REDEEMER UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
May 14, 2023
Sixth Sunday of Easter
Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month,
Mental Health Month
Processional
Invocation: Good morning and welcome!
For our mothers, who have given us life and love, that we may show them reverence and love,
For mothers who have lost a child through death, that their faith may give them hope, and their family and friends support and console them, For women, though without children of their own, who like mothers have nurtured and cared for us. Grant that we, their sons and daughters, may honor them always with a spirit of profound respect. Grant this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Call to Worship
Leader: Mothers come in many different forms, and today we celebrate them all!
All: Thank God for mothers!
Leader: Everyone here is either a son or a daughter.
All: Thank God for my mother!
Leader: For those women who have joined God in Heaven and whom we miss dearly here on earth.
All: Thank God for the mothers of the past.
Leader: For every woman who is working day and night to raise her children right now.
All: Thank God for the mothers of today.
Leader: For all the women who are expecting,7 but aren’t quite mothers yet!
All: Thank God for the soon-to-be-mothers.
Leader: For the women who took in others’ children through adoption and foster care.
All: Thank God for the mothers with hearts so big.
Leader: For those women who have lost a child to death and must carry on.
All: Thank God for the mothers who are so strong.
Leader: For all the women who have desperately wanted to have children of their own, but chose instead to mother everyone else.
All: Thank God for the mothers in spirit.
All: We thank you, Lord, for the women who have influenced our lives in so many ways. We pray that we will honor them in everything we do. Amen.
Words of Welcome and Parish News:
*Gathering Hymn
Silent meditation and prayer:
Prayer Focus: Mother’s Day
The Lord’s Prayer
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, for ever and ever. Amen.
Scripture Reading: John 14:15-21
15”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. 18”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”
Music
The Message “The Spirit of Truth” Rev. Marshall Murphy Jr.
This day is a joyous day through the window of a celebration of Mother’s Day. We probably have memories upon memories of people who were or are in the role of giving care of a mother. This care includes aunts, uncles, foster parents, fathers, adoptive parents, godparents, and neighbors. Mothers have been various instruments in our society. Comforters, negotiators, arbitrators, navigators, peacemakers, and encouragers. Often mothers do so many things and never receive recognition for their efforts. Today we celebrate all the sheroes in this world. Mothers have been able to screen out, funnel, sift, and redirect emotional turmoil from their children.
Can you imagine the character of Jesus’s mother? Herstory is a powerful one because she carried the Son of God. Like many mothers in our world today, they have to witness their children’s lives taken through acts of violence. There is a powerful Word in the Scripture today. Jesus said: 18”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. I found today that Jesus is so powerful that we must grasp the words in this text about not having that loved one physically in your life. Can you imagine all the people who care for children? In the beginning of John 14, Jesus says do not let your hearts be troubled. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17This is the Spirit of truth,”. How many people remember when their mothers tried to be that person to tell you the truth about a problem or be that advocate for you? Sometimes it takes time to see the truth about your relationship with someone in your life.
Do you understand what having the Spirit of Truth means in your life? When you get lost and search for directions you have been given this Spirit of Truth. This Spirit will touch you in places and spaces for you to help you through life. This Spirit is lifting you in times of trials. This Spirit of Truth will remind you that God and Christ are there for you in all seasons.
Offertory Prayer: Holy God and author of our existence; our story is part of a greater story, and your hand is visible on every page and every scene. So too our stories cannot be disconnected from those in the past who have shaped the steps we take – saints and sinners, rebels and followers. They are part of our story as we are part of theirs.
Offertory Music
*Doxology: UMH 95
*Unison Prayer of Dedication:
As we offer gifts this day, we pray they might be used to strengthen the story of faith that will be told by those who will come after we are gone. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
*Closing Hymn:
Sending Forth
Family of God, saved by the resurrection of Jesus Christ and baptized into new life, as you leave this place, consider: how will you remain ready to live out your testimony of the living hope of the resurrection with your family, your friends, and your neighbors? Amen.
Recessional (Please remain seated to meditate and reflect on the music)
“Mothers and their children are in a category all their own. There’s no bond so strong in the entire world. No love so instantaneous and forgiving.”—Gail Tsukiyama
“Mothers are like glue. Even when you can’t see them, they’re still holding the family together.” – Gale
“Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love.”- Stevie Wonder
“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.”
— Maya Angelou
All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.”
– George Washington
“The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.” — Honore de Balzac
“I am sure that if the mothers of various nations could meet, there would be no more wars.”— E. M. Forster
“The influence of a mother in the lives of her children is beyond calculation.”— James E. Faust
“A child’s first teacher is its mother.” — Peng Liyuan
“Mothers hold their children’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.”— Unknown
“There is no role in life that is more essential than that of motherhood.”— Elder M. Russell Ballard
“A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.”— Irish Proverb