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SOUTH CAYUGA COMMUNITY CHURCH of THE UNITED CHURCH OF CANADA Welcome to our Service this Morning Sunday Aug 8th to 29th 10:00 am Pastor Dawn Young Hill, DLM Email [email protected] 519 200 2272 V.A.M. – Joan Willis –- V.A.M – Rev. Bryan Melick
Worship for Wherever You Are! Aug 8,Aug 15,Aug 22,Aug 29
Acknowledgement
The land on which we worship is land that has been walked on, hunted on, and lived on for thousands of years. It is the Traditional land of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe people, and it is with humility and respect that we give thanks that we are here, in the space where we are in touch with Creator who made it and who made us. May our worship honour the relationships that are celebrated and invited here, and may we always remember the story of this land, the people who live here, and the call to live with respect and thanksgiving. Peter Chynoweth, while in Yellowknife, N.W.T. Gathering, Pentecost 1 2021, page 37. Used with permission Call to Worship
Welcome, dear friends and family. We each connect from our own homes, but we gather as one in the Spirit. And in that Spirit, we pray… Juanita Austin, Salmon Arm, B.C. Gathering, Pentecost 1 2021, page 39. Used with permission Opening Prayer
Loving God, we open our hearts to you now in praise and thanksgiving, some hopeful, some weary, some frustrated, some excited. Nudge a place within each of us to hear your voice and be moved to action. May this time of worship renew and refresh us, that we might go forth inspired to love your love. Amen.
Opening Hymn
August 8 Sing a Happy Hallelujah VU 224 August 15 All Things Bright and Beautiful VU 291 August 22 Holy Spirit, Truth Divine VU 368 August 29 All Beautiful the March of Days VU 530
Scripture
August 8 Philippians 4:4-9 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of 2
God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. August 15 Matthew 6:25-34 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than 27 they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. August 22 Ephesians 4:20-27 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, 26 for we are all members of one body. “In your anger do not sin”[a]: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, 27 and do not give the devil a foothold. August 29 Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens: 2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot, 3 a time to kill and a time to heal, 3
a time to tear down and a time to build, 4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance, 5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, 6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away, 7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak, 8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Reflection see attached
Prayers of the People
May the fading ring of the prayer bowl draw us to a quiet place of prayer. Let us pray. Praise to you, Ever-Loving God, who provides abundant blessings. We bow in silence before you. Praise to you, O God, for we remember that you answer the prayers of the people. We give thanks for abundant blessings. Praise to you, O God, for your goodness, which sustains and waters the earth, blessing its growth. We give thanks for abundant blessings. Praise to you, O God, for your healing love. We bring before you all who suffer and all who struggle under afflictions. We give thanks for abundant blessings. Praise to you, O God, for you forgive us our sins and give hope to all the ends of the earth. We give thanks for abundant blessings. Praise to you, Beloved God of mercy and healing. You know the joys and sorrows of all people. You know the whispers of our hearts. We bow in silence before you. O God of Our Salvation, remembering that you receive the prayers of all people, this we pray through the name of Jesus, the risen Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, our helper. Let us bind our prayers together in the words Jesus taught, Our Heavenly Parent, Our Mother, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kindom 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 evil. For thine is the kindom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen. Dora White, Minnedosa U.C., Minnedosa, Man. Gathering, Pentecost 1 2021, page 70. Used with permission 4
Closing Hymn
August 8 Joyful, Joyful, We Adore You VU 232 August 15 Walk with Me VU 649 August 22 Spirit, Spirit of Gentleness VU 375 August 29 In the Bulb There Is a Flower VU 703
Commissioning
Arise, friends and go forth! Give your hearts to the One who made them. Give your spirits to the One who delights in them. Give your souls to the One who strengthens them, and follow in the way of Jesus Christ, this day and every day. Amen. Go Now In Peace
