St Ansgar Lutheran Church, London

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Sunday Morning

We invite you to join us for the following worship services:

Sundays
10:30 a.m. Worship service

Hand sanitizer will be available at the entrance and other locations in the church for
your use.

Washrooms will be available for use.

In the service: The service will be shown on the screen. The offering will not be gathered and presented, but there will be an offering plate at the back of the sanctuary where you can put your offering as you enter or leave. Pastor David distributes the communion wafers and an Assisting Minister distributes wine or grape juice in individual glasses.

We have coffee and fellowship time available again in Luther Hall after the service.

We will continue to evaluate our worship service procedures on a monthly basis.

TWENTIETH SUNDAY OF PENTECOST, OCTOBER 6, 2024

St. Ansgar Lutheran Church, Outline for Worship (with sermon)
Sunday, October 6, 2024 – Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Based on ELW Setting Four

GATHERING

WELCOME & ANNOUNCEMENTS

BRIEF ORDER FOR CONFESSION AND FORGIVENESS
P: Blessed be the holy Trinity, + one God, who forgives all our sin, whose mercy
endures forever.
C: Amen.

P: Let us confess our sin and come to God for healing.

Silence is kept for reflection.

P: Gracious God,

C: have mercy on us. We confess that we have honoured you with our lips,
but have harmed our neighbours with our tongues.
The cravings at war within us cause conflicts and disputes.
In our desire to be first we make distinctions among ourselves.
We place the needs of the poor and the suffering last.
In your great mercy, forgive us our sins.
Draw near to us with grace in time of need, and turn us to follow in the way
of Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord.
Amen.
P: God promises to forgive our iniquity and to remember our sin no more. By
grace you have been saved. In the name of + Jesus Christ, the source of eternal
healing, your sins are forgiven.
C: Amen.

ENTRANCE HYMN - God Is Here! (ELW #526)

GREETING
P: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion
of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
C: And also with you

KYRIE
A: In peace, let us pray to the Lord.
C: Lord, have mercy.

A: For the peace from above, and for our salvation, let us pray to the Lord.
C: Lord, have mercy.

A: For the peace of the whole world, for the well-being of the Church of God,
and for the unity of all, let us pray to the Lord.
C: Lord, have mercy.

A: For this holy house, and for all who offer here their worship and praise,
let us pray to the Lord.
C: Lord, have mercy.

A: Help, save, comfort, and defend us, gracious Lord.
C: Amen.

HYMN OF PRAISE (sung) (ELW p. 149)
P: This is the feast of victory for our God. Alleluia.
C: Worthy is Christ, the Lamb who was slain,
whose blood set us free to be people of God.
Power and riches and wisdom and strength,
and honour and blessing and glory are his.
This is the feast of victory for our God. Alleluia.
Sing with all the people of God
and join in the hymn of all creation:
Blessing and honour and glory and might
be to God and the Lamb forever. Amen.
This is the feast of victory for our God,
for the Lamb who was slain has begun his reign.
Alleluia. Alleluia.

PRAYER OF THE DAY
P: Let us pray.
P: Sovereign God, you have created us to live in loving community with one
another. Form us for life that is faithful and steadfast, and teach us to trust
like little children, that we may reflect the image of your Son, Jesus Christ, our
Saviour and Lord.
Amen

WORD

FIRST READING: Genesis 2:18-24
18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone;
I will make him a helper as his partner." 19 So 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. 20 The 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. 21 So 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. 22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he
made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then 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." 24 Therefore a man leaves his father and
his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

A: The word of the Lord.
C: Thanks be to God.

PSALM 8
1 O Lord our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth! –
2 you whose glory is chanted above the heavens out of the mouths
of infants and children;
you have set up a fortress against your enemies, to silence
the foe and avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
4 what are mere mortals that you should be mindful of them,
human beings that you should care for them?
5 Yet you have made them little less than divine;
with glory and honour you crown them.
6 You have made them rule over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet:
7 all flocks and cattle,
even the wild beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the air, the fish of the sea,
and whatever passes along the paths of the sea.
9 O Lord our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

SECOND READING: Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12
1 Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the
prophets, 2 but 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.
3 He 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,
4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited
is more excellent than theirs.
5 Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking,
to angels. 6 But someone has testified somewhere, "What are human
beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them?
7 You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have
crowned them with glory and honour, 8 subjecting 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, 9 but we do see
Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned
with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of
God he might taste death for everyone. 10 It 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 11 For 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, 12 saying, "I will proclaim
your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will
praise you."

A: The word of the Lord.
C: Thanks be to God.

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION
C: Alleluia. Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life. Alleluia.

GOSPEL
P: The Holy Gospel according to Mark 10:2-16
C: Glory to you, O Lord.

