Calendar

Order of Worship

Service for the Lord’s Day

Gathering around the word

Prelude                         Children’s Prayer from Sweden, Setting by Roberta Bitgood

Roberta Bitgood (1908-2007) was an American organist, composer, a pioneer of American church music, the first woman in the United States to receive a doctorate in sacred music, and the first woman to serve as national president of the American Guild of Organists. She was elected in 1975 by write-in ballot. Today’s selection is a setting of the Swedish hymn, Children of the Heavenly Father.

† Call to Worship

The message of the cross sounds foolish to the world.
But to us it is the power of God!

We proclaim the scandal of Christ crucified.
The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom,
and the weakness of God is stronger than our strength.

† Hymn #625                                                “O Lord My God (How Great Thou Art)”

Prayer of Adoration

Call to Confession

Prayer of Confession

Merciful God, how fickle we are! We sin against you without even knowing it. Clear us we pray, of any unknown sin, and save us from willfully ignoring your way. Let your commandments rule and guide us.

Forgive us for worshiping anyone or anything except you; keep us faithful.
Forgive us for failing to honor all our relationships—with both those closest to us and those who are distant neighbors. Help us to speak words of blessing and kindness rather than words that belittle or destroy.
Turn us away from violence, falsehood, and selfishness.

Forgive us for thinking everything depends on our efforts and power,
for you are the God who made us, who led us out of slavery,
and who has brought us into the community of faith.

Help us to depend on you alone and to rest in your peace.
In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.   

Kyrie #551                                                                                     “Lord, Have Mercy”

Silent prayer of confession

Assurance of Pardon

In Jesus Christ—crucified, risen, and coming again—
we are forgiven and set free to live in faithfulness with God
and with one another!

Thanks be to God!

† Response of praise: Hymn #825                   “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”

Life in Community

Come in your faith, and in your doubt! If you are joining us for the first time, we invite you to share your information by scanning the QR code. We would love to connect.

Upcoming events and recent announcements are available in the back of the bulletin and on our website at catonsvillepres.org.

Proclaiming the Word

Children’s Message

Prayer for Illumination

Scripture                                                                                   1 Corinthians 1:18-25

Sermon                                                                                       “Foolishness Indeed” Dorothy Boulton

Responding to the Word

Call to Offering

Offering of Tithes and Gifts

Offertory                                                        Getty/Townend, arr. John Ferguson

Speak, O Lord, as we come to You to receive the food of your Holy Word.
Take your truth; plant it deep in us; shape and fashion us in Your likeness,
That the light of Christ might be seen today in our acts of love and our deeds of faith.
Speak, O Lord, and fulfill in us all Your purposes for Your glory. 

Teach us, Lord, full obedience, Holy reverence, true humility;
Test our thoughts and our attitudes in the radiance of Your purity.
Cause our faith to rise; cause our eyes to see Your majestic love and authority.
Words of power that can never fail — Let their truth prevail over unbelief. 

Speak, O Lord, and renew our minds; help us grasp the heights of Your plans for us—
Truths unchanged from the dawn of time that will echo down through eternity.
And by grace we’ll stand on Your promises, and by faith we’ll walk as You walk with us.
Speak, O Lord, ’til Your church is built and the earth is filled with your glory. 

† Doxology #607                              “Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow”

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Christ, all people here below;
Praise Holy Spirit evermore;
Praise Triune God, whom we adore. Amen.

† Prayer of Dedication

O Lord our God, we want to follow all your commandments—
to love only you, not worshiping the things of this world;
to love our neighbor freely,
not desiring for ourselves something they possess.

Accept these offerings, we pray,
and teach us to be generous, giving fully of ourselves,
that we may truly be the body of Christ in this world. Amen. 

† Hymn #496                                                       “Bread of Heaven, on Thee We Feed”

Sacrament of the Lord’s supper

Great Prayer of Thanksgiving

The Lord be with you.
And also with you. 
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is truly right and our greatest joy to give you thanks, Creator God,
for you made the world and all that is in it.
You called us into relationship with you,
providing all we need for abundant life.

Yet we turned away, violating our relationship with you 
and acting with violence toward one another and all creation. 
Yet you did not reject us but continued to reach out and restore us. 
Over and over again, you have made covenant to be our God, 
calling us to be your faithful people. 

We give thanks for signs of your covenantal love:

You put your bow in the cloud, a unilateral promise never to destroy the earth in anger again.

You pointed to the night sky, promising Abraham and Sarah a son and descendants to outnumber the stars in the heavens.

As your covenantal love continued, you gave us commandments carved in stone so that we might know how to live faithfully with you and one another. 

Through the prophet Jeremiah,
you promised to make a new covenant with us still, 
one written on our very hearts. 

Therefore, we praise you for your great mercy and steadfast love. 
With the faithful of every time and place, we sing to the glory of your name.

[Sung] Holy, holy, holy Lord.
God of power and might.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he, O blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
Hosanna in the highest.

You are holy, Lord of hosts, and blessed is Jesus Christ, your Son, our Savior. You sent him into the world, calling us to repent and to welcome the kingdom you bring.

Tempted in every way as we are, he never sinned.
Instead, he turned away from violence, teaching us the way of peace.
He rejected power that corrupts, choosing instead to live as a servant among us.

