Sunday service for 3 December 2023, first Sunday in Advent
Sunday 3 December 2023 — NL2-13
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143
Email: TPeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Email Charlene, Parish Assistant: CMitchell (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Prelude Music
*We Gather As God’s Family (As the Bible is brought in, we stand and sing)
A family gathered in love,
striving for justice and joy,
blessing the broken-hearted,
and sharing the hope of God’s kingdom.
Welcome & Announcements
Call to Worship
One: Looking around at the world, it’s easy to lose heart.
All: The evidence we see doesn’t look good — we need a big breakthrough.
One: We want to believe God’s promise,
All: but some days it’s hard going.
One: Into this world, where so much is wrong,
All: into this weary world where we struggle along,
One: God speaks: The days are surely coming.
All: The days are surely coming!
One: It seems impossible, and yet…
All: Any moment could be the moment God breaks through.
The days are surely coming when God will fulfil the promise.
Online Hymn: O Come, Divine Messiah
Sanctuary Hymn: Now the Heavens Start to Whisper (text: Mary Louise Bringle; tune: Hyfrydol)
Lighting the Advent Candle
One: Look at the world —
All: But it feels like endless bad news
poverty / cruelty / war / grief / inequality / hate
One: Look at the world —
All: The world is weary.
*All sing: (hymn 303 it came upon the midnight clear v3)
But with the woes of sin and strife
the world has suffered long;
beneath the angels’ hymn have rolled
two thousand years of wrong;
and warring humankind hears not
the love-song which they bring;
oh, hush the noise and still the strife
to hear the angels sing.
One: Hush the noise.
Look closely.
You may have to
squint.
You may have to
peer
into the shadows.
But when you do…
~Candle is lit~
sharing / art / friendship / laughter / faith / community /
One: Look at the world —
All: The world God so loves
One: This is where the Messiah comes
not some faraway galaxy
not waiting for a perfect world
not a safe, sanitised, rose-tinted past
not where there’s plenty of room and plenty of time.
Here.
All: A thrill of hope: Emmanuel, God with us.
Hymn 273 vv. 1 : O Come O Come Emmanuel
Prayer
You are the source of our hope, O God.
We love the word hope, and the shiver of anticipation,
and the warm fuzzy possibilities of feeling good,
so we confess that we are easily seduced by the shallow, naive hope
that ignores the trauma of the world.
We don’t know how to face it all honestly,
so we use platitudes and shiny baubles and cheer, wishing for them to be good enough.
Or we decide to hold off,
not allowing any hope until the pain is already over and we can see the clearing of the way ahead.
But your hope is rooted in reality,
in the middle of the story not waiting for the best moment,
and real hope’s power is in its impossibility that opens a crack for light to shine in.
Forgive us for the times we say “it’ll be fine” as a way to make ourselves feel better,
even knowing it doesn’t help.
Forgive us for the times we’ve dismissed hope as naive,
assuming it can’t help us now.
Forgive us for insisting on choosing either suffering or hope,
rather than holding both as true.
Make space in us for your new world to become a possibility,
that we may trust you in the hardest of days and look for your promise to break through.
We ask in the name of the coming Righteous One who will restore all things.
Amen.
Sanctuary Children’s Time
Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 33.1-4, 10-16 (New Revised Standard Version)
The reading today is from the prophet Jeremiah, the 33rd chapter. This word from God came to Jeremiah when he was imprisoned, and the city of Jerusalem was under siege by a conquering army. The first round of leaders and artisans and elites had already been taken away into exile, and worse was yet to come. The people of God were in the middle of an epic disaster when Jeremiah passed this message on to them, and they were not sure there was anything worth hoping for.
~~~
The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah a second time
while he was still confined in the court of the guard:
Thus says the Lord who makes it,
the Lord who forms it to establish it—
the Lord is his name:
Call to me, and I will answer you
and will tell you great and hidden things
that you have not known.
For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel,
concerning the houses of this city
and the houses of the kings of Judah that were torn down
to make a defense against the siege ramps and before the sword:
Thus says the Lord: In this place of which you say,
‘It is a waste without human beings or animals’,
in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate,
without inhabitants, human or animal,
there shall once more be heard
the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness,
the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride,
the voices of those who sing,
as they bring thank-offerings to the house of the Lord:
‘Give thanks to the Lord of hosts,
for the Lord is good,
for his steadfast love endures for ever!’
For I will restore the fortunes of the land as at first, says the Lord.
Thus says the Lord of hosts:
In this place that is waste, without human beings or animals,
and in all its towns
there shall again be pasture for shepherds resting their flocks.
In the towns of the hill country,
of the lowlands,
and of the Negeb,
in the land of Benjamin,
the places around Jerusalem,
and in the towns of Judah,
flocks shall again pass under the hands of the one who counts them, says the Lord.
The days are surely coming, says the Lord,
when I will fulfil the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David;
and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.
And this is the name by which it will be called:
‘The Lord is our righteousness.’
For the word of God in scripture
for the word of God among us
for the word of God within us
thanks be to God.
Sermon: Practice Hope
Tomorrow morning is the first of six days of Bubblegum & Fluff — a workshop we do for Primary 5 classes about Christmas. The whole P5 year group from each school comes to a church hall for a morning of learning, and we play games, sing songs, do crafts, have a puppet show, and learn the real Christmas story. It’s a bit of a manic week but it’s really worthwhile as hundreds of children will learn the meaning of Christmas that’s sometimes hidden beneath the fluff but is still there at the core of it all.
Part of the programme involves talking about waiting…waiting for Christmas to come, waiting for the surprises that come with Christmas, waiting for what seems like forever, counting down the days…waiting waiting waiting. And we talk about how the people of God were waiting for God to do something, because they were living in a world where they knew things weren’t right, they were suffering under occupation, they were longing for God’s promises to be fulfilled…and that people had lots of different ideas about what exactly God was going to do — maybe a superhero, maybe a military leader, but ultimately God did something that no one was expecting and no one would have thought could work: came as a baby.
All that waiting, longing, yearning…all the desperation…that’s what the season of Advent is about. Today is the first day of Advent, despite what your chocolate or cheese or gin advent calendars might have said the past two days. Advent is the time when we enter into the desperate longing, the waiting, the hope for God to do something we can’t even imagine or expect. It can be tempting to jump right to the end of the story, to the good part we know is coming, but that instant gratification also makes it easy to move past the good thing too, to throw out the wrapping paper and put the gift on the shelf and just move on to something else, the next shiny excitement that catches our attention. Instead we have this season when we are forced to wait.
The church calendar may seem a mystery sometimes, or a pointless old tradition with no meaning in our modern world. But it does have a purpose: to guide us into an experience, so that we enter into the fullness of the story of God in Christ. It’s about finding ourselves in the living word and becoming a part of what God is still doing — from the waiting and hoping for something, to the Incarnation, the Word Made Flesh, to the revealing of God’s presence with us to the world at Epiphany, then into the gritty reality of Jesus’ life and ministry that upset the status quo in Lent, the consequences of his obedience to God’s way even though it felt like a dangerous wilderness in this world, experiencing his passion in Holy Week, the truth that God’s power of love and life is stronger at Easter, the time spent practicing being resurrection people, and then empowered by the Holy Spirit to be the Body of Christ throughout the season of Pentecost…until we come back around to the beginning of the story again with the longing and hoping. Every year we live and re-live this story, hoping that we will grow deeper in Christlikeness with each time around.
And so every year begins with Advent — today is like the New Year’s Day of the liturgical calendar. We start on purpose with the longing, the near-despair, the desperate hope that God can do something. Because when God came among us, took up residence in human community, reconciling the world to God’s own self, bringing the kingdom of God to us in the flesh, it was in real time, in a real body, in the real world where real and terrible things were happening. It wasn’t already perfect, it wasn’t an ideal situation, it wasn’t even the kind of moment where you think “something incredible is about to happen.” It was in a time and place and people who couldn’t see any evidence that God would fulfil a promise. And so we begin the journey anew by returning to the prophets — the people who somehow had the ability to see the possibility of God’s good news in the middle of the ravaged world.
Jeremiah was in prison when he proclaimed this message to the people — and worse, he was in prison during a siege of the city of Jerusalem. The Babylonian army had been outside the walls for a year already. Houses near the city walls had been demolished to protect the city from the attackers, they’d tried to reinforce the walls, but the truth is that things were getting desperate and the bodies were piling up. Thousands of people from Jerusalem had already been taken into exile. Everything looked bleak, and it was going to get worse before it got better.
Into that situation, Jeremiah spoke God’s word of promise, offering hope to people who had no reason to be hopeful. There was certainly no evidence that “the days are surely coming” — all evidence was quite the contrary. The headlines got worse every day. And Jeremiah did not pretend otherwise. He didn’t say “don’t worry, it’ll all be fine.” He was honest about the reality in which they were living — the land was laid waste, nothing whether everyday life or celebratory moment was normal or possible. And then he was honest about what he could see of God’s vision: that this reality was not the end of the story. There would be light shining, even though there wasn’t any sign of it yet. The days are surely coming when God will fulfil the promise. A righteous branch will spring up from that stump that seemed destroyed. There will come a day when the people of God will be known for their relationship with God — they’ll even be called “the Lord is our righteousness.” There will be justice, and therefore peace — for the land and the people, in every place from the highlands to lowlands, cities to deserts, every single place that had suffered together would also be gathered in together under this righteous branch springing up from the stump of David’s line.
