Preparation for Worship
While worshipping at home, set aside a time and a place each week for worship. Light two candles to begin worship: one to represent Christ’s humanity and the other to represent Christ’s divinity. If you would like to celebrate communion have something to eat and drink for everyone. The type of food and drink does not matter for they are merely symbols which help us celebrate the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
May the following serve as a guide in your worship of God.
The Worship of God
Lighting Two Candles
We begin worship by lighting candles to remind ourselves that the One whom we worship, Jesus, is the light of the world. We light two candles to remind us that Jesus is God and lived alongside us as a human being.
Passing the Peace
Say to one another, “May the peace of Christ be with you.”
And reply, “And, also with you.”
Invitation
We lift our eyes to you, O God; we lift our spirits in worship.
We look to you, seeking guidance and comfort.
We look to you seeking healing and renewal.
We look to you, seeking mercy and grace;
for we have had our fill of struggles and stress.
We have had more than our fill of worrying and wondering.
To you, O God, we lift our eyes and spirits,
with hope and confidence in your love.
Be known to us as we worship and help us find rest.
Hymn of Praise
God Whose Giving Knows No Ending
Tune: BEACH SPRING (attributed to Benjamin F. White)
Author: Robert L. Edwards
God, whose giving knows no ending,
From Your rich and endless store:
Nature’s wonder, Jesus’ wisdom,
Costly cross, grave’s shattered door.
Gifted by You, we turn to You,
Off’ring up ourselves in praise:
Thankful song shall rise forever,
Gracious donor of our days.
Skills and time are ours for pressing
Toward the goals of Christ, Your Son:
All at peace in health and freedom,
Races joined, the church made one.
Now direct our daily labor,
Lest we strive for self alone:
Born with talents, make us servants
Fit to answer at Your throne.
Treasure, too, You have entrusted,
Gain through pow’rs Your grace conferred:
Ours to use for home and kindred,
And to spread the Gospel Word.
Open wide our hands in sharing,
As we heed Christ’s ageless call.
Healing, teaching, and reclaiming,
Serving You by loving all.
Psalm Reading
Psalm 90:1-12. Common English Bible
Lord, you have been our help,
generation after generation.
Before the mountains were born,
before you birthed the earth and the inhabited world—
from forever in the past
to forever in the future, you are God.
You return people to dust,
saying, “Go back, humans,”
because in your perspective a thousand years
are like yesterday past,
like a short period during the night watch.
You sweep humans away like a dream,
like grass that is renewed in the morning.
True, in the morning it thrives, renewed,
but come evening it withers, all dried up.
Yes, we are wasting away because of your wrath;
we are paralyzed with fear on account of your rage.
You put our sins right in front of you,
set our hidden faults in the light from your face.
Yes, all our days slip away because of your fury;
we finish up our years with a whimper.
We live at best to be seventy years old,
maybe eighty, if we’re strong.
But their duration brings hard work and trouble
because they go by so quickly.
And then we fly off.
Who can comprehend the power of your anger?
The honor that is due you corresponds to your wrath.
Teach us to number our days
so we can have a wise heart.
Prayer for Others
Pause after each paragraph to give voice to prayers as prompted. Let us pray,
Merciful God, who shelters us and guides us,
we give you thanks for….
God who comforts,
receive those who are fearful and lonely….
God whose love is steadfast,
be refuge for the ill, the dying, and those who care about them.…
God of righteousness,
we ask for your wisdom and ways of justice to prevail
in our community, this nation, your world….
God who seeks our trust, grow us and guide us in your ways
that are life-giving in your world. Amen.
Choral Anthem
From All the Earth Send Up the Song!
Tune: NORTH HILL (LM) by Robert J. Weaver
Composer: Robert J. Weaver and William A. Pasch
From all the earth send up the song
Shout glad hosannas loud and long!
Serve joyfully! Our God adore.
Acclaim God’s honor evermore!
Great God, Creator, Source of all,
both keeps and guards us when we fall.
