Wednesday Words for October 3, 2012
From Pastor Carrie Smith
Thought for the Day:
(Based on Mark 10:13-16)
Can't tell you how good I felt when Jesus touched my child.
I pressed through to make it here. Pressed through hunger and thirst and hardship.
Pressed through worries and doubts and fears.
Pressed through people and problems.
And then… just when I got close enough to hear him talking, the church folks said,
“Move back and shut that child up, Jesus is busy."
But Jesus told them to move back and be quiet, because he was busy blessing my child.
By the Rev. Dr. Kwasi Kena
***
In our prayers: John Michaels, experiencing fatigue; Larry Kohn, health issues; Gary Summers, continuing cancer treatments; PADS volunteers and clients as they open for the season on Sunday night.
Tonight at Bethany: Confirmation classes at 4:45 and 7:30; Confirmation meal at 5:45 pm; Worship at 6:30 pm.
Bethany choirs are always looking for new members! Sonshine Singers meet at 5 pm; the Drum Ministry meets at 6 pm; and the Bethany Adult Choir is from 7:30-9 pm.
Sunday at Bethany: Worship is at 7:45 am, 9 am, and 10:45 am.
We will be blessed by the music of the Bethany Choir at 9 am and Sonshine Singers at 10:45 am.
Then, come back at 4 pm for the blessing of the animals! All pets are allowed—even stuffed ones! We’ll meet on the lawn in front of the church.
Support LSSI! You can help support LSSI’s new project, the Gable Point Senior Housing Complex, which is having its ground-breaking ceremony on Thursday, October 11th at 2 pm. Location is 401 Commonwealth Drive, right here in Crystal Lake. Please join me!
The CROP Walk was a great success! Thanks to all the Bethany members who showed up to take a step against hunger in our community.
Thanks be to God: the African Children’s Choir packed the pews on Sunday! It was a joyful night of music and dance, and to make it even better, we raised over $5,600 for the choir and its schools in Africa. What a wonderful tribute to Jody Leahy. (There’s already talk of bringing them back for next year!)
The next Bethany Arts Series Concert is Sunday, October 21, 2012 at 4:00 p.m. The husband and wife duo-piano team of Redekopp and Edwards perform a delightful concert of works from Bach to Gershwin and beyond. In addition to performing together at one piano, each pianist will also perform solo pieces, including works by Chopin and Brahms. Please come!
In honor of Columbus Day (and because school is not in session), the office will be closed on Monday, October 8th.
And, since it is Columbus Day on Monday, here is a prayer from the Native American Ministries Office of the Episcopal Church:
CREATOR, we give you thanks for all you are and all you bring to us for our visit within your creation. In Jesus, you place the Gospel in the Center of this Sacred Circle through which all of creation is related. You show us the way to live a generous and compassionate life. Give us your strength to live together with respect and commitment as we grow in your spirit, for you are God, now and forever. AMEN.
This Week’s Texts: 19th Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 22:18-24
18Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” 19So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.
21So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.” 24Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Psalm 8 (Message Version)
8 God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name.
2 Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the songs that drown out enemy talk,
and silence atheist babble.
3-4 I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?
5-8 Yet we’ve so narrowly missed being gods, bright with Eden’s dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
repeated to us your Genesis-charge,
Made us lords of sheep and cattle, even animals out in the wild,
Birds flying and fish swimming, whales singing in the ocean deeps.
9 God, brilliant Lord, your name echoes around the world.
Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12
1Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. 3He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
5Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. 6But someone has testified somewhere, “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? 7You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, 8subjecting all things under their feet.” Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, 9but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
10It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, 12saying, “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.”
Mark 10:2-16
2Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” 4They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” 5But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
10Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
13People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” 16And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
Peace,
+Pastor Carrie B. Smith
