11 Mar BULLETIN – SUNDAY, MARCH 12, 2023
WELCOME to MESSIAH & ST. PETER LUTHERAN CHURCHES
Reverend Nancy Brody, Pastor
Greta Wright, Music Director
Sunday, March 12, 2023
Third Sunday in Lent
GREETING AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
CONFESSION AND FORGIVENESS
Blessed be the holy Trinity, [+] one God, who journeys with us these forty days, and sustains us with the gift of grace.
Amen.
Let us acknowledge before God and one another our need for repentance and God’s mercy. Silence is kept for reflection.
Holy God, we confess our faults and failings. Too often we neglect and do not trust; we take instead of give, overindulge rather than practice discipline; without meaning to, we cause hurt. Our tendency is to become concerned for ourselves and forget compassion for others. Forgive, renew, and heal us from within, for we truly seek to follow you. Amen.
Because of Jesus Christ, there’s no chasm or barrier between us and God. Forgiveness is a sign and promise that God is full of life, not death, about mercy, not imposing penalties. Jesus, too, was tempted, and overcame all things by trusting God’s mighty power to love. Be forgiven by all three persons of the Holy Trinity, [+] Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
ENTRANCE HYMN O Jesus, Joy of Loving Hearts #356
KYRIE and HYMN OF PRAISE Pages 57-60
PRAYER of the DAY
Merciful God, the fountain of living water, you quench our thirst and wash away our sin. Give us this water always. Bring us to drink from the well that flows with the beauty of your truth through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
FIRST 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?”
PSALM 95
Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before God’s presence with thanksgiving and raise a loud shout to the Lord with psalms.
For you, Lord, are a great God, and a great ruler above all gods.
In your hand are the caverns of the earth; the heights of the hills are also yours.
The sea is yours, for you made it, and your hands have molded the dry land.
Come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our maker.
For the Lord is our God, and we are the people of God’s pasture and the sheep of God’s hand. Oh, that today you would hear God’s voice!
“Harden not your hearts, as at Meribah, as on that day at Massah in the desert.
There your ancestors tested me, they put me to the test, though they had seen my works.
Forty years I loathed that generation, saying, ‘The heart of this people goes astray; they do not know my ways.’
Indeed, I swore in my anger, ‘They shall never come to my rest.’ ”
ANTHEM (10:00AM) Adult Choir
The Lamb
SECOND READING ROMANS 5:1-11
Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
LENTEN VERSE
Return to The Lord… Page 63
GOSPEL JOHN 4: 5-42
[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.”
SERMON
HYMN of the DAY Just as I Am, Without One Plea #296
PROFESSION of FAITH/APOSTLE’S CREED Page 65
PRAYERS of INTERCESSION
Sustained by God’s abundant mercy, let us pray for the church, the world, and all of creation. A brief silence.
We pray for your church. Bless partnerships with other Christians and inter-religious dialogue. Guide the daily work of denominational and congregational leaders. Strengthen our combined witness for the sake of the gospel, that all experience your life-giving love. Merciful God, receive our prayer.
We pray for the universe. All creation teems with life, from the depths of the earth and seas to the skies above. Fill us with awe and reverence for the diversity and preservation of life. Merciful God, receive our prayer.
We pray for the nations of the world. Topple dividing walls that separate us from our neighbors. Form us into your beloved community where diversity of gender, age, race, language, ability, and ethnic origin is celebrated and affirmed. Merciful God, receive our prayer.
We pray for those who suffer in mind, body, or spirit. Be present with all who are lonely, and give courage to all who are afraid. Comfort those who live with chronic illness or other sickness (especially those on our prayer list). Help them receive living water and love. Merciful God, receive our prayer.
We pray for this congregation. Nurture our faith and help us transfer the love you have poured into our hearts. Inspire the community by our witness to God’s grace. Merciful God, receive our prayer.
We give thanks for the lives of all your saints whose hope in you sustained lives of faith and service. Encourage us with the hope they shared. Merciful God, receive our prayer.
We lift our prayers to you, O God, trusting in the presence of your steadfast love and Holy Spirit. Renew us and all of creation through your Son, Jesus Christ, who thirsted like us, and may not have had a bucket, but nonetheless was filled and able to offer life-giving water.
Amen.
PEACE
OFFERING
OFFERTORY
Create in me… Page 75
THE LORD’S PRAYER
BENEDICTION Page 74
CLOSING HYMN
DISMISSAL Page 74
POSTLUDE
Revised Common Lectionary copyright © 1992 Consultation on Common Texts. Used by permission. Prayers adapted from Sundays and Seasons, copyright © 2019, Augsburg Fortress. Used with permission. Psalm readings from Lutheran Book of Worship, copyright © 1978. Reprinted by permission under Augsburg Fortress Liturgies Annual Subscription #SB160715 Other quotations from Scripture from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, National Council of Churches in Christ in the United States of America. Used with permission. All rights reserved.
Altar flowers at St Peter have been presented by Nancy Matter in memory of Harry Matter.
Altar flowers at Messiah have been presented by Rose Steinhauer.