2 Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man
to divorce his wife?" 3 He answered them, "What did Moses command you?"
4 They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to
divorce her." 5 But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart
he wrote this commandment for you. 6 But 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, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.'
So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined
together, let no one separate." 10 Then in the house the disciples asked him
again about this matter. 11 He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and
marries another commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her
husband and marries another, she commits adultery." 13 People were bringing
little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke
sternly to them. 14 But 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. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive
the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." 16 And he took them
up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

P: The Gospel of the Lord.
C: Praise to you, O Christ.

SERMON
Mark 9:38-50
Let us pray: May the words of my mouth, and the prayers of our hearts,
always be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, our Strength, and our Redeemer.
AMEN
“It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper
as his partner.” Biblical scholars point out that this is the first statement
uttered by God in the creation narrative that does not immediately bring
something into being. This is a window into God’s thoughts, and God
does not act upon this thought directly. God creates the animals and
brings them to Adam to be named. “But for the man there was not
found a helper as his partner.”
In his commentary on this text, the medieval rabbi Rashi proposes that God
knew this would happen. He imagines Adam, the human, as the one who
seeks yet does not find, as God presents the animals to him in pairs. At the
conscious, painful realization of his human aloneness, sleep overwhelms him.
Like God, Adam has been great in his aloneness. Adam has stood vertically,
upright, among all the animals who creep, slither, and swarm horizontally
upon the earth. But in greatness, aloneness, verticality, Adam has known
no equal “other.” For this to happen writes Jewish scholar Avivah Zornberg,
Adam “must, in a sense, diminish himself” and “come to know the rightness
of a more complex form of unity.” Adam falls horizontally upon the earth,
as if under divine anaesthesia. Eve comes into being.
The mysteries of the one and the two, unity and duality, union and division,
are at the heart of this morning’s Gospel text from Mark, and at the heart
of the Genesis narrative cited by Jesus. There is the mystery of Adam,
who came into being as one but came to be a realized personhood as two:
Adam and Eve. There is the wondrous mystery of human marriage, by
which two “are no longer two, but one flesh.” There is the painful mystery
of human divorce, by which one flesh is torn and made two once more.
But all of these point to a mystery more encompassing and profound:
the universal yearning to experience the original unity that is our birthright,
the single- heartedness that is at the core of Jesus’ message.
We know, in our hearts, that we cannot return to the innocent oneness
of childhood. We also know that we have crossed the threshold of mature being,
as we are individualized, marked by experience. We have left the garden.
We have left our father and our mother. The world is full of choices.
Each choice matters, and by each choice we become a little more,
or a little less, of what God intends us to be. Yet precisely because
we can choose, in the same way Adam chose Eve, the possibility of
a new kind of union opens before us. This is an inner unity given
graciously and directly by the hands of God.
Jesus ends his discussion with the Pharisees by making a statement that
is brief and to the point. “Therefore, what God has joined together, let no
one separate.” God desires our oneness: a union with God that manifests
itself inwardly, as all the seemingly different pieces of our humanity are
stitched together by an invisible hand, into one single fabric. God desires
our oneness: a union with the world that manifests itself in our outward
experience, as we consent to take more and more of the God’s created
order as the reality of our own personal concern and compassion.
God desires our oneness: a union with God that manifests itself as an
entrusting of our self beyond deliberation of hesitancy, as the lover of
the Beloved, neither one nor two, but both one and two.
“Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Considering the historical context of this passage, some things become
quite clear. The question posed by the Pharisees concerns Jewish
marriage in first century Palestine, a world in which only a man could divorce
his wife. A wife could not divorce her husband. The Pharisee’s question
pertains to what is allowed, what is technically lawful. The Pharisees are only
concerned with a narrow definition of religious correctness that misses the
scope of God’s invitation to live in love. The arbitrary reasons for which a
man was permitted to divorce his wife included if the marriage produced
no children, or if the husband found a woman he deemed more suitable.
Considering this, we begin to see how copying and pasting this passage into
contemporary discussions of marriage in the church is not entirely appropriate.
And we begin to see how Jesus’ reframing of the conversation radically
revalues the personhood of women. But then we hear the hard words of
Jesus, spoken in private to his disciples: “Whoever divorces his wife and
marries another commits adultery against her.”
At this point we must ask ourselves what Jesus is saying and what can it
possibly mean for us? These words from the Gospel are not just for married
people, although the question about marriage forms the occasion in which
Jesus offers this teaching. These words are for all of us: we who are married
or single, committed or seeking, divorced or not, heterosexual or not.
Jesus’ highest priority is the unification of the children of God, beginning
with our inner unification. Each of us is made up of many selves. These many
selves compete for our attention and vie for dominance. As a child of God,
when we work at cross purposes, a divided heart becomes a hardened heart.
Lost in this division, it is all too easy to become desensitized to the true
nature at our core. The invitation of Jesus is to take up a life made whole
by voluntary, sacred commitments that shape us into a whole, unified,
single-hearted people. Such commitments initiate a life-long journey into
that original unity that is our birthright which is a oneness with God, with
one another, and within our deepest selves. Jesus’ warning is a warning
against choosing the wrong commitments. These are the kinds of
commitments by which we become more fragmented, divided, double-
hearted people, and in the process, often force others to do the same.
What has God joined together that no one must separate? In Jesus,
God has joined together humanity and divinity. In the human person,
God has joined together body, soul, and spirit. In creation, God has joined
together human and nonhuman life in a web of interdependence, placing a
big responsibility in our hands as its stewards and guardians. In the church,
God has joined together people from every tribe, family, people, and nation
to feast at the banquet table. In marriage, God has joined two hearts, two bodies,
and the course of two lives. In every genuine vocation, God has joined
together a need of the world with a single heart’s deepest gladness.
And yet, human beings divide. By merely living and breathing, we divide.
Sin divides us. The nature of Jesus Christ is divided to suit the human
preference for reason. The human person is divided and subdivided in
acts of violence, body torn from soul and soul torn from spirit. Creation is
divided beyond recognition by large corporations and the callous ignorance
of individual consumers. The church is divided by the refusal to live with
open hearts amid differences and disagreements.
Surrounded by the wreckage of all this outer and inner division there are
days or moments when we feel truly alone. Yet, there is one who promises
to be our partner, one who sustains all things, who says, “It is not good that
one should be alone.” In the Book of Isaiah we hear the promise, “For I, the Lord
your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you.’”
We have left the garden. We have left our father and our mother, and the world
is now full of choices. Each choice matters, and by each one we become a
little more, or a little less, of what God intends for us. Yet, because Jesus
Christ has chosen us, the possibility of a new kind of being joined together
opens before us, a simplicity that unties all the knots and gathers our
patchwork past and our unknown future into the hands of our Redeemer
who is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters.
AMEN

