Worship at Home - 15th November 2020

Worship at Home – Sunday November 15^th 2020

Introduction:

This service will make use of Taizè chants.  If you wish to participate in the service as a ‘live’ event then it will take place via Zoom at 10:30am on 15^th November.   For details of how to log-in to the service please contact a steward at Trinity, Sandy or Beeston who will be able to provide you with the Meeting ID and Passcode.)

We gather and centre our attention on God

If you are following the service on your own, you may wish to light a candle and spend some time quietly praying for other Christians who will be worshipping alone this morning.

Our Gathering chant is SING TO GOD – https://youtu.be/MsaXXH1f1XM

Prayer

Holy, holy, holy God,
we raise our voices to sing your praise.

We ask that you would lift our hearts and minds to your throne
that we might capture a glimpse of your glory
and that such a vision would push away the clouds of doubt, anxiety and despair.

Spirit of life, breathe into us new hope for this new day
that enlivened by you we might be renewed in body, soul and spirit

Holy, holy, holy God,
we lift our eyes to see you in the beauty of holiness.

A chant of confession – GOD IS FORGIVENESS - https://youtu.be/wGgGFguXwms

The Lord’s Prayer

We prepare to hear the Scriptures – Oculi Nostri (Our eyes are turned to the Lord Jesus Christ) - https://youtu.be/lD8UY3O4xXg 

Reading: Psalm 91

 ¹ Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High

    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

² I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress,

    my God, in whom I trust.’

³ Surely he will save you

    from the fowler’s snare

    and from the deadly pestilence.

⁴ He will cover you with his feathers,

    and under his wings you will find refuge;

    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

⁵ You will not fear the terror of night,

    nor the arrow that flies by day,

⁶ nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,

    nor the plague that destroys at midday.

⁷ A thousand may fall at your side,

    ten thousand at your right hand,

    but it will not come near you.

⁸ You will only observe with your eyes

    and see the punishment of the wicked.

⁹ If you say, ‘The Lord is my refuge,’

    and you make the Most High your dwelling,

¹⁰ no harm will overtake you,

    no disaster will come near your tent.

¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you

    to guard you in all your ways;

¹² they will lift you up in their hands,

    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

¹³ You will tread on the lion and the cobra;

    you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

¹⁴ ‘Because he loves me,’ says the Lord, ‘I will rescue him;

    I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

¹⁵ He will call on me, and I will answer him;

    I will be with him in trouble,

    I will deliver him and honour him.

¹⁶ With long life I will satisfy him

    and show him my salvation.’

Reflection/Meditation

 

The Psalms particularly lend themselves to the kind of meditative reading of Scripture that is at the heart of the ancient monastic practice of lectio divina.  So it may be that as you have read/listened to Psalm 91 that your heart and mind has rested on a particular verse that speaks to your current situation – if this is the case then rather than using my reflection you may wish to spend some time prayerfully chewing over those words that are for you today.  In sharing my reflection, I am effectively doing the same but committing it to paper.

 

oOo

 

It would be tempting to read verse 3 to 6 of this psalm and think they offer some kind of Divine protection plan that will keep the pestilence and plague away from those of us who call upon the name of the Most High. 

Indeed it may be disconcerting for us to read these verses in the light of our current situation; especially as we hold before us those who have suffered and even died of Coronavirus or who are suffering and perhaps dying of other sicknesses and diseases.

Yet we would have to stretch our imaginations beyond any sense of reason to believe that the Psalmist (and the countless generations since who have read the Psalmist’s words) really believed that there was some kind of celestial force-field placed around the people of God that protected them from the normal run of illness, disease and death.  No, there is no escape from the facts of this life which clearly present us with human mortality and ultimately with our own.  However, we may read the Psalmist’s words as a reminder that THIS earthly life does not represent the whole of God’s plan and purpose for us.

So what, then, ARE we to make of the Psalmist’s thoughts?  What is this saving, covering and shielding that God offers? 

At one level we don’t have to look far to find it … the run of the Psalmist’s thought takes us from knowing that there is a place of dwelling, rest and refuge ‘in the shadow of the Almighty … my God whom I trust’ (v1 & 2) straight into the idea that this trustworthy and protecting God remains close by even as we face pestilence, terrors, arrows and plague. (v3-6) 

The Psalm does not describe a sudden disappearance of those natural things that threaten us instead it focusses our attention on the constant presence of God that remains with us even as we face potential terror and disaster. 

There is a stark and honest reality to the Psalmist’s understanding of how pestilences, conflicts and plagues work themselves out as he describes horrific numbers of deaths.  We might detect a subtle difference between those words which are the Psalmist’s and those which are attributed to God.  The Psalmist does, indeed, seem to say that those who trust in God will be immune from death and disaster, it ‘will not come near your tent,’ he writes. (v10) 

However, by the time we get to the end of the Psalm there seems to be a rebalancing as the Psalmist’s rhetoric is tempered by God’s promise which is not that of an extraordinary rescue but of an abiding divine presence.  God doesn’t step in to pluck us out of adversity, rather God steps in to guide us through our troubles: and this, for now, is the meaning of being saved from those things that try us. 

The promise is that God will remain faithfully present, come what may.  “I will rescue him; I will protect him … I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble … deliver him and honour him.” (v14,15) 

And whilst, our version seems to promise ‘long life,’ this is not meant to have us believe that somehow Christians will live whilst others die.   The phrase is more properly translated ‘length of days.’  Which we might take to mean, that God will ensure that each of us lives out the days written for us in God’s book. (Psalm 139.16)   Or to put it another way, the assurance is that even though we may experience pestilence, terrors, arrows and plague and even though from our earthly perspective these things may seem to foreshorten life – in reality they do not actually have any power to disrupt God’s divine purposes for us. 

As much as I may wish it to be, indeed as much as the Psalmist may have wanted it to be God’s promise is not that those who trust in God will be immune from the facts of death and those things that cause it.  No, the promise that eventually emerges from this Psalm, and which came to be restated centuries later by St Paul is that as powerful as may be those things which can bring our earthly lives to an end, they are limited in their scope.  They may take our breath from us and send us to our graves BUT that is still limited power since they are entirely unable to separate us from the love of Christ. 

“Where o death, is your victory?
            Where, o death is your sting?” (I Cor 15.55)

Elsewhere Paul writes in a poetic style of his own words which echo the Psalmist’s theme as he reassures the Romans that he is

‘convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ (Romans 8.38–39)  

God offers us a sheltering place where we may live out the length of our days not immune from the troubles of this life but protected from their terror and, in the end, God offers us a dwelling place beyond the sufferings of our earthly pilgrimage – a place where

‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ (Revelation 21.4)

May we rest beneath the shadow of his wings and may he be our refuge and our fortress, the God in whom we trust.  Amen.

 

For our prayers of intercession we will use the chant Kyrie Eleison 10 – with prayers interspersed from the Sing to God recording (which I have transcribed below): - https://youtu.be/cBSxAdMItjA

 

Kyrie kyrie eleison

Kyrie kyrie eleison

 

Jesus our brother you are with all those who suffer

and you comfort them by your word

 

O Christ you see the pain of the exile and the unlanded

and you take their suffering upon you

 

You came to loose the chains of all captivity

to give bread for hungry hearts

 

Jesus Christ source of peace your will for us is peace of heart

 and peace in your world

 

 

O Christ in your resurrection you have led all humanity

from death to life

 

O Christ you are always present to those who are isolated

or who are lonely

 

you may wish to add prayers of your own.

 

Words of Blessing

 

Closing Hymn – StF 355 Jesus Lover of My Soul - https://youtu.be/sEWTMyiWmiQ