Opening Music: I shall not be moved
Call to worship (taken from The Presbyterian Church in Canada)
From sunrise to sunset,
Let us praise God’s holy name.
With the wisdom of the aged and the energy of the young,
Let us praise God’s holy name.
In our work, in our homes, and in all we do,
Let us praise God’s holy name.
Let us praise the Lord with all our hearts!
We will worship God now and always.
HYMN StF 401 Come sinners to the gospel feast
1 Come, sinners, to the gospel feast,
let every soul be Jesu’s guest;
you need not one be left behind,
for God has called all humankind.
2 Sent by my Lord, on you I call,
the invitation is to all;
come, all the world and witness how
all things in Christ are ready now.
3 Come, all you souls by sin oppressed,
you restless wanderers after rest,
you poor, and maimed, and sick, and blind,
in Christ a hearty welcome find.
4 His love is mighty to compel;
his conquering love consent to feel;
yield to his love’s resistless power,
and fight against your God no more.
5 See him set forth before your eyes;
behold the bleeding sacrifice!
His offered benefits embrace,
and freely now be saved by grace.
6 This is the time; no more delay!
This is the Lord’s accepted day;
come in, this moment, at his call,
and live for him who died for all.
Charles Wesley (1707–1788) Reproduced from Singing the Faith Electronic Words Edition, number 401.
Prayer of approach/adoration(taken from The Presbyterian Church in Canada and adapted)
God of all creation,
you have opened the world around us
and filled it with beauty and purpose.
Each creature declares your praise –
the mountain states your majesty;
the ripened field, your generosity.
We pray that all our work will honour your justice and mercy.
May all our relationships speak of your compassion.
So may we praise you, O God, now and for ever through Jesus Christ, our Lord Amen.
Reading Psalm 1
Happy are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees
planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
Prayer of confession (©Peter Smith)
Loving God, we admit that too often we listen to the wicked and the scoffers.
We take the wrong path and do not delight in your ways.
We can be like chaff, blow all over the place.
So we come to seek forgiveness for our sins:
Silence
God forgives all who truly repent. May we know that grace in our lives and know that God watches over us. Amen
Reading: Jeremiah 11: 18 – 20
It was the Lord who made it known to me, and I knew;
then you showed me their evil deeds.
But I was like a gentle lamb
led to the slaughter.
And I did not know it was against me
that they devised schemes, saying,
‘Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
so that his name will no longer be remembered!’
But you, O Lord of hosts, who judge righteously,
who try the heart and the mind,
let me see your retribution upon them,
for to you I have committed my cause.
Reading: James 3: 13 – 4:8a
Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.
Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, ‘God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’? But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says,
‘God opposes the proud,
but gives grace to the humble.’
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
HYMN StF 158 Lord, you sometimes speak in wonders
1 Lord, you sometimes speak in wonders,
unmistakable and clear,
mighty signs that show your presence,
overcoming doubt and fear.
O Lord, you sometimes speak in wonders.
2 Lord, you sometimes speak in whispers,
still and small and scarcely heard;
only those who want to listen
catch the all-important word.
O Lord, you sometimes speak in whispers.
3 Lord, you sometimes speak in silence,
through our loud and noisy day;
we can know and trust you better
when we quietly wait and pray.
O Lord, you sometimes speak in silence.
4 Lord, you often speak in Scripture,
words that summon from the page,
shown and taught us by your Spirit
with fresh light for every age.
O Lord, you often speak in Scripture.
5 Lord, you always speak in Jesus,
always new yet still the same:
teach us now more of our Saviour,
make our lives display his Name.
O Lord, you always speak in Jesus.
Christopher Idle (b. 1938) Reproduced from Singing the Faith Electronic Words Edition, number 158
Words: © Christopher Idle / Jubilate Hymns, Administered by The Jubilate Group, Kitley House, St Katherines Road, Torquay TQ1 4DE <copyrightmanager@jubilate.co.uk> Used by permission.
Gospel: Mark 9: 30 – 37
They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me
Reflection
Where do I start is the question that often causes the preacher the most trouble (with where do I end and how on earth did we get here being the other two).
In the gospel Mark reiterates what Jesus has said just after Peter has named him as the Messiah – that the son of man must suffer and die but will rise again. There is a clear implication from Mark that this is part of an ongoing attempt to teach the disciples and it will be repeated for a third time.
Interestingly the third time is also linked to a discussion about greatness and position in the Kingdom of God – with James and John want to sit at his left and right in seats of honour.
What we are invited to see and reflect on is that neither Jesus’ ministry nor our discipleship is about power, position or privilege but about service and humility. Doing right, doing justice because that is how God’s love is shown not because in that way we gain brownie points or earn a reward.
