Watch and sing along to this service here
Welcome! This abbreviated service is to accommodate COVID-19 safety precautions. As we are outside, and distanced, you are welcome to sing. Masks are optional but encouraged. Please maintain a distance of 2 meters / 6 feet from other households.
If you feel inclined to give financially to the church, there is a donation box near the audio equipment. Your donation helps us maintain this property as a safe and inclusive refuge and to host events such as today’s.
We are gathered today with gratitude to the Mnidoo Mnsing, Manitoulin Island, First Nations under Treaty 94.
Let’s invite God to make God’s presence felt among us this morning!
INVOCATION
Blessed are those who gather in God’s name!
How we bless you from this house of yours, First Singer of Song!
Hear our songs! Feel our love!
Let us feel your loving presence among us!
This is your day and how glad we are!
Amen.
OPENING HYMNS
Call and response – no music
Psalm 118:24 – ESV–
This is the day the lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Come in and sit down, you are a part of the family
My love colours outside the lines
PRAYER FOR THE DAY
When I said “This is the day God has made,” in the prayer. Please respond back with, “Let us be glad and rejoice in it.” if you, too, feel the way I do and are praying along.
Holy, wonderful, creative God – You give us this morning sunshine. This kiss of breeze on our faces.
You give us the feel of grass under our feet. You give us the taste of hawberries. You give us the sound of the birds. It’s our festival weekend! This is the day you, the Lord has made!
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
In our distress, when Covid surrounded us on all sides, and we were cut off from family, and friends, and gathering – you were our steadfast strength and salvation. This is the day you, the Lord, has made!
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
We take this moment, this respite, to sing your praises. To thank you for vaccines, for the gift of people called to the medical profession. This is the day you, the Lord, has made!
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
We pause, not yet wholly out of the valley that is shadowed by covid and death, but it is here – in the presence of our viral enemies – you feed us. You don’t abandon us. And you guide us to green pastures. This is the day you, the Lord, has made!
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
This Haweater weekend, we celebrate our community. The way we have helped and aided one another through this pandemic. The way we have helped and aided one another in the past. Lord, where we have failed to help, where we have been anything but aid, forgive us. Especially with the Mnidoo Mnsing First Nations. Give us the power to change our community so that all may celebrate being here, on this beautiful island, on this – the day you have made!
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
So we praise you today – for you are steadfastly good – and have made us for community. Amen!
PRAYERFUL HYMNS
What a friend we have in Jesus!
Blessed assurance
SCRIPTURE: Psalm 118
A Song of Victory
O give thanks to the Lord, for God is good;
God’s steadfast love endures forever!
Let Israel say,
“God’s steadfast love endures forever.”
Let the house of Aaron say,
“God’s steadfast love endures forever.”
Let those who fear the Lord say,
“God’s steadfast love endures forever.”
Out of my tight spot I called on the Lord;
the Lord answered me and set me in a broad place.
With the Lord on my side I do not fear.
What can mortals do to me?
The Lord is on my side to help me;
I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to put confidence in mortals.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to put confidence in princes.
All nations surrounded me;
in the name of the Lord I cut them off!
They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side;
in the name of the Lord I cut them off!
They surrounded me like bees;
they blazed like a fire of thorns;
in the name of the Lord I cut them off!
I was pushed hard, so that I was falling,
but the Lord helped me.
The Lord is my strength and my might;
and has become my salvation.
There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous:
“The right hand of the Lord does valiantly;
the right hand of the Lord is exalted;
the right hand of the Lord does valiantly.”
I shall not die, but I shall live,
and recount the deeds of the Lord.
The Lord has chastised me severely,
but did not give me over to death.
Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord;
the righteous shall enter through it.
I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.
This is the Lord’s doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Save us, we beseech you, O Lord!
O Lord, we beseech you, give us life!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
We bless you from the house of the Lord.
The Lord is God,
and has given us light.
Bind the festal procession with branches,
up to the horns of the altar.
You are my God, and I will give thanks to you;
you are my God, I will extol you.
O give thanks to the Lord, for God is good,
for God’s steadfast love endures forever.
HOMILY – By Rev. Whitney LP Bruno
Martin Luther, one of our fathers of the Protestant Revolution, called Psalm 118 “a masterpiece” and declared, “all the saints have sung this verse and will continue to sing it to the end.”
Psalm 118 alludes to the exodus story. Verse 14 is a direct quote – the Lord is my strength and might and has become my salvation – this is quoting Moses’ song as he miraculously crossed the sea. Over and over again – God acts – and saves.
Save and victory have the same root meaning. So this can be a song of salvation. Just like made and act have the same root; so this could be translated as “This is the day God has acted.”
And how did God act? With salvation.
To this day, Jews sing Psalm 118 with Passover. For it can be understood as a song about being victoriously brought back from Babylonian exile and delivered from death, to life. From isolation, to community. It is a song of how God has helped us, how we want God to help us now, and how we trust God will keep on helping us.
Our church mothers and fathers saw it in this light – a Passover song of God’s activity this very day. For them, that was Jesus – and the Gospels allude to this song by calling Jesus the stone that was rejected, who is now the cornerstone.
On Palm Sunday, to this day, we sing, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”
In Islam, the Psalms are known as gifts God gave to David, and are also sang and read.
So… although Luther didn’t mean it to be this inclusive… truly all the saints have sung this and will sing it to the end.
I believe if we searched the religions around us we would find this same song: God has been good. God is good now. And God will be good in the future.
In the past, here is how God helped us.
Lordy we need help now! Save us, God!
Thank you. In the future, we know you’ll still be there for us too.
So thank you.
This is the day you have made. You have acted. So we rejoice and are glad!
For us, this very day, we remember these great stories of God’s help. We pray God keeps helping us have victory over Covid – and we know whatever comes our way next… God’s gonna have our backs.
Amen!
RESPONDING HYMNS
Called by Earth and Sky
This is God’s Wonderous World
Jesus loves me
BLESSING
May you go with a song in your heart! A skip in your step! A smile on your face! May you recall how steadfastly you are loved by our God and our community. May you rejoice in how God is acting and making all things good and whole this very day. May you sleep assured that whatever tomorrow brings, you do not face it alone.
God with the peace of God and have a wonderful holiday weekend!
BLESSING HYMNS
Draw the circle wide
I have called you by your name
Thank you for joining us!
Pastor Whitney Bruno Sermons 