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August 8 “Inside Out” In following our summer’s theme of discovering what we can learn from children’s sources, we’re now switching for four weeks from children’s story books, to a children’s movie. The movie, is a Disney-Pixar, 2015 production entitled, “Inside Out.” It is a family comedy about eleven-year old Riley who moves to San Francisco, leaving behind her life in Minnesota. She and her five core emotions, Fear, Anger, Joy, Disgust and Sadness, struggle to cope with her new life. If you haven’t seen it, it is very cute and very interesting! It is not available on Netflix at this time, but if you have a DVD player, you can borrow a copy from Haldimand County Public Library branches in Dunnville, Cayuga, Jarvis and Selkirk (they all have a copy!). Here’s what Matt Zoller Seltz, from https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/inside-out-2015 has to say about the movie. "Inside Out," a comedy-adventure set inside the mind of an 11-year old girl, is the kind of classic that lingers in the mind after you've seen it, sparking personal associations. And if it's as successful as I suspect it will be, it could shake American studio animation out of the doldrums it's been mired in for years. It avoids a lot of the cliched visuals and storytelling beats that make even the best Pixar movies, and a lot of movies by Pixar's competitors, feel too familiar. The best parts of it feel truly new, even as they channel previous animated classics (including the works of Hayao Miyazaki) and explore situations and feelings that everyone has experienced to some degree. The bulk of the film is set inside the brain of young Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), who's depressed about her mom and dad's decision to move them from Minnesota to San Francisco, separating her from her friends. Riley's emotions are determined by the interplay of five overtly "cartoonish" characters: Joy (Amy Poehler), a slender sprite-type who looks a little bit like Tinkerbell without the wings; Sadness (Phyllis Smith), who's soft and blue and recessive; Fear (Bill Hader), a scrawny, purple, bug-eyed character with question- mark posture; Disgust (Mindy Kaling), who's a rich green, and has a bit of a "Mean Girls" vibe; and Anger (Lewis Black), a flat-topped fireplug with devilish red skin and a middle-manager's nondescript slacks, fat tie and short-sleeved shirt. There's a master control room with a board that the five major emotions jostle against each other to control. Sometimes Joy is the dominant emotion, sometimes Fear, sometimes Sadness, etc., but never to the exclusion of the others. The controller hears what the other emotions are saying, and can't help but be affected by it. The heroine's memories are represented by softball-sized spheres that are color-coded by dominant emotion (joy, sadness, fear and so forth), shipped from one mental location to another through a sort of vacuum tube-type system, then classified and stored as short-term memories or long-term memories, or tossed into an "abyss" that serves the same function here as the trash bin on a computer. ("Phone numbers?" grouses a worker in Riley's memory bank. "We don't need these. They're in her phone!") Riley's mental terrain has the jumbled, brightly colored, vacu-formed design of mass market toys or board games, with touches that suggest illustrated books, fantasy films (including Pixar's) and theme parks aimed at vacationing families (there are "islands" floating in mental space, dedicated to subjects that Riley thinks about a lot, like hockey). There's an imaginary boyfriend, a nonthreatening-teen-pop-idol type who proclaims, "I would die for Riley. I live in Canada." A "Train of Thought" that carries us through Riley's 6 subconscious evokes one of those miniature trains you ride at zoos; it chugs through the air on rails that materialize in front of the train and disintegrate behind it. The story kicks into gear when Riley attends her new school on the first day of fifth grade and flashes back to a memory that's color-coded as "joyful," but ends up being reclassified as "sad" when Sadness touches it and causes Riley to cry in front of her classmates. Sadness has done this once before; she and Joy are the two dominant emotions in the film. This makes sense when you think about how nostalgia—which is what Riley is mostly feeling as she remembers her Minnesota past—combines these two feelings. A struggle between Joy and Sadness causes "core memories" to be knocked from their containers and accidentally vacuumed up, along with the two emotions, and spat into the wider world of Riley's emotional interior. The rest of the film is a race to prevent these core memories from being, basically, deleted. Meanwhile, back at headquarters, Fear, Anger and Disgust are running the show. It's worth pointing out here that all these characters and locations, as well as the supporting players that we meet inside Riley's brain, are figurative. They are visual representations of ineffable sensations, a bit like the characters and symbols on Tarot cards. And this is where "Inside Out" differs strikingly from other Pixar features. It is not, strictly speaking, fantasy or science fiction, categories that describe the rest of the company's output. It's more like an extended dream that interprets itself as it goes along, and it's rooted in reality. The world beyond Riley's mind looks pretty much like ours, though of course it's represented by stylized, computer-rendered drawings. Nothing happens there that could not happen in our world. Most of the action is of a type that a studio executive would call "low stakes": Riley struggles through her first day at a new school, gets frustrated by her mom