Palm Sunday, March 28, 2021
Let Us Rejoice and Be Glad
Prelude
Words of Welcome
Announcements
Call to Worship (inspired by Isaiah 50:4-9a)
Leader: Come. Come seeking words.
People: (Out loud, but muted) We come to let your tongue give praise.
Leader: Come. Come to find your voice.
People: (Out loud, but muted) We come to hear the response.
Leader: Come. Come to open your ears.
People: (Out loud, but muted We come to listen.
Leader: Come. Come to be healed by the silence.
People: (Out loud, but muted We come to stand together.
Unison: We come to find God.
Opening Prayer Unison (Out loud, but muted)
Come, O Holy One.
Come through the streets.
Come into the house.
Come to find a space beside us at the table.
Come to challenge our answers about
Why tragedy comes
Why poverty increases
Why we are afraid.
Why peace in the world and peace within us can seem elusive.
Come O Holy One.
Speak to us in the silence
With wisdom greater than ours
With love deeper than ours
With change wider than ours.
Silence
Leader: Come O Holy One.
Fill in these stories
with your wisdom
with your love
with your change
so that we might rely on your answers.
Here and now. Amen.
Hymn # 216: All Glory, Laud, and Honor
(Please see separate attachment for the score)
- All glory, laud, and honor to you, O Christ, we sing,
To whom the lips of children made sweet hosanas ring!
The people of the Hebrews with palms adorned your way;
Our praise and prayer and anthems we offer you this day.
- O Promised One of Israel, of David’s royal line,
The one called “God’s beloved,” of flesh and yet divine,
To you, before your passion, they sang their hymns of praise;
To you, now high exalted, our melody we raise.
- As you received their praises, receive our prayers today,
Whose justice and whose mercy and sovereignty hold sway.
All glory, laud, and honor to you, O Christ, we sing,
To whom the lips of children made sweet hosanas ring!
Pastor’s Call to Confession
Sisters and Brothers, in our daily lives we need the gift of the season of Lent.
These 40 days can help us restore right relationships with God and with others.
This is a fine time to focus, clear our hearts and minds of distractions, and re-orient and restore our whole selves. May God be with us. Let us join in our unison Prayer of Confession.
Prayer of Confession Unison (Out loud, but muted)
O Holy One, we are too often too pre-occupied to notice you in the parade.
We are not aware that you sit beside us at the table.
We are too busy sighing. We are too busy talking.
We have insisted upon our own answers.
We proclaimed our own knowledge about why bad things happen,
about why the powerful are accruing unprecedented wealth and influence, and
about why the world feels so broken.
We have assured ourselves that our own understandings of life are sufficient.
We have too narrow a picture of how you work in our lives.
We can all too easily too often assume things are as they by nature — set and unalterable.
We accept too easily this is the way that things must be,
but this life is in your hands.
Our lives are in your hands.
O Holy One, speak to us.
Fill our silences.
Comfort us with your love
so that we may find your understanding.
Trust us to find your answers
when we finally tire from our own.
Save us, O Holy One, with your steadfast love.
Today we’ll join the procession mindful that You Living Christ are asking us to carry the torch of hope and love in this world.
Amen.
Silent Prayer
Assurance of Pardon
God opens our ears.
God speaks when we are silent.
God approaches us
in the parade and at table
to be your help.
Now and always. Amen.
Passing of the Peace (unmute for Passing of the Peace)
Pastor: The Peace of Christ be with you
People: And also with you!
Reading Karen Yoho
Psalm 118:Excerpts (NIV)
118:1 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever!
118:2 Let Israel say, “His steadfast love endures forever.”
118:19 Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD.
118:20 This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous shall enter through it.
118:21 I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.
118:22 The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
118:23 This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.
118:24 This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
118:25 Save us, we beseech you, O LORD! O LORD, we beseech you, give us success!
118:26 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD. We bless you from the house of the LORD.
118:27 The LORD is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with branches, up to the horns of the altar.
118:28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God, I will extol you.
118:29 O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Special Music “Mother and Child” Laura Knutson & Jan Knutson William Grant Still Suite for Violin and Piano, adapted for guitar
Gospel Reading
Mark 11:1-11 (NIV)
11:1 When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples
11:2 and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it.
11:3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.'”
11:4 They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it,
11:5 some of the bystanders said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?”
11:6 They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it.
11:7 Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it.
11:8 Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.
11:9 Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
11:10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
11:11 Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
Musical Interlude
Sermon: Let Us Rejoice and Be Glad
Music for Meditation
Prayers of the People (unmute yourself to offer a request, giving first names only, please)
Hymn #508 Prayer Is the Soul’s Sincere Desire (verses 1 and 5)
(sung muted but together, Wei Der playing)
Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire, unuttered or expressed;
The motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast.
O Christ, by whom we come to God, the Life, the Truth, the Way,
The path of prayer you too have trod: Christ, teach us how to pray.
Pastoral Prayer
The Lord’s Prayer Unison (Out loud, but muted)
Offering Invitation
When you have no words,
When you cannot find your voice,
God approaches.
Let us reach out to our God.
Let us give our gifts.
Offering and Dedication Unison (Out loud, but muted)
On this our Palm Sunday, we give you thanks oh God for opening the gates of our heart. We give you thanks that you’ve implanted in our hearts like the prophet Jeremiah wrote this inner capacity to know you and live out of your presence in all moments and seasons of our lives. With great gratitude we give our gifts to you today form our hearts. Thank you for this faith community, our Greenbelt Community Church, United Church of Christ, for this community of Greenbelt, and for all the caring loving persons in our lives. Amen.
Blessing and Benediction Unison (Out loud, but muted)
O Holy One,
Bless these gifts
So that the world may know your love
Even when we are silent. Amen.
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