One flock in our Good Shepherd’s fold,
we feast on bounties yet untold.
The gates of glory beckon here.
Come, bless God’s name. Give thanks. Draw near.
God’s mercies last through all our days.
New psalms, spring forth in grateful praise!
Our God is true from age to age.
Our God is good beyond our gauge.
Our God is faithful, ever sure.
God’s kindness, love, and grace endure!
Celebrating Communion
Communion celebrates our unity–our unity with God and with one another. At Cullowhee Baptist Church we practice an open communion which means anyone seeking to live the Way of Jesus Christ is invited to share in communion with us. Although we are not able to meet together, our bond still remains with one another and God through Jesus Christ.
Invitation to Communion
Imagine Jesus setting a table for us, a place where we may come together and share a meal. Before we “come to the table,” let us set our hearts aright and seek the Lord’s forgiveness for our shortcomings.
Prayer for Forgiveness
Holy God, the maker and sustainer of all things,
You teach us to be good stewards of your generosity,
but we confess that we have been dishonest managers
of your blessings.
You teach us to love our neighbor as ourselves,
but most of us are so isolated
that we don’t know our neighbor’s name.
You teach us that if we are dishonest in small things,
we will be dishonest in greater things,
yet we treat your words as if only the big things really matter.
We have heard your high and holy standards,
and then lowered the bar so low
that we can hardly even trip over it.
We repent.
Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for not deserting us.
Open our hearts, ears, eyes, minds, and lives to follow you.
We place our lives completely in your hands.
Amen.
Assurance of Pardon
2 Corinthians 5:17-18a, Common English Bible
If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, to whom we have been reconciled through Christ.
Share the Meal
Share what you have to eat and before eating, have someone say, “This food represents the body of Christ. As we eat, we remember Jesus.”
Share what you have to drink and before drinking, have someone say, “This drink represents the covenant Christ made with us that our sins will be forgiven. As we drink, we remember Jesus.”
Prayer of Thanksgiving
Dear God, thank you for your abounding compassionate love. Thank you for guiding and leading us through these difficult times. Thank you for always being with us. Amen.
Song of Faith
Amazing Grace
Tune: NEW BRITAIN (from the Virginia Harmony, 1831)
Author: John Newton
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I’m found,
Was blind, but now I see.
The Gospel Lesson
Matthew 25:14-30, Common English Bible
“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who was leaving on a trip. He called his servants and handed his possessions over to them. To one he gave five valuable coins, and to another he gave two, and to another he gave one. He gave to each servant according to that servant’s ability. Then he left on his journey.
“After the man left, the servant who had five valuable coins took them and went to work doing business with them. He gained five more. In the same way, the one who had two valuable coins gained two more. But the servant who had received the one valuable coin dug a hole in the ground and buried his master’s money.
“Now after a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The one who had received five valuable coins came forward with five additional coins. He said, ‘Master, you gave me five valuable coins. Look, I’ve gained five more.’
“His master replied, ‘Excellent! You are a good and faithful servant! You’ve been faithful over a little. I’ll put you in charge of much. Come, celebrate with me.’
“The second servant also came forward and said, ‘Master, you gave me two valuable coins. Look, I’ve gained two more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done! You are a good and faithful servant. You’ve been faithful over a little. I’ll put you in charge of much. Come, celebrate with me.’
“Now the one who had received one valuable coin came and said, ‘Master, I knew that you are a hard man. You harvest grain where you haven’t sown. You gather crops where you haven’t spread seed. So I was afraid. And I hid my valuable coin in the ground. Here, you have what’s yours.’
“His master replied, ‘You evil and lazy servant! You knew that I harvest grain where I haven’t sown and that I gather crops where I haven’t spread seed? In that case, you should have turned my money over to the bankers so that when I returned, you could give me what belonged to me with interest. Therefore, take from him the valuable coin and give it to the one who has ten coins. Those who have much will receive more, and they will have more than they need. But as for those who don’t have much, even the little bit they have will be taken away from them. Now take the worthless servant and throw him out into the farthest darkness.’
