The Service for the Lord’s Day
The Five-hundredth Anniversary of the Reformation
October 29, 2017
GATHERING
Gathering Music:
Welcome & Announcements
*Entrance Song: “All People That on Earth Do Dwell” Psalm 100 220/385
*Call to Worship
We know that a person is justified not by works of the law
but through the faith of Jesus Christ.
And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus
so that we might be justified by his faith. Galatians 2:16a
Gracious God of transformation and renewal:
Five-hundred years ago
you inspired our spiritual forebears
to reform your holy church,
regrounding it in your Word, Jesus Christ.
Through grace alone, faith alone, Scripture alone,
Christ alone, and for your glory alone,
you continue the work of reformation,
as your Kingdom emerges
with, within, among, and around us.
Amen.
*Grace Alone + Filling the Baptismal Font
Our God is the God who saves by grace alone.
God’s steadfast love is everlasting!
Our salvation is a free gift from God in Jesus Christ,
which we receive in our baptism.
God pours blessing and goodness,
peace, joy, and love,
into our hearts and into all creation.
Our whole life flows from God;
and nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.
By grace we are saved,
and brought into forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation, and union.
We remember always our baptism
and give thanks to God
for the grace that sustains our life.
*Hymn: “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” 260/275
Faith Alone + Prayer for Wholeness
God of goodness and life:
we place our wholehearted trust in you
and your grace to us.
We live by faith and not by sight.
Our true life is hidden in Christ with you.
Awaken us to your saving Presence.
When we follow blindly after the fads and fashions of this world,
Turn our hearts to your commandments,
that in keeping them we may find life.
When we give our allegiance to principalities and powers,
Turn our hearts to the One who empties himself
in love for the whole world.
When we sell ourselves for wealth and gain,
Turn our hearts to your treasure of love
which never gets depleted.
Gather us together as one community of healing and shalom,
let your forgiveness and welcome characterize our life together,
That the true life we receive from you
may be revealed to all people
and shared with all the world.
Invocation of the Trinity
Gracious God:
you are One,
and you call on us to love you
with all our heart, all our soul, and all our might.
At the same time you are a community of three:
By your Word and Spirit
you create, redeem, and sustain the whole universe
in everlasting, overflowing love.
You hold all things in being,
bringing life out of death
and light into our darkness.
You even transmute our evil into goodness.
You carefully and wonderfully fashion us in your Image.
You make us participants in your very nature.
You, O Holy Trinity,
are the God who brings justice and peace.
And so we offer our own voices in praise and thanksgiving, as we sing,
“Glory be to the Father.”
*Gloria: “Glory Be to the Father” 579/581
TF *Procession of the Word
TF A child processes into the Sanctuary carrying a Bible, as the people sing the Gloria.
*The Peace
Christ is in the midst of us.
He is and ever shall be.
May the grace and peace of Christ our God be with all of you.
And also with you.
The people exchange words and signs of God’s peace.
*Response: “O, My Soul, BlessYour Redeemer” Psalm 103 223/439
LW Time With Young Disciples
(TF Our young disciples continue worship and learning downstairs.)
THE WORD
Scripture Alone + Prayer for Understanding
Continually reform us, O God, by your Word, Jesus Christ,
as Holy Scripture bears unique and authoritative witness to him.
Open our hearts to understand what you have to say to us today.
May these words be your Word to us.
And give us the grace to follow you.
Amen.
Hebrew Scriptures Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18
Psalm
TF “The One Is Blest” Psalm 1 158/
LW “How Happy Are the Saints of God” Psalm 1 /457
New Testament 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Gospel Matthew 22:34-46
Sermon, “Christ Alone”
*Affirmation of Faith The Apostles’ Creed TF p. 14, “Traditional”; LW p. 35
THANKSGIVING
Offering
The Earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof,
the world and all that dwell therein. Psalm 24:1
Offertory Music: “”
*Doxology: “Praise God, From Whom All Blessings Flow” 592/606
Invitation to the Lord’s Table
The Lord Jesus
on the night when he was betrayed
took a loaf of bread,
and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said,
‘This is my body that is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.’
