worship to comfort & inspire, excite & energise

Order of Service Below you will find the Order of Service, prayers, hymns and sermon for today’s service.   You can either simply read this or you can   to listen to the service and sing along with the hymns.  This will open up a new screen, at the bottom of the screen you will see a play symbol.  Press that, then come back to this window so you can follow along with the service.

Sunday Worship from the United Reformed Church for Sunday 6 April 2025   Today’s service is led by the Revd Andy Braunston Welcome Hello and welcome to worship today as we mark the fifth Sunday of Lent.  Through Lent we follow Jesus on his slow road to Jerusalem; this week the plot thickens in our Gospel reading as against the background of the plans to kill him Mary anoints Jesus for his death.  Each of our readings today has an interesting, political, context; a context different to our own but with some similarities as we wonder what we might need to say in our own deeply troubled times.  My name is Andy Braunston and I am the United Reformed Church’s Minister for Digital Worship; I’m leading today from my home in the beautiful West Mainland of Orkney.  So as we gather we join together in our Call to Worship. Call to Worship We look at all you have done for us Majestic One, and we are dazed,  as if in a dream, and yet: we come to worship. Our mouths brim with laughter, Risen Lord,  joy is in our lips gushing and burbling like a stream as: we come to worship. As we worship we look for guidance in the desert places from you,  Most Holy Spirit.  We yearn for your Word as a stream in the wilderness.  Where we’ve been in pain we look for joy.  Where we’ve been in sadness we find your presence to inspire and cheer us as: we come to worship. Hymn     Sing of the Lord’s Goodness, Father of All Wisdom Fr Ernest Sands © 1991 OCP Publications OneLicence # A-734713 unknown singer and congregation at Jazz Church. Sing of the Lord’s goodness, Father of all wisdom, come to him and bless his name. Mercy he has shown us, his love is for ever, faithful to the end of days. Come, then, all you nations, sing of your Lord’s goodness, melodies of praise & thanks to God. Ring out the Lord’s glory, praise him with your music, worship him and bless his name. Sing of the Lord’s goodness, Father of all wisdom, come to him and bless his name. Mercy he has shown us, his love is for ever, faithful to the end of days. Come, then, all you nations, sing of your Lord’s goodness, melodies of praise & thanks to God. Ring out the Lord’s glory, praise him with your music, worship him and bless his name. Power he has wielded,  honour is his garment, risen from the snares of death. His word he has spoken, one bread he has broken, new life he now gives to all. Come, then, all you nations, sing of your Lord’s goodness, melodies of praise & thanks to God. Ring out the Lord’s glory, praise him with your music, worship him and bless his name. Courage in our darkness, comfort in our sorrow, Spirit of our God most high; Solace for the weary,  pardon for the sinner, splendour of the living God. Come, then, all you nations, sing of your Lord’s goodness, melodies of praise & thanks to God. Ring out the Lord’s glory, praise him with your music, worship him and bless his name. Praise him with your singing,  praise him with the trumpet, praise God with the lute and harp;  praise him with the cymbals, praise him with your dancing,  praise God til the end of days. Come, then, all you nations, sing of your Lord’s goodness, melodies of praise & thanks to God. Ring out the Lord’s glory, praise him with your music, worship him and bless his name. Prayers of Approach, Confession, and Grace We come with our prayers and praises today, Most Holy Spirit, courage in our darkness. We know You are solace for the weary, pardon for the sinner and splendour of the Living God. We sense your presence as perfume in the air, as static electricity ready to crack, as the warmth in our souls, and we bring You our thanks and praise. We come with our prayers and praises today, Lord Jesus,  for in the face of death You offer life, in the face of anger You offer calm. in the face of gloom You offer light. We hear Your call to understand and love our world, even as we try to make sense of all that goes on in it. We hear Your insistent voice telling us to tell truth,  heal wounds, and stand up for righteousness, and so we bring You our thanks and praise. We come with our prayers and praises today, Eternal Majesty, yet know we have failed: we have failed to recognise you amongst us  preferring only to see ourselves. We have failed to see you in the poor and the least, preferring only to see the great. We have failed to see you in the gloom, preferring only to see the shadows. We have failed to tell Your truth, preferring the lies of our world. Forgive us, O God, and wake us up, that we might bring You our thanks and praise.  Amen. Like a father running to welcome an estranged child, like a mother gathering her young to herself, like a rock on which we stand, God is loving and faithful. Where there is true repentance God forgives our sins; so turn back to God, accept the love that is offered, forgive others, and have the courage to forgive yourselves, that you might be free.  Amen. Introduction We listen to ancient words – a passage from Isaiah which sees God at work in great political change, the tragedy of Jesus’ approaching betrayal and death and we sing some of Psalm 126 set to the haunting American folk tune Wayfaring Stranger. Prayer for Illumination Make a way in the wilderness of our hearts, O God, that we may drink from the deep refreshing rivers of Your Word. That as you call us to see the new things you are doing, we may hear, understand and respond, that captives may be freed,  powers of evil exposed  and truth be told, Amen. Reading     Isaiah 43:16-21 Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down; they cannot rise; they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: Do not remember the former things or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth; do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild animals will honour me, the jackals and the ostriches, for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise. Hymn     When God First Brought Us Back Carl P Daw Jr.  © 1966 Hope Publishing Company OneLicence # A-734713. Performed by the St Cecilia Choir of Trinity Lutheran Church, Reading, Philadelphia, USA   When God first brought us back from exile, we were as dazed as those who dream.  Then were our mouths brimming with laughter; joy from our lips gushed like a stream.  The godless cried in envious wonder,  “Look what the Lord has done for them!”  Indeed our God  has greatly blessed us; rejoice and sing, Jerusalem!   Once more, O Lord, restore your people; come with your saving help again,  as to the brook beds in the desert you bring the sweet, reviving rain.  Let those who sow with tears and sighing sing as they reap and joy proclaim;  may those who weep when seed is scattered gather their sheaves and praise your Name.   Reading     St John 12:1-8 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” Sermon In 1932 Karl Barth, a Swiss Reformed professor of theology teaching in the University of Bonn, broke with academic etiquette and started teaching sermon preparation to his students.  The etiquette he broke is that it was someone else’s job to do this.  Barth’s context was dangerous.  The German Church was extremely cool to the “religionless” Weimar Republic which emerged from the ruins of the First World War and replaced the Kaiser.  Elections produced Parliaments which struggled to get laws passed and so the government relied on presidential decrees to rule.  The growth of the Nazis, wanting a strong leader, and the idolisation of the German people and state was a profound temptation and danger to the Church filled with people who succumbed to this message.  Barth’s sermon classes taught a generation of clergy how to preach clearly in an age where power and politics had become poisonous where language itself had come to be filled with hate and lies.  Barth was criticised for being open about his socialism, but his influence was profound giving intellectual rigour to the Confessing Church which rejected Hitler; an influence which continued in post war theology.   Each of our three readings today, the two we heard read to us and the Psalm we sung, all deal with political issues even though, at first sight this might not be clear.   The context for our reading from Isaiah is the exile of the Jewish people in Babylon.  The people clearly believed in God yet wondered why God had allowed this traumatic event to happen. The prophets reacted to Exile in different ways; Jeremiah and Ezekiel understood it as punishment by a faithful God on an unfaithful people but the writer of this part of Isaiah ministers a little later during the reign of Cyrus who had defeated Babylon in 539 BC and saw things differently as  Cyrus changed the political situation allowing exiles to return home.   The writer brings comfort seeing God at work in the political shifts of his age.   The same God who brought the Jews out of Egypt will bring them out of Babylon.  This new exodus will be an example of God’s steadfast love.  Reading the politics of the day through a theological lens he saw Jerusalem’s punishment as being over and redemption being at hand.  The writer asserted God’s ability and willingness to intervene in daily life (or at least saw the politics of the age as being used by God for God’s own purposes).  Liberation is promised for God’s chosen ones so they may again sing God’s praise. Many, perhaps most, of those who read or hear this sermon will not have experienced exile in the real tangible way that the asylum seekers and refugees amongst us have.  Most of us can’t appreciate the profound trauma and dislocation that comes from having to sing the Lord’s song in a strange land, to find new ways of speaking, maybe learning a new language, navigating strange customs and social expectations, living in profound poverty, substandard housing and waiting for a deliberately slow process to assess one’s asylum claim make its way slowly through Home Office and Court.  