“People there will be weeping and grinding their teeth.
Proclaiming the Word
Dr. Jeffrey Vickery
Let’s take the opportunity here to change the way we refer to this parable of Jesus. I want to call it, “The Parable of the $10,000 Bills.” For a long time and by the vast number of people who read Matthew 25:14-30, this story is known as the “Parable of the Talents.” That title comes from the Greek word for a large sum of money that is simply transliterated as “talent” in our English language. The CEB version we are reading today more rightly calls it “valuable coins.” The problem, as you might can see, is that our English word “talent” brings to mind skills and ability and innate capacity to excel at something. If the parable imagines God as the master and us as the servant, then we can tend to think this means God gives people gifts and talents which, far too often, has left Christians who are untalented feeling overlooked by God. It is important to me, however, that we recognize that the master in the parable is expressing his trust in the servants rather than rewarding their ability. In fact, the unexpected surprise in this parable of Jesus is that a master would give tens of thousands of dollars to a servant without any strings attached. The master simply says, “I’m going away for a long time so here, take five $10,000 bills, and you take two $10,000 bills, and I’ll trust you with this one $10,000 bill. See ya later. ”
As you can tell, I want us to begin our understanding of this parable with the idea that God trusts us. Surprise! All those old crusty sermons about God’s anger and human depravation and original sin we can set aside. God trusts us to rightly display the grace and love and justice of God. I know, I know, it is equally hard for us to trust other people as it is to see the good in us. After all, we see sin around us daily. Our news is saturated with what is wrong with the world and we humans are the ones who create such disgust and distress. Yet God trusts us. No matter what we hear from others, the first word of God to us is “You are my beloved, and I trust you,” rather than “You are a sinner worthy of hell, but I’ll find some way to get through to you despite that.” So again, as the parable demonstrates, God trusts us. Not with pittance but abundance. Without designated restrictions or making us fill out forms to justify what we did with that $50,000, God gives a valuable sum to us freely. Why? Because God trusts us.
Do you remember the story in the book of Acts when the disciples are gathered in Jerusalem after Jesus’ resurrection and they watched him ascend into heaven? They must have been anxious about his absence. After years of stability and direction and protection and hope with Jesus near them, now he’s no longer there. He left us, just as the master left the servants and went on a journey. Yet the Ascension of Jesus is another testament to the trust God has in us. Jesus is no longer with us as God incarnate. We can wish that “Jesus will return and make everything right” but that in itself is not the point of any apocalyptic message in the Bible. What is the point? To make sure we don’t just sit and wait. To recognize that God’s physical absence is neither disinterest nor permission for revelry. We are the people of God who are called to create a just and peaceable kin-dom of God on Earth. It is an opportunity to exercise the responsibility to show God’s love and help folks know that, to paraphrase Psalm 27:13, we shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. How will we see the goodness of the Lord? By you and me being trustworthy of God’s gift.
So then Jesus’ parable seems to point in two directions at once. God trusts us, and we are trustworthy in God’s estimation. Both of these statements are good news. So it’s time to stop whining about our short-comings. We can be free from the weight of our weaknesses. We can give up the justifications for our inaction. God trusts us and has gifted us with the responsibility of representing God’s Way in this world because God believes in us.
If the first act of the master in the parable is an act of trust, the conclusion to the parable is an act of love. In fact, the parable spends most of its time describing what happens when the master returns. The first two servants are praised by the master for taking responsibility with their $10,000 bills. They had taken what the master gave them and now there is more—double as much in fact. The master says to both servants: “‘Well done! You are a good and faithful servant. You’ve been faithful over a little. I’ll put you in charge of much. Come, celebrate with me.’” In simple fashion, the master is not concern over the amount of return or even the amount that he gave them, only that they chose to do something instead of doing nothing. Just as it is surprising that he gave the servants so much money, it is now equally surprising that the master describes the initial sum by saying, “You’ve been faithful over A LITTLE.” What? Since when was $50,000 just a little?!? Yet in God’s abundance, the amount matters less than the responsibility taken on its behalf.
