Order of Worship for Sunday, March 12, 2023: Lent III - Justified By Faith

Call to Worship - You are invited to light a candle in your home to welcome the presence of the Holy Spirit

Living Faith - El Dorado

Welcome - Stephen Folds

Galileo - El Dorado

Passing of the Peace: Through the act of passing the peace of Christ, we offer our sincere desire to love our neighbor.

You are invited to greet one another in the live stream chat on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. 

LENT SERMON SERIES: SAVED BY GRACE
You are invited to pray the Lord’s Prayer every day at noon throughout Lent
February 26 - Temptation and the Nature of Sin
March 5 - What Does it Mean to Be Saved?
March 12 - Justified by Faith
March 19 - The Grace that Comes Before Our Knowing
March 26 - Is Resurrection Possible?
April 2 - Palm Sunday 🌿 - Jesus Christ Superstar!
April 7 - Good Friday - Virtual Service at Noon PT
April 9 - Easter Sunday - Set Your Minds on Things That Are Above
April 16 - Sabbath Sunday

Calling all arts submissions for “The Light in All of Us” LA First UMC community-wide Easter Arts Offering!

What does the phrase “The Light in All of Us” inspire in you? Does it spring forth as a tune, a painting, a poem, a painting, a lego sculpture, a film, a scene, etc? We are a church community filled with artists with many diverse gifts. We would love to hear what comes from your soul, what your heart would create around that theme. It can be shared live or via video or email. We would like to our online and in-person community members to share their gifts a part of our celebration of Easter.

As you complete your work, email office@lafirstumc.org to let us know how you would like to present your portion of this offering.

[NEW DATE] UWF Field Trip the to Museum of Social Justice

Our United Women in Faith will now be taking an hour long tour on Saturday March 11th to see the new exhibit before everyone disperses for the day. At 10:30am, those who want to carpool can meet in our parking lot and drive together to La Plaza. All in our church community are welcome. If you are interested, please reach out to Sara Munshin to let her know you would like to participate.

All who need a meal on Sunday, young and old, are invited to come sit down at the table with us for a hot, catered breakfast to get their day started! Our volunteers will be acting as servers, so that all who come join us have time to sit and enjoy their breakfast

LA First UMC is starting this ministry with the hopes of helping to fill the need for hot meals served on the weekends when most meal-providing services are closed in DTLA.

LA First UMC's Sunday Breakfast Ministry

Sundays 8:30-9:30am Pacific Time
Outside, at the picnic tables, in the parking lot on the South East Corner of Olympic and Flower
Next to Villa Flores located at 1020 S Flower St

Update to Volunteering Process

In order for the hour to run smoothly and efficiently, Debbie has planned to have jobs for 6 volunteers each week. Don't worry there are plenty of Sundays to sign up for the rest of the year. Please reach out to Debbie to get on the volunteering calendar. She can be reached at debbie@lafirstumc.org. Once you are signed up to be one of the 6 volunteers for a given week, Debbie will send out an email the Friday or Saturday before your volunteer shift to confirm your participation.

It is with sadness that we inform you of the death of Eutha Hankinson, California Pacific Conference United Women in Faith President, on March 9, 2023. Eutha preached on UWF Sunday on January 29, and her memory and legacy are precious and dear to so many.

We give thanks to God for Eutha. Let us keep all who know and love her in our prayers.

UWF Scholarship Now Open!

UWF has opened their scholarship application in case anyone is interested.

https://uwfaith.org/latest-news/2023/united-women-in-faith-national-scholarship-2023/

UMCOR response to earthquakes in Turkey and Syria (Global Ministries)

Read the full story here.

Donate to UMCOR so that victims recieve 100% of your donation here.

COMMUNITY RESOURCES:

Cold and Wet Weather Reminder: LA Homeless Services Authority Winter Shelters Are Now Open Through March 31st

Motel vouchers are available and shelters operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call 211 for a referral. https://www.lahsa.org/winter-shelter

Flash Flood Directions from the National Weather Serive:

Turn around, don't drown.

This is your reminder to never attempt to drive through flooded roads. It takes just 12 inches of rushing water to carry away a small car and 2 feet to carry away most vehicles.

Covid Testing:
Getting tested is now easier than ever with LA County's Pick-Up Testing Kits program. Visit ow.ly/tfIu50Hsnh5 for a list of locations where you can get a kit at no cost. The program will allow residents to pick up a PCR test kit & return it at designated locations. Results will be available within 24-48 hrs.