That journey to justice is hard going, because the fact the world is not in alignment with God’s vision means that the systems we have become comfortable with but are harmful to people and creation will have to be dismantled. In order for God’s justice to be done, the world built on injustice has to come apart. And it will feel like unravelling, and it will hurt, and we won’t want to hear it. We want to skip to the end, to the beautiful baby and the fuzzy sheep and the singing angels. But the real hope, the kind that leads to lasting change, lasting peace, lasting good news — that real hope is rooted in honesty about the real situation, and about God’s real presence.
This kind of hope takes practice. It’s not just a Christmas wish list, or a warm fuzzy feeling. Activist Mariame Kaba puts it beautifully when she says “hope is a discipline.” It’s a practice we have to do all the time, over and over again. Every day, we have to practice hope in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Otherwise it becomes sickly sweet nonsense that doesn’t sustain anyone. But the discipline of hope — like our other spiritual disciplines, prayer, reading scripture, worshipping together, serving others, giving our time and our money to the work of God’s kingdom — the discipline of hope is like a nutritious meal before a race, like a good night’s sleep before an exam, like all the healthy things that make our bodies and minds work at their best, but for our spirits. Practicing the discipline of hope means that we keep looking for the spark, the tiniest of lights, shining amidst this world. We keep looking for God’s promise even though the headlines are bad. We keep looking…yearning, longing, desperately seeking…because when we give up looking, when we give in to despair, when hope atrophies so we can no longer take a stand…that’s when we allow the injustice to win, just let the way things are carry on even though we know it isn’t right, because we don’t have it in us to do anything else.
Advent is about this practice of hope…waiting in the shadows, longing for light, trusting that God’s word is true, refusing to give up on God’s vision of a better world. Because any moment could be the moment when God will break through! Any moment could be the one. And the more we practice hope, the stronger our hope muscle grows…and the more we can share that bright hope with others, the more we can be the ones who see what Jeremiah sees, so we can say with confidence: the days are surely coming.
May it be so. Amen.
Hymn 291: When out of Poverty Is Born
Sanctuary Offering (organ reflection music)
*Sanctuary Offering Response: Hymn 305 verse 5
What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb,
if I were a wise man I would do my part,
yet what I can I give him,
give my heart.
Prayer and Lord’s Prayer (Rob)
Gracious and Merciful God,
As we come toward the end of our time of worship, our hearts overflow with gratitude for the richness of your Word and the fellowship we share. Gratitude for how free we are to gather, to read your Word aloud, to be Christian, to be who we are, who you made us and be safe, supported and loved in this family.
We thank you for the prophetic voice of Jeremiah, reminding us of your promise to restore and bring forth righteousness in the land. May the words we’ve heard today take root in our hearts and blossom into lives that bear witness to your redemptive love.
Help us not just to be listeners but to be doers. Not just spectators but team players. To be brave and aware of the gifts you have given each of us. Help us to carry the hope of your word out with us from this place to sally forth and plant it like a battle standard of love and fairness, compassion and justice, in places others see as barren of hope. To speak out, stand our ground and to consider others more than ourselves. To overcome evil with good and hopelessness with faith.
We pray for your other Churches in Gourock: for St Ninian’s RC Church, Old Gourock & Ashton Parish Church, Gourock Community Baptist Church, Struthers Church, Bethany Hall, the Vineyard Church, and other independent churches.
For the leaders of St John’s congregation: for the elders, the Kirk Session, the Session Clerk, the Treasurer, the pastoral care team, the flower team, and the many other volunteers.
For the land, people, and governments of the nations of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Andorra, Spain, and Portugal.
And now we come together in unity, as we join our voices as a family, and pray as the Lord Jesus taught his disciples:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.
Sanctuary Hymn 315: Once in Royal David’s City
Benediction
We may not know exactly what is to come, but we do know this: the days are surely coming when God’s vision will become reality. Hold fast to this hope, even now, even here, even with everything going on all around.
And as you go, may the Spirit of God go above you to watch over you. May the Spirit of God go beside you to be your companion. May the Spirit of God go before you to show you the way, and behind you to push you into places you might not go alone. And may the Spirit of God go within you, to remind you that you are loved more deeply than you can possibly imagine. May the fire of God’s love burn brightly in you, and through you into the world. Go in peace. Amen.
Sung Benediction Response (John L Bell, tune Gourock St John’s)
Now may the Lord of all be blessed,
Now may Christ’s gospel be confessed,
Now may the Spirit when we meet
Bless sanctuary and street.
Postlude Music
Announcements
* Christmas Post: Our youth organisations will again deliver Christmas cards in Gourock and in the west end of Greenock. Delivery will remain at 30 pence per card, and they can be brought to church on Sundays, 3rd, 10th, and 17th December. The money raised by the Christmas Post funds our youth ministries throughout the year, so it’s a good cause as well as saving you a lot of money compared to the post office!
* Bubblegum & Fluff, the chaplaincy team’s programme for P5s about the real Christmas story, will be on OGA on Monday and Tuesday 4 and 5 December, and in St Margaret’s on Wednesday and Thursday 6 and 7 December, from 9-12. We need volunteers so please come along — if you can let Teri know you’re coming that’s great. Thanks!
* This Advent we are asking everyone to update your Gift Aid information, so we can ensure we are maximising our Gift Aid opportunities. Look out for a request to update your Gift Aid forms soon!
* The next Bowl & Blether is TOMORROW 4 December, with doors open from 11:30-1:30. It’s a great opportunity to get out and meet some people and have a meal and some social time! The next B&B in St Margaret’s is next Saturday the 9th, same time! All are welcome!
* Many thanks to everyone who helped make Inner Visions: Art & Spirituality festival such a success! Hundreds of people came through the exhibition, via events, visits, and just popping in. It was a wonderful opportunity to offer hospitality, engage with our neighbours, and grow our community closer through creativity and shared values. Thank you to those who hosted throughout the weeks, who prepared and served and cleaned up food, who did shopping and turned on heating, and to all who visited the artwork and engaged with the experience. Many people have asked if we’ll do something like this again — thanks to your generosity and hospitality!
* A funeral to celebrate the life of Mr. George Turner will be held in the church on Thursday 7 December at 12:45pm, with a brief committal afterwards at Greenock Crematorium.
* A funeral to celebrate the life of Mr. Alex Fairhurst will be held in the church on Tuesday 12 December at 1:45pm, with a brief committal afterwards at Greenock Crematorium.
* We worship in the sanctuary on Sundays at 11am, and all Sunday worship is also online. If you are able, please enter by the front door in Bath street, and only those who need step-free access should use the back door. If you feel unwell, please worship online, to protect both yourself and others in our community.
* Starter Packs are short of Razors/Shaving Foam, Bathroom/Kitchen Cleaner, Tea Towels and Cleaning Cloths.
The FoodBank are short of biscuits, UHT milk, tinned soup, tinned custard, tinned tomatoes. You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!
* Wednesday Evening Bible Study meets at 7:30pm at the manse.
* This year our Advent Gift Day will be received NEXT Sunday 10 December, and will be an offering for Inverclyde Faith In Through-care, which supports people coming out of prison and re-integrating into society. IFIT believes everyone deserves the chance to learn new life skills, access training and employment opportunities, and develop positive relationships. Their goal is to empower individuals to realise their full potential and make positive changes in their lives.
There are a number of ways to participate in this Gift Day. We are looking for donations to enable the staff to provide supermarket vouchers during the holiday period and to help provide a trip to Camas next year; for items that can go into gift bags for the participants (shower gel kits, hats, scarfs, gloves, socks, etc — most participants are men but there are a few women as well); and for items for children of participants: four girls, aged 7, 9, 14, and 15, and two boys aged 11 and 16.
* The next meeting of the Contact Group is next Tuesday, 12 December at 3pm (note later time) in the large hall for a service of carols and readings.
* Clydeview Academy is hosting a Christmas lunch for our mature members on Wednesday 13 December at 1pm. Tickets are available from Teri.
* There will be carolling round the Cardwell Bay Christmas Tree on Thursday 14 December at 6pm — all are welcome!
* Greenock Philharmonic Choir have a Christmas concert on 16 December at 7:30pm in the Lyle Kirk. They will be joined by the Riverside Youth Band. Tickets are £12, on the door or from Calum: 07847 250529 / info@greenockphilharmonic.co.uk
* Free period products are available in the church toilets for anyone who might need them, thanks to Hey Girls and Inverclyde Council.