Most of us don’t know what it is to live with such precarious hope in an increasingly hostile environment; those who do can understand this passage, and the experience of Exile, most vividly.  Most of us don’t know the fear of deportation to which governments in the West increasingly resort.   To a people in Exile Isaiah offered hope and the light of God’s presence; not just spiritual succour but tangible acts of love, steams in the desert to nourish on the way back home, safety in danger, hope in despair.  The psalm is paired with our OT reading as it is thought to date from after the return from Exile.  The nature of Hebrew verbs means it’s difficult to get the tense – this may be a song thanking God for what God has done, or it may be a dream of what God will do.  It continues the joy that we saw in our Isaiah passage, joy we find hard to understand.  In our contemporary world we know of people in Exile but are taught to think of those folk as having some sort of choice about it.  We realise things are bad for asylum seekers and refugees in the West in general –  and the UK in particular –  but comfort ourselves by believing it’s better for them here than in their home countries.  However, we have no idea of the pain of dislocation, the disorientation of exile, the yearning for a land that gave meaning and cultural belonging alongside the fear of being returned to despotic life limiting regimes.   Maybe we read the Old Testament texts and believe, along with the prophets, the theology that said God was using the Exile as punishment on Israel – but we have laws now to stop the punishment of a whole people so why would God punish an entire people?  It wasn’t just the king and political advisors that were taken into exile, but, almost, all of the people.  Did the people learn much of a lesson?  We’ll not know as we only have a few voices left preserved in Scripture; voices which saw the captivity as desired by God.  The captives, of course, may have disagreed!  Maybe, instead, we should look at the events and see the range of theological responses pondering if good folk were trying to understand God’s failure to intervene rather than accept that God was busy judging.  The Psalmist’s joy could be about promises still to come and, if we link them with Jesus’ words about bringing freedom, we start to think about who the captives are in our society.   We might ponder the poor forever condemned to go to loan sharks, kept ever in unmanageable, and criminal debt.  We might think of victims of what we’ve come to call ‘modern’ slavery, trafficked into the country to work in car washes, massage parlours, the homes of the rich, cannabis farms or the sex industry. We might think of the woman trapped in a violent relationship unable to leave due to fear for herself and her children. We might think of the addict trapped into illegality to fund their addiction.   What might release look like for them?  How might God be at work with the captives when the Church proclaims it is God’s mission to the world?  These are deeply political concerns as they deal with public policy and human suffering. Our Psalm could be interpreted, due to the peculiarities of Hebrew grammar, as looking forward rather than back; our Gospel reading is a mix of looking back (to the raising of Lazarus) and forward (to Jesus’ betrayal and death).  There’s an elaborate context, of course, to this passage; a context which is deeply political: Lazarus’ raising is fulfilment of Jesus being the way, the truth and the life.  In Jesus we find abundant life; but it leads to this act of huge, extravagant generosity which angers Judas and so leads to Jesus’ death.  Working for life can mean a dangerous backlash. The writer of the Gospel has a theological purpose to Jesus’ death – just as the writer of Isaiah had a theological message in Cyrus’ decision to release the Jews.  But Jesus’ death was not about theology for Judas nor the Romans; it was an expression of empire – an empire often mitigated through puppet kings and rulers.  Caiaphas, for example, saw his collaboration as necessary to protect the Jewish people.  Given the revolt a few years later and the utter destruction of the remnants of the Jewish state one can see why. Both resistance and collaboration were daily choices that Jewish people in Jesus’ time, and like all under occupation now, had and have to make.  Believing in Jesus as saviour was edgy in an age when imperial coins referred to the Emperor as the “saviour of the people.”  Thanking Ceaser for good harvests and plentiful grain made an idol out of him.  Jesus, the living bread who feeds his people stands in stark contrast.  No wonder Caiaphas saw him as a threat, no wonder the collaboration that gave Caiaphas power, and the people peace, was something of the utmost importance.  In our own age we all collaborate, to a greater or lesser extent, to the forces of empire.  Despite our best efforts our lives are beset by plastic which chokes our earth but enriches the powers of money.  Despite our careful investing we can never really ensure our pension funds aren’t making money from oil, armaments, alcohol, pornography or the occupation of other people’s lands.  Even our ethical funds struggle to be totally separate from evil.  Even lesser collaboration is problematic; do we think much before ordering from online companies that refuse to pay their workers well and hollow out the economies within which they are situated? Then there’s the immediate context of the meal.  Lazarus, in whose new life must have been one of the reasons for the meal is silent.  Mary is silent.  In this snippet only Jesus and Judas speak.  Mary has no words, only actions, to express her gratitude, Judas has no sense of gratitude or love only anger at what he sees as extravagance.  Standing like a po-faced Puritan of later years extravagant generosity seems not to have moved him.  The editor tells us Judas was a thief and maybe wants us to believe his outrage was about not having the money that had been used to buy the nard; yet nothing suggests this nard came from the common purse.  Mary presumably had a sense of where the confrontation with empire was heading – in the previous chapter Caiaphas argues for Jesus’ death as his sign of raising Lazarus was leading many to believe in him and so undermining the fragile forces of resistance and collaboration with the Romans.  So, Mary sees the writing on the wall and with extravagant generosity thanks Jesus for raising her brother and anoints him for death. So what do we do with all this context – the plotting for Jesus’ death, the wonderful things God has done and will do, and the seeing God at work in the politics of the age?  With Isaiah we may wish to look at our politics and wonder where God is at work.  This is a dangerous thing to do; some may see the powers at work in our age as being heaven-sent and risk the Church being merely a lacky of the state; others may see nothing but evil at work in the powers of our age and be tempted to see the world travelling to Hell in a hand basket and try to retreat from it.  We need to find a halfway place and see where the powers of our age need repentance, where God is at work in unexpected places with unlikely people and where there’s hope in the gloom. We might think about ways in which congregations might be able to help in the divine work of captive-freeing.  Could the Church look at ways to offer long term support to local charities seeking to free captives – Woman’s Aid, Drug and Alcohol Services, a local legal aid centre working with those subject to immigration control? Our Gospel passage is profoundly political when read in the context of the Establishment’s fearful reaction to Jesus’ ministry – just read the verses before this.  When bringing life, Jesus poked the forces of death, and they reacted.  The editor of John’s Gospel weaves meaning into Jesus’ death, but Caiaphas just wanted a quiet life, a complacent people and either the ability to protect himself or, maybe, to protect the people from the Roman overlords.  Either way the peace was to be kept, the Romans not to be upset, and the people kept calm.  It’s tempting to go along with the quiet life, and not to turn against the tide but it’s a temptation we’re called to resist.   We are not in 1930s Germany where the Church was tempted to see Hitler’s rise as God’s providential purpose to make Germany great again, but the desire for strong leaders remains, the impatience with politics as usual is intense and, for many, our politicians don’t offer answers which improve life.  Some retreat and give up voting, others go for strong leaders with weak democratic credentials who blame the poor for their problems.  Instead, we should hold fast to Jesus, the Way, Truth, and the Life, whose presence, likely costly ointment, fills our senses and guides us on right paths.  We speak truth to power, expose lies, and show where blame really needs to lie so that, through the murky gloom of our times, God’s kingdom might shine. Let’s pray. Let your presence amongst us, Lord Jesus, be like costly perfume that heightens our senses  and increases our awareness, so that we may see you clearly, follow you more closely, and, as we take up our crosses, bear witness to your costly grace.   Amen. Hymn     O God of Earth and Altar G. K. Chesterton (1906) Public Domain.  BBC Songs of Praise   O God of earth and altar, bow down and hear our cry, our earthly rulers falter, our people drift and die; the walls of gold entomb us, the swords of scorn divide, take not thy thunder from us, but take away our pride. From all that terror teaches, from lies of tongue and pen, from all the easy speeches that comfort cruel men, from sale and profanation of honour and the sword, from sleep and from damnation, deliver us, good Lord!   Tie in a living tether the prince and priest and thrall, bind all our lives together, smite us and save us all; in ire and exultation aflame with faith, and free, lift up a living nation, a single sword to thee. Affirmation of Faith We believe that Jesus Christ, testified to us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God that we must hear, trust and obey in life and death.  