05/10/2026
Wedgefield Presbyterian Mother’s Day Online in Print 05.10.26
WELCOME & ANNOUNCEMENTS Elder Ron Price
PRELUDE Mary Anderson
CALL TO WORSHIP Ps. 97:11-12
Light dawns for the righteous and joy for the upright in heart.
Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy Name!
*HYMN OF PRAISE “Blessed Assurance” (v. 1 & 2)
OPENING PRAYER
Gracious LORD, be exalted in the worship of your Church. We gather in thankfulness for the love we have known and the love of Christ, all loves excelling.
You have made us for each other. You have preserved us through family life.
You have prospered us in communal life sealed by the Spirit for service and salvation. We are grateful for all your ways of delivering us from evil to walk in the light of our Lord.
Give blessing to everyone’s celebration this Mother’s Day. May it bring relief from stress and strain. May it yield love throughout the land that restores our sin sick souls.
Though wartime horrors on land and sea are beyond measure, you are working all things for good--you with us and we with you. Our hearts are humbled by your grace and goodness. Praise to Thee, O Christ! Amen.
CALL TO CONFESSION
Reformed and always reforming, let us confess our sins and need of GOD’s saving mercies and grace. In peace let us pray to the Lord, for everyone’s sake.
UNISON PRAYER OF CONFESSION from Mt. 12:35-36
Lord, you are our master in heaven! You have set the standard for our lives: “The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.”
We seek to do good, but we are trapped in systemic wrongs. Our speech is not always gracious, nor are our decisions just or pure.
Forgive us our sins against you and each other. Judge us out of your lovingkindness, not out of our deserving! We pray in your Name.
(take a moment for silent reflection)
ASSURANCE OF FORGIVENESS
The battle is won. In Christ, the dark forces are overcome. Even death has no dominion over us.
Thanks be to GOD! In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven, and restored to know good from evil, by the Spirit at work in us. Amen.
PASSING OF THE PEACE
The peace of Christ be with you!
And also, with you.
TIME WITH THE CHILDREN
FIRST SCRIPTURE READING 2 Tim, 1: 1-8, 13-14
RECEIVING OUR TITHES AND GIFTS
*DOXOLOGY
PRAYER OF DEDICATION
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND READING
So, Abraham begat Isaac, by Sarah, not Abraham’s only son but the child of promise, to carry the family name and honor their GOD and holy calling.
And when the time came, Abraham sent his servant under oath to return from Canaan to his home country in Mesopotamia, to the kindred of his tribe, to find a wife for Isaac.
The servant was obedient, and successful. An arrangement was made for a bride named Rebekah, after great gifting to her brother, Laban, and father, Bethuel, the Aramean, as well as to the bride herself, all the jewelry she could wear.
It was of course, a deal, though Abraham would have said, a ‘steal,’ for the incomparable worth of Rebekah in comparison to the wealth that changed hands. Here is the text:
SECOND SCRIPTURE READING Gen. 24: 50-61
THE MESSAGE “Rebekah’s Story” Rev. Jody P. Foster
My nephew David once courted a Rebekah. She was Jewish, too. And Ivy League. And brazen and buxom as she was funny and smart, and had everyone’s vote – except David’s. We were sad to see her go.
I’ve since looked up the etymology of the name Rebekah, in Hebrew. It seems it meant, heifers, or cows.
Think: value. Wealth. Milk and meat.
Isaac’s Rebekah didn’t look like a cow. Although, have you looked at a cow lately? Those big, beautiful, brown eyes? The biblical Rebekah was a beauty to behold. Isaac, we are told, loved her. He was comforted by her, after his mother Sarah’s death.
As devoted as she was, Rebekah remained barren for 20 years. And then (drum roll), she conceived twins as a result of Isaac’s prayer, praying to the LORD for his wife. The children struggled together within her, and as she also prayed, the LORD said to her:
“Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples, born of you, shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.” (Gen. 25:23)
Now how do you raise your children after hearing that?
So, Esau and Jacob were birthed, and as their parent aged, and the boys grew, Isaac loved Esau, because he ate of his wild game (clearly a carnivore); but Rebekah loved Jacob.
We don’t know exactly what that means, except she KNEW what she had to do: keep those boys alive, in order for Jacob, the second twin out of her womb, to take Isaac’s place in time.
It was Jacob who became the successor child of promise, keeping covenant with the GOD who called this family of wandering Arameans to be a blessing to all the families of the earth.
Yet what a hot mess Jacob turned out to be. A whole family saga in himself! Shaped, coached, encouraged, and rehearsed by his mother Rebekah for the burdens of responsibility she knew he must bear.
Jacob never saw his mother again, after conflict tore up the family and Rebekah sent Jacob off in fear of Esau to the ancestral family from whence she herself had come. Esau too was apparently lost to her, in his wanderings to find his place in sacred history. He took two Hittite wives, at first, and later married into the family of Ishmael, Abraham’s son by Hagar.
Isaac lived long. Rebekah’s death is untold, except for her respectful burial.
There’s a saying that the most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. Perhaps Isaac loved Rebekah all his life.
In any case, we would think: What a mother! What didn’t she endure? Times of famine. Times of migration. Nomadic life. Surviving the late birth of twin boys! By the grace of GOD, which is to say, by divine providence, everybody survived. Jacob, and Esau both prospered, in the end, wanting for nothing, in their terms. Much later in life, they reconciled, burying Isaac their father together. (Gen. 35:29)
Whether they remembered, Rebekah their mother engineered the brothers’ survival. Knowing them. Protective of them. Giving the family feud time. Separating her sons, saying: “Why should I be bereft of both of you in one day?” (Gen. 27:45)
Making a plan. Convincing the others. Making it happen for everyone’s sake. And because: GOD SAID how it must be.