No character in the story receives more attention than the third servant. We hear more of his conversation with the master and in so doing we have a clearer sense of his motivation and intention. The master also addresses him directly in a way unique to the story because of his unwillingness to do something with what he was trusted. This last servant simply kept the master’s money and returned it as it was. No more was done. No tasks completed. No responsibility taken. The servant chose to hide and protect rather than serve and enhance. He expects praise from the master and instead receives a holy rebuke.
First, the servant acted as he did, or in this case didn’t act, because of his wrong estimation of the master’s intention and personality. He calls the master “hard” and describes him as someone who will take advantage of others for his own gain. Yet nothing in this parable seems to fit that presumption. Whatever takes place in the imagination of the third servant, he has come to the wrong conclusion about the master. This man just gave a literal fortune to his servants. He trusted them. He left his possessions in their care. He gave them carte blanche to do as they wished with considerable wealth at their disposal while he was gone. The harsh and conniving nature of the master is a figment of the servant’s imagination.
Many make the same mistake with God, casting our imagination wildly such that we have assumed or been instructed that God’s most central characteristics are wrath, judgment, fear, cursing, and destruction. If these are the virtues that we think motivate God’s action toward us, then we will become like that third servant. We will have misunderstood what the biblical stories say about God who is described multiple times as “… a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing” (Jonah 4:2, and parallels). Ultimately, God cannot be changed by our ideas, but our perceptions of God powerfully influence our own choices and actions. Here in the parable, the third servant’s misunderstanding of the master leads him to act out of the fear of retribution rather than as though he were trusted by the master to act on his behalf. This servant took the “don’t blame me” road rather than going ahead with the idea that “I’ll do something and trust the master knows it’s my best”.
In my opinion, what the master says and does in response to this timid third servant is an exercise of love. The master does, in fact, love the servant enough to be honest with his irresponsibility. But the master also loves what he entrusted to the servant so much that he will not let the servant misuse the gift.
Love does not mean permissiveness. Love does not tolerate irresponsibility with the Gospel. Love does not allow misrepresentation of God’s goodness and justice. Love does not just say “ho-hum, oh well” when God has entrusted us to represent the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living and we fail to do anything. Love means not a single one of us is left to do nothing and God is okay with that. God not only loves us, but God loves the Gospel that we are entrusted to make come alive in this world. God loves grace and mercy and hope and goodness and justice and servanthood and righteousness. And when the people of God do not love in a way that amplifies God’s goodness in the world, God’s response is not “Oh well. I guess I’ll just tolerate their apathy because I love them.” Because God loves me and God loves you, God will not simply let irresponsibility and misrepresentation of the Gospel be overlooked. We are responsible to show God’s love in God’s absence. We are invited to display God’s goodness in every situation. We are not given the opportunity to hide God’s Way and receive God’s approval. Genuine love knows how to call one to responsibility and honestly offer correction and clearly require a high (gospel) standard of action and intention. We do not show love if we allow someone to do anything and then say nothing. Neither does God. That’s not love, that’s care-less-ness. God both cares and loves, for us and the Gospel, so much that we are entrusted with the Gospel and our response becomes a measure of our love for God.
Perhaps it is now obvious but the $10,000 note that the master gives the servants is either (1) Jesus himself, or (2) the Gospel, or (3) all creation. Either way, the gift is a royal one. It is made holy by the one who gives it freely. We are entrusted with what is most valuable to God. This “good news” that God dwells among us full of grace and truth, the consistent perception that we are all God’s children, the call to make peace and build just and fair human communities, the willingness to forgive as God forgives and love all whom God loves, the recognition of creation as the most visible mirror displaying God’s beauty … these are the valuable coins, the $10,000 bills that God hands to each of us. None of us should take the gift lightly. All of us should know that God does not give these things to us randomly. All of us can make more peace and forgiveness and justice and grace and love with the peace and forgiveness and justice and grace and love that we have been given. That’s the point, maybe not just of the parable, but of the exercise of our faith in the human community. May it become so today and each day. Amen.
