Fifth Sunday in Lent

St. Luke Evangelical Lutheran Church
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania

FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT

March 29, 2020

Introduction

In today’s gospel Jesus reveals his power over death by raising Lazarus from the dead. The prophet Ezekiel prophesies God breathing new life into dry bones. To those in exile or living in the shadows of death, these stories proclaim God’s promise of resurrection. In baptism we die with Christ that we might also be raised with him to new life. 

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Lord have mercy

Christ have mercy

Lord have mercy

Prayer of the Day

Almighty God, your Son came into the world to free us all from sin and death. Breathe upon us the power of your Spirit, that we may be raised to new life in Christ and serve you in righteousness all our days, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Readings and Psalm

Ezekiel 37:1-14

The dry bones of Israel brought to life

Psalm 130

I wait for you, O Lord; in your word is my hope. (Ps. 130:5)

Romans 8:6-11

Life in the Spirit

John 11:1-45

Raising of Lazarus

Meditation

Offering

Offering Prayer

God of the wilderness,

We give these offerings in gratitude,

rejoicing in the abundance of your gifts to us.

We give these offerings in faith,

trusting that you will provide for our needs.

We give these offerings in hope,

knowing you can use them to spread your love in this world.

And with these offerings, we give ourselves;

May we live with generous hearts, with open hands. 

We ask this all in the name of Jesus, the Christ of God.  Amen

Let us pray to God,
who alone makes us dwell in safety:

For all who are affected by coronavirus,
through illness or isolation or anxiety,
that they may find relief and recovery:
Lord, hear us,
Lord, graciously hear us.

For those who are guiding our nation at this time,
and shaping national policies,
that they may make wise decisions:
Lord, hear us,
Lord, graciously hear us.

For doctors, nurses and medical researchers,
that through their skill and insights
many will be restored to health:
Lord, hear us,
Lord, graciously hear us.

For the vulnerable and the fearful,
for the gravely ill and the dying,
that they may know your comfort and peace:
Lord, hear us,
Lord, graciously hear us.

We commend ourselves, and all for whom we pray,
to the mercy and protection of God.
Merciful Father,
accept these prayers
for the sake of your Son,
our Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen.

Lord, remember us in your kingdom and teach us to pray:

Our Father, who art in heaven,

     hallowed be thy name,

     thy kingdom come,

     thy will be done,

                 on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread;

and forgive us our trespasses,

     as we forgive those who trespass against us;

and lead us not into temptation,

     but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,

     forever and ever. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen

Be at Peace.  Christ is with you.  Thanks be to God!

Blest Be the Tie That Binds

Blest be the tie that binds

our hearts in Christian love;

the unity of heart and mind

is like to that above.

We share our mutual woes,

our mutual burdens bear,

and often for each other flows

the sympathizing tear.

From sorrow, toil, and pain,

and sin we shall be free;

and perfect love and friendship reign

through all eternity.

Text: John Fawcett, 1740-1817, alt.

+                      +                      +

Here is a little something to smile about (courtesy of Donna Hocker).

Prayer Requests

Cristi (Forrester) Piper and her husband Zach are expecting their first child any moment now. 

Sherry Fahnestock has pneumonia and is at home recovering.

Sadie and Rich Garner have been disgnosed with COVID-19 and are home.

Pat Midolo is at SpiriTrust Lutheran the Inn at Luther Ridge under the care of hospice. 

Vicki McKee is beginning a new round of cancer treatments at Heshey Medical Center.

For Jack and Kathy Bookheimer and Cathy and Jerry Peters as they mourn the death of their Jack and Cathy's brother, Clyde Bookheimer.

Ed Barrett is at home recovering from respiratory issues.

Gail Cox: her back/neck surgery has been postponed until later this summer.

Sally Toma is dealing with cardiac arrhythmia.

Bruce Toma is resuming treatments for his pancreatic cancer in a new trial at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.  (see announcement below about Bruce)

Commemorations

Hans Nielsen Hauge, renewer of the church, died 1824

Sunday, March 29, 2020

Hauge was a layperson who wished to revitalize the church in Norway. As a result of a mystical experience, he felt called to preach. Many professionals in the church feared his motives and influence, and he was imprisoned for leading unauthorized gatherings.

John Donne, poet, died 1631

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

After finishing his education at Oxford University, Donne seemed headed for a career in the English public service. But a series of circumstances led him into the ordained ministry. He is well known as a writer of both secular and sacred poetry.

Benedict the African, confessor, died 1589

Saturday, April 4, 2020

Born a slave on the island of Sicily, Benedict lived as a hermit until the pope ordered all hermits to attach themselves to a monastery, at which time Benedict joined the Franciscans. Though illiterate, he was highly respected as a confessor and later superior of his community.

