Worship
at Home – Sunday 24th January 2021
Introduction
This is the Sunday in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. This year’s theme is ‘Abiding in Christ.’ Under the current circumstances, one definition of ‘Abide’ seems particularly pertinent: to abide is ‘to hold on in there.’ In this service we will explore what it means to spot (or even make) opportunities even when circumstances seem to be helpless or hopeless. In the reflection, the question, “What are the opportunities offered to us as God’s people?” will be considered using some of the thoughts and ideas from The Methodist Way of Life.
Next week, (31st) for our Zoom worship, we will join with the group of churches under Revd. Lorna Valentine’s care for a ‘Bring and Share’ service. We are invited to bring along our contributions of poetry, readings, prayers or songs to join together in a home-grown service. (More details in next week’s worship at home sheet)
Call to Worship
Trust in God at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.
Psalm 62.8
Hymn - StF 736 In Heavenly Love AbidingPrayer of Adoration:
Blessèd are you, Sovereign God,
king of the nations,
to you be praise and glory for ever.
From the rising of the sun to its setting
your name is proclaimed in all the world.
As the Sun of Righteousness dawns in our hearts
anoint our lips with the seal of your Spirit
that we may witness to your gospel
and sing your praise in all the world.
Blessèd be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit:
Blessèd be God for ever!
from Celebrating Common Prayer – Morning Prayer –
Form 5
Prayer of Confession:
Alpha and Omega,
God of the Beginning, God of Time, God of our Ending
You have given us the gift of
days,
yet some are left unwrapped
their potential wasted
as we allow the time to pass empty and unused.
You give us moments to love
ourselves and our neighbours,
but sometimes we fail to see opportunities
that dawn with each day.
You grant us time to speak and
listen
yet words of compassion and care are drowned out
by the ticking clock of wasted minutes and hours.
In generosity you grant us an
abundance of days
time enough to pause and focus our hearts and minds on you
and yet we create an illusion of busyness and avoid your loving gaze.
Alpha and Omega,
God of Beginning, God of Time, God of our Ending,
Forgive us for the wasted moments, minutes and hours
and grant that renewed by your Spirit
we may fill our remaining time here on earth
with those things that bring your glory and honour.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Reading Romans 13.11–14
11 And do this, understanding the present time: the
hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our
salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost
here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armour of
light. 13 Let
us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in
sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14 Rather, clothe
yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify
the desires of the flesh.
Worship Song – Days of Elijah -
Reading: Mark 1.14–20
14 After John was put
in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 ‘The time has come,’ he
said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good
news!’
16 As Jesus walked
beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net
into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17 ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I
will send you out to fish for people.’ 18 At once they left their nets and followed him.
19 When he had gone a
little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat,
preparing their nets. 20 Without
delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the
hired men and followed him.
Reflection:
Have you ever
had the wonderful experience of being in just the right place at just the right
time? When it happens it is hard, especially
for those of faith, to write off such moments as mere co-incidence. Some (Christians in particular) prefer to
refer to such moments as ‘God-incidences;’ times when everything seems to fall
into place so perfectly that it feels as if only God could have arranged it
all. Part of our trust in God’s
providence is that there are, indeed, moments for each of us, when the right
person is in the right place and a need is met.
Perhaps we are not quite sure what to make of such moments, not least
because for much of our lives we don’t experience such a clear conjunction of
time and opportunity and also because many of our faithful friends may report
that they have never had such moments.
Yet the Bible
does give us reason to believe that in God’s goodness, there are seasons of
opportunity. Times when situations and people
are particularly ripe for God’s presence to be especially known. The New Testament uses two words for time:
the one (chronos) refers to the ticking clock of time that continues no
matter what is happening around us. The
other (Kairos) refers to moments of opportunity where, we might say,
heaven’s agenda breaks into earth’s time to bring a particular moment of blessing,
insight or even disruption to the norm.
It strikes me
that to ask for the blessings and insights without being willing to accept the
disruption is an unwise request, since for God to be at work in our world means
that we have to accept both, as it were, as two-sides of the same coin. This thought leads us to the first words of
Jesus' recorded in Mark's Gospel:
"the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at
hand, repent and believe the Gospel.”
For Mark, Jesus'
moment of opportunity comes at an instance of disruption: the arrest of John
the Baptist. Just as the powers of
darkness close in and seek to extinguish the light that has shone through John’s
ministry, Jesus emerges out of the wilderness to declare that this moment of
disruption is also a moment of opportunity.
“The time is fulfilled,” he says or as the Expanded Bible has it, “the
right time has come.”
Yet Jesus,
acknowledges that being able to see the devastation of John’s arrest (and his
certain execution) as a moment of opportunity will require a change of
perspective. He goes on, “the kingdom of
God is at hand.” Where John’s disciples
and the crowds may have seen the potential victory of the old-order, Jesus
encourages them to lift their heads and, instead, to see this as an opportune
time for God’s rule and reign to be demonstrated in the world. Yet to look at events with such a perspective
requires a change of heart and mind and so Jesus calls the crowds to “repent
and believe the Gospel,” rather than to hold on to old understandings and
believe the worst.
What Jesus
offers is not the empty-platitudes of those who respond to others’ suffering by
telling them to ‘look on the bright side.’