* Did you know that the ministry we do at St John’s costs about £3000 per week? Everything we do is funded by your generous giving — all our support for young people, older people, bereavement care, community outreach, worship, study, spiritual growth, and community work is because of your offering. If you would like to set up a standing order in order to facilitate your spiritual discipline of giving, or if you would like to make an extra gift to support the ministry St. John’s does in our parish, you can give online by clicking here. If you would like to set up a standing order, please contact Teri and she can give you the treasurer’s details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received. It is also possible to donate to the work of the new parish assistant, speak to Anne Love about how to go about directing new donations to that new item in the budget.
* Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Youtube, and to sign up for our email devotions! Midweek you can watch Wine and the Word on Youtube, pray with video devotions on Facebook, and consider a new angle on something with a devotional email. Feel free to share with your friends, too!
* Registration is now open for Jump Into January, the Winter mini-Exploratorium: 3rd-4th January, 9am – 1pm, we’ll be Jumping Into January with children in P1-P7 — tell all the kids you know! If you can volunteer for breakfast club (8am), during the morning, or in the kitchen for snacks and lunch, please speak to Teri or Charlene or Graham Bolster.
Christmas Post 2023
St John’s Youth Organisations are once again delivering your Christmas post! Bring your cards to the church to drop off no later than the morning of 17 December and we’ll deliver them for only 30p per card! You make a big savings AND you support the youth organisations and their work with young people in our community. the Youth Fund is entirely funded by the Christmas Post so thank you for letting us be your posties this Christmas!
Jump Into January winter exploratorium — mini holiday club for P1-P7
Start the new year off right! We’ll be JUMPING INTO JANUARY with games, songs, stories, and friends at the winter mini-exploratorium. Come along and get moving after the holidays, build up your muscles and wellbeing and joy as the year begins!
This club is open to all children in P1-P7. There will be running-jumping-playing, singing-signing-laughing, stories-art-wonder…you don’t want to miss it.
We’ll be jumping for joy on the 3rd and 4th of January in the church halls! There’s a breakfast club if needed, from 8am, and the club day runs from 9am – 1pm with snacks and lunch included.
Register today by clicking here!
Sunday service for 19 November 2023
Sunday 19 November 2023 — NL2-11
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143
Email: TPeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Email Charlene, Parish Assistant: CMitchell (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Prelude Music
*We Gather As God’s Family (As the Bible is brought in, we stand and sing)
A family gathered in love,
striving for justice and joy,
blessing the broken-hearted,
and sharing the hope of God’s kingdom.
Welcome & Announcements
Call to Worship
1: When all seems chaos,
can we look past the obvious to see something deeper?
2: When we feel like all is lost,
can we listen with our hearts instead of our ears?
3: When destruction appears the order of the day,
can we recognise an opening for something new?
All: In the midst of all that is around us and within us,
we try to imagine hope.
Hymn: O Day of Peace (tune: Jerusalem)
Prayer
True and Living God, Creator of all things, architect, sculptor and inspirer.
In the hush of this sacred moment, we set aside time to acknowledge the beauty that surrounds us—the beauty that whispers of your creative genius. As we gather as your people, we sense the rhythm of your divine brushstrokes on the canvas of our lives.
Lord, you are the Author of imagination, the Composer of consciousness and the breath that gives life. We thank you for the diverse tapestry of gifts woven into the fabric of your people. As we commune with you in the silence of our hearts, may the melodies of your creativity displayed in creation reveal to us the harmony of your eternal Kingdom.
We stand in awe of the way you infuse the world with colour, texture, and form. Just as you breathe life into the dawn and mould the landscapes with your gentle touch, stir within us the desire to mirror your artistry. May our own creative expressions be a reflection of your grace, beauty, and unfathomable love.
Grant us the discernment to perceive the sacred nature, the divine spark in each human being, to admire the uniqueness of each soul, set aside for a purpose even before you knit the first atom together. As we navigate the canvas of our existence, may we, catch glimpses of the divine choreography that hints at the coming Kingdom.
In our endeavours, instil in us a sense of responsibility as caretakers of your creation. Show us how our expressions can echo the justice and compassion that flow from your heart. May our creativity not only reflect your Kingdom but also contribute to its unfolding here on earth. Help us to be brave and bold enough to try new things, to go against the rules and blaze a new trail of creativity.
As we engage in worship today, may our prayers be a fragrant incense rising to your throne. Guide us, O Lord, in the gentle rhythms of righteousness, and use our creativity to illuminate the path toward your everlasting Kingdom.
In the beautiful name of Jesus Christ, our Muse and Redeemer, we pray.
Amen.
Sanctuary Children’s Time
Scripture Reading: Isaiah 11.1-9 (New Revised Standard Version)
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see
or decide by what his ears hear,
but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor
and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
For the word of God in scripture
for the word of God among us
for the word of God within us
thanks be to God.
Sermon: Imagine
I invite you to, if you’re comfortable, close your eyes. Picture a tree stump…is your stump freshly cut, flat and smooth on top and you can see the rings… Or is it dried out and cracked, or damp and composting itself from the inside out? Is it uneven like the tree fell rather than being cut? How big around is it, how old was the tree when it became a stump? When you look at the stump, what do you think or feel?
Picture this stump and then in a moment, still with your eyes closed, I’m going to invite us all to say out loud the word or phrase or sound we think or feel when we see it. There are no wrong answers, and we won’t be listening individually, but just all together we’ll say the thought or feeling….1, 2, 3.
Some of us feel sad seeing something like that….others of us might see a seat we can rest on for a bit…or a chance to look back at the past, exploring the rings and what they tell us about the weather of the tree’s lifetime…some feel grief or loss, maybe others gratitude for the wood.
One thing we can agree is that a stump indicates an end. The tree is no longer living and growing, no longer expanding, no longer fulfilling its purpose. The tree is dead, and all that’s left is the stump.
But what if…?
What if dead things weren’t as dead as they seem?
Or rather, what if death wasn’t the end of that stump’s story?
We are resurrection people, after all. The roots of our Christian faith are in life having greater power than death, hope springing out of a closed tomb, light shining in darkness.
So perhaps we should not be surprised at the promise: a shoot shall come forth from the stump. From what seemed dead, cut off, sad and decomposing…from the roots of that stump, growing up through the old rings, a tiny sprig of green begins to grow.
Perhaps it’s a shoot of the same tree, growing up from the roots and pushing its way through.
Perhaps it’s something entirely different, a seed dropped by a bird or carried by the wind, fallen into the cracks of the old stump and finding the composting interior of the stump is the perfect nurture for a new thing to spring forth.
Perhaps it’s a small plant loving the space available, not crowded by other things competing for the nutrients in the soil. Perhaps it’s a sapling that will grow so big it will eventually hollow out and split what’s left of the stump it currently calls home.
But it is one thing that we all know a stump cannot be: it’s alive.
This is what happens in the kingdom of God. Things that cannot be alive…are. Things that cannot be possible, like a wolf and a lamb, a calf and a lion cuddling in together…they aren’t just possible, they’re normal, regular, everyday life.
It almost feels to me like Isaiah is escalating the imagination in this passage….starting from a dead thing that lives, then talking about a servant of God who will make decisions without using what he can see and hear — things that easily lead to assumptions as we fit what we see into the patterns and stereotypes of our own worldviews, which means that because we think we know what we’re seeing, we don’t look deeply and it’s easy to miss seeing the whole truth of a person or community or situation. Instead of using information that comes through the senses, this person who is a green shoot of life springing up out of a dead and cut off stump will start from the root of righteousness and equity to make decisions.
That’s a pretty unbelievable thing to imagine — making choices based first on equity and justice without getting distracted by what we think we see. And from there, Isaiah goes on to the most difficult to imagine scene: predator and vulnerable living together in harmony.
What do you think — does it seem easier or harder to imagine the dead stump springing to life, or the person who doesn’t judge based on what he can see and hear with his senses, or the lion and lamb together?
Isaiah has given us a starting place for envisioning God’s kingdom — a seed, if you will, that grows and grows into something ever more incredible. It may seem as if there’s no hope, everything is cut off, there’s just a stump reminding us of how things used to be but aren’t anymore. But God’s vision is for life to spring up…and not just spring up, but to flourish.
The trouble is it can be hard for us to see God’s vision. It’s hard to imagine that the world can be any other way than it is. But God is not constrained by our limited imagination. And God longs for us to be set free from the constraints of our limited imagination, too.
We often think, rightly, of Jesus when we hear of the shoot that springs up from the roots of the stump, the one in the line of Jesse — David’s father — who brought new life when everything seemed cut off and hopeless. But Isaiah’s vision doesn’t stop there. This isn’t new life that happens once and then is finished…if it was, there’d just be yet another stump of despair. Instead, the new life that springs up is a precursor to a changed world.
And how does the world change? By people being transformed. By new life springing up where all seemed death. By people judging from the root of justice and equity instead of by what they think they see and hear. By predators choosing to lay aside their power and violence and care for the vulnerable instead. It feels impossible but once we’ve learned to imagine it, then it becomes possible. As George Lucas — the filmmaker behind Star Wars, among many other things — once said: if you cannot dream it, you cannot do it. Isaiah has planted a seed in our imaginations so that we can dream of a world transformed into the kingdom of God…and once we can dream it, we can participate in it.