Announcements

Faith Formation

While all activities are canceled into the unforeseen future, we at St Luke are working with you in keeping the Faith.

Small Groups are encouraged to reach out to its members and possible still have their meetings via phone, Zoom, Face Time or even Skype.

Children and Youth, parents keep an eye out for a packet “Bible Time With Shelly” in your inbox.

Tuesday Book Group is planning a Zoom meeting March 31. 

Due to the Pandemic we will not be ordering Easter Flowers this year.

ELCA World Hunger:  Make your check payable to “St. Luke Lutheran Church” and write ELCA World Hunger in the memo line. Or give online using Vanco. 

Bruce Toma will be featured in the next broadcast of NOVA, the PBS television show, in an episode that will run this coming Wednesday evening on WITF at 9:00 PM.

Staying connected

During this time of separation, take advantage of ways to stay connected with one another. Maybe you have questions about today's readings and would like to get a discussion going. Please use the comment section below.  Or, you may want to share prayer concerns or needs for assistance. You can do that in the comment section below. Maybe you have found a creative way of managing and would like to share it. Post your pictures or videos on our facebook page. There are a fair amount of people in our congregation and community who do not have email and do not engage with social media. Please be ambassadors and evangelists! Reach out to your neighbors with phone call or note. Remember, we're all in this together. God's got the whole world in his hands.

Click on this to go to our Facebook page.

2695 Luther Drive, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 17202

Worship Resources

St. Luke Evangelical Lutheran Church
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania

FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT

March 22, 2020

Introduction

Baptism is sometimes called enlightenment. The gospel for this Sunday is the story of the man born blind healed by Christ. “I was blind, now I see,” declares the man. In baptism God opens our eyes to see the truth of who we are: God’s beloved children.  As David was anointed king of Israel, in baptism God anoints our head with oil, and calls us to bear witness to the light of Christ in our daily lives.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Lord have mercy

Christ have mercy

Lord have mercy

Prayer of the Day

Bend your ear to our prayers, Lord Christ, and come among us. By your gracious life and death for us, bring light into the darkness of our hearts, and anoint us with your Spirit, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen

Readings and Psalm

1 Samuel 16:1-13  David is chosen and anointed

Psalm 23  You anoint my head with oil. (Ps. 23:5)

Ephesians 5:8-14  Awake from sleep, live as children of light

 John 9:1-41  The man born blind

Meditation

Offering

Offering Prayer

God of the wilderness,

We give these offerings in gratitude,

rejoicing in the abundance of your gifts to us.

We give these offerings in faith,

trusting that you will provide for our needs.

We give these offerings in hope,

knowing you can use them to spread your love in this world.

And with these offerings, we give ourselves;

May we live with generous hearts, with open hands. 

We ask this all in the name of Jesus, the Christ of God.  Amen

In times of restraint and physical distancing, when the body of Christ cannot meet in one place, we gather through the Holy Spirit in our many different places – house, apartment, room – and call out to you. Hear our cry, O God, Listen to our prayer. 

Give courage and wisdom to national governments and local authorities to enforce public health regulations for the welfare of all and increase efforts to stop the spread of the virus that affects every human being. Hear our cry, O God, Listen to our prayer. 

Breathe a spirit of love and self-discipline into your church that it continually promote and protect regulations and restrictions for the well-being of all. Strengthen our witness to embody examples of compassionate self-restraint. Hear our cry, O God, Listen to our prayer. 

God, have mercy! Heal the sick, strengthen the elderly and vulnerable, protect all from the spread of COVID-19. Hear our cry, O God, Listen to our prayer. 

God, have mercy! Support and protect all health care workers and all who serve the sick and those at high risk of infection. We remember in particular refugees and those serving them today. Reinforce all agencies that support public health. Hear our cry, O God, Listen to our prayer. 

God, have mercy! Comfort and uplift those who are alone, isolated, oppressed by solitude and anxiety. Hear our cry, O God, Listen to our prayer. 

God, have mercy on the whole human family and on your creation, especially hear our specific prayers that are now spoken out loud or in the silence of our hearts (… for Steve Horton as he mourns the death of his mother, Doris; for Pat,  Angelo, Luther, Sherry . . . ) Hear our cry, O God, Listen to our prayer. 

Fill each and every heart with that trust in your grace that frees us and binds us together in communion in the one body of your son, Jesus Christ. Hear our cry, O God, Listen to our prayer. 

Send your Holy Spirit. Renew your church in its prayer and in solidarity with all its neighbors. Hear our cry, O God, Listen to our prayer. 

Remember in your mercy all those who have died and will die today. [pause] Hear our cry, O God, Listen to our prayer. 

Trusting in your great compassion and unconditional promise always to be with us, we pray.  Amen.

