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PLEASE NOTE CONTRIBUTORS: Music Director: Ellen Everett; Guest Pianist:  Marsha Perry Juday; Support & Liturgist: Susan Vetterlein; Ushers: Susan Vetterlein & Ellen Cost; Flowers: “The Flower Committee”; Videographer: Judy Ritts; Minister: Rev. Gary Ritts

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Worship at First Congregational Church in Plympton, September 10, 2023

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Worship at First Congregational Church in Plympton, September 10, 2023

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SANCTUARY: At Home with God

From their devotional book, entitled: “Earth Prayers from Around the World,” editors Roberts and Amidon write:
“To the ancients, as well as to many contemporary seekers, the world is alive with spirit.  The surrounding landscape is infused with creativity and meaning and each place speaks to us of the divine.
”While certain places always have been recognized for the powerful presence of their unique localities or landforms, these places are not isolated entities.  All the physical things that make up our daily life share a common spiritual reality - as such they are all to be revered and respected.”

We, as human beings, are always in search of sanctuary. A place of peace and safety and understanding.
First, let’s take a look at the Biblical notion of sanctuary
Ancient Hebrew nation: “had the Tent of God’s presence with them in the desert.”  It traveled with them wherever they went.
Then a temple was built.  As Stephen reminds his listeners as recorded in the Book of Acts:
“David won God’s favor and asked God to allow him to provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob, but it was Solomon who built him a house.”
King Solomon, King David’s son and successor to the throne, oversaw the building of Jerusalem’s first temple in the mid-10th century BCE.  It was destroyed by invaders some 400 years later.
Stephen, urges his listeners to re-think their notion of God’s location:
“But the Most High God does not live in houses built by men; as the prophet Isaiah proclaims:
Heaven is my throne, says the Lord, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house would you build for
me? Where is the place for me to live in?
Did not I myself make all these things?”

We, too, struggle in our attempts to “locate” God.
As very little children, God becomes anyone who has power over our lives.
As we enter school, we become indoctrinated into our culture and perhaps begin to attend Sunday School, God becomes very much attached and housed in this building we call church and most specifically in this room we call Sanctuary.
To mature spiritually, we must set God free and find that presence closer than we are to ourselves.
Roberts and Amidon again:
“This notion of a richly sacralized world may seem strange to the mainstream western culture.  We live in a secular landscape.  We have been taught to identify the sacred primarily with cathedrals, churches, and temples.  The rest of the Earth is considered real estate - a mere “it” to be used as a resource for our benefit.  This effort to desacralize the world, dispel its sacred aura, is what made possible our commercial relationship to the land.

It has allowed us to plunder the natural word, destroying places of more power and beauty than we will ever be able to recreate.  It’s time we set God free.”
Sanctuary is a way of seeing a place as Sacred, where we actually experience the presence of God in a real and palpable way.
Finding sanctuary simply requires a broadening of our way of seeing.
Roberts and Amidon:
“While the distinction between spirit and matter is valid, no one can separate the two.  Spirit and matter are not two different realms of reality, two different layers of the universe.  One and the same reality will be material or spiritual depending on how we approach it.
". . every notion we have of the spirit has been shaped by our experience of the Earth.  If we have a wonderful sense of the divine it is because we live amid such awesome magnificence.  Clearly the Earth is our primary revelatory environment.”
Our personal sanctuaries might include:
Christ, in prayer, in worship, in church
A favorite, special, awe-inspiring place
Cabin, woods, beach
A gathering of family or friends
Riding in the car
Time on the water in a boat: sail, power, canoe, kayak, tube down the rapids
Thus, “sanctuary” is not so much a place of celebration as a place of contemplation and presence.  Think about where your sanctuary(s) might be.  Where are those special places?  Comforting, safe, filled with THE presence.

Hard as it may be to discover God in our lives, we must at least make sure we don’t trap God in any one particular location.
To be sure, even as symbols like stained glass, candles, cross, pews, even smells and liturgies may focus our attention on God’s presence, we must not leave God here.  We open our hearts and minds and souls - finding God as close as the very air we breathe.