and dad pushing her to buck up, storms to her room and pouts, etc. The script draws clear connections between what happens to Riley in San Francisco (and what happened to her when she was little) and the figurative or metaphorical representations of those same experiences that we see inside her mind, a parallel universe of fond memories, repressed pain, and slippery associations. The most endearing and heartrending moments revolve around Bing-Bong (Richard Kind), the imaginary friend that Riley hasn't thought about in years. He's a creature of pure benevolence who only wants Riley to have fun and be happy. His body is made of cotton candy, he has a red wagon that can fly and that leaves a rainbow trail, and his serene acceptance of his obsolescence gives him a heroic dimension. He is a Ronin of positivity who still pledges allegiance to the Samurai that released him years ago. Written by Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley from a story by Ronnie del Carmen and Pete Docter, and directed by Docter ("Monsters, Inc." and "Up"), "Inside Out" has the intricate interplay of image and sound that you've come to expect from Pixar. It also boasts the company's characteristic, three-leveled humor aimed at, respectively, very young children, older kids and adults, and pop culture buffs who are always on the lookout for a clever homage (a separate class of obsessive). There's nothing quite like hearing a theater packed with people laughing at the same gag for different reasons. A scene where Bing-Bong, Joy and Sadness race to catch the Train of Thought is exciting for all, thanks to the elegant way it's staged, and funny mainly because of the way Poehler, Smith and Kind say the lines. But adults will also appreciate the no-fuss way that it riffs on poetic and psychological concepts, and aficionados of the histories of animation and fine art will dig how the filmmakers tip their hats to other artistic 7 schools. The characters get to Imagination Land by taking a shortcut through Abstract Thought, which turns them into barely-representational characters with smashed-up Cubist features, then mutates them into flat figurines that suggest characters in a 1960s short film by UPA, or an animation company based in Eastern Europe. There are very sly throwaway gags as well, like a character's comment that facts and opinions look "so similar," and a pair of posters glimpsed in a studio where dreams and nightmares are produced: "I'm Falling For a Very Long Time Into a Pit" and "I Can Fly!" It's clear that the filmmakers have studied actual psychology, not the Hollywood movie version. The script initially seems as if it's favoring Joy's interpretation of what things mean, and what the other emotions ought to "do" for Riley. But soon we realize that Sadness has just as much of value to contribute, that Anger, Fear and Disgust are useful as well, and that none of them should be prized to the exclusion of the rest. The movie also shows how things can be remembered with joy, sadness, anger, fear or disgust, depending on where we are in the narrative of our lives and what part of a memory we fixate on. There's a great moment late in the story where we "swipe" through one of Riley's most cherished memories and see that it's not just sad or happy: it's actually very sad, then less sad, then finally happy. We might be reminded of Orson Welles' great observation, "If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story." The film is even more remarkable for how it presents depression: so subtly but unmistakably that it never has to label it as depression. Riley is obviously depressed, and has good reason to be. The abyss where her core memories have been dumped is also a representation of depression. True to life, Riley stays in her personal abyss until she's ready to climb out of it. There's no magic cure that will make the pain go away. She just has to be patient, and feel loved. A wise friend told me years ago that we have no control over our emotions, only over what we choose to do about them, and that even if we know this, it can still be hard to make good decisions, because our feelings are so powerful, and there are so many of them fighting to be heard. "Inside Out" gets this. It avoids the sorts of maddening, self- serving, binary statements that kids always hate hearing their parents spout: Things aren't so bad. You can decide to be happy. Look on the bright side. Even as we root for Riley to find a way out of her despair, we're never encouraged to think that she's just being childish, or that she wouldn't be taking everything so seriously if she were older. We feel for her, and with her. She contains multitudes. 8
August 15 Questions to Ponder
1.) When we meet Riley, most of the time JOY is in charge of her thoughts and personality. Which emotions do you feel most often?
2.) Riley and her family go through a lot of changes when they move from Minnesota to San Francisco. Have you ever gone through a big transition?
3.) What are your core memories?
4.) Can our current moods colour our past memories?
5.) Do you think that our society values certain emotions over others? Which ones?
6.) Do you think it is easier for males or females, or for younger or older people, to express different emotions? Which ones? Why?