GOD directs our paths in marvelous ways. And so, let Rebekah’s story rest, for now, and follow a grandmother’s “Worn Path,” an award-winning story from the consummate Southern storyteller Eudora Welty, written in 1941.
She knew the Deep South, and the depths of poverty and inequality in the Depression years, and she knew her bible well.
It was December, coming Christmas, late in the season for snakes to be out and about, when an elderly Black granny took to her semi-annual long march on foot to town in Natchez. Her purpose was to get medicine for her young grandson, to keep his throat eased open so he could breathe and eat and survive. He had swallowed lye soap.
The journey was hours and hours of difficulty and dangers, just one way. She couldn’t half see; she was more than half blind, but he knew the way. Up through the pies, down through the oaks, across the branch, where she drank; through the field of old cotton, into the maze of dead corn.
The stalks whispered and shook and were taller than her head. She kept on, until she came upon something ahead – something moving, swaying, something tall, black and skinny she took to be a man.
As she stopped and listened, it did not make a sound. It was as silent as a ghost. She yelled out, “Ghost! Who you be the ghost of? I have heard of nary a death close by.”
Shutting her eyes, she reached out at the figure and touched -- an empty sleeve.
“You a scarecrow!” Relief!
Told herself, “I ought to be shut up for good. My sense is gone. I too old. I the oldest people I ever know.
“Dance, old scarecrow, while I dancing with you.”
In town in those days, she was known as a ‘charity case.’ She got the medicine for her grandson she had no money to buy. She got much more.
She got her some respect, from those who served her, and a nickel too that gave her an idea: Bring the child a pinwheel to whirl the colors of the rainbow before his eyes!
You just can’t repay a love like that Granny’s. You can’s repay devotion like Rebekah’s that made her super strong, a pit bull in pink lipstick, for the sake of saving her family and lineage.
Some things cannot be repaid or repeated. Sometimes we cannot pay forward the goodness we have received.
Jesus didn’t seek to be repaid for grace and goodness either. The love of GOD in Jesus simply is gift, freely given to each of us.
Yet as we see what the love of Christ can do, we see ourselves differently. We see reconciliation take place, and pride and prejudice lose their grip on social norms. We see how Jesus healed, we see how we can become healers, too.
“I sing a song of the saints of GOD,” Lesbia Scott wrote in 1929. “They loved their Lord so dear, so dear; and God’s love made them strong…and there’s not any reason, no, not the least, why I shouldn’t be one too.” (courtesy:
Glory to God, the Presbyterian Hymnal, Westminster John Knox Press, 2013)
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH from Ps. 145: 13b-21
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE & LORD’S PRAYER
*HYMN OF FAITH “Open My Eyes” (v. 1, 2, 3)
*CHARGE
*BENEDICTION
*CHORAL BENEDICTION “Now Thank We All Our GOD) (v. 1 & 3)
Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices; who wondrous things hath done, in whom his world rejoices; who from our mother’s arms, hath blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given, the Son and him who reigns with them in highest heaven. The One eternal God, whom earth and heaven adore, for thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.
*stand in body or in Spirit or both
We are all ministers of Jesus Christ
Your tithes and gifts support the work of our ministries and our worship. We count on it! Thank you. You may mail a check to the church at P.O. Box 36, Wedgefield, SC 29168.
The floral offering today is given in gratitude to GOD for the lives and memories of our mothers and others whose love remains with us. You may take your flowers with you following worship.
Additionally, the annual Mother’s Day offering will be received today in support of the residents of Presbyterian Communities who have outlived their means.
Congratulations to all graduates. We give thanks for you. Today we celebrate Tripp Earnhardt, a top honors scholar from Clarendon Hall, proceeding to Coastal Carolina to pursue Engineering and join the school’s shooting team as an award winning marksman.
We pray for the defense and protection of lives in the Middle East Gulf states; for Israel, Lebanon and Palestine; for our military bases and deployed; for just, responsible decision making and cessation of hostilities.
We mourn with those who mourn; and celebrate with those who do. Prayers for our families and neighbors, parents and children; the Church in her proclamation; for those who are hurt or harmed by the decisions of the powerful, or endangered by violence, wars and weather--for the millions of people who are refugees, detainees, or seeking asylum.
Continuing prayer for Randy Anderson, Delcia Harper-Baxter, Joanne Cawby; also, for John Sorrell, Nancy Sorrell (orthopedic surgery May 12); for Kim Salley, Ken Cawby and Holly Proctor Thompson (brain tumor malignancy); and for the comforts and resilience of care home residents Jackie Price, Glenda and Charlie Denny, Roland Moise and John Duffie.
CALENDAR
May 16: All women, join in Church Women United “May Friendship Day” celebration, program and refreshments, St. Anne-Saint Jude Catholic Parish downtown, 216 E. Liberty St. campus, parking behind. No reservation necessary. Starts at 10 am.
May 19: Presbytery of New Harmony, Indiantown PC
May 24: Pentecost Sunday. The ‘birthday’ of the Church.
May 31: Fifth Sunday Fellowship, TBD. Stay tuned!
Your Session: Ron Price, clerk; Dolly Jones and Jennie Mota (class of 2027); Mike Anderson and David Kirven (class of 2026), Stephanie Hagerty and Dixie Hardy (Class of 2028).
Contact us: Rev. Jody P. Foster [email protected] (803.468.7516) or Ron Price, clerk of Session [email protected] (803.968.1285).