Silence is kept for reflection.

HYMN OF THE DAY – If You But Trust in God to Guide You (ELW #769)

APOSTLES’ CREED
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.*
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen

PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION
A: Challenged by God’s Word in Christ, let us pray for the church, the world, and
the whole creation.
A: God of our church, send forth your Spirit as we pray for our Bishops Susan
and Carla. Empower them with your wisdom to lead the church. We also pray
for the Thames Ministry area, especially Pastor Chris Krejlgaard and the people
of Trinity Lutheran Church, Windsor. God of grace,
C: hear our prayer.

A: God of our ancestors, we give thanks for the church in all times. May we
listen for the prophets of this age who bear messages that stir the church toward
renewal and justice. God of grace,
C: hear our prayer.

A: Creator of every creature on earth, direct our lives toward the renewal and
sustaining of cattle, birds of the air, animals of the field, and those who share
our homes. Reveal the ways we can work alongside creation for the health and
well-being of all. God of grace,
C: hear our prayer.

A: Sovereign God, we give thanks that you are mindful and benevolent to even
us, mere mortals. Accompany us when hardness of heart gets in the way of
justice between people and nations. Endow leaders with minds for justice and
hearts for compassion. God of grace,
C: hear our prayer.

A: Restoring God, grant healing and wholeness to those who are sick and
suffering, especially Eileen, Beth, Jean, Mary Margaret, Kristine, Peter and
Shirley, and those others who are in our hearts. Work through medical
professionals to diagnose, ease pain, and give life to all who seek their
wisdom and experience. God of grace,
C: hear our prayer.

A: Unifying God, humans were created for relationship with the earth,
its creatures, and one another. Forgive us when division threatens
companionship, mutual support, and unity among us. May your love
inspire us to build supportive communities of faith where all are cherished.
God of grace,
C: hear our prayer.

A: Merciful God, we pray for peace as war continues to rage in Ukraine and
in Israel and Gaza. Shelter all living in fear; protect those seeking refuge in
neighbouring countries; sustain families separated by the horrors of war; tend to
those who are injured; comfort all who mourn their dead. Direct your people into
the way of peace. God of grace,
C: hear our prayer.

A: God of resurrection, you prepare a place in the kingdom through Christ’s
death and resurrection. We give thanks for the saints who have taken their place
at your heavenly banquet. God of grace,
C: hear our prayer.

A: Into your hands, O God, we commend all for whom we pray, trusting in the
saving grace you freely give, both now and forever.
C: Amen.

PEACE
P: The peace of Christ be with you always.
C: And also with you.

LORD’S PRAYER
P: Lord, remember us in your kingdom and teach us to pray.
C: 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.

SENDING

BLESSING
P: God all mighty, God most merciful + bless you, keep you, and give you peace.
C: Amen.

SENDING HYMN – Go, My Children, with My Blessing (ELW #543)

DISMISSAL
A: Go in peace. Follow Jesus.
C: Thanks be to God.

DISMISSAL HYMN – The Lord Now Sends Us Forth (ELW #538)
Verse 1
The Lord now sends us forth
with hands to serve and give,
to make of all the earth
a better place to live. Repeat (2X)

Verse 2
The angels are not sent
into our world of pain
to do what we were meant
to do in Jesus' name;
that falls to you and me
and all who are made free.
Help us, O Lord, we pray,
to do your will today. Repeat (2X)