Jesus seems to delight in using children as an example of the way in which we are to follow him and respond to God. The child is vulnerable, small enough to be held in his arms, dependent on others for their safety and wellbeing. How we treat the most vulnerable in our society is a measure of whether we have indeed grasped the meaning of our calling to love as God loves us. We will come back to this idea of showing our faith by the way in which we live our lives later.
Persecution
Although there may be an element in the gospel and the epistle readings about submitting to the persecutions of the world, Jerimiah is not taking things lying down. He is clearly angry with the way in which he is being treated and is not afraid to say so.
A wonderful counter to the idea of gentle Jesus meek and mild – the living doormat way of being where we must endure all that life throws at us without complaining. I very much doubt that Jesus was very happy with the thought that the apparent inevitable consequences of his ministry was his own death. (Father if it be your will, take this cup from me). Perhaps there was something of the wisdom to accept the things he could not change whilst remaining true to himself.
But we are not called to be doormats or to make other people into doormats. As a justice seeking church we are called to proclaim the good news to the poor, release to the captives, and to let the oppressed go free. The good news is that the world need not be as it is but can be changed and transformed by the outward working of God’s love in our lives.
Occasionally you will find in the media stories that allege that Christians are being persecuted in the UK, are not free to practice their religion. Let’s be absolutely clear, that is just a load of old rubbish. There is nothing preventing us practicing our faith, nor laws that stop us following Jesus and being public about it. However, there are laws that seek to protect all people from prejudice and discrimination. So, if what you want to say seems to fall foul of those laws, you really should be asking is it really of God? Does it real speak of love and justice or should I be saying and doing something completely different?
It’s a bit like any comment that starts: “some of my best friends are X, but…” is almost always a sentence that you shouldn’t be using and thought that does not need sharing.
Disagreements
The Methodist Church has decided that there are some issues on which we have not yet come to a common mind and therefore we need to live with contradictory convictions. We may or may not come to a common mind in the future, but for the time being we must live with the uncertainty and discomfort that there may be more than one answer or no answer to a particular question.
For some, living with contradictory convictions has come to mean that they are perfectly entitled to continue to be rude to and dismissive of other people’s deeply held beliefs. It is not easy to co-exist with others who deny who you are or seem to undermine your faith, but we are called to seek to see Christ in each other, and like Wesley encouraged in his sermon the Catholic Spirit, to extend the hand of fellowship.
The writer of the epistle was certainly familiar with the way in which church communities could fall out with in their own company. They call the reader back to God, rather harshly. I suspect that like all groups some of the disagreements had been blown out proportion and really they could be capable of living alongside each other.
I rather like our second hymn because it reminds us of the various ways in which God speaks to us and that they have an imperfection about them. Even in the revelation through Jesus we hear and see God in different ways. All of which is good and we can enrich each other from our varied experiences. I think I want another verse that starts: Lord you sometimes speak in riddles.
Faith in action
In the Epistle we read:
“Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.”
Which reminds me of other words in the same book about faith without works is dead. Of course, nothing we can do can ever earn us salvation or make us right with God – that is the work of God’s grace freely offered and accepted. But coming into relationship with God through Jesus and being filled with the Holy Spirit should be transformative in the way in which we live in this world. We are called to be more than clanging symbols. We are called to be channels of God’s love in the world.
Christian Aid a few years ago launched that slogan “We believe in life before death”. It matters profoundly how others live and are treated.
Last weekend, I watched the Last Night of the Proms on BBC. It is one of those curious and peculiar occasions with mixed messages – rather like the variety of flags being waved. How many of you found yourselves singing along with the chorus and audience or was it just me?
The singing of Land of hope and glory is always challenging. Does it have to mean empire, conquest and subrogation of others? Or can it be given a new 21st century meaning, subverting the traditional meaning?
A country that trusts in God, that seeks to be a mother of the free, nurturing and protecting? Whose bounds are wide not in the sense of empire but in welcome and inclusion?
One of my friends has just done the ancestry DNA test and it reveals something of where his ancestors came from. Some of it reminds me that very many people have come to these shores in boats – some in peace warmly invited, even if not always treated fairly thereafter, others to raid or to conquer but making a home here. We are by definition a mixed bag and the idea of pure born English man being something of an oxymoron.
So, we face the challenge and the opportunities presented by those who want to make their home here with us. And in case we needed reminding the revelations of sexual abuse and rape against the former, now dead, owner of Harrods, reminds us that wealth is no guarantor of good character. Perhaps our society would be more enriched by those who arrive by less orthodox routes with only the clothes they stand up in?
Faith and struggles
Back to Jerimiah to remind us that it is not always easy to walk in the ways of God, to do God’s will.
But in the gift of the Holy Spirit we are reminded that we are not alone. Our next hymn in its assertion that God’s love goes on, reminds us of that. I was particularly drawn to the second half of verse 4:
“Through the dark days of depression,
when all sign of faith is gone,
hope may find no fresh expression,
but we trust his love goes on.”
