Worship Leader:  Paul Whiteley, LLWL                                     Music Director:  Tim Hallman, B.Mus.,B.Ed.

SEASON OF CREATION, SEPTEMBER 13, 2026

“Living Waters”

WELCOME / ANNOUNCEMENTS / CELEBRATIONS

ACKNOWLEGING THE TERRITORY

LIGHTING THE CHRIST CANDLE

LIGHTING THE RAINBOW CANDLE

CALL TO WORSHIP
One: In the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.
And God called them good.

All: Come Holy Spirit and cleanse the waters.

One: The prophet saw a river flowing from the Temple,
and wherever the river flowed, everything lived.

All: Come Holy Spirit and renew the face of the Earth.

One: Jesus cried out,
“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me... Out
of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.”
All: Come, Holy Spirit and heal your people.
-Living Water, World Council of Churches, 2026

OPENING HYMN: VU 509 “I, the Lord of Sea and Sky”

PASSING OF THE PEACE

LEARNING TOGETHER

OPENING PRAYER: Lament for the Waters

One: We look upon your waters, O God, and we grieve:
Rivers run polluted. Oceans choke with plastic.
Marine life disappears from warming seas.
Coral reefs fade and fisheries collapse.

All: Ashamnu (we have all been guilty)

One: The seas rise and swallow coasts.
Storms grow stronger. Floods destroy homes.
Drought cracks the Earth and children thirst.

All: Ashamnu (we have all been guilty)

One: We confess that we have not guarded your waters.
We have consumed water without restraint.
We have polluted what you called good.
We have forgotten that the river of life flows from your throne.

All: Forgive us, O God.

One: God’s mercy flows like living water.
The love of God, incarnate in Jesus who spoke to troubled waters,
forgives us and calms our hearts so that
justice may flow to all the dry places in our lives.
In the name of Christ, may this grace free us to follow
and proclaim the good news of the healing of all creation.
All: Amen.
-Living WAters, World Council of Churches, 2026

HYMN: VU 266 “Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound”

SCRIPTURE:
Ezekiel 47:1–12: “The Gift of Water”
Matthew 15:21–28: “The Gift of Healing”

ANTHEM: “Softly and Tenderly”  Ashokan Farewell

REFLECTION: “Living Water and Miracles”

While parts of the church have been constant for more than 1,900 years, others have continued to develop over time. Easter and Pentecost found their places in the year thanks to the much older Jewish festival calendar, while Christmas adopted pagan customs from midwinter solstice time. The dark ages and middle ages gave us seasons of watching, waiting and reflecting – Advent and Lent – while the Reformation largely dropped the days named after saints while adding Thanksgiving and sometimes Reformation Sunday.

Over the last generation or so, Christians in various parts of the world have added the Season of Creation, and I remember Rev. Wendy McLean placing some emphasis on it here in Lin. So this year, the World Council of Churches announced “Living Water” as the theme for the time between Labour Day and Thanksgiving, and selected this passage from Ezekiel to illustrate the theme. The World Council has also issued a call to action under the heading “Water is Life”:

Ezekiel’s vision describes waters flowing from God’s sanctuary, bringing life, healing, renewal, and abundance to all. Churches can reflect this message by advocating for the issues impacting our human and physical water cycles: caring for catchments, rivers, drinking water resources, wetlands and seas, and all life in them, loving our neighbours who depend on them, directly and indirectly. We are calling for Christians around the world to step into God's vision of fullness of life and abundance for all creation through living lives that glorify Him and reflect His heart for restoration and flourishing.

Now I’m not sure Lyn United is in a position to do any of these things right now. I’m not sure that I am, either. Some of you may not know this, but my wife has been swimming the St. Lawrence for the last few summers, while I am the one who watches from the shore. These swims, usually starting around daybreak, have given both of us some sense of the moods and conditions of the river and of the ways pollutants, flow, and levels change from month to month and year to year. While Brockville filters and chlorinates its drinking water from the St. Lawrence, we live on well water, which puts us in touch with the water table and the natural filtration of stone and gravel in a different way. These are small, subtle connections, and I mention them as specific examples of the kinds of connections any of us may have with streams, wetlands, lakes and seas.