Jesus said: I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus Christ is both God’s assurance of forgiveness but also God’s mighty claim on our lives; through Jesus we are delivered from the godless fetters of the world to a free, grateful ministry to God’s creation.  Christ Jesus, whom God has made to us wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Jesus Christ is Lord of the Church where he feeds pardoned sinners through Word and Sacrament. With faith, obedience, proclamation, and good order the Church testifies that it, alone, is Christ’s property and it lives, and wants to live, only from his comfort and instruction in expectation of his coming again.  And so we strive to speak the truth in love so may grow up in every way into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body is joined together. We believe that Jesus Christ gives his Church a government distinct from the government of the state. In things that affect obedience to God the Church is not subordinate to the state, but must serve the Lord Jesus Christ, its only Ruler and Head. Civil authorities are called to serve God’s will of justice and peace for all humankind, and to respect the rights of conscience and belief. While we ourselves are servants in the world as citizens of God’s eternal kingdom. We believe the Church’s commission, upon which its freedom is founded, consists in delivering the message of the free grace of God to all people in Christ’s stead, and therefore in the ministry of his own Word and Work through Sermon and Sacrament as Jesus tells us: See, I am with you always, to the end of the world Offertory Mary anointed Jesus with a costly gift – a gift costing a year’s wages for a labourer.  Her gratitude at the restitution of her brother Lazarus was immense and could not be contained in a simple ‘thank you.’  Whilst it’s always good to speak our thanks, it’s also important to give through random acts of kindness, through our time and energy and, where possible, through our financial gifts.  Giving is one way in which our discipleship is measured.  So let’s thank God for all that is given in our church – the time spent listening, the acts of kindness to the wider community, the gifts of skill and the financial gifts given in the plate and direct to the bank. God of every good gift, we thank You for Your extravagant generosity to us, and pray You teach us to give without counting the cost. Bless all that is given to our church, the time, the talents and the treasure, that we may use these gifts wisely in Your service, Amen. Intercessions Eternal One we bring our prayers for our world, the Church, and those we love to you. O Most High, we remember before you the nations of our world, swayed with disinformation and hate, where borders, social norms,  and institutions  are threatened by the lies of evil men. We pray for those called to lead in these times, that they may resist the lies that surround us, speak truth to new empires, and maintain democracy. God, in your mercy…hear our prayer.  Risen Lord Jesus, with extravagant generosity, gratitude, and love You were anointed for death. Teach us to have the same generosity, gratitude, and love as we care for those on the move in search of safety, for those learning to live in exile, for those trafficked into the UK into modern forms of slavery, and for all held captive by the evil forces seeking only profit. God, in your mercy….hear our prayer. Most Holy Spirit, We bring before you those known to us in any kind of need…. Silence We hold them in Your great love  and pray they feel the comfort of Your presence. God, in your mercy….hear our prayer. Eternal Trinity of Love, hear our prayers we bring before You, as we pray as Jesus taught saying…Our Father. Hymn     We Remember How You Loved Us To Your Death Marty Haugen © 1997 GIA Publications, Inc. OneLicence # A-734713. Sung by Chris Brunelle and used with his kind permission. We remember how you loved us to your death, and still we celebrate, for you are with us here; and we believe that we will see you when you come in your glory, Lord. We remember, we celebrate, we believe. Here, a million wounded souls are yearning  just to touch you and be healed.   Gather all your people,  and hold them to your heart.  We remember how you loved us to your death, and still we celebrate, for you are with us here; and we believe that we will see you when you come in your glory, Lord. We remember, we celebrate, we believe. Now we recreate your love,  we bring the bread and wine to share a meal.   Sign of grace and mercy,  the presence of the Lord.  We remember how you loved us to your death, and still we celebrate, for you are with us here; and we believe that we will see you when you come in your glory, Lord. We remember, we celebrate, we believe. Holy Communion God is here!                                           God’s Spirit is with us! Lift up your hearts!                                 We lift them up to God! Let is give God our thanks and praise!   It is right and proper so to do. It is right and proper, always and everywhere, to give you thanks, O Most High, our light and our salvation; to You be glory and praise for ever. From the beginning You have created all things and all Your works echo the silent music of Your praise. In the fullness of time You made us in your image,  the crown of all creation. You give us breath and speech,  that with angels and archangels and all the powers of heaven  we may find a voice to sing your praise: The Sanctus Anonymous Author Sung by Justin Stretch of St Lawrence’s Church, Chorley and used with his kind permission. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, Holy is the Lord God almighty. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, Holy is the Lord God almighty. Who was, and is, and is to come, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord. Blessed, blessed, blessed is the Lord, Blessed is the Lord God almighty. Blessed, blessed, blessed is the Lord, Blessed is the Lord God almighty. Who was, and is, and is to come, Blessed, blessed, blessed is the Lord. How wonderful the work of Your hands Most High. As a mother tenderly gathers her children, You embraced a people as Your own. When they turned away and rebelled Your love remained steadfast. From them you raised up Jesus our saviour,  born of Mary, to be the living bread,  in whom all our hungers are satisfied. He offered his life for sinners, and with a love stronger than death he opened wide his arms on the cross. On the night before he died, he came to supper with his friends and, taking bread, he gave You thanks.  He broke it and gave it to them, saying: “Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you; do this in memory of me.” At the end of supper, taking the cup of wine, he gave You thanks, and said: “Drink this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, as often as you drink it, in memory of me.” Let us proclaim the mystery of our faith: Christ has died!  Christ is risen!  Christ will come again! Most High, we plead with confidence  his sacrifice made once for all upon the cross; we remember his dying and rising in glory, and we rejoice that he intercedes for us at Your side. Pour out Your Holy Spirit as we bring before You these gifts of Your creation; may they be for us  the body and blood of Your dear Son. As we eat and drink these things in Your presence, form us into the likeness of Christ, and build us into a living Temple to Your glory. Remember, O God, Your Church in every land, reveal her unity, guard her faith, and preserve her in peace. Bring us at the last with all the saints, to the vision of eternal life for which you have created us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom, with whom, and in whom, with all who stand before you in earth and heaven, we worship you, Eternal One, in songs of everlasting praise: Blessing and honour and glory and power, be yours forever and ever.  Amen.   To prepare to meet the Lord in Holy Communion let us sing the Lamb of God. The Lamb of God Traditional Liturgical Text reworked by the Revd Michael Forster © 1999 Kevin Mayhew Ltd OneLicence # A-734713 O Lamb of God, come cleanse our hearts and take our sins away. O Lamb of God, your grace impart and let our guilty fear depart,  have mercy, Lord we pray,  have mercy, Lord, we pray. O Lamb of God, our lives restore, our guilty souls release. Into our lives your Spirit pour and let us live forever more in perfect heav’nly peace, in perfect heav’nly peace.   Music for Communion Post Communion Prayer God of Grace You renew us at Your table with the bread of life. May this food strengthen us in love And help us to serve you in each other. We ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord, Amen Hymn     Lord for the Years Timothy Dudley-Smith © Hope Publishing Company OneLicence # A-734713. Sung by the Frodsham Methodist Church Cloud Choir and used with their kind permission.         Lord, for the years your love has kept and guided, urged and inspired us, cheered us on our way, sought us and saved us, pardoned and provided: Lord of the years, we bring our thanks today. Lord, for that word, the word of life which fires us, speaks to our hearts and sets our souls ablaze, teaches and trains, rebukes us and inspires us: Lord of the word, receive Your people’s praise. Lord, for our land in this our generation, spirits oppressed by pleasure, wealth and care: for young and old, for commonwealth and nations, Lord of our land, be pleased to hear our prayer. Lord, for our world when we disown and doubt him, loveless in strength, and comfortless in pain, hungry and helpless, lost indeed without him: Lord of the world, we pray that Christ may reign. Lord for ourselves; in living power remake us – self on the cross and Christ upon the throne, past put behind us, for the future take us: Lord of our lives, to live for Christ alone.   Blessing May the One who works in our world despite the politics of the age, the One whose presence is like sweet perfume in the air, and the One who allows us to interpret the signs of the times allow you to respond to the movements and powers of the age, fill you with the perfume of divine presence, and give you the grace to respond to God’s call, and the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be with you now and always, Amen.

