This is part of the worship series,
"Rattling Heaven's Door”
Series Introduction
Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4
Week 5 | Week 6
Week Five: The fifth petition
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
The Opening of Worship
Song
"O Lord, Hear My Prayer" (st. 2) Communaute de Taizé
Call to Worship
We gather on this Sunday to draw wisdom and courage from the One whose life and death and resurrection give us hope.
In this time of worship, we draw apart from life’s busyness to wrestle God in prayer, as Jesus taught.
Song
"O Lord, Hear My Prayer" (st. 1) Communaute de Taizé
Opening Litany
On this day, we step boldly, humbly into the presence of our God, praying with our suffering Savior the prayer he taught us to pray:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.
Sustaining God, we know that peace lies in the heart of darkness—in the wilderness of the soul.
Something prompts us to keep still, to trust and to listen to your voice.
—adapted from a prayer by Thomas Merton in New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions, 1972), p. 237
Lead us not into temptation.
Deliver us from evil.
Lord, lead us not into the temptation of self-righteousness. Keep us from false use of our tongues, or inappropriate silence. Do not let us fall into the temptation of self-righteousness or believing that we are free from sin.
Save us Lord, from earth-destruction—this can’t be your will; save us from all that is evil, without and within. Grant commitment to that which is wholesome, and help us to be good to our neighbor, as we would have you do to us.
Silence
A time of reflection
Song
“My Faith Looks up to Thee” (st. 1, 3) Palmer
Passing of God’s Peace
Prayer of Confession
We bring to you, O Lord, the wastelands of our lives, when faith and hope are dust and ashes, when the fruit of the Spirit is not in evidence, when love does not find expression in us.
—adapted from Worshiping Ecumenically (Geneva: WCC Publications, 1995), pp. 32-33
Help us to follow you into the desert to fast, denying false luxury values, refusing the tempting ways of self-indulgence, the way of success at all costs. Jesus, our Brother, help us to follow you.
Help us to follow you to town and city, to heal and restore, to cast out self-destructive fears.
Jesus, our Savior, help us to follow you.
—adapted from a prayer by Christopher Duraisingh (India) in Bread of Tomorrow, pp. 64-65
You give us shelter in the wilderness and make for us a home in the wastelands.
From you comes the courage to discover that the risen Christ will lead us from temptation and deliver us from evil.
You offer daily bread, Lord, in this desert, in this wasteland of temptation; you extend living water.
Holy is your name!
Temptation flees from your light, O Lord, and evil cowers in the shadows.
Silence
Song
“Go to Dark Gethsemane” (st. 1) Montgomery
Silence
The people are invited to pray in silence
Assurance of Pardon
As a father has compassion for his children,
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
For he knows how we were made;
he remembers that we are dust.
But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.
—Psalm 103:13–14, 17–18 NRSVUE
Song
“Nothing Can Trouble” St. Teresa
Prayers of the People
The focus of this prayer is petition and intercession, including an invitation for different people to offer spoken prayers.
Proclamation of the Word
Scripture
Matthew 6:5–13; James 1:12–18
Sermon
"Lead Us Not into Temptation"
Sermon Notes
The Heidelberg Catechism teaches that we have three sworn enemies: the devil, the world, and our own flesh. Jesus teaches us to pray this petition because he knows the softness of our own convictions and the hard reality of deep temptation. He knows our tendency to take the road most traveled—the path of least resistance.
The Bible takes the devil seriously. It says we have an adversary, a destroyer, the deceiver of the whole world who misrepresents God and creates confusion. He is sometimes called the accuser, for he despises God’s love for us; sometimes Diabolos, which means the splitting one—for he seeks to divide us from God and against each other and even against ourselves, causing us to dis-integrate. He prowls around this world like a lion looking for whom he might destroy like Tolkien’s Dark Lord.
But we should not restrict our understanding of the evil one to just a personal threat. Consider also what Paul calls the “powers and principalities”—those organized, pervasive cultural forces that rage against the kingdom of God. These include the ideologies of “the economy,” “nation,” and “race.”
The world tells us that when it comes to the powers, our task is to adjust, to adapt. Jesus tells us to pray: protect us from the seductive powers of our age, the cultural powers and forces that rationalize and perpetuate evil.
Response to the Word
Song
Offering
Everyone comes forward to place their offerings in a basket
Song
"You God Are My Firmament" (st. 1–2) Winter
Prayer
The focus of this prayer is thanksgiving, including invitation for people to offer spoken prayers.
Song
"You God Are My Firmament" (st. 3) Winter
Service of Communion
"Concelebration" Wise
This is a sung liturgy for the Lord's Supper composed by Joe Wise. During the communion, a singer introduced verses and phrases the congregation echoed. Other sung arrangements of the Lord's supper liturgy include "The Lord Be With You" Rienstra
Dismissal
Closing Prayer
We Go Forth
We thank you, sustaining God, for deserts, places in which we wait—places of self-discovery.
Lead us not into temptation, Lord, but deliver us from the evil one. Amen!
Song
“The Song of St. Patrick” Haugen
Parting Blessing
Shalom, my friends, until we meet again, shalom.
Shalom.
Revised Common Lectionary
Year B: Season after Pentecost—Proper 17 (22)
