Sunday, February 18, 2018

Thin Places 02-18-2018

Worship on Sunday, February 18

In Lent we seek the “thin places” where we grow closer to God and God grows closer to us.

╬ Thin Places

Heaven and earth seem to touch.  We have that profound sense that we are a part of something vast and beyond us, yet intimately close.  In certain spaces and times and circumstances, the veil of separateness becomes gossamer thin.  The realm of the mundane and the realm of the divine come ultimately close.  We are drawn vitally close to God, and God to us.  In thin places, all becomes sacred, all becomes an expression of the divine.  Creation itself is realized as “a transparency through which the light of God shines.”   


Below are Readings and the Prayer of the Day.

We are entering into a Lenten journey together, where we will focus on lives lived in closer connection and presence, with God, with one another and with the world God loves!  It’s a blessing to make this journey with you!

- Pr. Brad Highum
bhighum@abidinglove.org


PRAYER OF THE DAY -----------------


God of grace, we hold to your promise that when we seek you with all our hearts, it is you we will find.  Draw near to us as we reach to you.  Amen.

READINGS --------------------------

First Reading:  Ezekiel 3:22-24

22 The hand of the Lord was upon me there, and he said to me, "Get up and go out to the plain, and there I will speak to you." 23 So I got up and went out to the plain. And the glory of the Lord was standing there, like the glory I had seen by the Kebar River, and I fell facedown.  24 Then the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet and the Lord spoke to me.

Psalm 27:7-11,13-14

7 Hear, O Lord, when I cry to you, be gracious to me and answer me!
8 "Come," my heart says, "seek his face!" Your face, Lord, do I seek.
9 Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help.
10 If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up.
11 Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path.
13 I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

Second Reading:  Acts 17:24-28

24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals, life and breath and all things. 26 From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 and that they would seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him, and find him — though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.'

Gospel:  Matthew 14:22-27

22 Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. 23 And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. 25 And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. 26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out in fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid."


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