Where words are copyright reproduced and streamed under the terms of  ONE LICENSE A-734713 PRS Limited Online Music Licence LE-0019762

Now the festival of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was near.  The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to put Jesus to death, for they were afraid of the people. Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve;  he went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers of the temple police about how he might betray him to them.  They were greatly pleased and agreed to give him money. So he consented and began to look for an opportunity to betray him to them when no crowd was present.

Reflection

‘Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve.’
Why did Judas do it? Why does anyone do wrong?

Judas was ‘one of the twelve.’ You might have expected better, except their special status reflected Jesus’s choice, not their outstanding character. As far as we know Judas was an ordinary person with a name so common that Luke lists two of them among the twelve. (6:16)

Money played its part when Judas and religious leaders agreed their deal, one hidden from the general population for fear of their reaction. Earlier, Jesus declared‘ you cannot serve God and wealth’ (16:13).Judas should have known (and done) better.

Luke, however, wants to look beyond questions of personality, upbringing or life experience. Satan (seen either as a personal entity or an impersonal force) is at work within one individual. Good and evil contend within Judas, an “everyman” as representative of we church folk today as he was of those closest to Jesus in the early days.

Can we claim, “Satan possessed me” and be let off the hook for wrongdoing? Hardly. Later (22:31-32), Jesus suggests that Satan is trying it on with others among the twelve but will be rebuffed. They follow Jesus’s example. When approached by Satan, he sent the tempter on his unsuccessful way. Judas and his fellow human beings have some capacity to resist evil, and bear some responsibility when we fail to do so.