How do we expand our imaginations? First by asking God to for help, of course. Second by feeding our spirits and minds and hearts with things that open us to new perspectives and ideas and angles and views. That can be art…literature and film and music…travel…conversations with people who are different from us. Third by using our imaginations — they are like a muscle that needs exercise, it’s a use-it-or-lose it kind of thing. When we read a Bible story, can we imagine it happening around us, can we see ourselves in the scene, can we hear and smell and taste and see the people and places and events and feelings and moments? When we see an ancient place, can we imagine what life was like for people there? When we read a news story or see photos of somewhere else in the world, can we imagine what daily life is like in that place, imagine being friends with the people in the story? Exercising that imagination muscle is also a good way to strengthen our empathy and love for our neighbours, too…which is all a part of the transformation that leads to the peaceable kingdom and beyond. Imagining is a spiritual practice that changes us…and changed people lead to a changed world.
What other things might be in God’s vision of the kingdom that we can’t even imagine? And what might be possible if we let our imaginations grow?
May it be so. Amen.
Hymn: What is the World Like (text: Adam Tice; tune: New World)
Offering (organ reflection music)
*Sanctuary Offering Response: God Our Creator, vv. 1 & 4 (tune: Bunessan; words: John L Bell & Graham Maule)
God our Creator, you in love made us
who once were nothing but now have grown.
We bring the best of all our lives offer;
for you we share whatever we own.
And with the people summoned together
to be the Church in which faith is sown,
we make our promise to live for Jesus,
and let the world know all are God’s own.
Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
Come quickly, Lord,
and bring new life out of the roots
for looking around, it’s easy to think all is lost.
Show us a green shoot,
a sliver of hope,
even a possibility that seems outrageous.
For we are longing for peace founded on justice,
not only on a rebuilding of walls.
We are longing for an end to predatory ways,
and a new community of respect and compassion across old boundaries.
We are longing for leaders with wisdom and discernment,
and for truth to be spoken that all may thrive.
Hasten that day, O God,
when your kingdom is revealed,
visible and tangible in this place.
In places where justice is replaced with verbal gymnastics and excuses,
where stereotypes determine what people see,
where decisions to go with “close enough” end up hurting our neighbours,
may your justice be at the forefront of minds,
and your love the measuring rod for all our plans.
And on this 19th day of the month, we join our hearts with all our church family to pray
*For all the carers, social workers, and other professionals who visit and support our neighbours. We ask your compassion and help to flow through their hands as they make it possible for people to remain in their homes. May they be blessed with cheerful smiles, good listening skills, open hearts, and discerning minds as they offer support, companionship, and help to those in need. Make them your hands and heart, building up community and encouraging your people.
*For the staff of St John’s: for the minister, the organist, and the parish assistant.
*For the land, people, and governments of the nations of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh.
Come quickly, Lord,
and make us the small sign of life,
the light that shines into the shadows,
the vision of another way.
Transform what seems dead and dry into a hope of a new harvest.
Change what we assume is unchangeable,
until your kingdom is present here on earth as in heaven.
We ask these and all things in the name of the One
who embodies your spirit and truth for us, Jesus the Christ
who taught us to pray together:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.
*Sanctuary Hymn 617: Great and Deep the Spirit’s Purpose
Benediction
Go from this place with your imagination growing, so that you can be a sign of God’s new life sprouting forth in even the most hopeless of places.
And as you go, may the Spirit of God go above you to watch over you. May the Spirit of God go beside you to be your companion. May the Spirit of God go before you to show you the way, and behind you to push you into places you might not go alone. And may the Spirit of God go within you, to remind you that you are loved more deeply than you can possibly imagine. May the fire of God’s love burn brightly in you, and through you into the world. Go in peace. Amen.
*Sung Benediction Response (John L Bell, tune Gourock St John’s)
Now may the Lord of all be blessed,
Now may Christ’s gospel be confessed,
Now may the Spirit when we meet
Bless sanctuary and street.
Postlude Music
Announcements
* Inner Visions: Art and Spirituality festival is happening now and runs for two weeks, closing on Friday 1 December from 5-6pm. This festival brings together local artists, our community, and the church to explore how creativity and spirituality go together, and how creativity can help us connect to our Creator and to one another. We will be looking for people willing to staff the exhibition for an hour or two at a time throughout the two weeks — just to be present in the sanctuary while the doors are open, and to welcome people and be hospitable while they’re in. Please sign up! Thanks!
During the festival, there will be a lecture by Alec Galloway on the history of expressing spiritual themes in artwork, especially in stained glass, TODAY, Sunday 19 November at 3pm. There will be a panel discussion with the artists who created the pieces for the exhibition, discussing how they went about creating them, the process and meaning behind each piece, and how artwork is important in feeding and expressing their spiritual lives, on Saturday 25 November at 6pm. There will be a Spirituality Cafe service on St Andrew’s Day, Thursday 30 November at 7:30pm.
* The next Bowl & Blether is TOMORROW 20 November, with doors open from 11:30-1:30. We are in need of volunteers to help with set up and making soup in the morning (from 10am), making toasties from 12-1:30, and clean up (from 1:30-2:15). You’re also welcome to just come for soup and a chat with neighbours — it’s a great opportunity to get out and meet some people and have a meal and some social time!
* Gourock Schools and Churches Together is hosting an afternoon tea concert at St Columba High School on Tuesday the 21st of November at 1:30pm. Tickets are available from Teri.
* NEXT SUNDAY the 26th we will celebrate the baptism of twins Millie and Flynn. Can you please bring with you a teddy or other plushy-type toy you’ve had since you were young? Nothing will happen to them and you’ll take them home again, they’re a part of the service but nothing dangerous! Thanks!
* Stories and photos for the Church Notes should be submitted to Seonaid Knox by Friday 1 December. The Notes tell the story of what God has been up to at St John’s since Easter until now — we look forward to your stories of the Spirit moving here these past months! If you have announcements about upcoming events, please send details to Teri for inclusion in the weekly church email rather than the Notes. Thanks!
* We worship in the sanctuary on Sundays at 11am, and all Sunday worship is also online. If you are able, please enter by the front door in Bath street, and only those who need step-free access should use the back door. If you feel unwell, please worship online, to protect both yourself and others in our community.
* Starter Packs are short of Shaving Foam and Shampoo.
The FoodBank are short of biscuits, UHT milk, tinned soup, tinned custard, tinned tomatoes. You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!
* Starter Packs is having a fundraising coffee morning on Tuesday 21st November from 10am to 12 noon at St Mary’s Church Hall, Houston Street, Greenock, ticket priced £2.50. For the December packs they would be grateful for gifts of selection boxes, chocolates, biscuits as well as hats, scarves and gloves.
* Did you know that the ministry we do at St John’s costs about £3000 per week? Everything we do is funded by your generous giving — all our support for young people, older people, bereavement care, community outreach, worship, study, spiritual growth, and community work is because of your offering. If you would like to set up a standing order in order to facilitate your spiritual discipline of giving, or if you would like to make an extra gift to support the ministry St. John’s does in our parish, you can give online by clicking here. If you would like to set up a standing order, please contact Teri and she can give you the treasurer’s details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received. It is also possible to donate to the work of the new parish assistant, speak to Anne Love about how to go about directing new donations to that new item in the budget.
* Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Youtube, and to sign up for our email devotions! Midweek you can watch Wine and the Word on Youtube, pray with video devotions on Facebook, and consider a new angle on something with a devotional email. Feel free to share with your friends, too!
* This Advent we are going to be asking everyone to update your Gift Aid information, so we can ensure we are maximising our Gift Aid opportunities. Look out for a request to update your Gift Aid forms soon!
* Wednesday Evening Bible Study meets at 7:30pm at the manse.
* The next meeting of the Contact Group is next Tuesday, 28th November at 2pm in the large hall. The speaker will be Alison Bunce of Compassionate Inverclyde.
* Christmas Post: Our youth organisations will again deliver Christmas cards in Gourock and in the west end of Greenock. Delivery will remain at 30 pence per card, and they can be brought to church on Sundays, 3rd, 10th, and 17th December. The money raised by the Christmas Post funds our youth ministries throughout the year, so it’s a good cause as well as saving you a lot of money compared to the post office!
* This year our Advent Gift Day will be received on Sunday 10 December, and will be an offering for Inverclyde Faith In Through-care, which supports people coming out of prison and re-integrating into society. IFIT believes everyone deserves the chance to learn new life skills, access training and employment opportunities, and develop positive relationships. Their goal is to empower individuals to realise their full potential and make positive changes in their lives.
There are a number of ways to participate in this Gift Day. We are looking for donations to enable the staff to provide supermarket vouchers during the holiday period and to help provide a trip to Camas next year; for items that can go into gift bags for the participants (shower gel kits, hats, scarfs, gloves, socks, etc — most participants are men but there are a few women as well); and for items for children of participants. The ages of those children will be forthcoming to help you choose.
* Free period products are available in the church toilets for anyone who might need them, thanks to Hey Girls and Inverclyde Council.
