MICAH 6.8

18th Sunday In Ordinary Time — Proper 13 — 8th Sunday After Pentecost July 31, 2022 A Liturgy For Worship and Meditation Eternal God, we see how impoverished our prosperity has left us. Make us rich in you. PRAYER FOR WORSHIP Loving God, our hearts our bursting with gratitude for all that You give. We are truly rich in You. You have lavished us with gifts of grace and forgiveness, friendship and comfort in grief, financial provision in times of need. You have filled us with peace in the midst of adversity, vision and signs of growth in the midst of the Church restructuring, kindness and hospitality in the midst of war and millions of refugees. You have been faithful for hundreds of years, through all the disruptions and unions, pandemics and plagues, wars and skirmishes between nations and families and friends. You have been faithful through it all. And our words could never tell, not even in part Of the debt of love that is owed, by us. All we can do is say thank You. All we can do is live our lives as stewards of all that You have given us. And in so doing, we hope that Your name might be praised in deed and word. And this truth is forever proclaimed that nothing is ever vanity in You. Thank You. OPENING WORDS "Vanity of vanities" says Ecclesiastes. And the daily news confirms the theme. Money gained; money lost; stolen by a missile or a bomb, or the greedy becoming more wealthy. We work hard and others benefit, how can we not complain? But there's another story, a higher truth we know. A power working, by God's hand, a Kin-Dom ever growing. In all our doubts and trials, our wars and poverty. Your faithful hand is guiding; Your grace always providing. So, help us, O God this morning, to move from doubt to faith. To live our lives as stewards of the things You've blessed us with. PRAYER Generous God, in abundance you give us things both spiritual and physical. Help us to hold lightly the fading things of this earth and grasp tightly the lasting things of your Kin-Dom, so that what we are and do and say may be our gifts to you who beckons all to seek the things above, where You live and reigns, O Blessed Trinity. Amen. INVITATION TO CONFESSION Friends in Christ, God invites us to hold the needs of our sisters and brothers as dear to us as our own needs. Loving our neighbors as ourselves. Therefore let us acknowledge before God and one another those times when our love has failed. PRAYER OF CONESSION God, You are our highest good, the only One able to satisfy our deepest longings. You are the true font of joy and gladness. In You, and your spendthrift love, we are always rich. In You, all gifts are ordered and find their rightful place. In You, we find the joy of giving. In You we find shalom: wholeness, healing. But how quickly we are overawed when others grow rich. We are blinded by the splendor of their homes, the increase of their wealth as their profit margins increases. How quickly we turn to doubt and disbelief, suspicion and misgiving. "It's vanities of vanities," we say—"this war and unfair policies." Or we turn to greed and try to hoard. We build bigger barns, open another bank account, to hold what should be shared. O God, we confess, we can easily become misguided. We can be swayed by greed and selfishness. We can store up reserves in churches when our neighbors can't afford their supper. We can covet more and more of that which is not really our own. But in the end, we acknowledge that it leaves us feeling empty. O God, we ask for Your grace and forgiveness. Fill us with the awareness that all things come from You, and that we will be forever restless unless all things find their right place and purpose in You. Fill us with gratitude for the things You've given us. Fill us with the riches of Your Kin-Dom, so we can share with those who need it. And give us clean hearts, kind and open hearts to do it. And in so doing, we and our neighbors, both new and familiar, will find shalom: wholeness, healing. Thank you, O God, for always hearing our prayers, extending grace with open arms and giving us that which we need to change and order our lives back to You, for Your glory and the benefit of others. FIRST READING—Hosea 11:1-11 11:1 “When Israel was a youth, I loved it dearly, and out of Egypt I called my child. 11:2 But the more I called them, the further they turned from me, making sacrifices to the Ba’als and burning incense to carved images. 11:3 I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arm—but they don’t acknowledge that I was the one who made them whole. 11:4 I led them on a leash of human kindness—with bonds of caring. I removed the yoke from their necks and stooped to feed them. 11:5 Now they will return to Egypt and Assyria will rule over them because they refuse to return to me. 11:6 Swords will flash in their villages, destroying their gates and devouring them because of their plans. 11:7 My people are determined to turn away from me! Even though they cry out to the heights, they will not be lifted up. 11:8 How can I abandon you, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is aching within me; I am burning with compassion! 11:9 No, I can’t do it! I cannot act on my righteous anger! I will not turn around and destroy Ephraim! For I am God—no mere mortal—the Holy One who walks among you! 11:10 They will follow YHWH, who will roar like a lion! When they hear that great roar, the children of God will return from the west, trembling. 11:11 They will come out of Egypt trembling like sparrows, from Assyria, like doves. I will resettle them in their own homes,” says YHWH. —Priests for Equality. The Inclusive Bible. Sheed & Ward. PSALMODY—Psalm 107:1-9, 43 107:1 “Give thanks for God’s goodness; God’s love endures forever!” 107:2 Let these be the words of God’s redeemed, those redeemed from the oppressor’s clutches, 107:3 those brought home from foreign lands, from east and west, from northern lands and southern seas. 107:4 Some lost their way in the wilderness, in the wasteland, not knowing how to reach an inhabited town; 107:5 they were hungry and thirsty, and their courage was running low. 107:6 they called to God in their trouble, and God rescued them from their sufferings, 107:7 guiding them by a direct route to an inhabited town. 107:8 Let them thank God for this great love, for the marvels done for all people— 107:9 for God has satisfied the thirsty and filled the hungry with good things. 107:43 If you are wise, study these things and realize the great love of YHWH. —Priests for Equality. The Inclusive Bible. Sheed & Ward. SECOND READING—Colossians 3:1-11 3:1 So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, 3:3 for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 3:4 When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. 