Today’s Meditation;

Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one’s heart, its pleasures and its

pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you conquer them; show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them…. People who have no secrets from each other never want for subjects of conversation. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved intercourse with God! ~ Francois Fenelon

Welcoming Guests and Announcements – Pastor Ross

Hymn Sing – Congregational Hymn Pick

Prayer Concerns – Pastor Ross

Pastoral Prayer – Silent Prayer, Pastoral Prayer, Lord’s Prayer

Scripture Reading – Psalm 22:1‐14, 25‐31 – Pastor Ross

Message – Song’s We’re Afraid to Sing & Songs We Need to Sing

Communion – Pastors Linda, Ross & Dave

Benediction

Psalm 22 – New Revised Standard Version

¹ My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?

² O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night but find no rest.

³ Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.

⁴ In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.

⁵ To you they cried and were saved; in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

⁶ But I am a worm and not human, scorned by others and despised by the people.

⁷ All who see me mock me; they sneer at me; they shake their heads;

⁸ “Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver – let him rescue the one in whom he delights!”

⁹ Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.

¹⁰ On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God.

¹¹ Do not be far from me, for trouble is near, and there is no one to help.

¹² Many bulls encircle me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me;

¹³ they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion.

¹⁴ I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast;

²⁵ From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him.

²⁶ The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever!

²⁷ All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.

²⁸ For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.

²⁹ To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.

³⁰ Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord

³¹ and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.

The Psalms speak faith in times of disappointment & distress. These are songs of lament we need to sing even though they can be edgy, earthy songs of soul.

Everybody hurts, even in church. Ok to be real in church over our experiences of pain, loss, heartache. This may be in our personal lives but also at a larger, collective level. Lament is also about leaning on God. We hear the most plaintive,

Weep, wail and moan: be freed to do this; permissive; experience it. Sometimes we need what Walter Brueggeman called the “public processing of pain”.

Let it go, release the reasons for lament. People fear asking tough questions of God or /getting angry with God. Yet the Psalms have no fear of this. The Psalms know that lament also about listening for God & finding how God wants to lift us.