Ryland Epworth United Methodist Church

Thought for the Week:

        In comparison with this big world, the human heart is only a small thing.  Though the world is so large, it is
utterly unable to satisfy this tiny heart.  The ever-growing soul and its capacity can be satisfied only in the infinite God.  As water is restless  until it reaches its level, so the soul has not peace until it rests in God.
                                                                                                                               -- Sundar Singh, India, 20th cent.
                                                                                                                                   United Methodist Book of Worship

Instrumental Selections

• Organ Prelude:

"Prelude"                                                                                                                                                    Bach
 
• Postlude:

"A Song without Words"                                                                                                              Mendelssohn

Sermon Title:    Our Foremother Ruth

Scripture Lessons:  Ruth 1:1-19a; St. Luke 6:20-31

Sermon Summary:   In Ruth's loyalty to her mother-in-law Naomi, the meaning of friendship shines brightly.  Ruth means "a female friend."  Ruth was Naomi's friend.  Ruth was God's friend.  St. Thomas Aquinas did well to remind us that "if we are 'willingly' and 'easily' deprived of our friend's presence, we show that we love our friend only a little, or 'perhaps not at all.'"  Sister Mary Ann Fatula, reflecting on Aquinas' thoughts on friendship-love, remarks that  Thomas himself had discovered that in loving others unselfishly, we ourselves gain so much.   "Loving others deepens our sense of being loved, and we know we are not alone" (Sr. Mary Ann Fatula, Thomas Aquinas, Preacher and Friend).
      The little Book of Ruth also tells us of a widowed gentile whose loyalty and love won her a kinsman-redeemer-husband, Boaz (see Leviticus 25:25), and therefore, a place she could call home among God's chosen people.  We're further told of  how God blessed her with an esteemed role in the march of forty-two generations culminating in Mary's giving birth to the Kinsman-Redeemer of us all, the Lover of our souls.  We know that when he returned to his native heaven, he prepared a place for us, a continuing place, where mourning is turned into dancing, and sin is felt and feared no more. We shall feast there without fear of famine, in the house of the Lord forever, in a land fairer than day.
      Praised be Jesus Christ!

Choral Selections

   Anthem
        "Lord God, We Worship Thee"                                                                                                             Franck

  Offertory Solo
        "O Lord Most Holy"                                                                                                                              Franck
                                                                      James Scopeletis, Guest Soloist