Help Me Empty myself, Lord: 21st Century Resources for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

Gathering Meditation
(Based on Philippians 2:5-8)

Help me empty myself, Lord,
Of things that resist your will.
Like pride and selfishness
Ego and worldly ambition.

Help me empty myself, Lord,
So that I can stumble my way
Into your plans for me.
To extend healing hands to the hurting,
To speak words of comfort to those who mourn,
To keep watch with my eyes on behalf of the powerless.
To cradle the forlorn in your love.

Help me empty myself, Lord.
You empty me.
So that Christ may be seen in my life.

Call to Worship: God Is with Us
(Based on Exodus 17:1-7)

Leader: People of God, lift up your heads!
God on our side is greater than the entire world against us.

People: We lift up our heads!
Today we are persuaded that
Neither sandstorm nor scarcity
Desert nor despair
Neither parched place nor poverty

All: Will be able to separate us from the love of God!

Leader: People of God, lift up your hearts!
God is our Shade and God is our Shield.

People: We lift up our hearts!
Today we are persuaded that
Neither mishap nor mortgage crisis,
Injustice nor joblessness,
Sickness nor skepticism,
Downsizing nor disappointment,
Gentrification nor gas crisis,

Leader: Neither drought nor demonic forces,

All: Will be able to turn us away from God who has sustained us!

Leader: People of God, lift up your hands!
Praise God on sunny days and praise God on cloudy days!

People: We lift our hands to praise our God!
We thank God for giving us another day.
We thank God for sunny days and we trust God on cloudy days.
For we believe,

Leader: That those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will eventually be filled. (Matthew 5:6)

People: We believe,

Leader: That God is able to give us water from a rock! (Exodus 17:6)

People: We believe,

Leader: That we will live to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13)

All: For we believe that God is with us! Glory to God!