Worship at Home - 24 May 2020
Aldersgate Sunday - also known as Wesley Day
"In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."
Come, sinners, to the gospel feast,(Charles Wesley [1707-1788] - from Singing the Faith Hymn 401)
let every soul be Jesu's guest;
you need not one be left behind
for God has called all humankind
Loving and inviting God
we come into your presence as guests of Jesus.
Loving and welcoming God
we come by different paths to sit with you.
Loving and healing God,
we come though poor, maimed, sick and blind.
Loving and waiting God
we are drawn by your mighty, conquering and resistless love.
Loving and present God
we have heard your call and this is the moment.
Meet us this day with your grace, mercy and love
as we commit ourselves again to live for you who died for all. Amen
In quietness let us confess our sins to God.
Forgiving God,
sometimes we come unwillingly to worship
Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy
when our hearts are cold towards you and towards our neighbour
Christ have mercy. Christ have mercy
when we have put our trust in other things hoping they will save us
Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy
Come Spirit of God and stir our hearts again
with the good news, that in Christ our sins are forgiven,
in his name we pray. Amen
Hymn - Ancient of Days - (Lyrics on Video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz9yUjH7Y6E
Engaging with Scripture
Reading - Romans 5:1-11
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Is it the genteel pouring of tea into a bone-china cup? (Although, Wesley of course would have heartily disapproved of us indulging ourselves with the expensive new-fangled drink: tea!) And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. (Romans 5:5 KJV)What picture comes to mind with the idea of something being "shed abroad?"
It seems to me that this is far less genteel; far less controlled kind of pouring! Do you remember the craze a few years ago called the "Ice Bucket Challenge?"
It began as an attempt to raise awareness of motor-neurone disease, and happened to coincide, for me, with the death of a school-friend from that very condition. Not that this connection tempted me to take part in the challenge - but that's another story!
The Ice Bucket challenge was a very
different type of pouring, but still one motivated by love.
This picture too, thought, may be somewhat lacking because, of course, whilst
there is an outpouring, a shedding abroad, in this case pretty much all of the
water and ice ends up trickling away. In this outpour, nothing is
captured in a lasting way, rather like the shower-burst after a prolonged dry
spell which has limited effect because the water bounces off the hardened
earth!
In our passage Paul goes on to illustrate what he means by
God's love being poured out. He speaks of it being the work and action of
God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
God pours out his love in the incarnation of Christ. Jesus' birth, life,
death, resurrection and ascension are a physical outpouring of God's
love. In Christ, God meets us in our powerlessness and through Jesus'
death "demonstrates his own love for us ... while we were still
sinners." (v8)
Even though our love for God was barely a drip, incapable of creating even a
thimbleful of mud, God's love for us is an outpouring. It is a living
stream which ripples and flows in a never-ending current which reaches its
fullest expression in Jesus’ earthly life.
If we take our cue from Wesley, then we will probably conclude that Jesus'
outpouring was not in the category of genteel afternoon tea, it was, a fully
committed and at times painful outpouring:
He left his Father's throne above,
so free so infinite his grace
emptied himself of all but love
and bled for Adam's helpless race.
Tis mercy all, immense and free,
for, O my God, it found out me.
(Charles Wesley -
Singing the Faith - 345)
We might think that this coming
together of Jesus' suffering and death with the idea of God's outpoured love is
best summed up in our use of the word passion during Lent, to
describe the final days of Jesus' life.
In contemporary times, passion has come to be associated with strong emotions
of physical and emotional love, but the word's origins are more akin to the
idea of longsuffering or patient endurance. It is not entirely
fashionable in our day and age to express love as the willingness to stand
alongside someone through all the changing times and seasons of their
lives.
This is not the kind of love that is blind, as the poets would have it!
It is the kind of love that knows the faults and failings of the other, but
chooses to endure with them. It is the kind of love and grace that, in
the words of John Pantry's modern worship song, "gives me the time to
change." (John Pantry, Wonderful Grace, Mission Praise
966)
This passion, this love of God in Jesus is not dependent on changing moods and
moments. It was demonstrated whilst we were still weak and endures and
patiently waits for our response.
Unwillingly, Wesley went to Aldersgate Street that evening. He confesses
to his journal a hardness of heart and a stubbornness of spirit and yet, go he
did. God had inspired someone in that assembly to read from Luther's work
on Romans. God's love had been poured out into the heart of that obedient
believer and poured through him as he read and into Wesley as he heard
and responded.
The next day, Wesley writes, he found himself singing on the theme,
"I
could taste the good word of God in the anthem which began, “My song shall be
always of the loving-kindness of the Lord: with my mouth will I ever be showing
forth thy truth from one generation to another.”
There is something of God's outpoured
love that both fills and overflows. It is the pouring that fills the
tea-cup but it is also the pouring that empties the bucket in a great flood of love
breaking up the hard ground of our hearts.
In word’s from another revival: the
Welsh revival:
On the Mount of Crucifxion
fountains opened deep and wide;
through the floodgates of God’s mercy
flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love like mighty rivers,
poured incessant from above,
and heaven’s peace and perfect justice
kissed a guilty world in love.
So maybe, then both pictures are of
value. Since it is true that God's outpouring to us will be in such a
fashion that it will open up the ground of our hearts so that we can accept, receive
and be filled with all that God has for us. It will also be in such a manner that we will
feel compelled to pour out to others what God has poured in to us as we declare
his love to others.
And once we have tasted of God's great love, our hearts like Wesley's may be
strangely warmed, and we like him may feel that it is our duty and our joy to
proclaim his great love "and publish abroad his wonderful
name."
Then let us
adore, and give him his right:
all glory and power, all wisdom and might,
all honour and blessing, with angels above,
and thanks never ceasing, and infinite love.
(Charles Wesley - Singing the
Faith - 340)
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