In Ezekiel’s vision, the water of healing and transformation flows out of the temple, out of the worship space, and it becomes deeper and more awe-inspiring as it flows. Ezekiel is a book of visions, full of angels and unexplained aerial phenomena, and its prophecies clearly do not support a literal interpretation. Ezekiel is not telling people where to plant their fruit trees, or how aquaculture will work centuries later. But it does offer a vision of sweet water flowing through the land, bringing life and hope and healing. And against the glosses by later Christians to make the story smaller and simpler, Exekiel can’t be forecasting just Christ or the church as the change in the world; God’s living water does come in the holy water of baptism, but it also comes in the kumbh mela performed by Hindu faithful in the Ganges in India, or the seven-bowl water offering of Tibetan Buddhism. Sacred water belongs to all.

While the Season of Creation offers us living water this Sunday, the Gospel of Matthew tells us of healing that comes from faith alone. Jesus has left his home territory of Galilee – where a prophet is hard to hear in their home town – and is in Lebanon, among the Canaanites. These people represented a kind of cultural opposite to the Jewish faithful, with their traditional civic religion of Baal and Astarte being ancient rivals to the one god of Israel. And so Matthew presents Jesus and the disciples in foreign territory; while there one of the local women begins to follow Jesus around. It seems that she recognizes in him the answer to her prayers.

Most likely I have said something about this here before, but most of us in this room have lived long enough – and lived enough – that the “demons” presented in the gospels have meant different things to us at different times. I remember when I was younger being offered epilepsy as a scientific explanation of New Testament “demons”, and modern psychology has certainly offered complimentary alternatives to that. And when I was young, “demon rum” seemed like an old-timey caricature of the Temperance movement more than anything to be taken seriousliy.

And, to be fair, the demon was never exactly in the rum. But as our understandings of substance addiction and behavioural addiction have developed, some of what happens in and around our lives has come to seem more like a force outside of ourselves that we need to be liberated from – yes, an illness, but a special kind of illness, one perhaps with the energy of this kind of demon. And the Canaanite woman, like many of those who come to Jesus as seekers, isn’t looking for healing for herself but for a beloved daughter. And while the first reaction from Jesus and the disciples sounds like simple annoyance, at the end of the encounter – as in all such encounters – Jesus gives in, borders come down, and love wins. And as in most of these encounters, Jesus credits the woman’s faith and actions for her daughter’s healing, rather than glorifying himself. Her faith is rooted in her need, the needs of her family, and the gospel of healing is there for all to meet this need.

So the Season of Creation is new, but the faith it represents is very old. Living Water offers healing, offers hope in our lives – to us as carriers and custodians of the Christian faith, but also to the world, to all. If we embody our living faith and discern the needs of the world, we could become guardians of the sacred waters around us and allies to those most in need of divine order and justice. So for this promise, for this hope, to God be the praise and the thanks. Amen. 

INVITATION FOR OFFERING

OFFERING HYMN: VU 541 “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow”

OFFERING PRAYER

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

LORD’S PRAYER
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 trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from the evil one.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: MV 120 “My Soul Cries Out”

BENEDICTION:
May the God who sprung water from a rock, quenching the thirst of those who wandered in fear, spare us from the drought of a senseless life. May the God who flows from the wells of salvation, and who is Living Water to the foreigner, the stranger, and the unknown, keep us in peace. May the God who rolls on like a river, changing the course of the world with streams of righteousness that guide the Church's vessel in this world, empower us to work for transformation. And may the blessing of our merciful God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, keep us and preserve us in eternal life. Amen.
(Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, 2026)

CHORAL BLESSING: “Go Now in Peace”

 

         "A Village Church With A Heart For The World"

Christ United Church

12 Perth St., Lyn, ON, K0E 1M0
(613)498-0281 (Phone)   (613)498-2589 (Fax)

 lynunitedchurch@cogeco.net               www.lynunitedchurch.com               Follow on Twitter:  @Ch1United