The music on the viewer, when it is playing, is on media, the movie camera icon on your viewer. There is no need to touch the viewer. Thanks! GATHERING HYMN: "Sometimes by Faith" This evening we will celebrate Holy Communion. During the gathering hymn, please find a bit of bread, a cracker, even a cookie and something you like to drink (we suggest juice or water) and have those at hand for the service. We will consecrate those elements as part of the Communion liturgy for this evening. The United Church of Christ celebrates an open table. That means that anyone wishing to take part in the celebration of Communion is welcome to do so! ANNOUNCEMENTS (Please feel free to type a brief announcement of interest to our community in Nearby Chat.) WELCOME Welcome to First United Church of Christ and Conference Center, Second Life a church with real life standing in the Eastern Association of the Southern California Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ. It is truly good to be real in Second Life! And please always know that, "No matter who you are, or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here." You may spot someone other than me with a tag including the word "minister" That person is ordained UCC clergy in real life. Before or after worship please feel welcome to invite friends, who hopefully will become our friends! If you're not familiar with our two-island campus, ask one of our Guides to show you around. We have several fun and interesting places to visit here at First UCC. Need some chill time? This is a great place for that. If you would like a bulletin notecard/copy of the service, please click the red book on the stand near the sanctuary door. If you would like to become an official member of this church, please let any clergy, staff, or a present member know! Our church is connected to the wider church and the world. That means we support the UCC financially as do all our churches. If you would like to help, there is a donation bowl at the rear of the sanctuary. SCRIPTURE: Hebrew Bible: Jeremiah 1:4-10 -- Gospel: Luke 4:21-30 SERMON: "God Knows" The scripture readings for this evening declare that we are fully known to God, even before we are born. There is incredible comfort in that understanding, because being known of God does not mean that one is known or accepted by one’s contemporaries. In fact, being known of God is to be known in a special sense and that means being chosen for special service. That sometimes stirs hostility in others. It may even stir hostility in those whom one is trying to serve. Such was the case in Jesus’ ministry. Jesus visited Nazareth in Luke’s record of the early ministry and we find that Epiphany, the celebration of Christ revealed to the world, has its darker side. The turn is sudden and radical in Luke’s account. The crowd goes from scratching their heads as they recall this is Joseph’s son, to disfavor and then to violence. Perhaps the crowd wanted a demonstration, perhaps they were filled with doubt or injured pride, but Jesus understands proximity does not breed insight; instead proximity breeds blindness. And there is a more serious blindness at work here, too. The people heard Jesus recount stories from their own tradition and they chose the blindness provided by hostility and violence. Anger and violence seem to be the last defense of those who are forced to faith the truth. It is important to understand that Jesus does not go elsewhere because he was rejected. Jesus is rejected because he went elsewhere, to Capernaum a town with a heavy non-Jewish population. Luke’s point is that Israel should have understood. The people knew their ancient covenants were with peoples other than themselves. But this truth was ignored, and it is being ignored to this day. There's a musical group called "The Austin Lounge Lizards” I would imagine that none of you have heard this group! But someone actually gave me their Christmas Album once as a gift. Sometime back they had a song out and the lyrics went like this: I know you smoke, I know you drink that brew I just can't abide a sinner like you God can't either, that's why I know it to be true That Jesus loves me--but he can't stand you I’m going to heaven, boys, when I die 'Cause I’ve crossed every "t" and I’ve dotted every I" My preacher tells me that I’m God's kind of guy; That's why Jesus loves me--but you're gonna fry The group is using satire to drive home a point. Judgmental attitudes will, in the end, destroy your character and render you incapable of discerning the truth. We can get so fixed in how we perceive that we forget that we do not know all that can be known, but God does. If we are known of God, we are called to use the gifts that God gives us to reach out. In the weeks ahead we will be talking a lot about our gifts, particularly our spiritual ones. But it is truly amazing how we find ways to shut out what we know to be God’s call to peace and justice and inclusiveness in favor of something else. The anger of the people who were in the Synagogue in Nazareth and sought to stone Jesus were reacting to their preferences not God’s. And they assumed that they had no gifts to exercise, that they were already the sole chosen people. Dr. James Sutherland Bonnell, a Presbyterian minister of another generation, has a great line on this text. “Jesus was favorably received by his townsfolk until he challenged the provincial, racial prejudice. He dared to declare that the children of Israel were not special favorites of God.” Indeed, the heavenly Father had singled out individuals in Sidon and Syria for unparalleled blessings. “And that,” Dr. Bonnell wrote, ‘‘really set the heather on fire!” Some of you may have heard about Clarence Jordan, founder of Koinonia Farm in Georgia. He started a peanut farm and tried to run it the same way he thought Jesus would run it. He believed in a good wage for an honest day’s work. He believed in taking care of the land and those who work it. And he believed that all people — black and white — could work together and could stand together. It was the early 1950s, and his local Baptist church did not agree with his thoughts on racial equality. One time, an agricultural student from Florida State University visited Koinonia Farm for the weekend. The student was from India, and said, “I’ve never gone to a Christian worship service. I would like to go.” Clarence took him to Rehoboth Baptist Church, and it is reported, “the presence of his dark skin miraculously chilled the hot, humid southern Georgia atmosphere.” It didn’t matter that he was from India. He had dark skin, not a red neck —and so he did not fit in. After worship, the pastor drove out to Jordan’s farm and said, “You can’t come with somebody like that. It causes disunity in our church.” Jordan tried to explain, but the pastor wasn’t listening. Sometime later, a group of church leaders went out to the farm to plead with Clarence to keep undesirable people out of their church. As the story goes, Clarence promised