21st Century Worship Resources for the 23rd Sunday After Pentecost, Year B

Gathering Meditation

The words of Psalm 146 remind us that we can always trust God. Princes and divas, presidents and politicians -- even preachers and church leaders -- may let us down, but trust in God is never wrongly placed. Trust in God, who made heaven and earth. Trust in God, who continues to champion the cause of the oppressed. Trust in God, who watches over us when the world declares us strangers. Trust in God, who never changes and never fails.

Call to Worship: Loving God, Loving our Neighbors
(Based on Mark 12:28-34)

We are people of God, created to love.
We will love the Lord our God with heart, soul, mind and strength.

We are people of God determined to love.
We will love our neighbors and treat them as we would be treated.

We love neither from a sense of obligation nor to gain popularity or favor.
We choose to love both the lovely and the unlovable because love imitates God's nature.

All: For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment,
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Galatians 5:14, NRSV)

Prayer of Confession

We come before you today, O God, asking for the courage to live more committed lives.

Make us like Joshua, who declared that he and his household would serve the Lord no matter what others might do.

Make us like the early disciples, who were willing to risk all that they had for the cause of the Risen Christ.

Make us like Ruth, who insisted that the ways of God and the people of God were worth leaving her old way of life.

Give us courage to live as people who belong to God, so that the world might know your salvation and your love for humankind. Amen.