For Judas, what’s done is done, and he is now in God’s hands, not Satan’s. It’s fine to keep one eye on his example, but better to focus more upon our own actions. As the writer and preacher, Fred Craddock put it, ‘the church is at its best when it stops asking, “Why did Judas do it?” and instead examines its own record of discipleship.”

So let’s be truthful about our failings, humble about our successes, and hopeful, for we depend not upon Judas but upon Jesus to make things right.
 
Prayer

Lord Jesus, 
when Satan comes calling, 
help me to look to your example, 
and so send evil on its way. 
And if and when I fail to do so, 
have mercy, and strengthen me 
to do that which is good and right. Amen.

St Luke 21: 29 – 37

Then he told them a parable: ‘Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. ‘Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.’ Every day he was teaching in the temple, and at night he would go out and spend the night on the Mount of Olives, as it was called. And all the people would get up early in the morning to listen to him in the temple.

Reflection

I love going for walks and looking at the trees I go past – in gardens or streets or parks. I’ve learnt to appreciate them at the different times of year – in the summer where there’s such a richness of green leaves, as well as in the winter where so many trees are bare, but when I know that spring will be coming and there will be new life. As I walk, so I reflect on what God is saying to me through these gifts of creation.

In today’s passage, Jesus once more points us to the gift of a tree and asks us to reflect on what we can see and learn of God through this gift. He’s realistic about the way we can be tempted to despair. Our hearts can be full of worry, for our world, our families and friends, our own lives. These are the worries that surround all people, and from which none of us are immune.
Jesus’ words offer challenges as well, as when he says ‘this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place’. We could be tempted just to stop and think ‘but this isn’t the way things happened then – or happen now.’ But his next words bring reassurance: ‘my words will not pass away.’

When we feel like just giving up, it’s a reminder that God and God’s words are still there, just as the leaves of the fig tree keep on coming to life each spring. And we have the reminder, to be on the alert and to pray, discovering the way we can again be in God’s presence, whatever else might be happening in our lives or in this troubled world. As we grow in God’s presence, so we gain the confidence and courage we need to venture in the life of the world with God’s message of healing, hope and promise, and the trust that new beginnings might just be possible.

Prayer

Creator God, as I walk in the way of your creation,
help me to see your unfailing promise of new life.
God of hope, when I feel like my life or the life of this world are only wintry,
help me to be attentive to the spring that you bring.
God, whose word of life is eternal,
help me to live out your life in all its fullness, day by day.
Amen.

St Luke 21: 20 – 28

‘When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those inside the city must leave it, and those out in the country must not enter it;  for these are days of vengeance, as a fulfilment of all that is written.  Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people; they will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken away as captives among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. ‘There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.’

Reflection

The apocalyptic words of Jesus have not featured greatly in my Christian upbringing or ministry. Discussions of ‘the problem of suffering’ have focussed on ‘why does God allow this?’ rather than on what Jesus had to say.

Jesus spoke a great deal about cataclysmic events and how his disciples should react to them. With the world now helter-skeltering into an age of disasters, due to our selfish misuse of God’s Creation, we need more than ever to take these words seriously.

We used to distinguish between human made disasters (such as war) and ‘natural’ disasters (such as flooding). Our house group in the 1970s were disparaging of one elderly member who suggested that human activity might be contributing to the ‘natural’ disasters. We should have listened – she was absolutely right.

Jesus draws no such false distinctions, but rather points out the human consequences – people made refugees, women giving birth in horrendous circumstances, war and violence (caused by and causes of climate disaster). Above all, “fear and foreboding”. All of us who experience climate anxiety know what Jesus means. His call to us is as surprising as it is (literally and metaphorically) uplifting – “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

This is not to adopt the misinterpretation of some who seek to hasten climate change or war in the Middle East in the mistaken view that Jesus will come sooner and vindicate them. God cannot be coerced – and is unlikely to vindicate those who try. The Jesus we know will rather redeem traumatised nursing mothers and their infants, refugees who flee for their lives, those taken prisoner or hostage, those who faint from fear. Even in our terrifying days, Jesus gives us the strength to stand up and recognise the truth, knowing that redemption is near.

Prayer

Loving God,
we cry out to you in the midst of war and flooding.
Our hearts go out to refugees,
traumatised mothers and infants,
all those consumed by fear and foreboding.
It’s hard to lift up our heads –
we would rather bury them in the sand.
Help us, despite our terror and our guilt,
to hear your call to stand up and be counted
and strengthen our faith that our redemption is sure.
Amen.

 

St Luke 21 5-19

When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said,  ‘As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.’ They asked him, ‘Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?’  And he said, ‘Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and, “The time is near!” Do not go after them.  ‘When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.’  Then he said to them, ‘Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;  there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. ‘But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.  This will give you an opportunity to testify.  So make up your minds not to prepare your defence in advance;  for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.  You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death.  You will be hated by all because of my name.  But not a hair of your head will perish.  By your endurance you will gain your souls.

Reflection

This passage is rooted in the hope that God will remain present in the world, even when it seems like things are coming to an end.  By the time that Luke wrote these verses, the Temple’s destruction had already happened.

Jesus also promised to give his followers the words and wisdom they need to testify, and that he will be with them when they face persecution.  He acknowledged the reality of human suffering and the terrifying forces of nature, but he also said that these are opportunities to testify and used symbols and imagery to talk about events that had not yet happened, but the gospel drama itself is set in Jesus’s lifetime.
 
Apocalyptic literature such as this, uses unsettling language and imagery as a means to assure the faithful that they should keep their trust in God even when facing the most challenging of circumstances. Even while describing the terrible events, Jesus told his listeners not to be afraid.

I think that the point is that when bad things happen – we should “not be afraid” or follow anyone proclaiming that these are signs of God’s judgment and instead trust that God remains in our hearts and minds. That assurance of God’s faithfulness to us in the face of difficult times, is confirmed by Luke in the final verse. Jesus detailed the suffering that his followers can expect to face from arrest to execution.

Luke tells us that Jesus himself will provide strength and wisdom for such testimony.   Ultimately, their experience of persecution will not end in death but in a victory for their souls.   Backing up all of these statements in the final verse of this passage, is the importance of trusting in God even in the midst of hardship and persecution.  This is a passage grounded in hope — in the hope that God remains present in the world and in our lives even when things get so bad that it feels like the world is in real trouble.

Prayer

Father of all, 
even when we wade through deep waters, 
you are always with us.  
Give us the strength to hold you before us, 
in our hearts and minds – 
a light in the darkness 
that will always keep us on the right path.  Amen.
 

