Sunday, September 21, 2025
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 16:1-13 | "An Accounting"
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?z=p&d=76&y=384

Call to Worship (Inspired Psalm 113)
One: 	Praise the Holy One! From the rising of the sun until its setting, the name of God deserves our praise!
Many:	Who is like our God…seated on high?
One: 	Praise the Most High, who observes all things and remembers the poor and those in need.
Many:	God our Righteousness raises the lowly and levels the exalted. 
One: 	Praise the Righteous One, who is just and mighty, who repairs and redeems.
Many:	The Redeemer pours out love and justice, compassion and conviction, hope and salvation. Praise the Holy One!

Invocation
Great God, who gathers us together in spirit and in truth, sanctify our time together. Grant us wisdom and discernment. Open our hearts to receive and to give. Be glorified in our worship and the transformation that moves us forward as your people. In your glorious and precious name, we pray. Amen.

Prayer for Transformation and New Life
Redeemer, forgive us for defiling your holy ground. We have not cared for your creation, we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves, and we have not been faithful with the gifts you have given to us. We ask you not to clean our slate but to renew our hearts. Soften the hardness this world encourages us to wrap around our hearts, and replace it with compassion, empathy, and accountability to our neighbor, siblings, and creation. Awaken a new life within us. Amen.

Words of Grace
Beloved, a new life is possible. The Holy One has planted compassion within our hearts. We need only allow ourselves to come alive to the hope and joy that transformation promises us. Receive the grace of God to release fear of failure in order to try and fail and try again to be all that God will empower us to be. 

Invitation to Generosity
Let us bring our gifts as faithful stewards so that lives may be changed, needs may be met, and the kindom of God realized. Give generously and cheerfully as an act of grateful praise. 

Prayer of Thanksgiving and Dedication
Abundant God, may the gifts we give along with your miraculous power be sufficient to the needs of the community and a blessing to the world that you love. Amen.

Benediction 
Go out into the world to love and serve the Holy One
In word and in deed
In season and out of season
In trust and in stewardship
Go, faithful servant of God
Go in peace

An Accounting: Service Prayers for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost was written by the Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay, Minister for Worship and Theology for the United Church of Christ.