August 22 Emotions Are a Gift from God
By Carolyn Mahaney, Nicole Mahaney Whitacre Many of us spent our childhoods believing certain myths—only to discover that they weren’t true. You know the ones: “If you go swimming within thirty minutes after eating, you will get a cramp and drown,” or “If you swallow chewing gum, it will stay in your stomach for seven years.” Turns out, many of us have also swallowed popular myths about our feelings. We have believed things like “feelings are fickle” and “feelings are unreliable” and “don’t trust your feelings.” Not only have we been told these things by other Christians, but our own experience seems to back them up. We have a lot of trouble with our feelings. We don’t know how to handle them. We feel bad so much of the time. But none of these “truths” about our feelings are actually true. Just as you won’t carry around a wad of Juicy Fruit in your stomach for seven years, so your emotions are not bad, fickle, or uncontrollable. Emotions are a good gift from God. He is the one who created us to be feeling creatures. Our wise creator embedded emotions in our humanity to serve a useful purpose in our lives. Just as our minds enable us to think and our wills enable us to choose, so our emotions enable us to respond. When God surveyed his creation and called it “good,” he didn’t mutter under his breath, “except for emotions!” No. God surveyed everything he had created and declared it all “very good,” including our emotions (Gen. 1:31). Emotions are a good and gracious gift to every man and woman created in the image of God. To appreciate the gift of emotions, imagine what life would be like if you could not feel. Imagine hanging out with friends, yet feeling no pleasure in their company, or saying yes to the man on bended knee but feeling no butterflies? What if you held 9 your squalling newborn to your chest with no elation or heard the diagnosis “all clear” with no flood of relief? Without emotions, you would find no comfort in a good book, a bubble bath, or a drive in the country. Emotions add pleasure, comfort, and richness to events and relationships. Even difficult emotions reflect reality and can move us to a better place. Feelings mirror the pain and suffering in our lives. Imagine losing a close friend or a beloved family member and feeling no grief or loss. What if you hurt someone you love but felt no remorse or shame? Imagine getting fired or failing a test and feeling no disappointment. It might sound nice to do without these painful feelings, but none of us can deny that emotions give meaning and depth to our lives. Often the emotions we most wish we could avoid propel us in a new and better direction. Without emotions, life would be a colorless canvas, boring and bland. So if emotions are a good gift from God, we should embrace our design as feeling creatures, right? Sadly, many of us try to suppress our feelings. We don’t know how to handle our feelings or express them appropriately, so we shove them into a corner of our lives. Maybe you grew up in a family where nobody showed emotion, or maybe you were made fun of for crying in front of others. Maybe you worry that emotion will hinder your career advancement or hurt your carefully cultivated image of control. Whatever the reason, suppressing your emotions may seem like the best way to handle them.
The Danger of Stifling Our Emotions But stifling our emotions is hazardous to our spiritual health. Suppressed feelings don’t evaporate; they eventually burst out and wreak havoc in our lives. We all know the mess a burst emotional pipe can make. Ulcers and migraines. Family feuds and broken friendships. Anger and retaliation. Emotions are not bad; stifling our emotions is bad. Suppressing our feelings is like marking “return to sender” on God’s good gift. God doesn’t want us to live without feelings. He didn’t create emotions to languish on the sidelines of our humanity. He didn’t redeem us, body and soul, only for us to leave emotions out of the Christian life. He didn’t save us from our sinful emotions only for us to stuff them in the back closet. Truth is, God gave us emotions as a good gift to be appreciated and employed in every aspect of our lives. He wants us to glorify him with our feelings—in fact, we can’t honor and obey him without our feelings! Far from being bad and unreliable, feelings are actually central to our loving and serving God. Only when we believe that God has a useful purpose for our emotions can we begin to learn how to handle them. Only when we understand that our emotions are a good gift from our gracious God can we begin to see just how much they enrich our lives. https://www.crossway.org/articles/why-your-emotions-are-a-good-thing/ August 29 Joy in the Sadness By Eric Medina
So just when I thought Pixar couldn’t go and make a more emotional movie, they make an entire film that is literally about emotions! Well done, Pixar. Way. To. Go. It’s as if 10
‘Inside Out’ is aware it’s a Pixar film. Even the movie’s trailer made a reference to all of the past Pixar films. Seriously, go watch the first teaser trailer for ‘Inside Out.’ Regardless of what it is, Pixar really knows how to make their viewers cry (Darn it, Bing Bong!). But ‘Inside Out’ is a beautiful film that does indeed address the really heavy issues of sadness and depression while making the audience dig deep into their own feelings — because that’s what animated films are supposed to do, right? And to make things even more emotional than it already is, the film is accompanied by Michael Giacchino’s minimalistic, hypnotic, and optimistic film score (Bundle of Joy) that digs right into the pit of your amygdala. That already sounds painful. But like Patrick once said to Spongebob:
“Sometimes we have to go deep within ourselves to solve our problems.” But, in a world where we are always told to look our best and to put on a happy face (as the Joker would say), we tend to forget that it’s perfectly fine to be sad. Most of the time, we see sadness as a burden, like the stye I had on my lower eyelid for a month, so we try to push it away, force ourselves to be happy, and pretend that no one is looking at that ugly red blotch on your face but you know they are.
