Lent 1997: Preparing for the Not Yet

SEEKERS CHURCH
A Christian Community
In the Tradition of the Church of the Saviour
Lent 1997

Preparing for the Not Yet

The community of disciples around Jesus had the irreducible conviction that:

Interpretation and Obedience.,
Walter Brueggemann, g 318.

Leader:: How clearly the sky reveals God’s glory!
How plainly it shows what God has done!
Day carries the news to day;
night brings the message to night.
People:: Without a word, without a sound,
without a voice being heard,
their message fills the world,
their news reaches its rim.
Unison:: May the words of our mouths
and the meditations of our hearts
be acceptable to you,
O God, our rock and our redeemer.

Leader:: We are a community that believes
our faith has a future.
Voice 1:: The future of our faith
Is new when we fully grieve
Because the old is lost and gone.
Voice 2:: A future grounded in God’s hope
cannot be filled with deception or cover-up,
pretense or denial, numbness or old habits.
Unison:: The future is given to us by God,
known in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

Leader:: Ours is a society in which hopelessness
is prevalent and powerful;
muteness and complacency are enemies of hope.
Voice 1:: Too often we are part of the mute majority,
who choose to conform rather than to risk.
Leader:: We Americans are among the affluent of the world,
too easily satisfied with what is,
unwilling to look for the not yet.
Voice 2:: We assume we have the answers
and no longer hunger for God’s true gifts.
Unison:: God of hope, our trust in you is weak.

Power for life is given in seasons of vulnerability.
The good news in Christ is this:
we are forgiven and freed for a hopeful future. Amen.

FIRST LESSON

SILENCE

GOSPEL LESSON

SERMON

SILENT REFLECTION

The first Sunday of each month we switch to a Communion Liturgy here.

Go forth into the danger of the Not Yet,
knowing that we are part of the faithful people of God.

Amen.

LITURGY SOURCES

Call to Worship: Psalm 19
Other prayers and litany: After Brueggemann, Hope Within History