 

1 April 2025
 

St Luke 20 : 41 – 47

Then Jesus said to them, ‘How can they say that the Messiah is David’s son? For David himself says in the book of Psalms,

“The Lord said to my Lord,
‘Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.’”

David thus calls him Lord; so how can he be his son?’

In the hearing of all the people he said to the disciples, ‘Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’

Reflection

Some of Jesus’s harshest words in the Gospels are reserved for the scribes and the teachers of the Law. The word “hypocrite” is seldom far from our saviour’s lips when he’s chastising people who should know better.

Who are “the scribes” in our societies today? Who are the people that prance about, and want the best seat, and do things for the sake of appearance? Are they our politicians? Turning up for photo shoots at their local food banks but then failing to vote for measures that would alleviate the root causes of poverty. Or are they our social media influencers? Promoting brands on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook but failing to disclose that they’re being paid for their product placements. All too often, I fear the scribes of our age are us – Christians. Many of us say long prayers for the sake of appearance but then fail to play our part in putting our prayers into action.

Jesus’s words are especially sobering for any of us in positions of responsibility. Whether we’re ministers or elders, lay preachers or worship leaders, verses 45, 46, and 47 of Luke chapter 20 should be a litmus test when we’re trying to discern the right course of action – whether it’s writing a sermon, or visiting a friend, or opening our big mouths in public.

Franciscan friar and popular writer Richard Rohr offers another useful litmus test: “I would even say that anything said with too much bravado, over-assurance, or with any need to control or impress another is never the voice of God within us… Why do humans so often presume the exact opposite – that shaming voices are always from God, and grace voices are always the imagination?” [1]

As we continue our journey together through Lent, let’s try our hardest to listen for those voices of grace, giving us the words to share that will build people up, instead of those voices of shame, criticising other people to make ourselves feel better.

[1] https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-loving-voice/

Prayer

Loving God,
please help me to be more like Jesus and his disciples, 
and less like the scribes and the teachers of the Law.
Please help me to listen to your words of grace 
echoing throughout my heart, 
drowning out the shameful cries of my ego.
Please help me to keep my prayers short, 
and to be your servant in the marketplace and at the banquet.
In Jesus’s name I pray, Amen.

 
Today’s service is led by the Revd Ryan Sirmons

Welcome and Introduction

May the grace and peace of Christ be with you and greetings from all the saints of the churches of the Northwest and Central, Newcastle upon Tyne pastorate of the United Reformed Church. Jesmond, St. Andrews and Kenton, St. James is in the city centre and West End United Reformed Churches.  This message is for Sunday, the 30th of March 2025, the fourth Sunday in Lent and also Thursday.  Mothering Sunday.  Our scripture readings are Joshua chapter 5 verses 9 through 12 in the Hebrew Bible on what happened when manna from heaven ceased after the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites  had ceased and their disgrace of their enslavement had been rolled away.  And St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians chapter five, verses 16 through 21, where we are reminded that in Christ we are a new creation and we can see things in a new way.  Please  pray with me.
  
Your word, O God, lights our way.  
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts 
radiate with the light of the way, the truth, and the life.  Amen.

Call to Worship

No matter how long you have wandered, 
come, let us worship God here.
No matter what you have done or not done,
come, let us worship God here.
No matter how lost you might think you are,
no matter how much you think you cannot be found,
the mothering Spirit of God is here.
Come, let us worship God here,
and return the embrace that has always been.

Hymn     You Are Welcome Here
© 2017, 2018, Chris Muglia. Published by Spirit & Song®, a division of OCP. All rights reserved. OneLicence # A-734713  Sung by Chris Brunelle and used with his kind permission.

Come, all you wounded and weary.
Come, all you heavy of heart.
Come with your fear and your burden.
Come with your pain and your scars. 

Come to the ocean of mercy.
Be revived, renewed and refreshed.
Wherever you are, no matter how far,
come, find your peace and your rest. 
 
You are welcome here; come as you are.
You are welcome here, with open arms.
Bring your burdens, bring your pain bring your sorrow and shame.
You are welcome here; come as you are.

Come, all you tired and lonely,
all you anxious who long for your place.
Bring your addictions and battles;
find your forgiveness and strength.

You are welcome here; come as you are.
You are welcome here, with open arms.
Bring your burdens, bring your pain bring your sorrow and shame.
You are welcome here; come as you are.

Open your heart; discover your place 
and your purpose.
Open your eyes; see the new life 
that awaits you here.

You are welcome here; come as you are.
You are welcome here, with open arms.
Bring your burdens, bring your pain bring your sorrow and shame.
You are welcome here; come as you are.
 
Prayers of Approach, Confession and Grace

God of all, 
You wander through the wilderness of life with us. 
You feed us and call us. 
Your love never leaves us. 
You invite us to be Your people, and You will be our God. 
You call us here to worship, praise, sing, hold silence, repent, 
and turn again to You, the source of love and life.
Illuminate our hearts, Holy One, 
so that we see no-one only by their usefulness to us. 
Open our ears to hear afresh the sacred stories of Your steadfast love, 
so that we might be a story-full people. 
Let our joyful imaginations aide us 
in seeing ourselves in these sacred words 
so that Your Word may fill our hearts. 
This we pray in the name of our brother Jesus, 
who gave up his life so that we may know abundant life, 
Amen. 

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive us our sins. 1 John 1.8-9a

Let us confess our sins together and seek God’s grace. 

Gracious God, in striving for comfort and ease, 
in the seeking of advantage over neighbour, 
in participating even distantly in the violence of the world, 
or in shielding ourselves in ignorance 
so that we might avoid the hurt that comes 
with loving the world as You love it, 
we confess we have sinned, 
in thought, word, and deed. 
We have not loved our neighbour as ourselves.
We seek your mercy and forgiveness,
that we may turn again to You,
and recover our true identity,
shaped in Your image,
filled with Your grace and truth. Amen.

Silence

God is always making all things new! We are a new creation in Christ Jesus! The Lord says: If you want to become my followers, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. Give us the courage to live as Your new creation, forgiven, loved, and whole. Amen.

Kyrie Eleison

Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy upon us. 
Glory to God in the highest, glory to God’s people on earth. Amen. 

Hymn     For the Healing of the Nations
Fred Kaan (1965) Hope Publishing Company OneLicence # A-734713  sung by Frodsham Methodist Church Cloud Choir and used with their kind permission.

For the healing of the nations, Lord, we pray with one accord,
for a just and equal sharing of the things that earth affords.
To a life of love in action help us rise and pledge our word.

