Introduction

 

It is my great pleasure to introduce to you all, Pippa Phillips. Pippa prepared the sermon video this week, and invites us into God’s passionate love story. Pippa is a student of scripture, an educator, an academic, a practitioner of the good news, and a faithful disciple of Jesus. I was fortunate enough to hear the sermon far in advance of this worship service, and it shaped my entire week. I found her faithful encouragement to be so life giving to me this week. Whether I was out to lunch with a good friend, making dinner for my children, questioning big life choices, or simply enjoying leisure time, I continually basked in God’s consuming and jealous love. When I focus on God’s loves, it is amazing how much sustaining grace I become aware of. Thank you Pippa. Emmanuel, I look forward to worshipping with you today! Let us prepare for worship.

 

Call to Worship

(inspired by Genesis 22: 1-14; Micah 6:8; Deuteronomy 6:5)

 

What does the Lord require of you?
To do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with our God.

 

What does God command of us?
To love God with all our heart,
and all our soul,
and all our mind,
and all our strength,
and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

 

God does not call us to ease or to comfort.
But to presence, and abundance,
and grace in our struggle.
Let us worship the God who believes in us,
and trusts in us, and abides with us.
Let us worship the God who will ask much of us,
but will be beside us every step of the way.

 

Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 6:4-5

 

 

Prayer of the People

 

Holy God, we come together to worship,
a people who would like to think that we love you
with all our hearts and souls,
with all our might,

 

but there are so many other things in our lives
that clamor for our attention
that we often relegate you to Sundays
and Wednesdays,
and times when we want you to rescue us.

 

Most of us really do want you to be the one
in whom we live and move and have our being.
We really do want to hear your voice
above all of the other voices in our lives.
But we get bogged down in the daily routine.
We forget who we are.
We forget who you are.
We forget what the church is supposed to be.

 

So here we are, standing before you today,
with our human foibles
and our short attention spans,
asking that you would make yourself known to us,
that you would help us to recognize
the presence of the Holy,
that you would continue to challenge us,
inspire us, and make us into the people you want us to be.

 

Amen.

 

Hymn – This is my Father’s World

 

Sermon/Meditation – Pippa Phillips

 

 

Worship Song – How He Loves

 

 

Prayer of Devotion

(Inspired by Psalm 86:2)

 

Preserve my life, for I am devoted to you;
save your servant who trusts in you. Psalm 86:2

 

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul:
Guard my life, O Lord, for I am devoted to you;
Guard my heart, O Father, for I love you with all my choices;
Guard my mind, O Jesus, for I fix my thoughts on following you;
Guard my body, O Spirit, for I give it to be your temple;
Guard my relationships, O Trinity, for I center my conversations on you.
Hear my prayer, O Lord.

 

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul:
I offer my eyes to you, O Lord, to behold your beauty;
I offer my lips to you, O Father, to speak your praises;
I offer my ears to you, O Jesus, to listen to your words;
I offer my steps to you, O Spirit, to follow your movements;
I offer my life to you, O Trinity, to honor you alone.
Hear my prayer, O Lord.

 

Worship Song – Reckless Love

 

Questions for Reflection

 

1. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote an even more famous sonnet that begins, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” This week read Deuteronomy, chapters 1-11. As you read, note all the ways you see how God loves his people. Do you see him loving you the same way? Has he been loving you like this and you haven’t noticed it before? In what other ways does God love you?

 

2. God’s love for us is an almost incomprehensible gift. Jesus taught us in the Parable of the Talents to invest the gifts that God has given us. How can you invest this greatest of all gifts so that you, the steward of the gift, can bring back abundant “returns” to God the giver?

 

3. How can you love people in your life by deeply appreciating their unique qualities without making your love for them dependent on those qualities?

 

4. How do you explain the paradox of Jesus pairing the command to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength with the command to love our neighbor as ourselves? Aren’t these mutually exclusive commands, especially when we consider the jealousy clause in the first one? How do we obey both?

 

5. What are some of the idol candidates in your life – people, things, activities that you are tempted to love more than God?

 

6. What are some images you might use to illustrate the ideas of clinging and jealousy?

 

7. If you deeply love someone, you naturally want to spend time with him/her. A lot of time. What are some things you can do to find more time to be with God? Ask Christian friends for ideas on how they hang out with God. Can you double up on some things? (Monks in the Middle Ages got in their exercise, walking while they prayed.) How about changing the time you pray? (p.m. vs. a.m.) The place (inside vs. outside). The mode (out loud vs. silently). Be creative. The idea is to find more time to be with the One you love so you are not limited to those quick thank yous and all-important requests. You want to have time to just tell him about your day, share your struggles, wonder out loud about stuff, make plans together.

 

Benediction

 

May God’s passionate and jealous love for you be made known this day and every day to come. Amen.