It is said that as Methodists we sing our faith. It is refreshing when our hymns our honest. Amen
HYMN StF 110 In the wonder of creation.
1 In the wonder of creation,
when all nature shares one song,
showing God’s imagination,
all may see his love goes on.
Through the Holy Story spoken,
of God’s people called as one,
gathered, exiled, saved and broken,
this we learn: his love goes on.
2 In the Christ who died to save us;
in God’s risen, living Son;
through the Spirit, whom he gave us;
this we know: his love goes on.
In the telling of the gospel
Matthew, Mark and Luke and John
join the Church in testifying
through the years: his love goes on.
3 From the perfect days of gladness
when the sun has brightly shone,
to the slog of working madness,
all the while his love goes on.
Through the times of harsh temptation,
seeking strength but finding none,
in our human desperation,
mercy comes: his love goes on.
4 In the joys of celebration,
of new birth or victory won,
in the deep peace of salvation,
tell the world his love goes on!
Through the dark days of depression,
when all sign of faith is gone,
hope may find no fresh expression,
but we trust his love goes on.
5 Through the hopes of our tomorrows,
and the things we’ve left undone —
future joys and present sorrows —
through all time, his love goes on.
In our Kingdom-shaped endeavour,
when God’s glorious work is done,
to the promise of forever,
God is here: his love goes on.
Andrew T. Murphy (b. 1981) Reproduced from Singing the Faith Electronic Words Edition, number 110
Words: © Andrew T. Murphy
Prayers of thanksgiving and intercession (taken from The Presbyterian Church in Canada)
God of all people and places, we come to you in prayer,
giving thanks that you are with us in all situations.
You bring us strength and courage when we are anxious or afraid.
You provide wisdom and direction when we face choices and challenges.
Thank you for your faithfulness to us.
In our prayers, enlarge our love and sharpen our vision
so that we may serve the world you love more faithfully.
We pray for those who dwell on the margins of the economy,
facing the challenges of unemployment, financial insecurity and rising costs.
Give leaders in government, business and labour a mutual vision
that reflects the values of your kingdom,
so that everyone has enough resources and respect to live well and wisely.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
We pray for all those facing famine and drought this year,
and for those who have lost everything through fire, storm or conflict.
Bring support to those people and agencies who work to alleviate suffering
and help them rebuild lives and communities.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
We give you thanks for those who work for peace and mercy
in a world divided by bitter conflicts,
and for those who keep peace and lead negotiations in international disputes.
Give them wisdom and perseverance.
We remember those who face violence, persecution, or discrimination daily.
Send your Spirit to protect the vulnerable and shame the vicious
so that justice and wellbeing will prevail.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
We pray for teachers, students,
educational administrators and support staff
as another academic year begins.
Thank you for the gifts of education,
for deepening insight into this ever-changing world
and the ability to distinguish truth from error.
Grant all those in education this year mutual respect
and commitment to the shared venture of learning.
Help each of us bring the benefits of our education to our life of faith
and give us all a teachable spirit.
Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.
We pray for all those struggling with pain or illness,
disability or daunting diagnosis.
Stay by their side.
Be with those who face death this day,
and those who weep for loved ones who have died.
Unite us in love, whatever we are facing,
and grant us the peace and hope you have promised us in Christ Jesus. Amen
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever. Amen.
Prayer of dedication (©Peter Smith)
Gracious and loving God, accept the varied gifts that we offer, though they may be poor nothings for your boundless love.
Strengthen us by your Holy Spirit that we may show our faith in our words and in our deeds. Amen
HYMN StF 681 Community of faith
1 Community of Christ,
who make the Cross your own,
live out your creed and risk your life
for God alone:
the God who wears your face,
to whom all worlds belong,
whose children are of every race
and every song.
2 Community of Christ,
look past the Church’s door
and see the refugee, the hungry,
and the poor.
Take hands with the oppressed,
the jobless in your street,
take towel and water, that you wash
your neighbour’s feet.
3 Community of Christ,
through whom the word must sound —
cry out for justice and for peace
the whole world round:
disarm the powers that war
and all that can destroy,
turn bombs to bread, and tears of anguish
into joy.
4 When menace melts away,
so shall God’s will be done,
the climate of the world be peace
and Christ its Sun;
our currency be love
and kindliness our law,
our food and faith be shared as one
for evermore.
Shirley Erena Murray (b. 1931) Reproduced from Singing the Faith Electronic Words Edition, number 681
Words: © 1992, Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188, USA. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Blessing (taken from the Pentecostal Church of Canada)
“Who is wise and understanding among you? Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.”
Let us pray
Go with these words on your hearts,
And may the God of wisdom guide you;
The Christ of mercy walk beside you;
And the Spirit of hope inspire you each and every day,
Now and always. Amen.
Closing music I’ll go in the strength of the Lord
