FOR REFLECTION
Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.
– Thurgood Marshall
JUST FOR LAUGHS
Church Notice: Since 500 people can be in Home Depot at one time… Today’s service will be held in the plumbing section.
Call to Worship: Micah 6:8
God has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
Opening Hymn: Great is Thy Faithfulness
Passing of the Peace:
Pastor Don: May the Peace of Christ be with you. Congregation at Home: And also with you. Pastor Don: Consider three ways that you can extend peace to one another this week through a phone call, text, or email.
Christian Reading: Luke 4:18-21
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Inspirational Hymn/Video (join in the singing): “Most People Are Good”, Luke Bryan
Theme Reading: C.S. Lewis, 1939 “Living in Wartime”
“I think it is important to try to see the present calamity in … perspective. The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice… We are mistaken when we compare war with ‘normal life.’ Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we think most tranquil…turn out, on closer inspection, to be full of cries, alarms, emergencies.”
SERMON
“Inequities of Disaster!“
Rev. Don Ludwig
If you prefer to read the sermon text, click here.
Theme Hymn (View & Listen): “We Shall Overcome” Morehouse College Glee Club
Take a moment to listen to the music, perhaps close your eyes, breathe deeply, and simply be in this moment!
Pastoral Prayer: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear” (Psalms 46:1-2).
Prayer for a Pandemic, written By Cameron Bellm
May we who are merely inconvenienced
Remember those whose lives are at stake.
May we who have no risk factors
Remember those most vulnerable.
May we who have the luxury of working from home
Remember those who must choose between preserving
Their health or making their rent.
May we who have the flexibility to care for our children
When their schools close
remember those who have no options.
May we who have to cancel our trips
Remember those who have no safe place to go.
May we who are losing our margin money
In the tumult of the economic market
Remember those who have no margin at all.
May we who settle in for a quarantine at home
Remember those who have no home.
As fear grips our country,
Let us choose love.
During this time when we cannot physically
Wrap our arms around one another,
Let us yet find ways to be the loving embrace of God
To our neighbors.
A-men.
Time for Offering:
As we reflect on all of our blessings, individually and as a community, may we consider how we may give of ourselves so that the work of Christ’s love and peace may continue throughout our world. (Please contact staff@southmin.org, or one of our Trustees to discover simple ways you may give electronically or via mail. Thank you for supporting the staff and on-going ministries of Southminster Presbyterian Church).
Final Blessing and Benediction:
Friends, We are resilient people. WE GOT THIS! Please let me know if there is anything that you need as we continue to imagine a world of health, hope, peace and solidarity.
Now, as you enter a new week, have hope, good people of Southminster.
Have hope that the way will emerge. Have hope that we will move forward.
Have hope in a new day that is coming. And live each day by Grace. Amen.