Lead us forward into freedom; from despair your world release,
that, redeemed from war & hatred, all may come and go in peace.
Show us how through care & goodness fear will die and hope increase.
 
All that kills abundant living, let it from the earth be banned:
pride of status, race, or schooling, dogmas that obscure your plan.
In our common quest for justice may we hallow life’s brief span.

You, Creator God, have written your great name on humankind.
For our growing in your likeness, bring the life of Christ to mind
that by our response and service earth its destiny may find.
 
Reading     2 Corinthians 5:16-21

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.  So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;  that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.  So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Hymn     God of Freedom, God of Justice 
Shirley Erena Murray © 1992 Hope Publishing Company sung by members of Franklin United Methodist Church. OneLicence # A-734713  

God of freedom, God of justice, you whose love is strong as death,
you who saw the dark of prison, you who knew the price of faith —
touch our world of sad oppression with your Spirit’s healing breath.

Rid the earth of torture’s terror, you whose hands were nailed to wood;
hear the cries of pain and protest, you who shed the tears and blood —
move in us the power of pity restless for the common good.
 
Make in us a captive conscience quick to hear, to act, to plead;
make us truly sisters, brothers of whatever race or creed –
teach us to be fully human, open to each other’s needs.

Reading     Joshua 5:9-12

The LORD said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.’ And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.  While the Israelites were encamped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho.  On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain.  The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

Sermon

In my first pastorate, something was explained to me.  “You see, Ryan”, my church secretary said,  “when we moved here, the question was, which church do you go to? Then it became, do you go to church?  Now, no one asks, and it’s a surprise that a new neighbour might actually want to go to any of the churches.”  It’s been a rapid shift in the course of one person’s lifetime for an institution as iconic as the Church to find itself down to only 5 percent of the nation’s attendance on a Sunday.

And that’s combining cathedrals, mega churches, and all the rest, such as us.  A huge shift for an institution that anchors itself across the countryside and in the centre of cities. An institution which has inspired passion and rage, lifetimes of dedication, attention to detail, and a call to look into one’s own life.

Pilgrimages, incredible wealth and devotion, wars, and so much else not to mention.  An institution charged with a very real and life changing task. of introducing people to Christ and nurturing disciples along their life’s journey.  Church was, for the generations which preceded us, not only a given, but important, necessary, like manna. 

This might feel like a bit of a reversal of the biblical story but bear with me.  When the Hebrews were liberated from Egyptian slavery, they wandered in the desert for 40 years.  During that time, an entire generation were fed with a miraculous bread, manna, that appeared as if from the very ground itself. 

It was a given nourishment that came from God sustaining people in body and spirit along their journey.  It could not be stored up, for even one day later would lead to corruption and rot.  The people had to appreciate it in the moment. And yes, they got sick of it and complained to God and Moses alike. 

They desired variety, spice, difference.  When they finally had their own land, they celebrated their first harvest earned by the sweat of their brow at the Feast of Passover with their own grain, harvested by their own hands, freed from enslavement.  Now that they could grow and harvest their own sustenance, the manna disappeared. 

Did they panic?  No.  Maybe they got a little anxious.  But they let go of the lifeline that had sustained them through an age, and then turned to adapting their knowledge and work to the fields at hand.  What’s this to do with us?  Church.  The manna we relied upon is coming to an end.  For us, it might not be bread from heaven.

Our manna was the cultural Christendom, which built temples of faith, such as this one.  It envisioned a world where cross and empire fused together, inseparable for an eternity, united in grand benevolence.  It assumed that people would always be loyal to the church, always invest in it, and raise their children to think the same. 

Any deviation of that was to be pitied.  And yet, after over 300 years of challenge to the dominance of cultural Christendom,  Christendom is on fire, to borrow a phrase from Brian Zahn, an American pastor.  What has long and faithfully served as the gravity for how we understood Church is on fire.  What to do? 

The first is to acknowledge that our cultural manna was not bad.  There’s often a somewhat youthful temptation to challenge it in its entirety. Yet it provided strong reinforcements for how people could access and live good and faithful lives in service to God and humanity.  It was a faith adapted for its time and its place, and where it was abused, coopted for things that were not of Christ, we can and should acknowledge that was sin, not Christianity. 

But it was manna.  It fed and nourished us through a long journey.  And it saw a lot of winning of justice and hope for people along that journey.  Our second action is to realize that we are supposed to grow up and grow out of dependence on manna.  Today, being Mothering Sunday, an apt metaphor is that mothering is that mothering, an act that can come from male and female alike.

But also recognizing the unique role of women and mums in society is to help our children to grow up into strong and successful, creative and inventive, prophetic adults.  But children are not born that way.  We mother them with what is appropriate for infants and then children growing up and up and up until such time as they must be weaned off that and become as independent of the parent as possible. 

Our cultural manna was what was needed at a time, perhaps, but now we are being weaned off of it.  Like a mother, God is reminding us that we will need to tend the fields around us to create a harvest which we can celebrate together, free of the cultural manna that long sustained us.  Yet the need for a ministry that invites people into a relationship with Christ is very real. 

We are in an age of unbelief where our faith, our church, our morals, and our ethics can feel dusty or even despised. And we can tell from our own lives and our own experience that, quote, believers, pastors, and well-known Christian leaders publicly lose their faith.  We cannot help but ask, in dark corners of our hearts, if our faith is indeed in vain. 

It’s certainly being asked in the world around us.  Pastor Zond asks, as we all should, does that mean we who still believe are simply whistling past the graveyard and stubbornly, stubbornly forestalling our own inevitable loss of faith?  Is it possible to hold on to Christian faith in an age of unbelief? 

To which we could, I hope, say yes, but the yes we say will be different than the one long prescribed by our addiction to the cultural manna of Christianity, our old cultural Christianity.  It perhaps follows the beliefs of Fyodor Dostoevsky, who wrote, “I believe in Christ and confess him not like some child. My Hosanna has passed through an enormous firmness of doubt”.  

Our present age is an enormous furnace of doubt that will challenge, deconstruct, and reconstruct our faith.  But it forges our hosanna.  Our faith will come as it did for the newly settled Israelites, from knowing the fields we are ploughing and tending them by our own hand.

God has given us the fields and the climate in which to do ministry, but gone are the days when we could rely upon cultural Christianity alone to develop our ministry. The Spirit is calling us into that work now.  In Sunday school, you always know the answer when you don’t know the answer.  Christ.  It’s the same here. 

