they envisaged. They make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope.
—“Tomorrow’s Children” from Hijos de Mañana,
Salamanca, Spain: Ediciones Sigueme, 1976
The image of the transformative power of the seed has become a call to action in circumstances of injustice. It is also a summons to co-create God’s preferred future of justice, wholeness, and peace. The resurrection life is experienced when oppression is transformed into movements of peace and hope for the future.
Those exploring this text in community might consider the powerful metaphor of the seed and the invitation to the spiraling journey of the resurrection life. As Paul highlights in today’s text, every resurrection act is about continuity and transformation. Something essential about who we are continues even as we become a new creation in Christ, personally and collectively.
Central Ideas
- The resurrection life is about continuity and transformation. Something essential about who we are continues even as we become a new creation in Christ, personally and collectively. Living the resurrection life is an embrace of this fundamental pattern of Christian life.
- The image of the seed is a powerful metaphor that teaches the need for the death of an existing form so another can emerge. We experience this reality in our personal and communal lives, spiritual journeys, and in co-creating God’s future of justice and peace.
Questions for the Speaker
- How have you experienced both continuity and transformation during significant moments of change in your life?
- What forms in your life, or your community’s life, might need to die so new life-giving forms might emerge?
- How have you experienced the pattern of death and resurrection in your personal and communal life?
- How might the seed of our lives and bodies become our highest hope for the future?
- What is God’s resurrection call to us now?
SACRED SPACE: A RESOURCE FOR SMALL-GROUP MINISTRY
Year C, Letters
Seventh Week after Epiphany, Proper 2
1 Corinthians 15:35–38, 42–50 NRSVue
Gathering
Welcome
The season after Epiphany includes the weeks between Epiphany and Transfiguration Sunday.
Prayer for Peace
Ring a bell or chime three times slowly.
Light the peace candle
Dreamer of reconciliation, we come before you desperate for peace in a world torn by hatred, violence, and carelessness. Brother and sister do not speak, neighbors build higher fences, and communities pick up weapons of words and steel. The hungry yearn for a piece of bread, the grieving yearn for compassion, and the refugees yearn for a safe pillow for their head.
We mourn for the pain of the world.
May we learn to use our words as a balm for these wounds. May we learn to use forgiveness to weave your dream of peace, as forgiveness is what will heal the tears in humanity. May we thread love over anger, fold generosity over hunger, and braid grace over payment. Strengthen our hands for this weaving, for the tapestry is as wide as it is beautiful.
We look for the possibility of peace amid pain. In the name of Jesus, the master Artist of peace. Amen.
Spiritual Practice
Dwelling in the Word
I will read a scripture aloud. As you hear it, allow the words, images, sights, sounds, or phrases to come to mind. Enter the scene and allow the story to be real to you. After a moment of silence, I will read the scripture again. As you hear it, pay attention to faces that come to mind.
Read Luke 6:27–30 NRSVue.
“But I say to you who are listening: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who mistreat you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not ask for it back again.”
Pause. Read the scripture a second time. Invite group members to respond to these questions:
- What images and thoughts came to your mind while listening to this scripture?
- Whose face came to your mind during the second reading? How did that awareness change the meaning of this scripture for you? What does this say to you?
Sharing around the Table
1 Corinthians 15:35–38, 42–50 NRSVue
But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen and to each kind of seed its own body.
…So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the physical and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, made of dust; the second man is from heaven. As one of dust, so are those who are of the dust, and as one of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the one of dust, we will also bear the image of the one of heaven.
What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
We find ourselves at the end of the first letter to the Corinthians amid Paul’s arguments on the nature of the resurrection. There is confusion among the people about the physical nature of the resurrection. Does the body continue into the afterlife? This brings about a perspective that can infer a reanimation of corpses. Paul tries to suggest a deeper spiritual reality. Paul explains to the people that there is a transformation of life that is yet to be.
Paul uses the metaphor of a seed to help explain his position. The substance of the seed continues and changes as it is transformed in the dark soil to become something new. Seed-to-plant transformations show that bodily forms may change radically, yet be in continuity. We do not know what God’s creative plan has in store for “the body that is to be” (v. 37). If “sowing” leads to “raising,” then resurrection may not seem so strange.
There is a cyclic nature to the deepening journey of life in Christ. Disciples continually are called to plant the seeds of their lives into the soil of God’s love to be broken open into new life. That new life is contained in the substance of the old, transformed by the grace and love of God. There is a deep and personal continuity to resurrection that honors the body and the essence of life while contributing to forming a new creation.
Resurrection is not just for the dead, but continually takes place in the living as oppression is transformed into movements of peace and hope for the future.
Questions
- How have you simultaneously experienced continuity and transformation in significant moments?
- Have you experienced the pattern of death and resurrection in your personal or communal life?
- What is God’s resurrection call to you/us now?
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.
The offering prayer for Epiphany is adapted from A Disciple’s Generous Response.
Revealing God, may we always be generous. You have gifted each of us with boundless grace and unending love. May our response to that love and grace be humble service to others, and may generosity be part of our nature. Amen.
Invitation to Next Meeting
Closing Hymn
Community of Christ Sings 145, “Restless Weaver”
Closing Prayer
Optional Additions Depending on Group
- Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper
- Thoughts for Children
Thoughts for Children
Materials:
- magnet
- small pieces of metal such as paper clips or screws
Say: When we follow Jesus, we participate in God’s salvation for the world. Salvation means that God always is yearning for all people to be in relationship with each other, with God, and with Earth. Salvation takes place in our lives as we allow God to draw us close.
Show how the magnet draws the metal items to it. Let the children take turns with the magnet.
Say: Just like the magnet draws metal, God draws us close. As we live with Jesus we experience the loving gift of God’s grace. When we are baptized we become a new person. Not so much in how we look or sound, but in how we make our choices. As followers of Jesus, we choose to share the good news of God’s love, and the peace of Jesus Christ. This is how we express our commitment to lifelong discipleship in community with other disciples.
We experience salvation (drawing close to God) through Jesus Christ, but we also realize that God’s grace and love can work in many ways.
Thank the children for participating.