* Would you be able to host two university students from the USA from 8-11 June, 2024? They will each need their own bed, though they can share a room, and you would be providing them breakfast and dinner, bringing them to church on Sunday, and being a welcoming and engaging host as they get a cultural exchange experience. There would be some financial help to cover the food expenses. If you might be interested, please be in touch with Teri or Seonaid Knox, so we have a sense of how many students we can host.
Inner Visions: festival of Art and Spirituality
In collaboration we Crow Cottage Arts, we are excited to present Inner Visions, a festival of Art and Spirituality from 17 November – 1 December. For too long both creativity and spirituality have been trapped in rigid boxes that scare us off — “art” and “religion” are formal things that have rules and good-and-bad and other norms that make it difficult to break in or to try it out or to make connections.
But the truth is that we are creative beings, made for connection with the Divine, with ourselves, with each other, and with the world. In this festival, we are exploring those connections, celebrating creativity, and digging deep into what makes us human. Our spiritual lives are not confined to the box of “religion” and our creative lives are not confined to the box called “real art” as if there’s some wrong way to express the spirit within us. This festival is for all, whether part of a faith tradition or not, whether you “get” art or not, whether you think of yourself as creative or spiritual or just curious and loving beauty.
A number of local artists, from professionals to workshop-goers to high school students, have created pieces specifically for this exhibition, and also written about their experience as spiritual beings who express and experience their spirituality in creativity.
Throughout the festival, the exhibition will be open to the public for several hours each day. In addition, there are events to which all are invited and welcome. The festival is entirely free of charge.
*Exhibition opening: Friday 17 November, 6-8pm, with refreshments, artists on hand to speak with, and music to lighten the soul.
*Alec Galloway lecture on stained glass and spirituality: Sunday 19 November, 3pm
*Panel Discussion with the artists: Saturday 25 November, 6pm
*St Andrew’s Day Spirituality Cafe (an informal gathering exploring some aspect of our spiritual lives through creativity, conversation, and snacks): Thursday 30 November, 7:30pm
*Exhibition closes: Friday 1 December 5-6pm
Opening hours:
Saturday 18 November: 12-3 pm
Sunday 19 November: immediately before & after the lecture by Alec Galloway at 3pm
Monday 20 November: 10 am-12 noon, and 7-9 pm
Tuesday 21 November: 10 am-3 pm, and 7-9 pm
Wednesday 22 November: 9:30 am-12 noon, 1-3 pm, and 6-8 pm
Thursday 23 November: 10 am-12 noon, 4-9 pm
Friday 24 November: 7-9 pm
Saturday 25 November: 4-6 pm (before the artist’s panel starting at 6pm)
Sunday 26 November: 1-3 pm
Monday 27 November: 9:30 am-12 noon, and 7-9pm
Tuesday 28 November: 7-9 pm
Wednesday 29 November: 1-3 pm, and 6-8 pm
Thursday 30 November: 5-7 pm (Spirituality Cafe at 7:30)
Friday 1 December: closing reception 5-6 pm
All are welcome! Please invite friends and neighbours, come as often as you like, and join us as we seek a deeper spiritual life together through the beauty of this world and this community.
Sunday service for 5 November 2023
Sunday 5 November 2023 — Martin Fair visiting
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Revs. Martin Fair and Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143
Email: TPeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Email Charlene, Parish Assistant: CMitchell (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Prelude Music (praise band)
*We Gather As God’s Family (As the Bible is brought in, we stand and sing)
A family gathered in love,
striving for justice and joy,
blessing the broken-hearted,
and sharing the hope of God’s kingdom.
Welcome & Announcements
Call to Worship
One: You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
All: We thirst for you,
our whole beings longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
One: I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
All: Because your love is better than life,
our lips will glorify you.
One: I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
All: We will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips our mouths will praise you.
Hymn 510: Jesus calls us here to meet him (tune: Lewis Folk Melody)
Prayer with sung prayer Mungu ni mwema
Mungu ni mwema
You are good, O God, and you have shown us your goodness.
We thank you for teaching us, leading us, parenting us —
you are committed to love and you call us
to commit ourselves wholeheartedly to you, your community, your way of life.
Mungu ni mwema
We confess that we have not committed wholeheartedly.
We have committed part of our hearts, part of the time,
and part of our lives, part of the time,
and part of our minds, part of the time.
We chafe under instruction,
and though we long for your promise we can’t see how it can be true.
So we don’t tell your story,
we don’t talk about you with others,
we don’t teach the next generation,
because we don’t want to rock the boat
and we don’t want to be on the hook for when things don’t work out
and we like to have plenty of options just in case
and there’s so much else going on.
Forgive us, O God, for neglecting your word and your way.
Forgive us for speaking one thing but doing another.
Forgive us for putting your commands into a box
to be dusted off every now and then
but otherwise deemed irrelevant or impossible in our modern world.
Know that God is Good
We know you are good…at least, some part of us knows.
May your forgiveness seep into us so that we know it with our whole selves.
May your goodness reach into our minds
and displace the worry that we must somehow be good enough to earn your love.
May your goodness reach into our hearts
and soften the hardness that has crept in and that keeps us from feeling with and for our neighbours.
May your goodness reach into our souls
and fill us with grace that spills out in word and deed.
May your goodness reach into our bodies
and strengthen us to reach out in love.
You are devoted to loving the world, O God,
and your love transforms us from the inside out,
and we give you thanks for the ways you change the world by changing us.
Halle – hallelujah
Amen.
Sanctuary Children’s Time
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 6:1-9 (NLT) & Acts 2:42-47 (NRSV)
These are the commands, decrees, and regulations that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you. You must obey them in the land you are about to enter and occupy, and you and your children and grandchildren must fear the Lord your God as long as you live. If you obey all his decrees and commands, you will enjoy a long life. Listen closely, Israel, and be careful to obey. Then all will go well with you, and you will have many children in the land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
Listen! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
~~
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
For the word of God in scripture
for the word of God among us
for the word of God within us
thanks be to God.
Sermon: Growing Up, Growing In, Growing Out – the Very Rev. Dr. Martin Fair
Hymn: Bless the Lord (10,000 Reasons) (praise band)
Sanctuary Offering (choir to sing Colours of Day)
*Sanctuary Offering Response: God Our Creator, vv. 1 & 4 (tune: Bunessan; words: John L Bell & Graham Maule)
God our Creator, you in love made us
who once were nothing but now have grown.
We bring the best of all our lives offer;
for you we share whatever we own.
And with the people summoned together
to be the Church in which faith is sown,
we make our promise to live for Jesus,
and let the world know all are God’s own.
Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.
Hymn: Send Us Out (praise band)
Benediction
*Sung Benediction Response (John L Bell, tune Gourock St John’s)
Now may the Lord of all be blessed,
Now may Christ’s gospel be confessed,
Now may the Spirit when we meet
Bless sanctuary and street.
Postlude Music
Announcements
* Next Sunday is Remembrance Sunday and the service begins at the earlier time of 10:45am, followed by a short wreath laying at the anchor, then parading down to the cenotaph for the service at 12:15. The sanctuary service will be livestreamed to our Facebook page, technology permitting.
* We worship in the sanctuary on Sundays at 11am, and all Sunday worship is also online. If you are able, please enter by the front door in Bath street, and only those who need step-free access should use the back door. If you feel unwell, please worship online, to protect both yourself and others in our community.
* Starter Packs are short of Shaving Foam and Shampoo. The FoodBank are short of biscuits, UHT milk, tinned soup, tinned custard, tinned tomatoes. You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!
* Bowl and Blether will be on Monday 6 November and Monday 20 November, with doors opening at 11:30 and soup served from noon – 1:30. Volunteers are needed and welcome, especially at the new third Monday of the month!
* Wednesday Evening Bible Study meets at 7:30pm at the manse.
* The Kirk Session will meet on Thursday 9 November at 7:30pm in the sanctuary.
* The Contact Group next meeting is on Tuesday 14 November at 2pm in the large hall. The speaker will be Alan Aitken MBE, sharing about the 125th anniversary of the 2nd Gourock Boys’ Brigade. All are welcome at this and any of the meetings held fortnightly. The group’s syllabus is now available from Fiona Webster for a donation of £5.
* Inner Visions: Art and Spirituality festival begins with an exhibition opening at Friday 17 November from 6-8pm, and runs for two weeks, closing on Friday 1 December from 5-6pm. This festival brings together local artists, our community, and the church to explore how creativity and spirituality go together, and how creativity can help us connect to our Creator and to one another. We will be looking for people willing to staff the exhibition for an hour or two at a time throughout the two weeks — just to be present in the sanctuary while the doors are open, and to welcome people and be hospitable while they’re in. Please sign up! Thanks!
During the festival, there will be a lecture by Alec Galloway on the history of expressing spiritual themes in artwork, especially in stained glass, on Sunday 19 November at 3pm. There will be a panel discussion with the artists who created the pieces for the exhibition, discussing how they went about creating them, the process and meaning behind each piece, and how artwork is important in feeding and expressing their spiritual lives, on Saturday 25 November at 6pm. There will be a Spirituality Cafe service on St Andrew’s Day, Thursday 30 November at 7:30pm.
