Doing Church Differently - COVID 19: Worship at Home

Worship at Home - Sunday 4th October 2020

4^th October is the feast day of Francis of Assisi.

Our worship today, will make use of the next section of the Paul’s letter to the Philippians but will also draw inspiration from the life and work of Francis.

Call to Worship

You may wish to light a candle as you prepare for worship and pray for yourselves and for believers everywhere as we worship in different places today.

O Lord open our lips;
And our moth shall proclaim your praise.

Reveal among us the light of your presence,
that we may behold your power and glory.

Hymn – StF 99 – All Creatures of Our God and King – (vv 1&2, 7) - https://youtu.be/0d3gO6qDLNA?t=9

Prayer of Approach and the Lord’s prayer

God of day and night, of dark and light
we praise you that you have brought us safely through the night.
Rejoicing in the gift of this new day
we pray that your Spirit’s presence will set our hearts on fire with love for you;
and ask that we may pass this day in the light of your presence.

As our Saviour taught us, so we pray with one heart and mind:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done
one earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation
and deliver us from evil,
for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory
for ever and ever. Amen.

Engaging with Scripture

Reading – Philippians 3:4b-14

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

⁷But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. ¹⁰I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

¹²Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, ¹⁴I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.

Hymn – StF 489– All I Once Held Dear - https://youtu.be/4r8XfE_VNb0

Reflection

Paul continues to encourage the Philippians to view his situation and their whole lives through the lens of being ‘united with Christ.’ Many of us are familiar with the story of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, here Paul gives a different perspective on the dramatic change that took place in his life when he encountered Jesus. Those who witnessed the change in his life gave testimony to the transformation that had taken place, here he tells the Philippians what it meant in terms of the things that were of importance to him.

In his pre-Christian life, he experienced success as measured by the standards by which he lived and admits that his heredity and his associations gave him some degree of privilege in that lifestyle. It was to his advantage that he was able to prove himself to be thoroughly Jewish by both rite and heredity. He also prospered in adulthood from his association with the Pharisees and his zeal in defending his understanding of Judaism from the threat of the newly emerging Christian group. These things, he writes, had all been ‘gains to me.’

And as far as they went, all of those things were valuable to Paul at the time he needed them. Obviously he came to regret that he had allowed his zeal for his religion to spill over into violence – not least because he had come to see that his understanding was wrong. He is not saying that those things were wrong in themselves, rather he is saying that his encounter with Christ had shown given him a wider perspective and shown him that there were more important things in life. His conversion changed his paradigm for living, and so those things that had been useful and advantageous: those gains, he had now re-evaluated and describes them as ‘loss for the sake of Christ.’ If it had come down to a choice, he seems to be suggesting, he would choose Jesus every time.

On the day we remember St Francis, we are reminded that for him, too, choosing Christ meant leaving behind previous advantages. Francis was the son of a prosperous silk merchant – his early life was marked by indulgence and privilege and he enjoyed ‘bright clothing, rich friends, and love of pleasures.’ In his early twenties he experienced illness whilst he was away serving in a military expedition. Whilst he was incapacitated, he began to question his life of luxury and began to experience visions of God. One of his most significant visions was during a pilgrimage to Rome as he prayed in an abandoned country chapel. He saw a vision of Christ calling him to ‘go and repair My house,’ a call which, at first he took literally. In his enthusiasm to answer God’s call, he sold some of his Father’s cloth and gave it to the priest for repairs to the chapel.

This met with his father’s wrath, who eventually dragged him before the Bishop of Assisi insisting that he restore his father’s possessions. It is said that when the Bishop insisted that Francis return his father’s money, he not only renounced his inheritance but ‘stripped himself naked in token of his renunciation’ requiring the Bishop to cover him with his own cloak. From that time on, Francis lived the life of a wandering beggar associating himself with the poorest and weakest in society. Eventually he was given permission by the Pope for form his orders the rule of which was based on the principles of obedience, chastity and poverty. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_Assisi)

For many who step onto the pathway of following Christ, there are hard choices to be made. For some, like Francis, to choose Christ is to risk the rejection of family and friends; for others, like Paul the opposition to their faith may result in ongoing violence or removal of liberties. Every week in our weekly telephone prayer gathering, we intentionally pray for the persecuted Church – taking in turn those nations where it is known that Christians suffer violent persecution.[1] Perhaps it is useful for us, as we experience the (hopefully temporary) upheaval of the new-style of Church, to be reminded that there are sisters and brothers in other corners of the world for whom Church is always risky, always uncomfortable but never an inconvenience.

Yet again, we see that Paul puts suffering and hardship in the context of Christ’s death and resurrection. His hope springs from his faith that those who suffer with Christ will rise with Christ. He is quite clear that whilst the call of Christ may involve suffering, it is not the Christian’s goal – he presses on because he has before him the hope of heaven. ‘I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.’ (Phil 3.14)

In his letter to the Romans, he puts it another way, ‘I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.’ (Romans 8.18) For fellow believers like Paul, like Francis and like those who live under the yoke of persecution today; the energy and strength to continue to live for Christ is found in his resurrection and the hope of heaven.

We live in a world that still values the old tokens of privilege such as birth-right, membership of the right groups or adherence to the right set of beliefs. All too often the emphasis on these things results in violence as one group seeks to protect its privilege from what it perceives to be the threat of another. Jesus’ example, as he stood before Pilate, reminds us that for Christians, the trappings of our world’s hierarchies should not be our goal or aim. In the face of the might of Rome, Jesus shocked Pilate by his refusal to engage with power-politics:

“My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18.36)

Whilst we live in this world, we may have to find a way of participating in its structures so that we can take every opportunity afforded us to advance the cause of Christ and the Gospel. We do not do so in order to seek worldly preference or privilege because we know that in the end all of the advantages this world can offer will be shown to be ‘loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus (our) Lord’ and for his sake, we, too, may be called to consider the trappings of this life to be little more than ‘garbage’ that may be thrown away ‘that we may gain Christ.’ (Phil 3.8)

There is nothing wrong with enjoying the best that this life has to offer, but we must always bear in mind, that should the need arise, then the call of Christ may require us to abandon it all in order to give undivided attention to the ‘upward call of God in Christ Jesus.’ (verse 14 New King James Version)

Prayer of Intercession – (taken from – David Adam, Radiance of His Glory, London: SPCK, 2009 – p126-27)

We pray for the church that is under persecution,
the church at work in dangerous and dark places.
We pray for the churches that have lost their vision;
for all who seek to bring the light of Christ to others,
that we may all grow in holiness and in outreach.