Fill Our Cups, Lord

We asked everyone to bring in their favorite cup or mug today and we used them as part of our communion celebration. Today was also the start of our annual stewardship campaign. The theme is "Fill My Cup, Lord" and that happened to be the title of the sermon too. The scripture passage was from John 4, the story of the woman at the well.

If you don't know the story it is essentially about a chance encounter of Jesus and a Samaritan woman. He stops by a local watering spot and while he is there a gal comes to draw some water. He asks her for a drink and she is taken aback. Not only is she something of a scandalous woman, but Jesus is a Jewish rabbi. Those two things don't mix. The encounter turns into a spiritual discussion and Jesus offers her a gift that keeps on giving, living water.

I made a couple of points during the sermon. The first was that it was no coincidence that the two met. Jesus planned it that way. He does the same thing with us. He seeks us out and shows up when we least expect it. Second, he wants to fill our cup with that living water too. He wants us to have his blessings.

So when it came time to receive communion, I invited everyone to come forward and to have their cups filled. Usually we share a small cup during our service. Today I wanted us to recognize the fact that it is our cup he's filling and he wants to fill it to the brim. (We did that symbolically.) God wants to bless us and too often we are the one's who limit what he can do. So let's start asking him to fill our cup and see what happens. Then we can share what we have with others.

A quartet of Mary Brockway, Lori Lord Fred Green and I sang our stewardship theme song, "Fill Our Cup, Lord." Next week we will all sing it out of the hymn book.

After church Mark Kane, representing our Mission team, hosted the coffee hour. The Mission Team will be hosting the coffee hours this fall. They also put up a display of 2010 calendars that they are selling as a fund raiser for the trip.

Cal