Jesus’ words offer something more substantial, something that embrace
the anguish and disruption of the moment and yet at the same time seek to find,
within it, the seeds of new opportunity.
In one of his
songs, Graham Kendrick speaks of God’s ability to work even in the most unpromising
of circumstances:
Though
we are weak, His grace
is everything we need;
we’re made of clay
but this treasure is within.
He turns our weaknesses
into his opportunities
so that the glory
goes to him.
(Kendrick –
Rejoice! Rejoice! Christ
is in You – Thankyou Music 1983)
As we have
continued to struggle with the impact on our lives as individuals, as churches
and as communities, of a global pandemic perhaps Jesus’ challenge to the
followers of John rings true for us. Earlier
this week, a few of us who had gathered to pray for the Week of Prayer for
Christian Unity, were challenged by one of our number who said, “I am trying to
find the opportunities rather than just focus on what we have lost or can’t do.” In that statement, is expressed the very idea
of Kairos – that even in disruption it is possible to find opportunity.
Spring is just
around the corner, in the natural world, the deadness of winter will soon give
way to an eruption of new life and the colours of spring flowers will paint a
new picture on the bleak canvas of winter bareness. The changing of the seasons is a chronos
moment, but as many of us know from surviving plenty of winters, the coming of
Spring often proves to be a Kairos moment of opportunity too.
So then, what
are the opportunities offered to us as God’s people in the current time of
disruption?
In our personal discipleship
we may have found that these difficult months have offered the opportunity to connect
again with our own spirituality. It is
possible that, having been set aside from our usual activities, we have made an
especial effort to pray, worship or to look and listen for God’s presence through
the reading of Scripture or in God’s world.
We may have
renewed our commitment to Our Calling by paying special attention to reaching to
others with acts of care, generosity and a sense of sharing with each other the
burden of these times.
Beyond the
Church family, perhaps we have found different opportunities to be present within
the community as lights shining in the darkness. The limits on our movement and activity may
have given us opportunity to notice our nearest neighbours and to offer them help
and support as they face their own challenges in this time. We may have grown in our appreciation of the
world around us and become more aware of our responsibility for caring for
creation and being good stewards of God’s gifts shared in common with all of
humankind.
And perhaps, we
have been emboldened to speak of how our faith has sustained us through these
difficult times and to back up our words in the way that we have lived. That doesn’t mean being unrealistically cheerful
all the time, but it can mean being able to lift our conversation beyond the
recycling of old stories of woe to talk about the possibilities and
opportunities that God offers us, even in the most difficult of circumstances.
And then, maybe
some of us will privately confess that we haven’t yet arrived at a place where
we can see beyond the troubles of this time.
And if that is true for you, then do not feel condemned because God’s
moments of opportunity are rarely fleeting moments.
Peter, whose
call to service we have heard in our reading, reminds us, “The Lord is not slow
in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with
you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Pe
3.9)
God’s call to a
changed heart and changed mind is a patient call. God gives us the time we need to let go of
our old way of seeing and to focus in to God’s new ways of looking at the
world. Jesus knew that John’s disciples
would be suffering because of his arrest, he probably knew that not all of them
would be ready to hear his invitation to opportunity straight away.
He would have to
keep on inviting people to see that the time was ripe.
He would have to keep on demonstrating how God was changing moments of
disruption into moments of opportunity.
He would have to keep on drawing people out of the familiar old darkness into
the potential-filled new light.
And in his
earthly ministry, Jesus would do just that, and now as his ministry continues
through the work of the Church, so God still patiently waits for everyone to
hear the new song of God’s kingdom and to leave behind their old stories of misery
and woe to embrace God’s moments of opportunities.
Let us too,
shake off our sense of loss and embrace God’s offer of renewal.
The time is right,
the kingdom is near, and for those who will see through new eyes and believe
with hearts made new, even these disruptive and distressing moments can yet
become moments of exciting opportunities as God’s rule and reign extends and
grows.
Jesus asks, “Will
you come and follow?” What will our answer
be?
Hymn – StF 673 – Will You Come and Follow Me -
Intercessions
God of life, you have created every human being in your
image and likeness.
We sing your praise for the gift of our many cultures, expressions of faith,
traditions and ethnicities.
Grant us the courage always to stand against injustice and hatred based on
race, class, gender, religion, and fear of those not like ourselves.
God of peace, God of
love, in you is our hope!
Merciful God, you have shown us in Christ that we are one in
you. Teach us to use this gift in the world so that believers of all faiths in
every country may be able to listen to each other and live in peace.
God of peace, God of
love, in you is our hope!
O Jesus, you came into the world and shared fully in our
humanity. You know the hardships of life for people who suffer in so many
different ways. May the Spirit of compassion move us to share our time, life
and goods with all those in need.
God of peace, God of
love, in you is our hope!
Holy Spirit, you hear the fury of your wounded creation and
the cries of those already suffering from climate change. Guide us toward new
behaviours. May we learn to live in harmony as part of your creation.
God of peace, God of
love, in you is our hope!
from Week of Prayer for Christian Unity – Churches Together in
Britain and Ireland © 2021
Hymn – StF 676 Christ from Whom All Blessings Flow -
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