In this Lenten season, we rejoice that we share in his baptism, 
in his dying and rising again, 
and we look with hope for the kingdom of God in its fullness.  

Great is the mystery of faith:
Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. 

Gracious God,
as your Spirit hovered over creation, as your Spirit descended like a dove on Jesus,
your beloved Son, may your Spirit now hover over us,
and descend on us and these your gifts of bread and wine,
that the bread we break and the cup we bless
may be the communion of the body and blood of Christ.

By your Spirit, make us one with Christ, 
and one with all who share this feast. 
Bind us in covenantal love to you and to one another in the church, 
that we may reach out to the world with justice, freedom,  
health and unconditional love in Christ’s name 
until the promised day of your kingdom. 

Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit we pray…

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;
and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory, forever. Amen.

Sharing the Feast

Music during Communion

Largo by Elizabeth Stirling

Prayer After Communion

† Passing of the Peace

† Hymn #826                                                                                   “Lift High the Cross”

† Charge and Benediction

Postlude                                 God of Grace and God of Glory, Setting by Paul Manz

Paul Manz’s setting of CYM RHONDDA, or God of Grace and God of Glory is a perennial favorite by organists and congregations alike for its lively, rhythmic ritornello and running pedal passages. John Hughes wrote the tune for a Welsh hymn festival and the inauguration of an organ held in the Capel Rhondda in the Rhondda valley in 1907 for which it is named. Today, it is usually used in English as a setting for Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer.

Sources

Feasting on the Word: Year B, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barabara Brown Taylor (Louisville: John Knox Press, 2008).

Storytelling the Season: Covenant. Karen Ware Jackson. “When we learn in God’s story together, we grow in God’s story together.” —Heather Ruth Johnson.

Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013).

Image: Hochhalter, Cara B. From the Lord’s Prayer (2019).

Sanctus during Communion by James MacMillan. From St. Anne’s Mass and reprinted in Common Ground: A Song Book for All the Churches  (St. Andrew’s Press, 1998)

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-734388; CCLI Copyright License B 20481088 + Streaming License B 481071

Worship Participants

Dorothy Boulton
Associate Pastor

Keith and Kathy Glennan
A/V Production

Wendy Johnston
Organist and Assistant Director of Music

Greg Knauf
Director of Music

Ken Kovacs
Pastor

Melissa Lambdin
Liturgist

Vickie Lord
Social media support

Learning & Growing

The Practices of Lent: Prayer, Fasting, and Compassion

Sunday, March 3, 10, and 17 | Led by Ken Kovacs | 9:00 a.m. in the Library

The season of Lent is a time for growth in faith—through prayer, spiritual discipline, and self-examination in preparation for the annual commemoration of Jesus’ death and resurrection. In our journey through these forty days (minus Sundays), we are invited to reflect deeply on how to live out the meaning of our baptism as disciples. For three Sundays, we’ll explore three key practices associated with Lent: prayer, fasting, and works of love or compassion. We’ll give special attention to how we can nurture our inner life and cultivate loving habits of the heart. And we’ll offer ways to make these essential practices more meaningful and relevant in our walk with Christ.

Thursday Morning Bible Study: Toward A Theology of Death

Each week through March 21 | Led by Ken Kovacs | 10:30 a.m. in the Library

Thursday Morning Bible Study resumes in Lent for a special series that explores the Bible’s understanding of death. The Bible does not speak with one voice on this subject. What we find in Judaism is a gradual unfolding of insights into the nature of death, God’s relationship to death (and the dying), and speculations about life after death. Many of these ideas are present in the Old Testament but take on new and deeper meanings after the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. Each week we’ll study a different passage of scripture, supported by additional articles and reflection pieces to inform our discussions.  We plan to look at the following texts: Genesis 3, Psalm 23 and Ecclesiastes, Ezekiel 37, John 11, and 1 Corinthians 15.

Announcements

Scouting for Food

Through the Baltimore Area Council of Scouts BSA, Cub Pack 306 and Scout Troop 306 will be collecting nonperishable food items for the Scouting for Food initiative!

The “big red truck” will be in the main CPC parking lot from about 9 a.m. on March 9 through noon on March 10. CPC members are invited to contribute nonperishable food items as they arrive for church that day.

Troop 306 Scouts will be collecting nonperishable food items between 9 a.m. and noon on March 9 in the lower parking lot of Christian Temple. All of their donations will be taken to St. Gabriel’s for the food pantry in the Woodlawn area.

Dismantling Racism

The Presbytery of Baltimore is facilitating a presbytery-wide book study on The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein. From 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Mondays between April 8 and May 13, there will be weekly small group discussions. Special guests will provide insight on the book’s major themes. Online registration for these Zoom meetings is now open at baltimorepresbytery.org/dismantling-racism.

Iftar dinner

Mark your calendar for the evening of April 6, when the Dismantling Racism Committee will co-host an Iftar dinner with our friends at Maryland Turkish-American Inhabitants (MARTI)! Iftar dinners are the fast-breaking meals eaten by Muslims during the month of Ramadan, occurring immediately after sunset. Like last years’ dinner, it will take place at CPC and include presentations on both Ramadan and Lent/Easter. Registration is not yet open, but more details will be shared in the coming weeks.