3:5 Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). 3:6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. 3:7 These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. 3:8 But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. 3:9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices 3:10 and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. 3:11 In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all! GOSPEL READING—Luke 12:13-21 12:13 Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." 12:14 But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" 12:15 And Jesus said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." 12:16 Then Jesus told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 12:17 And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?' 12:18 Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 12:19 And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' 12:20 But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be? 12:21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God." In vanity, we see and seek but for ourselves. Vanity is the narcissism wherein we look out for our own interests and benefits, Vanity is the place where greed and selfishness flourish. Vanity lacks integrity and honesty because it is without the sense that we, as a people, are all connected and deserving of respect and dignity. In vanity, others are simply the means to an end of self-fulfillment. Vanity misses the point that we are all in this together and the meaning of life is found in its purpose to care for one another. Vanity is empty because one so oriented can never have enough. Life becomes a consumerism where the unfulfilled hope is that the next acquisition will bring a sense of security, happiness, and the good life. Vanity is the American Dream run amuck into a way of not just keeping up with the family next door but outdoing them in commercial and lavish luxury. Even when it is the way of those who have little, it has become a way of measuring our value and worth by having just a little more than the other. Vanity eats away at life because it becomes an instrument of power and control. We fool ourselves by measuring how much ownership we have of our own life, and sadly, the life of others. Vanity destroys all joy. Vanity compromises all hope. Vanity suppresses all love. Vanity kills. Yes, it is as plain and simple as that. In vanity we harm ourselves and others. We do not recognize that the things in life that we think will bring us happiness will only do so when they are understood to be gifts of God's providence. And gifts from God cannot be manipulated, transformed into something else, or be changed according to our wishes and desires. Gifts from God are meant to be shared. They are given not to enrich just the recipient, but to provide for all. They cannot be traded as an investment wherein more personal gain is acquired. When it comes to God's gifts the adage of buy low, sell high, does not fit. The successful farmer found more crops in the harvest than expected. What could be do with that excess? When in vanity the only thing to do is build bigger barns. Because accumulation requires more space for keeping. The current day example would be the wealthy ignoring the needs of the poor while building a better stock portfolio. Or big oil decides to not produce from sources they have at their use just to drive gas prices higher. Or the production of guns and ammunition being more profitable because of politicians who take money from the lobbyists to assure legislation continues to drive supply and demand in a favorable way for those manufacturers and retailers. Or the way a pharmaceutical company offers a medication that costs little to produce at a price that makes it unavailable to the poor and those who need it most. And, the list of examples goes on and on. It becomes so critical that the very health of our planet Earth is at risk of surviving the vanity of humankind, especially those who could do something to make a difference. PRAYER God of justice, your word is light and truth. Let your face shine on us to restore us, that we may walk in your way, seeking justice and doing good. Amen. PRAYER OF INTERCESSION Generous God, We pray for rich countries with a surplus of wealth; And for poor countries in debt to them. We pray for rich countries whose stores are overflowing; And for countries whose harvests have failed. We pray for rich countries flaunting their material success; And for the poor who live there, forgotten or ignored. Generous God, Help us not pile up treasures for ourselves While remaining faithful in Your sight. Silence Generous God, We pray for those whose wealth has given them power, And for those whose poverty has made them powerless; We pray for those whose lives are given to making money, And for those who can barely afford to live; We pray for the successful, the popular, the talented, And for those who are given little respect. Generous God, Help us not pile up treasures for ourselves While remaining faithful in Your sight. Silence Generous God, We pray for Your church with its many possessions, And for Your people who live in poverty; We pray for Your church, entrusted with the gospel, And for those crying out for love and hope; We pray for Your church, filled with Your Holy Spirit, And for those who long for guidance and peace. Generous God, Help us not pile up treasures for ourselves While remaining faithful in Your sight. Silence This we pray, for the sake of others, for the sake of ourselves, and for the sake of your God News, that our world and we may move closer to being your Kin-Dom. Amen. —Christine Odell. Companion to the Revised Common Lectionary: 1. Intercessions (Peterborough: Epworth Press, 1988 PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING AND DEDICATION Bountiful Provider, thank You that You are willing to take all that we offer to You and then multiply it for good. We know that we grow by giving in faith, gratitude, and even in want. For when we give, we give to You, and You multiply it beyond our wildest imaginations. Take all that we are and all that we have— our time, talents and money, and bless this community and grow Your church through our giving. Amen. GOING FORTH May you go in the knowledge of God's grace and provision, grateful for all that God has given and desiring to be rich in the things of God, sharing the gifts God has given you with those who need God most.