While so much may be changing, at the core of it all is a call. to turn to Christ.  The ancient Church used the word repentance for that turn toward Christ, and it’s been turned into some fire and brimstone thing that adorns sandwich boards of street preachers. But that’s not what it is. Repentance is a recognition that we often go the wrong way. 

The breadcrumbs of manna are no longer there to feed and guide us. Though we do have the witness born through history, that people have found faith, justice, and love, and often had to re-find it after losing it.  And Christ has always been found amongst the people around us in the community with whom we minister. 

So the problem with repentance is that it isn’t exactly as straightforward as the sandwich board carriers demand it be.  It’s hard work.  It was hard work for the Israelites to produce their own grain, yet the reward was significant.  Their grain was the representation of a partnership between them and God, born of the soil, nurtured by the sun and the water, and tended and harvested by human hands, shaped into creative, delicious, and nutritious things.  But they had to work hard to know that soil, to know the crops, and care for them.  Repentance, for us, will be hard, too.  The potential harvest of connecting lives with real, visceral, and meaningful faith is massive.  We may not feel up to it.  But Church, we’re literally in the Promised Land right now.  Turning to Christ is not some form of magical thinking, it’s modelling our collective lives in the way Jesus himself did by prioritizing people. 

Developing relationships, leveraging everything in our power and beyond to participate in thriving lives and thriving communities.  To pray, to hold silence, to honour the Sabbath and stop.  It’s what those who mothered us wanted for us.  It’s what God wanted for the Israelites.  And as the manna of cultural Christianity dries up, it’s what God is calling us into as well.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Hymn     Wonders of Your Love 
© The Revd Amy Sens Used with express permission for this service. 

My going out, my coming in
You know them all before I do.
You made my body secretly,
you knit me in my mother’s womb.

Our hearts are restless ‘til they rest in You, they rest in you O God.
Your everlasting gracious mercy and wonders of your love.

If I should fly over the moon 
or hid deep in the salty sea
You’d know where I was every second,
You would be right there with me.

Our hearts are restless ‘til they rest in You, they rest in you O God.
Your everlasting gracious mercy and wonders of your love.

When I look at the things you’ve made,
the stars, the trees or my two hands,
Creation is a wonder to me,
more than I can understand.

Our hearts are restless ‘til they rest in You, they rest in you O God.
Your everlasting gracious mercy and wonders of your love.
 
Affirmation of Faith

With the whole church:
we affirm that we are made in God’s image,
befriended by Christ, empowered by the Spirit.

With people everywhere:
we affirm God’s goodness at the heart of humanity,
planted more deeply than all that is wrong.

With all creation:
we celebrate the miracle and wonder of life,
the unfolding purposes of God forever at work in ourselves and the world.

Prayer of Intercession

Grant us your loving grace in the morning,
and we will live this day in joy and praise. Ps 90.14

Eternal God, we rejoice this morning in the gift of life,
which we have received by your grace,
and the new life you give in Jesus Christ.
Especially we thank you for:

St Luke 20: 27 – 39

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless;  then the second  and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless.  Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.’

Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage;  but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.  Indeed they cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’ Then some of the scribes answered, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well.’  For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

Reflection

The first paragraph here is a typical, ‘Let’s try and catch Jesus out’, passage!  Although the scenario sounds a bit extreme, this is an issue which is quite pertinent to modern society with so many second or third marriages, blended families etc. Indeed this is a passage which came very much to my mind when, over 20 years ago, my husband and I were talking about the possibility of marriage. He was a widower and older than me. One of the very practical things we needed to discuss was where he would be buried. Would I be happy with him being buried with his late wife? That would clearly be important for their children, but what about me? 
 
In my years as a hospital chaplain one of the questions people often wrestled with was what it would be like after they had died. It is a natural question, but inevitably one coming out of this world’s experiences. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. Jesus is politely telling them they need to shift their mindsets! Jesus is clear. The way things are in the heavenly realm cannot be described in earthly terms; but Jesus is also clear that those we call dead are in fact alive, albeit in a different way. God is God of the living, here and hereafter. Therefore, in God we can place our trust, for now and for the beyond. 
 
As for me, I was able to say with no hesitation at all, that I was happy, when the time comes, for my husband’s body to be buried with that of his late wife, because I know that will be just his body, and his spirit will have been set free. 

Prayer

God of the here and now,
God of the then and when,
in the complexities of this world, 
reassure us that your love extends beyond our earthly understanding, 
and that in Christ all shall be made alive. 
Amen

(cf 1 Cor 15:22)

St Luke 20: 20 – 26

So they watched him and sent spies who pretended to be honest, in order to trap him by what he said, so as to hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor.  So they asked him, ‘Teacher, we know that you are right in what you say and teach, and you show deference to no one, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth.  Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’  But he perceived their craftiness and said to them,  ‘Show me a denarius. Whose head and whose title does it bear?’ They said, ‘The emperor’s.’  He said to them, ‘Then give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’  And they were not able in the presence of the people to trap him by what he said; and being amazed by his answer, they became silent.

Reflection

Johnny Nash once sang that ‘there are more questions than answers and sometimes that seems true of the Gospels. Jesus often asks searching questions which provoke confusion. In return he is often questioned himself, but the questioners very rarely get the answer which they expected, or even one which makes sense to them. That’s what happens here. To use a sporting metaphor Jesus not only escapes the fiendish snooker set by his opponent, but lays a tricky one of his own in return.

Christians still discuss what this passage means. Is it about the separation of the sacred and profane, the heavenly and the earthly, or a rejection of the power of empire? Perhaps some of this ambiguity has to do with the nature of money itself. Jesus asks for a particular coin, a denarius, which featured an engraving of the Roman Emperor, making a theological and political claim about his divinity. The coins we use today in the UK do the same thing, proclaiming that the monarch rules by the grace of God and is defender of the faith. On all bank notes issued by the Bank of England there’s a puzzling statement – ‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of….’ This seems puzzling – doesn’t possessing the note mean you already have that money? But it goes back to days when a bank note represented gold held in a vault, which is where the real value lay. Today money, whether notes and coins or their digital equivalent in our increasingly cashless society, has value because we believe it does. If everyone loses confidence in a currency then it ceases to have that value, and becomes worthless. Is faith the same? By having faith, are we creating a new world, new meanings and new values? Is that how we reach the Kingdom of God?

Prayer

Loving God,
sometimes we find your word hard to understand,
sometimes you challenge us and make us think,
and sometimes we ask for help
and don’t like the answers we hear.
Help us to trust in you and be ready to listen,
help us to hear and recognise your voice when you call,
and help us to put our faith in the values and actions
which bring your Kingdom to our troubled world.
Amen.