* Did you know that the ministry we do at St John’s costs about £3000 per week? Everything we do is funded by your generous giving — all our support for young people, older people, bereavement care, community outreach, worship, study, spiritual growth, and community work is because of your offering. If you would like to set up a standing order in order to facilitate your spiritual discipline of giving, or if you would like to make an extra gift to support the ministry St. John’s does in our parish, you can give online by clicking here. If you would like to set up a standing order, please contact Teri and she can give you the treasurer’s details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received. It is also possible to donate to the work of the new parish assistant, speak to Anne Love about how to go about directing new donations to that new item in the budget.
* Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Youtube, and to sign up for our email devotions! Midweek you can watch Wine and the Word on Youtube, pray with video devotions on Facebook, and consider a new angle on something with a devotional email. Feel free to share with your friends, too!
* Free period products are available in the church toilets for anyone who might need them, thanks to Hey Girls and Inverclyde Council.
* The Church of Scotland has a new online learning platform called Church of Scotland Learning (more info here). The first set of modules is now available, and are designed with members of local congregations in mind and will help to grow faith, stretch minds and explore possibilities. They are set at an introductory level and accessible for all. We hope this will ignite people’s interest in learning more. Currently available topics include Vows for Elders; Vows for Ministers; Conversations in Discipleship, Exploring Discipleship, Talking About Your Faith; New Ways of Being Church; Knowing You Knowing Me (Learning to understand more fully where God is and what God is calling us to do); Theological Reflection for Everyone; Equality Diversity and Inclusion; and Unconscious Bias and Me. More modules will be added periodically, so sign up today by clicking here!
* Would you be able to host two university students from the USA from 8-11 June, 2024? They will each need their own bed, though they can share a room, and you would be providing them breakfast and dinner, bringing them to church on Sunday, and being a welcoming and engaging host as they get a cultural exchange experience. There would be some financial help to cover the food expenses. If you might be interested, please be in touch with Teri or Seonaid Knox, so we have a sense of how many students we can host.
Sunday service for 15 October 2023
Sunday 15 October 2023 — NL2-6, Conversations With God 6, Harvest Communion / elder ordination / long service
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143
Email: TPeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Email Charlene, Parish Assistant: CMitchell (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Prelude Music
*We Gather As God’s Family (As the Bible is brought in, we stand and sing)
A family gathered in love,
striving for justice and joy,
blessing the broken-hearted,
and sharing the hope of God’s kingdom.
Welcome & Announcements
Call to Worship (Rob)
1: God has called us together in community,
2: God has given us to each other to be family,
All: to support one another in times of trouble and rejoice in times of happiness.
1: With or without a strategic plan,
2: With or without a shiny, flashy campaign,
All: We will love one another as we have been loved by God.
*Sanctuary Hymn 231: For the Fruits of All Creation
Prayer (Rob)
Loving Lord,
your gifts overwhelm us,
your creation and its abundance,
your community and its possibility,
your love and its power.
We thank you for
calling us together, setting us in this place,
and inviting us into your kingdom’s purpose.
In our worship and our work, in the everyday and the extraordinary,
we offer you our praise.
And yet how easy it is, O God,
to overlook the very people whose labour makes our lives and comfort possible.
How easy it is, O God,
to change the focus to the big names who take all the credit.
How easy it is, O God,
simply tell the story from an angle that never shows those behind the scenes.
Forgive us when we think only the spectacular stories are worth telling,
and we erase the beauty and love of those
whose day to day commitment is the foundation of our life together.
How easy it is, O God,
to speak words of commitment…
and how hard it is to follow through.
How easy it is, O God,
to judge the motivations and responsibilities of others,
to assume the worst when we don’t know their full story.
How easy it is, O God,
to talk about love without ever acting on it.
Forgive us when we withhold the grace we want for ourselves,
and when we fail to live up to your call.
You are always all-in with us, O God.
You commit yourself,
even taking on flesh and becoming one of us
that we might grow ever closer to you.
And you invite us to be all-in with you, too,
bringing our whole selves into the journey, wherever it may lead.
May we choose to join in moving toward your future.
May the things important to you become important to us.
Give us courage to commit ourselves today: where you go, we will go.
Amen.
Online Hymn: As We Gather (Resound)
*Sanctuary Sung Prayer: Hymn 233, vv. 2 & 4
Sanctuary Children’s Time
(Build a harvest display)
Sanctuary Offering
*Sanctuary Offering Response: God Our Creator, vv. 1 & 4 (tune: Bunessan; words: John L Bell & Graham Maule)
Scripture Reading: Ruth 1.1-17 (Robert Alter translation)
And it happened in the days when the judges ruled that there was a famine in the land, and a man went from Bethlehem to sojourn in the plains of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. And the man’s name was Elimelech, and his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites from Bethlehem of Judah. And they came to the plains of Moab, and they were there. And Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she, together with her two sons, was left. And they took for themselves Moabite wives. The name of one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. And they dwelt there some ten years. And the two of them, Mahlon and Chilion, died as well, and the woman was left of her two children and her husband. And she rose, she and her daughters in law, and turned back from the plains of Moab, for she had heard in the plains of Moab that the Lord had singled out his people to give them bread. And she went out from the place where she had been, with her two daughters in law, and they went on the way to go back to the land of Judah. And Naomi said to her two daughters in law: “Go back, each of you to her mothers house. May the LORD do kindness with you as you have done with the dead and with me. May the LORD grant that you find a settled place, each of you in the house of her husband.” And she kissed them, and they raised their voice and wept. And they said to her, “But with you we will go back to your people.” And Naomi said, “Go back, my daughters, why should you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb who could be husbands to you? Go back, my daughters, go, for I am too old to have a husband. Even had I thought ‘I have hope. This very night I shall have a husband and bear sons,’ would you wait for them until they grew up? For them would you be deprived of husbands? No, my daughters, for it is far more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has come out against me.” And they raised their voice and wept once more, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. And she said, “Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people. Go back after your sister-in-law.” And Ruth said, “Do not entreat me to forsake you, to turn back from you. For wherever you go, I will go. And wherever you lodge, I will lodge. Your people is my people, and your God is my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. So may the Lord do to me or even more, for only death will part you and me.”
For the word of God in scripture
for the word of God among us
for the word of God within us
thanks be to God.
Reflection
Celebrating Long Serving Elders
50 years – Hamish Macleod
40 years – Alan Aitken MBE, Hamish Ramsay
30 years – Helen Aitken, Elsie Arthur, John Boyle, Elizabeth McLellan, Elizabeth Murdoch*, Clive Service
Let us pray.
We give you thanks O God, for your unfailing love to us, which enables our life and service and love in return. We are grateful today especially for the dedication of these elders, faithfully serving your church for so many years. For Hamish, Alan, Hamish, Helen, Elsie, John, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, and Clive, we give you thanks. Their commitment, hard work, care for your people, hours spent in prayer and deliberation and in practical, tangible work are a demonstration of your calling. As they have shown chesed, steadfast love and kindness, may they also see your grace spilling over in this community to which you call us all. In faith, hope, and love we ask for your continued blessing to work in their lives, and through their lives, that together we may be found faithful. We ask these and all things in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and through the power of the Holy Spirit who sustains us all our days. Amen.
Ordination of an Elder
One: There are different gifts,
All: but it is the same Spirit who gives them.
One: There are different ways of seeing God,
All: but it is the same Lord who is served.
One: God works through different people in different ways,
All: but it is the same God who achieves his purpose through them all.
One: Each one is given a gift by the Spirit,
All: to use it for the common good.
We have the joy of using our gifts as members of the Church of Christ,
which is his body continuing his ministry in the world today.
Those who are chosen for the office of eldership
have the particular responsibility of
caring for God’s people and exercising oversight and leadership.
Today the Kirk Session is met to ordain Joseph Heffernan
to the office of eldership and to admit him as an elder in this congregation.
Due notice has been given,
no objection has been made,
and therefore we proceed.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the king and head of the church,
who, being ascended on high,
has given gifts for the building up of the body of Christ,
we are met to ordain into the office of eldership
and admit to that office in this congregation Joe.
In this act, the Church Of Scotland, as part of the holy catholic or universal church,
worshipping one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
affirms anew its belief in the gospel of the sovereign grace and love of God,
wherein through Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
incarnate, crucified, and risen,
he freely offers to all, upon repentance and faith,
the forgiveness of sins, renewal by the Holy Spirit, and eternal life,
and calls them to labour in the fellowship of faith
for the advancement of the kingdom of God throughout the world.
The Church Of Scotland acknowledges the word of God,
contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament,
to be the supreme rule of faith and life.
The Church Of Scotland holds as its subordinate standard
the Westminster Confession of Faith,
recognising liberty of opinion on such points of doctrine
as do not enter into the substance of the faith,
and claiming the right, in dependence on the promised guidance of the Holy Spirit,
to formulate, interpret, or modify its subordinate standards:
always in agreement with the word of God
and the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith contained in the confession,
of which agreement the church itself shall be the sole judge.
In view of this declaration you are now required to answer this question:
do you believe the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith;
do you promise to seek the unity and peace of this church;
to uphold its doctrine, worship, government and discipline;
and to take your due part in the administration of its affairs?
