March 2011 Archives

Psalm Reading Psalm 23

Gospel Reading John 9:1-17, 24-25,33-41

Sermon "Healing and Wholeness"

Worship Notes

Welcome to worship at Westminster on this the Fourth Sunday in Lent. The season of Lent began on Ash Wednesday (March 9) and continues for 40 days, excluding Sundays. The liturgical color for Lent is purple. The baptismal font, the communion table, and the pulpit have been placed in the center of the chancel for this liturgical season as a visible reminder to us of the equality and centrality of God's word and sacrament in our worship.

During our Lenten journey, we have put our "Alleluias!" away as we follow the path of Christ through the "valleys," in part so that we may experience the "mountaintop" of Easter more fully and more completely. Lenten worship is characterized by the use of more purposeful silences, an increased focus on confession, and an opportunity to seek and find God through corporate and personal prayer. However, throughout this season, we will focus on God's promises of salvation offered freely through grace to a people who walk in darkness. The theme of salvation will be an integral one in each of our Lenten worship services.

In worship today, we consider John's account of the healing and wholeness Christ offered to the blind man. In so doing, we recognize that our commonality lies in our understanding that we are each "blind" to the ways in which we are personally broken. It is God's grace, and our ability to actively seek it out through naming our brokenness, that makes us whole. As an expression of our faith, and as an act of responding to God's word proclaimed, today's Prayers of the People offers an opportunity for us to engage in the Presbyterian Service for Healing. This service, which has long been a part of the Book of Common Worship, encourages each of us to experience healing by asking another person to pray with and for us. While the congregation sings familiar and beloved hymns of prayer, you are invited to come forward, articulate your need for healing and wholeness to just two other people (a pastor and elder/deacon), and receive the gift of God's grace as experienced through prayers offered on your behalf by others. As our worship ends, we sustain a contemplative spirit of prayer as we, like the blind man, are sent out into the world to share our story with the world.

Because this worship service incorporates the Service for Healing and Wholeness, it does not include the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Communion will next be offered in worship on Palm Sunday, April 17 and Easter Sunday, April 24.

Hebrew Scripture Reading Exodus 17:1-7

Gospel Reading John 4:1-30, 39-42

Sermon "Living Waters"

Worship Notes

Welcome to worship at Westminster on this the Third Sunday in Lent. The season of Lent began on Ash Wednesday (March 9) and continues for 40 days, excluding Sundays. The liturgical color for Lent is purple. The baptismal font, the communion table, and the pulpit have been placed in the center of the chancel for this liturgical season as a visible reminder to us of the equality and centrality of God's word and sacrament in our worship.

During our Lenten journey, we have put our "Alleluias!" away as we follow the path of Christ through the "valleys," in part so that we may experience the "mountaintop" of Easter more fully and more completely. Lenten worship is characterized by the use of more purposeful silences, an increased focus on confession, and an opportunity to seek and find God through corporate and personal prayer. However, throughout this season, we will focus on God's promises of salvation offered freely through grace to a people who walk in darkness. The theme of salvation will be an integral one in each of our Lenten worship services.

In worship today, we consider the relationship between our own sin and the acceptance we receive in love and grace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Through the gospel account of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, we consider what it means to be made whole in Christ. The music through which we worship is chosen to reflect the tension between our sin and the wholeness offered to us through Christ, the living water. The hymns and service music we sing today proclaim not only our human brokenness, but also the restoration and salvation we receive through relationship with the one who truly "fills our cup."

Hebrew Scripture Reading Genesis 12:1-4

Gospel Reading John 3:1-17

Sermon "The Blessing of Salvation"

Worship Notes

Welcome to worship at Westminster on this the Second Sunday in Lent. The season of Lent began on Ash Wednesday (March 9) and continues for 40 days, excluding Sundays. The liturgical color for Lent is purple. The baptismal font, the communion table, and the pulpit have been placed in the center of the chancel for this liturgical season as a visible reminder us of the equality and centrality of God's word and sacrament in our worship.

During our Lenten journey, we have put our "Alleluias!" away as we follow the path of Christ through the "valleys," in part so that we may experience the "mountaintop" of Easter more fully and more completely. Lenten worship is characterized by the use of more purposeful silences, an increased focus on confession, and an opportunity to seek and find God through corporate and personal prayer. However, throughout this season, we will focus on God's promises of salvation offered freely through grace to a people who walk in darkness. The theme of salvation will be an integral one in each of our Lenten worship services.