Lord, remember us in your kingdom and teach us to pray:

Our Father, who art in heaven,

     hallowed be thy name,

     thy kingdom come,

     thy will be done,

                 on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread;

and forgive us our trespasses,

     as we forgive those who trespass against us;

and lead us not into temptation,

     but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,

     forever and ever. Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen

Be at Peace.  Christ is with you.  Thanks be to God!

+                      +                      +

Faith Formation

While all activities are canceled into the unforeseen future, we at St Luke are working with you in keeping the Faith.

Small Groups are encouraged to reach out to it’s members and possible still have their meetings via phone, Zoom, Face Time or even Skype 

Children and Youth, parents keep an eye out for a packet  “ Bible Time With Shelly” in your inbox.

Announcements

Tuesday Book Group is planning a Zoom meeting March 31

Due to the Pandemic there will not be doing the Easter Flowers this year.

ELCA World Hunger: Make your check payable to “St. Luke Lutheran Church” and write ELCA World Hunger in the memo line. Or give online using Vanco.

Staying connected

During this time of seperation, take advantage of ways to stay connected with one another. Maybe you have questions about today's readings and would like to get a discussion going. Please use the comment section below.  Or, you may want to share prayer concerns or needs for assistance. You can do that in the comment section below. Maybe you have found a creative way of manageing and would like to share it. Post your pictures or videos on our facebook page. There are a fair amount of people in our congregation and community who do not have email and do not engage with social media. Please be ambasadors and evangelists! Reach out to your neighbors with phone call or note. Remember, we're all in this together. God's got the whole world in his hands!

2695 Luther Drive, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 17202

Update

Dear Friends in Christ,

+ Grace and Peace

We know that all things work for good for those who love God, 

who are called according to God’s purpose.  Romans 8:28

This verse was part of the appointed scripture for yesterday’s evening prayer in the devotional resource I use.  I shared this with the members of our church council and staff as we met last evening online in a video conference. We spent some time with devotions and prayer before beginning discussion of our next steps in response to the pandemic. 

As the leadership of the congregation, we are concerned that as we abide by the recommended safety precautions we all become very intentional about establishing and maintaining connections with members, neighbors and friends. Please help in this effort by reaching out to those in your circle of influence. Telephone calls, emails, and notes can help in this effort. 

Central to our life together is our individual and corporate spiritual well-being. A weekly guide for home worship on Sundays will be emailed to you. It will include the list of appointed readings, a video reflection from me, prayers of intercession, and an invitation to respond. I will send an additional mid-week message of encouragement and requests for prayer on Wednesdays inviting us all to set aside Wednesday evenings at 7:00 PM as common prayer time. While we can't be together physically, we can unite together in prayer for one another, our community, and the world that God so loves.

Finally, the consensus of the leadership at last night’s meeting is that the church building be closed until further notice. While the building is closed, we are still the church. These challenging times also present us with an opportunity to recommit ourselves to daily reading of scripture and prayer. There are many resources available. I am including several here for you to explore. If you have any questions or would like to discuss anything, please give me a call.  My direct phone number is 717-253-0322. My email is cakfrye@gmail.com. If you have prayer requests to share, please let me know so that they may be included on the Wednesday email.

Daily Lectio:  Daily Lectio  This is something I just discovered thanks.  It is available online and can also be downloaded as an app on phones and tablets. 

God Pause:  God Pause – A daily devotion from Luther Seminary  
This is one and the next was  suggested by Lisa Horton 

Lutheran Hour Ministries:  https://www.lhm.org/dailydevotions   

Moravian Daily Texts:  "Moravian Daily Texts"  
The Moravian Church has been at this for a long time. These daily texts provide a daily watchword and prayer. 

Finally, in addition to sending the Sunday and Wednesday emails, I will post everything to my blog, Willing Habitation. To access this blog you may follow the link below:  

http://willinghabitation.blogspot.com/

And now, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen 

        Galatians 6:18 NIV

In Christ’s love for you,

Pastor Frye

Please continue to give. When this is over, we still want to have a church. We support mission and ministry in our community, the United States and the world through our giving in addition to providing salaries for staff, the upkeep of our facility, and the payment of our monthly mortgage.

Offering can be mailed to the office, or you can request your bank to send an electronic check. The most efficient way is to use our online giving option by Vanco. You can access this at our website:  www.saintlukechambersburg.org

Jesus Loves the Little Children

A Room with a View

Last week I was able to spend some time at Camp Bashore Boy Scout Reservation with Troop 134 and approximately 350 other scouts, including my son, Rowan, and Luke Davies. It's been almost 40 years since my first experience of summer camp at Bashore. I was a member of Troop 45 in Lebanon at the time. It was at Bashore that I first experienced the gut-wrenching feelings of homesickness. It wasn't that I missed the physical building of our house, but the familiarity and company of family - my mom and dad, and brothers. I was reminded of that this past week when I witnessed the tears of several young boys during the first meal in the dining hall Sunday evening. Needless to say, we all made it home in one piece.