(I do)
The Lord bless you and enable you to faithfully keep this promise.
sign the formula.
Prayer of Ordination
Loving God,
you have chosen for yourself a church
in which your Holy Spirit inspires men and women
to serve your purposes of love.
We give you thanks that by your grace
you have called Joe
to lead and care for your people as an elder in your church.
We commend him to you now
as we ordain and admit him to
the office of eldership within the Church of your dear Son.
Grant him the gift of your Holy Spirit,
that his heart may be set on fire with love for you
and for those committed to his care.
Make him pure in heart as those who have the mind of Christ.
Give him vision to discern your purpose
for the church and for the world you so love.
Keep him faithful to the end in all his service,
that when the chief Shepherd appears,
he may receive glory, a crown that never fades.
Blessed be God for all his goodness,
and blessed be his son Jesus Christ,
and blessed be his Holy Spirit,
endowing the church with the fullness of grace
and making her words the word of life,
her bread the bread of heaven,
her shepherding of the flock of God his own Shepherd work.
And to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be all glory forever. Amen.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the king and head of the church,
I declare you to have been ordained to the office of eldership
and I admit you to office as an elder in this congregation and parish.
As a sign of our welcome we give you the right hand of fellowship.
The grace and peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Christ calls us all to share in his ministry. Let us, then, dedicate ourselves anew to his service. If you are comfortable doing so will you please stand.
Members and elders of this congregation: putting your whole trust in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, do you commit yourselves to love and serve his Church and Kingdom? (We do)
As members of this congregation, will you encourage and support your elders, surround them with your love, and remember them in your prayers?
In your service as elders, will you promise to carry out all your duties faithfully and cheerful, God being your helper? (We will)
You may be seated.
Common Order says I am meant to now give some “wise counsel”…I want to do that by way of sharing with you a description of the ministry of an elder from the early days of the Church of Scotland. When our system of being church together, with elders and ministers both being ordained offices, was first begun, the elder was described as person whose “distinctive ministry is not the service of the Word and Sacrament but the service of response to Word and Sacrament…Whilst ministers are ordained to open the Word and Sacraments to the people, elders are ordained to help the people in their reception of the Word and in their participation in the Sacraments, and to seek the fruit of the Gospel in the faith and life of the community. Elders are meant to guide the people to fulfil their ministry toward God. Thus their specific calling is to help the faithful from within their midst. Drawn from within the local church, elders are a reminder to the church that the call to service is addressed primarily to it, to the whole people of God.”
In other words, the purpose of elders as ordained leaders is to help you, the congregation, respond to God’s word that you hear together. They are supposed to be the ones who demonstrate commitment, and enable your commitment; the ones who nurture the seeds that are planted so that together we may bear fruit for God’s kingdom. They are the ones who remind you, the congregation, to live as if we trust God to provide for his church, rather than thinking it’s our church.
The task of an elder is big: to keep our community faithful to God’s way, day in and day out. They are called “ruling elders” not because they are in charge but because they hold up the ruler — like the measuring stick. They measure our faithfulness and draw us back into line with God’s path. And that means they sometimes have to make difficult decisions, about how we are going to live out our calling as a community. That also means that when people in the congregation want to focus more on the ABCs (Attendance, Building, and Cash) as the end in themselves rather than the tools for doing God’s work, or when people want the church to be like it used to be, or when people want the church to serve them without thinking much about the neighbourhood or the outside world, then the task of an elder is to insist on the priorities of God’s kingdom first, even if those other things would be easier in the short term.
The task of every Christian is also big: to bear fruit for God’s kingdom in our everyday lives as well as within these walls. The elders are here to help you put God’s word into action, because every member of the Body of Christ is called to serve. So follow their lead — when they bring ideas for how we might build the kingdom of God here, join in the work. When they invite prayer or volunteers or input, turn up and participate. When they ask for help, support them. Together, we will bear much good fruit.
Let us pray.
God of grace,
you have called us to be servants of Christ Jesus,
and to share in his ministry of love to all people.
Renew our zeal,
give us joy in your service,
direct us by your spirit of wisdom
and fill us with the gift of your grace,
that together we may declare your wonderful deeds
and show your love to the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
*Sanctuary Hymn 655: For Your Generous Providing
For your generous providing
which sustain us all our days,
for your Spirit here residing,
we proclaim our heartfelt praise.
Through the depths of joy and sorrow,
though the road be smooth or rough,
fearless, we can face tomorrow
for your grace will be enough.
Hush our world’s seductive noises
tempting us to stand alone;
save us from the siren voices
calling us to trust our own.
For those snared by earthly treasure,
lured by false security,
Jesus, true and only measure,
spring the trap to set folk free.
Round your table, through your giving,
show us how to live and pray
till your kingdom’s way of living
is the bread we share each day:
bread for us and for our neighbour,
bread for body, mind, and soul,
bread of heaven and human labour –
broken bread that makes us whole.
Invitation to the Table
Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
One: The Lord be with you,
All: and also with you.
One: Lift up your hearts,
All: we lift them to the Lord.
One: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God,
All: it is right to give our thanks and praise.
Let us pray.
Blessed are you, O Lord our God, ruler of the universe,
for you committed yourself to love this world and walk with us as your people.
In the beginning your love was revealed by dust and breath,
and you have never left us ever since.
Though we have wandered near and far,
still you called us home to you,
in the wonders of your creation,
in the voices of your prophets,
in the commitment of community,
in your word written and proclaimed,
and even by coming to walk among us yourself,
your word made flesh in your Son Jesus.
You never leave us without a redeemer, O God,
and we give you thanks for your care for us,
restoring and nourishing life when we have walked in the valley of the shadow of death,
putting people in our paths to bless us when we have been broken-hearted,
sustaining us when we have despaired of justice being done.
We praise you,
for your love is the source of our hope and the power in our community.
And so we join our hearts and voices with all your people in every time and place,
who forever sing their praise and prayers:
Hymn 651
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessèd is he, O blessèd is he
who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed are you, coming among us…
and we shout our hosannas — save us, O God.
In Christ you lived and taught and healed and suffered alongside your people,
and in Christ you reconciled the whole world to yourself.
Through his living and dying and rising you bring your harvest to fruition,
bringing us at last into your kingdom.
And so we are bold to bring our prayers, our longings, our vulnerability, before you,
trusting that with you, all things are possible.
The world is in need of your peace that passes understanding,
and especially the land we call holy is especially desperate.
We lift our prayers for justice and peace for
Israel and Palestine, Ukraine and Russia, Syria, Yemen,
and so many places in the world where your will is obscured
by our human reliance on violence.
We remember, too, that all the land on which we stand is holy,
that the earth is yours and all who live in it,
and we pray for your creation, and that we might all take our part in caring for it.
We ask your comfort for those who grieve,
and your Spirit’s inspiration for those who can’t imagine any other way
than the system we are in now,
enduring the hardship of this moment and uncertain what to hope for.
Surround them with the blessing of your comfort,
your light shining however faintly in the shadows,
and your people who will uphold and support and care.
For those who are doing the best they can, yet always feel they can’t measure up,
for those whose responsibilities weigh heavy and think they can’t ask for help,
for those whose journey always feels like an endless slog.
Infuse them with the blessing of your grace, freely given and un-earnable,
and the knowledge that they are enough,
they are beloved and worthy of rest and community and hope.
For those who care for others, especially those who have lost themselves in the process…
for all who labour for the benefit of others,
giving their time and talents and energy,
pouring their hearts and souls out in compassion and service.
Re-fill them with the blessing of your abundant life,
and the truth that you see and know them even better than they know themselves.
May they be valued and cared for, too.
And for ourselves, O God…
for the hidden hurts of our hearts,
for the longings we have never told anyone,
for the possibilities before us,
for the potential within your Church.
Make your blessing visible among us, within us, to us, and through us
as we go about our daily lives,
loving those you have given us to love.
As we gather at your table,
celebrating the abundance of your creation and the beauty of your community,
as we do what you once did in an upstairs room,
as we look round at the people you call us to love
and the resources you provide for the journey,
we ask your Holy Spirit to be tangible once again in this place,
to bind us together as grain and grape come together in bread and wine.
In these ordinary things, with these ordinary people, in this ordinary moment,
we pray, O God, that you would do something extraordinary.
Set not only these gifts apart from common to sacred use, but us as well.
Make us once again into your Body,
that we who come as many may indeed go forth united,
committed to your purpose and revealing your kingdom in the world.
We ask these and all things through the power of your ever-present Holy Spirit
and in the name of your living word made flesh, Jesus Christ our Lord
who taught us to pray together:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.
Words of Institution
One: Jesus, Lamb of God,
All: have mercy on us,
One: Jesus, bearer of our sins,
All: have mercy on us,
One: Jesus, redeemer of the world,
All: grant us your peace.
Communion of the People
Prayer After Communion
*Sanctuary Hymn 622: We Sing A Love
We sing a love that sets all people free,
that blows like wind, that burns like scorching flame,
enfolds like earth, springs up like water clear:
come, living love, live in our hearts today.