Questions for Reflection
1. How does it feel when you hear God has trusted you enough to want your help?
2. Since our perceptions of God influence our choices, what characteristics of God do you focus on the most? Who taught you the most about God?
3. The sermon ends with a call to make peace, forgiveness, justice, grace, and love. Which one of these are you willing to attempt today?
Prayer of Thanksgiving
Thank you, God for constant love. Please help our church family grow deeper and deeper in your love. Amen.
Song of Faith
Take My Life and Let It Be
Author: Frances Ridley Havergal
Tune: HENDON (Henri A. Cesar Malan)
1 Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.
Take my moments and my days; let them flow in endless praise,
let them flow in endless praise.
2 Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee,
swift and beautiful for thee.
3 Take my voice and let me sing always, only, for my King.
Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from thee,
filled with messages from thee.
4 Take my silver and my gold; not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect and use every power as thou shalt choose,
every power as thou shalt choose.
5 Take my will and make it thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart it is thine own; it shall be thy royal throne,
it shall be thy royal throne.
6 Take my love; my Lord, I pour at thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for thee,
ever, only, all for thee.
Sending Out
May the blessing and peace of God uphold you,
May the compassion and love of Christ enfold you,
and may the vitality and power of the Holy Spirit embolden you,
today and always.
Amen.
Closing Song
Blest Be the Tie
Tune: DENNIS (Nageli)
Author: John Fawcett
Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.
The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above. Amen.
Acknowledgements:
The Invitation was written by Thom Shuman, a gifted retired Presbyterian minister in Columbus, Ohio. The tune BEACH SPRING is attributed to Benjamin F. White who was born in 1800 in Union County, SC and was co-editor of The Sacred Harp (1844). Robert L. Edwards who wrote the hymn God Whose Giving Has No Ending was born in Auburn, NY in 1915. A graduate of Princeton University, Harvard University, and Union Theological Seminary, Edwards served Congregational churches in Connecticut. His ministry interests included low income senior housing and prison ministry. The tune NORTH HILL was written by Robert Weaver and named in honor of the retirement community where he and his wife live in Needham, Massachusetts. The words to the anthem, From All the Earth Send Up the Song! is a paraphrase of Psalm 100 by William Allen Pasch. Pasch serves as Organist and Composer in Residence at First Presbyterian Church in Peachtree City, GA. The Prayer for Forgiveness has been adapted from a prayer posted on Jeff’s Blog. (blog.wisch.org/category/
benedictions-and-prayers/). Frances Ridley Havergal wrote the hymn, Take My Life and Let It Be. Havergal was born in 1836 in Worcestershire, England. Her hymns were frequently printed as leaflets and ornamental cards. She died of peritonitis in Wales at the age of 42. Her sisters published most of her works posthumously. Henri Abraham Cesar Malan who composed the tune HENDON was born in 1787 at Geneva right before the start of the French Revolution. He served as a minister in the Reformed Church and became an ardent evangelist. On Easter of 1817, he delivered a sermon entitled, “Man only justified by faith alone.” The sermon created a storm that lasted for years. His proclamation that salvation without good works was deemed dangerous. In 1823, Malan was expelled from ministry in the Reformed Church. Nevertheless, he built a chapel in his own garden where he preached for 43 years. The anthem was played by Tonya and sung by Mindy, Tonya, and Elizabeth. Tracy played the organ and Mindy sang the hymns. Aidan played the piano for Amazing Grace. Permission to podcast / stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-724755. All rights reserved. All writings have been used by permission from the posting sites or authors.
Cullowhee Baptist Church 
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