to apologize before the congregation if somebody could prove he had done something wrong. Then he handed a Bible to a man in the group and said, “Can you tell me what sin I have committed by bringing a stranger to church?” The man slammed down the book and said, “Don’t give me any of this Bible stuff!” Clarence retorted, “I’m not giving you any Bible stuff. I’m asking you to give it to me.” The man and the others did not know what to say; so they slipped out. When they got back to the church, they wrote a letter and said, “Mr. Jordan, you are no longer welcome in our church, because you keep bringing in the wrong kind of people.” In our church! Why is it that we creatures think that we can continue to exist blind to issues that call for our attention and assume that God will not know it? This Scripture directs us to deal honestly with ourselves. Senator Paul Simon, in an interview printed in U. S. News and World Report said: “The great sermons my father preached were not from the pulpit. My father stood up when they took the Japanese Americans away from the West Coast at the beginning of World War II. He took a very unpopular stand. I would love to tell you that I stood up for my father and was very proud of him, but I remember being embarrassed by what he had done. Now, it’s one of the things I’m proudest of my father for. And it taught me a great lesson. If you believe something, stand up.” I would add to that by saying that I believe when we believe we are supposed to do something we ought to do it. We are called to go well beyond belief. Belief is part of the picture. We need to understand what we truly believe. This is a church that I know to take that very seriously. And when we know what we believe it seems to me we are ready to begin the search for our particular gifts of the Spirit. And when we find them we are called to put them to use. We are not meant to be deterred. Many of us have heard the story about Abraham Lincoln. He was defeated seven times for elective office before winning the Presidency of the United States. He certainly defied the odds. And he did not give up. Then there was Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh earned all of $85 from his paintings during his lifetime. One hundred years after his death, just one painting alone, Dr. Bachet, sold for the incredible sum of $82.5 million. The point is clear. If Abraham Lincoln, Vincent van Gogh, had let rejection rule their lives, and let it keep them from doing and saying what they felt sure to be right – our world would be incredibly impoverished today. Then there was this itinerant, middle eastern preacher who lived some 2,000 years ago -- his ideas were definitely rejected by the people of his hometown, as well as the religious leaders of his time and country. Yet he continued his ministry, as he understood it to be -- Devine defiance or God knows? And the people of God said… HYMN FOR PREPARING FOR COMMUNION and COMMUNITY PRAYER: "Come to the Banquet..." If you have not already done so, and wish to participate in Holy Communion, please get a bit of bread, or a cracker and some juice or water during this song. You may also wish to think about your prayers for our time of Community Prayer following Holy Communion. CELEBRATION OF HOLY COMMUNION This table is open to all who seek nourishment for the soul. You do not need to be a member here, or anywhere else for that matter. Participate in this celebration not because you must, but simply because you may. Participate not because you are fulfilled, but because you are empty and in need of God's mercy and assurance. Participate not to express an opinion, but to seek a presence and to pray for a spirit. PRAYER OF CONFESSION Pray with me. O Holy One, we call to you and name you as eternal, ever-present, and boundless in love. Yet there are times, O God, when we fail to recognize you in the dailyness of our lives. Sometimes shame clenches tightly around our hearts, and we hide our true feelings. Sometimes fear makes us small, and we miss the chance to speak from our strength. Sometimes doubt invades our hopefulness, and we degrade our own wisdom. In these times forgive us and by your boundless grace renew our resolve. We pray in the Savior's name. Amen. ASSURANCE OF PARDON God has no pleasure in the death of sinners, but would rather they should turn from their wickedness and live. God has given authority to God's ministers to declare to God's people, when they repent, the forgiveness of their sins. God pardons and absolves all who truly repent and believe the holy gospel. So we ask God to grant us true repentance and the abiding Holy Spirit, that what we do now may please God and that the rest of our life may be pure and holy, so that at the last we may come to eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. PLEASE PICK UP AND HOLD THE ELEMENTS THAT YOU HAVE GATHERED. We remember that on the night of betrayal and desertion, Jesus took bread, gave you thanks, broke the bread, and gave it to the disciples, saying: "This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, Jesus also took the cup, after supper, saying: "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me" Breathe deeply. Take the elements you gathered and eat and drink. Let us pray. In the strength Christ gives us, we offer ourselves to you, eternal God, and give thanks that you have called us -- each of us -- to serve you. Amen. COMMUNITY PRAYER and PASTORAL PRAYER You are invited to type your joys and your concerns in nearby chat at this time. We will lift them to God together as a community of faith. MOMENT OF SILENCE PASTORAL PRAYER We fear it that thing we call rejection. Our experience of it weakens us makes us shrink for what is possible and what is right and what is needed. When we feel in our heart that we are in the right help us, O Creator, to deal with the nay sayers the narrow in mind the hard of heart and those, who though they see, are truly blind to the world to the Gospel and to the signs of work to be done all around. Strengthen us and enable our resolve. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. LORD'S PRAYER O Breathing Life, your Name shines everywhere! Release a space to plant your presence here. Imagine your possibilities now. Embody your desire in every light and form. Grow through us this moment's bread and wisdom. Untie the knots of failure binding us, as we release the strands we hold of others' faults. Help us not forget our source, yet free us from not being in the present. From you arises every Vision, Power and Song from gathering to gathering. May our future actions grow from here! Amen. BENEDICTION I extinguish our candles; the Spirit light they symbolize goes now with each of you. Depart fed and nourished and ready for the journey in whatever world you sojourn. You will travel not alone but with Spirit company. Return when you feel empty and in need. You journey just exactly as you were created to be the beloved of God. Amen. CLOSING SONG: "Give Me Faith"