When I returned home I was struck by the images of children inside chain link retention pens (cages) at our southern borders that have been in the news. Far from fake, these children are children loved by Jesus. They are children we are called to love. What must their feelings of homesickness be like?

No Crib for His Bed

When I was growing up, my maternal grandparents were instrumental in getting me and my brothers to participate in Summer Vacation Bible School at their church, Mt. Wilson Church of the Brethren. I can't tell you now the specifics of the instruction, but I can recall the atmosphere of care and nurture in that community of faith.

On one of those Summer evenings, I learned the song, Jesus Loves the Little Children. You probably know it too.

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world
Red, brown, yellow
Black and white
They are precious in His sight
Jesus loves the little children
Of the world 

Jesus died for all the children
All the children of the world
Red, brown, yellow
Black and white
They are precious in His sight
Jesus died for all the children
Of the world. 

Jesus rose for all the children
All the children of the world
Red, brown, yellow
Black and white
They are precious in His sight
Jesus rose for all the children
Of the world

As the Church, we balk. We hesitate. We fear even talking about this crisis openly. Maybe we dismiss it as something out of our purview. It's political, after all. We don't want to offend anyone or upset the bliss of our collective indifference.

This Sunday a theme that runs through our lessons is that of hospitality. Welcoming the stranger is not an optional activity of the body of Christ. In fact, over and over, it presents itself as one of the chief ways that we live out our shared faith in the Christ. For once, we were lost, and now we are found. We have been welcomed so that we can welcome others. That's how it works. That's how God works. We are necessary to the mission that God has for the world to bring about reconciliation.

"But know that to serve God is nothing else than to serve your neighbor and do good to him in love, be it a child, wife, servant, enemy, friend. . . . If you do not find yourself among the needy and the poor, where the Gospel shows us Christ, then you may know that your faith is not right, and that you have not yet tasted of Christ's benevolence and work for you."    -Martin Luther

Pentecost

This Sunday, June 9 is the the Day of Pentecost (Greek: "Fiftieth Day")  It is a principal festival of the church year, celebrating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples fifty days after Easter. The reading this Sunday from Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1-21) recounts this event.

In Judaism, the fiftieth day after Passover was celebrated as an agricultural festival, known as the feast of Weeks (Exodus 43:22; Deuteronomy 16:9-10). The Christian Pentecost was celebrated by the late fourth century. Pentecost is the final day of the Easter season. The festival commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit and the Baptism of 3,000 converts.*

Take a few moments and watch biblical storyteller Elizabeth Adkisson telling the story of Pentecost on this video:

As you listened to the stroy, what did you notice? What part did fire play in the telling? Both unity and diversity are evident in this stroy. What examples of unity did you hear? What about diversity? Does the presence of diversty leave no room for unit (or, the other way around)? Do we see one as an obstacle to the other?

I've been thinking about the image of fire recently. Fire can be both the most terrify thing and the most comfortable.  What is your expereince of fire? 

In the 4th century, St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, wrote the following in one of his sermons:

It is the divine way to be seen, or to be described, under the appearance of fire. Moses had seen fire in the bush. The bush was on fire, yet it was not burnt. So the Lord might show us by this mystery that Christ would come to cast light on the thorns of our body, that he would baptize in the Holy Spirit and in fire, and that he would give us grace and destroy our sins. And Gideon, when he was about to defeat the Midianites, commanded his three hundred men to carry burning torches in their pitchers. Our bodies are pitchers, formed from the clay of the earth, that burn with the fire of spiritual grace and bear witness with the voice of confession to the passion of the Lord Jesus. Also in the Acts of the Apostles the Holy Spirit descended upon the faithful in the image of fire. This is a fire which, as with gold, makes what is good better and devours sin as stubble. As the Spirit is the light of the divine countenance, so also is the Spirit the fire that burns before the face of God.—Ambrose  [Ambrose, in Sunday Sermons of the Great Fathers, II, p. 13.]

The Day of Pentecost

June 9, 2019
Reception of New Members

Prayer of the Day

God our creator, the resurrection of your Son 

offers life to all the peoples of earth. 

By your Holy Spirit, kindle in us the fire of your love,

 empowering our lives for service and our tongues for praise, 

through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, 

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, 

one God, now and forever.

Amen.

Readings and Psalm

Acts 2:1-21 

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b 

Romans 8:14-17 

John 14:8-17 [25-27] 

* Ralph R. Van Loon and S. Anita Stauffer, Worship Wordbook: A Practical Guide for Parish Worship. (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995), page 67.