Sunday,  November 3, 2024
Twenty-Forth Sunday after Pentecost 
Mark 12:28-34 | "You Shall Love"

Call to Worship (Inspired by Psalm 146)
One: Praise the Holy One as long as we live.
Many:  Praise the Creator, who makes our days, who trails our paths,and who gives us breath.  
One: Praise the Holy One with our whole selves–mind, body, and soul. 
Many: Trust in wisdom and honor, truth and love, grace and mercy. 
One: Praise the Holy One for God is just, generous, compassionate, liberating, and near.
Many: The Holy One reigns, lifting up the lowly, humbling, the proud, and sustaining the righteous from generation to generation. Praise God!

Invocation
Loving God, what joy it is to know your name. To know that when we call, you answer. When we seek you, we find you. When we long for you, we discover that you are already with us. Anchor our lives in your presence. Encourage us beyond our fear. Remind us of your goodness and miraculous works. Reaffirm the power you have made available and at work within us. Fortify us as your people who give and receive your love to your glory. In your name, we pray. Amen.

Prayer for Transformation and New Life
Righteous One, write your commandments on our hearts…not as a list of do’s and don’ts but as a vision of the people who can be, the lives we may live, and the world we may create. Write liberation of the oppressed, care and wholeness of those with unmet needs, and revelation and understanding to those oblivious to the truth. Emblazon your law of love in our hearts, on our lips, and in our journey. Transform us with your love so that we may reflect your love toward our neighbor and toward ourselves. Amen..

Words of Grace
Beloved, you are loved, and you have power to choose love in every moment and every encounter. Love has the power to lift, to heal, and to change. Let Holy Love move the mountains before you and the valleys within you.  

Invitation to Generosity
The call to generosity is a charge to love with our resources in material ways. When we give from our abundance, we express our gratitude to God our Provider, we assert our trust in God our Sustainer, and we affirm our communal commitments to God our Creator. Let us give from love in action and in energy, in spirit and in truth, in hope and in expectation that the kindom comes when we choose to live it.   

Prayer of Thanksgiving and Dedication
Great God, receive these gifts of love with blessing for those who give and those who receive. Magnify our ministries, enlarge our circles of care, and amplify our love in the world. Amen. 

Benediction 
When love reigns, the world will change.
Be the love that the world needs
For the kindom to become our beloved realm.
Go, in the assurance that the God of Love, 
Who is Love, is with you.

You Shall Love: Service Prayers for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost Year B was written by the Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay who serves as Minister for Worship and Theology for the United Church of Christ.