In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying,
‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
(Those words of Paul we repeat every time we celebrate this Sacrament.
But Paul doesn’t stop there.
He goes on to emphasize the gravity of what we are doing here
and the need for sober self-examination.
The Reformers were careful to remember and restate regularly the rest of what he says.)
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner
will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.
Examine yourselves,
and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
For all who eat and drink without discerning the body,
eat and drink judgement against themselves.
For this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
But if we judged ourselves,
we would not be judged.
But when we are judged by the Lord,
we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
1 Corinthians 11:23-32
Let us, then, take care to discern Christ’s body in this Sacrament.
We recognize his body in the bread itself,
which he called his body when he broke it and gave it to his disciples,
and now to us.
We recognize his body in the church,
the gathering of the gospel community;
he is present here with and in us together!
We recognize his body in the whole of creation and all of humankind,
for he shows us that we are all one in him,
the One by whom God creates us in the beginning.
Finally, we recognize his body here in our very selves:
we are made in the Image of God
and we share the true humanity that Jesus himself reveals and embodies.
This is why we call what we are doing here “communion.”
Through this bread and this cup,
through these words we say together,
through this very gathering with one another,
we proclaim and celebrate the oneness and unity of all
in the One who creates, redeems, and sustains all.
Sanctus
And so we join our voices
with those of all God’s people
in every time and place,
in the angels’ song of praise:
Holy, holy, holy Lord
God of power and might.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is he,
O blessed is he
who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest,
Hosanna in the highest! “St. Anne Sanctus”
Invocation of the Holy Spirit and the Lord’s Prayer
Send your Spirit, O God, upon your holy people,
called out from the world and gathered together,
and upon these holy gifts,
fashioned from the fruits of the Earth,
revealing here and now
the living and saving Presence of Jesus Christ
with us, within us, around us, and among us.
Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ,
all glory and honor are yours, almighty God,
and to you we render glory, now and forever,
on behalf of all and for all.
O God,
like a mother hen you are always gathering your children,
and so we are bold to pray the prayer that Jesus taught us,
saying:
Our Father….
The Breaking of Bread
The minister breaks the bread and holds it out in view of the people.
The bread that we break,
is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?
Because there is one bread,
we who are many are one body,
for we all partake of the one bread.
The cup of blessing that we bless,
is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? 1 Corinthians 10:17, 16
The minister fills the cup and lifts it in the view of the people.
Here is the Lamb of God
who takes away the sin of the world. John 1:29b
He restores and makes holy
all those who share in him.
Hymn: “Bread of the World in Mercy Broken” 502/499
The Holy Communion of the People
TF The people come to the Table to share in Christ’s body and blood by intinction:
taking a piece of bread, dipping it into the cup, and eating it.
Those who wish to pray with the pastor before or after communion
may meet with him to the side.
LW The people are served Christ’s body and blood. Take the tray and hold it for the person from whom you received it. Then pass it to the next person who will hold it for you to take a piece of bread or a cup. We eat the bread when we receive it; but we hold the cup until the distribution is complete so we all may commune together.
May the Body and Blood of Christ our God bring you to everlasting life.
Communion Music:
To God Alone Be the Glory + Closing Prayer
Loving God:
even as many grains of wheat and many grapes were gathered to feed us in this Sacrament,
gather us together and make us one.
Let us lead lives worthy of the calling to which you have called us,
with all humility and gentleness,
with patience, bearing with one another in love,
making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you called us to the one hope of our calling,
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all,
who is above all and through all and in all. From Ephesians 4:1-6
Amen.
*Hymn: “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past” Psalm 90 210/687
SENDING
*Charge
God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God.
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol....
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God.
Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet... anything that belongs to your neighbor. From Exodus 20:1-17
*Benediction
The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord be kind and gracious to you.
The Lord look upon you with favor,
and give you peace. Numbers 6:24-26
*Choral Benediction: “May God Support You All Your Days” Psalm 20 ——/548
*Dismissal
*Postlude:
- + +
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