june 22, 2025

asbcsite
Jun 20
5 min read

Guest Preacher: Kim Barra

Please use this Order of Service to easily follow the service online.

CLICK HERE FOR HYMNS (or scroll to the bottom)

For your meditation: “There are two ways to live your life: one is as if nothing is a miracle; the other is as if everything is a miracle.” (attributed to Albert Einstein)

With the opening prelude, we invite you into

a time of quiet reflection as we prepare for worship.

Prelude: Mr Yago Vazquez

Chalice Lighting: from Guru Tegh Bahadur, the 9th Sikh Guru

Why do you go to the forest in search of the Divine? God lives in all, and abides with you too. As fragrance dwells in a flower, or reflection in a mirror, so the Diving dwells inside everything; seek therefore in your own heart.

Opening Hymn: SLT #1 – May Nothing Evil Cross This Door

Welcome and Announcements

Call to Worship: Summer Warmth, by Helen Cohen

One: We stand at the edge of summer.

All: The sun has at last warmed us enough that we begin to trust in its presence.

One: The last burst of spring blossoms, lavender and white and deep pink banks of rhododendron, are giving way to summer peonies and roses.

All: O source of the turning seasons,

One: Of earth, of life, of promise gradually becoming fulfillment,

All: May your people find a lightening of burdens with the brightening of the sky.

Prayer of Invocation: Kim Barra

First Sacred Reading: John 14:8-27 (NIV)

1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”

5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know[b] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. 30 I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, 31 but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

Passing of the Peace

Sharing of our Joys and Concerns

Prayers of the People/Pastoral Prayer

Offering & Doxology: SLT # 16 ‘Tus a Gift to Be Simple

Second Sacred Reading: Our Deepest Fear (by Marianne Williamson)

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves,

“Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?”

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.