I close with words  from “Mister God, This Is Anna,” by Fynn
God through the eyes of a child.
“When you’re little you understand Mister God.  He sits up there on his throne, a golden one of course; he has got whiskers and a crown and everyone is singing hymns like mad to him.  God is useful and usable.  You can ask him for things; he can strike your enemies deader than a doornail; and his pretty good at putting hexes on the bully next door, like warts and things.  Mister God is so understandable, so useful, and so usable, he is like some object – perhaps the most important object of all - but nevertheless an object and absolutely understandable.
“Later on you understand him to be a bit different, but you are still able to grasp what he is.  Even though you understand him, he doesn’t seem to understand you!

He doesn’t seem to understand that you simply must have a new bike, so your understanding of him changes a bit more.  In whatever way or state you understand Mister God, so you diminish his size.  He becomes an understandable entity among other understandable entities.
“So Mister God keeps on shedding bits all the way through your life until the time comes when you admit freely and honestly that you don’t understand Mister God at all.  At this point you have let Mister God be his proper size - and, wham, there he is . . (laughing at you.)”
As Anna would say, “We go to church to understand God less.”

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September 10, 2023   Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost     10:00 AM

GATHERING FOR WORSHIP

We greet our friends and neighbors quietly and allow the music of the prelude to lead us into a worshipful place in our hearts and minds.

Prelude                       Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah                           John Hughes, arr. Larry Shackley

Welcome and Announcements

Choral Introit

Call to Worship Psalm 132)

Leader: Let us go to the sanctuary of the Lord;

People:  let us worship at the footstool of his throne.

Leader: May your priests be clothed in godliness;

People:  may your loyal servants sing for joy.

Leader: For the sake of your servants

People: may we embrace the king you have anointed.

*Opening Hymn         In Loving Partnership

1.  In loving partnership we come, seeking, O God, your will to do. Our prayers and actions now receive; we freely offer them to you.

2.  We are the hands and feet of Christ, serving by grace each other's need.  We dare to risk and sacrifice with truthful word and faithful deed.
3.  Loving community we seek; your hope and strength within us move.  The poor and rich, the strong and weak are brought together in your love.
4.  In loving partnership, O God, help us your future to proclaim.  Justice and peace be our desire, we humbly pray in Jesus' name.

Unison Prayer of Invocation

O Loving God, we seek a place called home: a place where faith holds us and grace renews us.  May we find this a place called home where we are accepted as we are, where we are taken in and loved unconditionally; where your place is our place and place isn’t a building, but a way of being together in relationship, held together in your love.

And, O Loving God, may we make this a home to all who still yet seek a place of grace-filled sanctuary and gracious welcome. In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

SHARING GOD’S WORD

Scripture Reading                 Acts 7:44-50

Leader: This is the Word of the Lord.

People:   Thanks be to God.

Musical Interlude      Amazing Grace        arr. Joseph M. Martin

THE COMMUNITY AT PRAYER

Sharing of Joys and Concerns

Call to Prayer Lead Me, Lord

Lead me, Lord, lead me in thy righteousness, make thy way plain before my face. For it is thou, Lord, thou, Lord, only, that makest me dwell in safety.

Pastoral Prayer

Lord’s Prayer

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 debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.  Amen.

*Hymn of Preparation         Softly and Tenderly

SERMON       Sanctuary: At Home with God          Rev. Gary Ritts

THE SERVICE OF OFFERING

Collection and Offertory       Heaven's Gonna Be My Home

J. Paul Williams and Michael Barrett

*The Doxology (#46)

Praise God from whom all blessings flow; praise Him, all creatures here below; praise Him above, ye heavenly host: Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

* Unison Prayer of Dedication

Loving God, your grace provides us with secure shelter even amid our times of doubt and despair. Our lives periodically seem adrift from the refuge of your unwavering love.  Lift us from the depths of selfishness and greed. Restore our hope and help us to know your abundant love so that we may offer these financial gifts as devoted disciples of Jesus Christ. In his name, we pray.  Amen.

WE GO FORTH TO SERVE

*Hymn of Parting        Blest Be the Tie That Binds

*Benediction (Ephesians 3:20-21)

Now to him who, by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

We go in peace to love and serve the Lord, In the name of Christ. Amen.

Congregational Response      Go Now in Peace

Go now in peace. Never be afraid. God will go with you each hour of every day. Go now in faith, steadfast, strong and true. Know He will guide you in all you do. Go now in love, and show you believe. Reach out to others so all the world can see. God will be there, watching from above. Go now in peace, in faith, and in love.

POSTLUDE      Goldberg Variations 26, 28 and 29              J S Bach