Anyway, unlike joy, anger, fear, or disgust, sadness is an uncontrollable emotion that forces itself outward when we don’t want it to, which is why, in the film, Sadness can’t seem to figure out why she keeps touching everything and turning things blue.
So when some people think of the Bible, they tend to think of it as a book of joy, miracles, love, angels, and big stories with big characters. But some people may not realize that the Bible is filled with stories and characters who dealt with plenty of sadness, depression, hopelessness, pain, and loss. We’re familiar with a lot of these characters: Moses, David, Jonah, Joseph, Job, Ruth, Mary Magdalene, Jeremiah, and even Jesus. Each of these people dealt with some sort of sadness, but in their time of sadness, they were able to find joy and even a bigger purpose for themselves. For this, though, I’m going to focus on one of my favorite characters, Jonah.
Jonah In ‘Inside Out,’ the main character, Riley, is forced to move away from her comfortable midwestern city to the bustling and noisy city of San Francisco, California. While there, Riley is struggling to make friends and focus on her daily life, all while trying to be strong for her parents who are also dealing with a lot of stress from the post-move. With Riley feeling unloved and unheard, she decides it would be best if she just simply ran away from home, in which she does. Typical pre-teen angst, right? So, Riley steals her mom’s credit card and hops on a bus headed back to her home town. While on the bus, Riley has a change of heart as she is overcome with nostalgic memories of her family and childhood. She has made a mistake. She realizes that her family is more important than her personal and selfish feelings and chooses to head back home where she runs into the open arms of her parents. Her feelings of sadness and loneliness don’t just magically go away, but at least she knows she has a family to always go to in times of trouble.
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In the Book of Jonah, we learn that Jonah was told by God to travel to another land, Nineveh, to preach the word of God. Nineveh was like San Francisco to Jonah. It was a place that was dirty, gritty, and lost in its ways (Jonah 1:2). It probably had less of a homeless problem, though, and less street poop. And according to Jonah, it was hopeless place. But as Rhianna would say: “Shine a light through an open door.”
It was definitely out of Jonah’s comfort zone and he didn’t want any part of it. Jonah was like, “Screw them! They’re on their own. No one can save them.” So, instead, Jonah ran away from God to a more comfortable location, called Tarshish. This would be like Riley’s old hometown in the midwest.
Tarshish was easier to preach to. People there would listen and accept the word of God. It was Jonah trying to find the easy way out.
Also, I did a little Google search on the name ‘Tarshish’. It means: Contemplation, examination. Ironically, the journey to comfortable Tarshish would be a time of contemplation and examination for Jonah.
Just as Riley hopped onto a bus, Jonah grabbed a boat and sailed the seas with a few other sailors headed in the same direction. After a bad storm and being swallowed by a giant fish, Jonah began to contemplate and examine the grace and love God had toward him (Jonah 2:1–9). Because of this, he decided to put aside his selfish feelings and travel to Nineveh to preach the word of God to the city. Though the story of Jonah leaves on a cliffhanger, the city of Nineveh was saved and found joy due to Jonah’s decision to say yes to an uncomfortable situation.
In ‘Inside Out,’ we learn that life is sometimes uncontrollable and we have to do certain things we don’t always like, whether it’s moving to a new town or dealing with life’s unfairness. We learned that Jonah had to do a task that he wasn’t too comfortable with, but later realized that not everything is about him. He learned that he was part of a bigger picture, but he needed God to show him.
Most of the time, we can’t see the bigger picture that God has in store for us. But rest assured, there is a bigger picture and God is with us through every twist and turn of it. https://medium.com/@ericdanielmedina/god-at-the-movies-inside-out-joy-in-sadness-7c0231ca3574