Here are worship materials for the 5th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 9, Year B, which is also July 4th.
Call to Worship Psalm 33 Adapted
One: Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous; praise befits the upright. All: Praise the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings. One: Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
All: For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. One: He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.
All: By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and all their host by the breath of his mouth. One: He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle; he put the deeps in storehouses. All: Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. One: For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.
All: Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.
One: The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all humankind. All: From where he sits enthroned he watches all the inhabitants of the earth— One: he who fashions the hearts of them all, and observes all their deeds. All: A king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength. One: The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save.
All: Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and shield. One: Our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name. All: Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.
One: So it is as we proclaim in greeting one another, “The peace of the Lord be with you.”
All: And also with you.
* Prayer of Invocation Sung Prayer for Independence Day
(w. thanks: Langston Hughes)
O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea! O beautiful for pilgrim feet that trod these rolling hills,
Built villages on rivers’ edge, and farms and marts and mills.
America, with cities gleam, God mend our every flaw,
Confirm our souls in self-control, make liberty in law.
O beautiful, though much to grieve, with ripe humanity
Whose sweat and blood and faith and pain makes possibility.
America! America! Shed forth your hope and light,
and find the joy of common good, of duty and of right.
O beautiful, this thrumming dream, a dream that yet must be
Where people of all creed and sort may live as rightful, free!
For immigrant, for Indian, for Black and Brown, for me—
O grant this promise realized, from sea to shining sea!