LA City is now offering free testing, without appointments at City-run sites. Find a site near you: Coronavirus.LACity.org/Testing
For additional COVID-19 resources: Coronavirus.LACity.org/Resources

CALL TO PRAYER: From the Dust - El Dorado

Joys and Concerns: We believe that the best way to bear our burdens is to share them with one another. You are invited to share your joys and concerns so that our community can hold these things in our hearts as we lift them to God together. 

You are invited to share your prayers in the Facebook Live Chat, or on the YouTube Live chat.

First Reading: Exodus 17:1-7, NRSV - Water from the Rock

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’ So Moses cried out to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’

Scripture: John 4:5-42 NRSV

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he,the one who is speaking to you.’

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labor.’

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word.They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’

One: This is the Word of God for us, the people of God.
All: Thanks be to God! 

The Red Rose - The Everybodyfields

When walking one day down a dusty trail in the mountain
I saw your fence and I climbed it down to the ground
On the ground I walked and on the rock there was your still
There was your still

There's a bar in Alabama, and it's called The Red Rose
And I go there when I'm thirsty; that's the only reason I suppose
There was a man beside me
For ten long years I stayed at home
But that man has gone and left me to do some drinking on his own

And I think God is a moonshiner
His skin is gold from the whiskey in his blood
I think in heaven there is a bar room
A place where men go forget about their wives

The sun's rising when I'm drinking, and it sets while I'm asleep
And I drag my loneliness to the next bar that I see

And I think God is a moonshiner
His skin is gold from the whiskey in his blood
I think in heaven there is a bar room
A place where men go forget about their wives

I know I've had enough of this town
There's not much more for me to see
But there's Bibles falling from the skies down here
And I don't think God has time for me

I think God is a moonshiner
His skin is gold from the whiskey in his blood
I think in heaven there is a bar room
A place where men go forget about their wives

I walked to your still, and I drank my fill on the rock

Sermon: Justified by Faith: I Drank My Fill on the Rock, Mandy McDow, Preaching

Holy Communion

Invitation to the Table: As we understand the Body of Christ to be inclusive, we understand God’s table of grace and fellowship can extend into our homes. As you’re able, bring your own elements to this time. Bread, Juice, Coffee, Muffins… the Body of Christ is comprised of wonder and mystery. Today, we celebrate that God can reach us where we are, even if we are not together.

The Great Mystery of our Faith
All: Christ has died
Christ is risen. 
Christ will come again.

The 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 evil. 

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, 
for ever and ever. Amen.

CLOSING SONG: Typical - El Dorado

Benediction Remember:
God is with you,
God is for you, 
God refuses to be God without you. 
And may all of God’s people say: Amen. 

LA FIRST UMC LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT - authored by Tom Grode, affirmed by LA First UMC’s Church Council on July 13, 2021

We Acknowledge the Tongva people as original caretakers of this land and their ancient village Yaangna, what we call Downtown Los Angeles.

We Acknowledge the many Native Americans who moved Downtown to Bunker Hill due to the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 as “the 'old' Bunker Hill was effectively scalped by urban renewal in the 1960’s.”   

We Acknowledge the work of Skid Row Housing Justice activists in the 1960's and 70's to keep the low income hotel housing in Skid Row from suffering the Urban Renewal fate of Bunker Hill.

We Acknowledge the Native Indigenous peoples of Los Angeles, their special relationship to Mother Earth, and their hospitality, inviting us into that special relationship.

We Acknowledge the patience, kindness, and compassion of Mother Earth.

We Acknowledge our beginnings as a church in 1853 when Methodist leader Adam Bland was sent to evangelize the "rowdy and incorrigible” Southland.

We Acknowledge our relationship with Biddy Mason, one of the Matriarchs of early Los Angeles, and a member of Fort Street Methodist Episcopal Church (the first name our church bore) before she began First African Methodist Episcopal (FAME) out of her home, one of the spiritual pillars in Los Angeles for many decades.

We Acknowledge Biddy Mason as the Patron Saint of Downtown Los Angeles, an enslaved woman who fought for the freedom of all who were enslaved. She utilized her training as a midwife to buy land and used her wealth to help others in need.

We Acknowledge the words of Jesus "to whom much is given much is required" as a blessing for us to live out: the legacy and reality of owning the largest piece of undeveloped property in South Park.

Welcome to Tongvaland, Pamela J. Peters

We Acknowledge the land of Downtown Los Angeles - more than a dozen unique and dynamic neighborhoods - as land the eyes of the world look towards for leadership and solutions to the challenges facing all humanity.

We Acknowledge the mission of the United Methodist Church as founded by John Wesley: to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

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