In worship today, we consider the relationship between our own sin and the promise of salvation. In the context of the gospel lesson about Nicodemus and his interaction with Jesus, we also begin to explore a definition of salvation. The music through which we worship is chosen to reflect the tension between our sin and the salvation offered to us through Christ and his sacrifice for us on the cross. As we proclaim God's word in scripture this morning, the choir will sing a passage of the gospel lesson using an anthem setting by English organist and composer, Sir John Stainer (1840-1901). Stainer was a professor of music at Oxford and his musical contributions continue to shape Anglican choral music even today. The choral benediction response is his setting of the "Sevenfold Amen."

This is the lesson and sermon from Sunday, March 13, 2011

MP3 Download (6.43 MB)

Hebrew Scripture Reading Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

Gospel Reading Matthew 6:24-34

Sermon "The Problem of Power"

Worship Notes

Welcome to worship at Westminster on this the First Sunday in Lent. The season of Lent began on Ash Wednesday (March 9) and continues for 40 days, excluding Sundays. The liturgical color for Lent is purple. The baptismal font, the communion table, and the pulpit have been placed in the center of the chancel for this liturgical season as a visible reminder us of the equality and centrality of God's word and sacrament in our worship.

During our Lenten journey, we have put our "Alleluias!" away as we follow the path of Christ through the "valleys," in part so that we may experience the "mountaintop" of Easter more fully and more completely. Lenten worship is characterized by the use of more purposeful silences, an increased focus on confession, and an opportunity to seek and find God through corporate and personal prayer. However, throughout this season, we will focus on God's promises of salvation offered freely through grace to a people who walk in darkness. The theme of salvation will be an integral one in each of our Lenten worship services.

In worship today, we read in scripture of the temptation of Jesus in the desert and consider the temptations to power we each experience in our lives every day. The music through which we worship is chosen to reflect this tension between temptation and the hope of salvation offered to us through Christ and his sacrifice for us on the cross.

This is the lesson and sermon from Ash Wednesday, March 9, 2011

MP3 Download (6.07 MB)

GOSPEL LESSON Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

PSALM 51

HOMILY "The Problem with Sin"

Worship Notes

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of our forty-day journey through Lent. As we embark on this journey, we travel a path of discipleship that has us first look to the cross of Christ, confess our sin, accept our mortality, and see that the grace of God always acts first in granting us forgiveness.

The liturgical color for the season of Lent is purple. The baptismal font, the communion table, and the pulpit have been placed in the center of the chancel for this particular season as a sign of the equality and centrality of God's word and sacrament in our worship.

This worship service focuses on our personal confession of sin and culminates in the imposition of ashes. The ashes, which are created by burning the fronds from palm branches used in the 2010 Palm Sunday worship service, are imposed in the shape of a cross on the foreheads of individual worshipers. This outward sign of our repentance before God also serves as a visible reminder of our own mortality. It is this awareness of mortality that makes similar the services of Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, which marks the end of Lent. The imposition of ashes will occur in silence, allowing us to experience the universal applicability of the phrase, "Dust you are and unto dust you shall return."

The music through which we worship is chosen to enlighten the themes of repentance and forgiveness. In addition to singing Lenten hymns, which act as songs of confession, we will also sing of God's overwhelming love and mercy for us.

This is the lesson and sermon from Sunday, March 6, 2011

MP3 Download (6.87 MB)

Epistle Reading 2 Peter 1:16-21

Gospel Reading Matthew 17:1-9

Sermon "Transformed"

Worship Notes

Today is Transfiguration Sunday, which is observed on the last Sunday before Lent. Transfiguration is a high point before we begin our reflective and penitential Lenten journey, which commences with the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday (March 9). The liturgical color for Transfiguration Sunday is white.

In worship today, we end the season of Epiphany with a focus on an explosion of God's light. This includes the light of God that shined on Christ's face as God declared: "This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased!" The scripture lessons describe the transforming experience of Jesus during this mountaintop encounter with God.

The music through which we worship today also reflects these themes of light and transformation. For example, the offertory, "Fairest Lord Jesus," is based on hymn 306, which states that Jesus shines fairer than all of the most beautiful sights of nature. The postlude is a hymn of praise offered to the immortal God who is "light inaccessible, hid from our eyes." Our closing hymn summarizes the sovereignty of Christ through an African-American spiritual, "He Is King of Kings."