Welcome to Grace Church, Red Hill. Find your balance on holy ground. Breathe deeply the breath of life. Be emptied of all worry. Open your heart. Receive a moment of stillness. Settle into this place and community.
Gathering
All who thirst, come to the water. Come, all who are weary; come, all who yearn for wholeness and welcome. The Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ has washed over us and all living things, and our Gracious and Holy God beckons and blesses us. For you are the fountain of life: refresh us. You are the cleansing spring: heal us. You are the well from which we drink and never thirst again: fill us. Drink deeply of these living waters. Glory to you, O Lord, glory to you.
Gathering hymn
No. 141 (Lift Every Voice hymnal)
Shall we gather at the river,
Where bright angel feet have trod,
With its crystal tide forever
Flowing by the throne of God?
Chorus: Yes, we’ll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river;
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God.
On the margin of the river,
Washing up its silver spray,
We will talk and worship ever,
All the happy golden day. Chorus
Salutation
Blessed be the one, holy, and living God. Glory to God for ever and ever. Amen. Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Chant
The Lord is my light, my light and salvation; in God I trust, in God I trust.
Prayer of the day
The Lord be with you. And also with you. Let us pray: All–merciful God, steward us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Reading
Exodus 17:1–7
From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God
Psalm 95
O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into her presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to her with songs of praise! For the Lord is a great God, and a great ruler above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is hers, for she made it, and the dry land, which her hands have formed. O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would listen to his voice! Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they do not regard my ways.’ Therefore in my anger I swore, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’
Poem
“Water” by Philip Larkin
If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.Going to church
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes;My liturgy would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench,And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any–angled light
Would congregate endlessly.
Gospel
John 4:5–42
The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John. Glory to you, Lord Christ.
Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”
The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Christ.
Prayers of the people
All holy and merciful One, to bring new life to the land; to restore the waters; to refresh the air; we join with you, the earth, and each other. To renew the forests; to care for the plants; to protect the creatures; we join with you, the earth, and each other. To celebrate the seas; to rejoice in the sunlight; to sing the song of the stars; we join with you, the earth, and each other. To recall our destiny; to renew our spirits; to reinvigorate our bodies; we join with you, the earth, and each other. To recreate the human community; to promote justice and peace; to remember our children; we join with you, the earth, and each other. We join together as many and diverse expressions of one loving mystery: for the healing of the earth and the renewal of all life. Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
Confession and absolution
Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor. Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.
Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life. Amen.
Passing of the peace
The peace of the Lord be always with you. And also with you.
Chant
All shall be well. And all shall be well. And all manner of thing shall be well, be well.
Benediction
Sending
Tend the earth, care for God’s good creation, and bring forth the fruits of righteousness. Go in the peace of Christ. Thanks be to God.
Please keep Gayle Trevillian, Judy Hatfield, Alexander Macmillan, Matt Simar, Doug Burgess, Ted Burns, Katie Berigan, Mark Hendrickson, the family and friends of Alexander Macmillan, the family and friends of the Rev. Robert H. Armstrong, the family and friends of Tom Moore, and those suffering from the coronavirus (COVID–19) and their caregivers in prayer.
Grace Church is deeply rooted, boldly inclusive, and fully committed
to the well-being of the earth and all living things.