We sing a love that seeks another’s good,
that longs to serve and not to count the cost,
a love that, yielding, finds itself made new:
come, caring love, live in our hearts today.
We sing a love, unflinching, unafraid
to be itself, despite another’s wrath,
a love that stands alone and undismayed:
come, strengthening love, live in our hearts today.
We sing a love that, wandering, will not rest
until it finds its way, its home, its source,
through joy and sadness pressing on refreshed:
come, pilgrim love, live in our hearts today.
We sing a burning, fiery, Holy Ghost
that seeks out scars of ancient bitterness,
transfiguring these, as Christ in every heart:
come, joyful love, live in our hearts today.
Benediction
Go from this place to live out your commitment to love those God has placed in your path, trusting that God has the rest of the story in God’s own hand.
And as you go, may the Spirit of God go above you to watch over you. May the Spirit of God go beside you to be your companion. May the Spirit of God go before you to show you the way, and behind you to push you into places you might not go alone. And may the Spirit of God go within you, to remind you that you are loved more deeply than you can possibly imagine. May the fire of God’s love burn brightly in you, and through you into the world. Amen.
*Sung Benediction Response (John L Bell, tune Gourock St John’s)
Now may the Lord of all be blessed,
Now may Christ’s gospel be confessed,
Now may the Spirit when we meet
Bless sanctuary and street.
Postlude Music
Announcements
* TONIGHT at 7pm we will have a special Songs of Praise, with Philip, the praise band, and the Connect+ singing group leading us. See you there!
* The next Bowl & Blether is tomorrow, 16 October, with doors open from 11:30-1:30. We are in need of volunteers to help make soup in the morning (from 10am), and serving (tea and coffee, soup, sandwiches) from 11:15 onwards, and clean up (from 1:15 onwards). You’re also welcome to just come for soup and a chat with neighbours — tt’s a great opportunity to get out and meet some people and have a meal and some social time!
* The Contact Group next meeting is on Tuesday 17th October at 2pm in the large hall. The speaker will be Lorna Veal, talking about her experience volunteering in Ghana. All are welcome at this and any of the meetings held fortnightly. The group’s syllabus is now available from Fiona Webster for a donation of £5.
* We worship in the sanctuary on Sundays at 11am, and all Sunday worship is also online. If you are able, please enter by the front door in Bath street, and only those who need step-free access should use the back door. If you feel unwell, please worship online, to protect both yourself and others in our community.
* Wednesday Evening Bible Study does not meet the rest of October, and will resume on Wednesday the 1st of November at 7:30pm at the manse.
* Starter Packs are short of Shaving Foam, Shampoo and Cleaning cloths. The FoodBank are short of biscuits, UHT milk, tinned soup, tinned custard, tinned tomatoes. You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!
* Did you know that the ministry we do at St John’s costs about £3000 per week? Everything we do is funded by your generous giving — all our support for young people, older people, bereavement care, community outreach, worship, study, spiritual growth, and community work is because of your offering. If you would like to set up a standing order in order to facilitate your spiritual discipline of giving, or if you would like to make an extra gift to support the ministry St. John’s does in our parish, you can give online by clicking here. If you would like to set up a standing order, please contact Teri and she can give you the treasurer’s details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received. It is also possible to donate to the work of the new parish assistant, speak to Anne Love about how to go about directing new donations to that new item in the budget.
* Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Youtube, and to sign up for our email devotions! Midweek you can watch Wine and the Word on Youtube, pray with video devotions on Facebook, and consider a new angle on something with a devotional email. Feel free to share with your friends, too!
* Free period products are available in the church toilets for anyone who might need them, thanks to Hey Girls and Inverclyde Council.
* The Church of Scotland has a new online learning platform called Church of Scotland Learning (more info here). The first set of modules is now available, and are designed with members of local congregations in mind and will help to grow faith, stretch minds and explore possibilities. They are set at an introductory level and accessible for all. We hope this will ignite people’s interest in learning more. Currently available topics include Vows for Elders; Vows for Ministers; Conversations in Discipleship, Exploring Discipleship, Talking About Your Faith; New Ways of Being Church; Knowing You Knowing Me (Learning to understand more fully where God is and what God is calling us to do); Theological Reflection for Everyone; Equality Diversity and Inclusion; and Unconscious Bias and Me. More modules will be added periodically, so sign up today by clicking here!
* Would you be able to host two university students from the USA from 8-11 June, 2024? They will each need their own bed, though they can share a room, and you would be providing them breakfast and dinner, bringing them to church on Sunday, and being a welcoming and engaging host as they get a cultural exchange experience. There would be some financial help to cover the food expenses. If you might be interested, please be in touch with Teri or Seonaid Knox, so we have a sense of how many students we can host.
Sunday Service for 8 October 2023
Sunday 8 October 2023 — NL2-5, Conversations With God 5, Youth Sunday
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143
Email: TPeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Email Charlene, Parish Assistant: CMitchell (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Sanctuary Prelude Music
Sanctuary: We Gather As God’s Family (As the Bible is brought in, we stand and sing)
A family gathered in love,
striving for justice and joy,
blessing the broken-hearted,
and sharing the hope of God’s kingdom.
Welcome & Announcements
Sanctuary Processional Hymn 198: Let Us Build A House (vv. 1-2, 4-5)
Call to Worship
One: From generation to generation,
All: our God is the Lord.
One: For our ancestors, yes, and also for us, here, today,
All: our God is the Lord.
One: In the stories of old, and the story we are still living,
All: our God is the Lord.
One: Listen — not just with your ears but with your whole self:
All: our God is the Lord,
and we will love God with all our being.
Sanctuary Hymn: What Kind of World Are We Passing On (Fischy)
Prayer
You have offered us a story with thousands of generations of blessing, O God,
and we come today to hear and to join in.
You set us free from the empires of destruction, scarcity, and supremacy
so that we can worship you together in spirit and truth.
The way of the world is
to get as much as we can, think of ourselves first,
and do whatever it takes no matter who gets hurt.
but You call us to another way:
the way of life, lived to the full,
sharing in your goodness and grace.
Help us today to hear you, and to obey, that we may live.
God of all times and places,
you have created a people and made us one with each other and with you.
We confess that we rarely think of ourselves as one human family,
even today let alone across the ages.
We benefit from things our ancestors have done,
without thinking of the cost borne by others in your family or the earth.
We choose not to think of how our choices affect the future we will never see.
Forgive us when we disconnect ourselves from responsibility to both past and future.
Forgive us our self-centredness
and our unwillingness to recognise the gift of being one part of your story.
Forgive us when we see your way of life as only a set of rules
by which we can judge others but not ourselves.
Help us to hear and obey,
learning your care and compassion for all your people and your world.
We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Assurance of Forgiveness
Our God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love — God is a thousand parts compassion for every four parts judgment. Trusting in God’s steadfast love to the thousandth generation, take up your place in this forgiven family, and live in that grace so that all may know the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Hear and believe this good news: in Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Online Hymn 727: In the Bulb There is a Flower
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 5.1-21, 6.4-9 (New Living Translation)
Moses called all the people together and said, “Listen carefully. Hear the decrees and regulations I am giving you today, so you may learn them and obey them!
“The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Mount Sinai. The Lord did not make this covenant with our parents and grandparents, but with all of us who are alive today. At the mountain the Lord spoke to you face to face from the heart of the fire. I stood in between you and the Lord, for you were afraid of the fire and did not want to approach the mountain. He spoke to me, and I passed his words on to you. This is what he said:
“I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery.
“You must not have any other god but me.
“You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind, or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.
“You must not misuse the name of the Lord your God. The Lord will not let you go unpunished if you misuse his name.
“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your oxen and donkeys and other livestock, and any foreigners living among you. All your male and female servants must rest as you do. Remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, but the Lord your God brought you out with his strong hand and powerful arm. That is why the Lord your God has commanded you to rest on the Sabbath day.
“Honour your father and mother, as the Lord your God commanded you. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
“You must not murder.
“You must not commit adultery.
“You must not steal.
“You must not testify falsely against your neighbour.
“You must not covet your neighbour’s wife. You must not covet your neighbour’s house or land, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbour.
“Listen! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
For the word of God in scripture
for the word of God among us
for the word of God within us
thanks be to God.
Sermon
Have you ever felt like the Bible is just an old story of people who died a long time ago and doesn’t have anything to do with us?
Or like you’re tired of hearing your parents or grandparents talk about stuff they remember from back in the day…sometimes stuff about how hard life was, no one had any money, toilets were on the landing in the close, shipyard work was dangerous, the war was on…or how great life was when everyone went dancing and made friends with other people who ran down the hill for the same bus after work in the factories and you could support a family on one good job that you kept forever?
Or have you ever felt like people older than you are expecting something from you, like somehow we owe it to people who died a long time ago to do some particular thing, or to keep a particular tradition going even though it doesn’t mean anything to you, or to like the things they liked?
It turns out that the people Moses talked to had the same problem. He was super old by the time he said the stuff we heard read today, and he started out by saying to all the young people in front of him that he didn’t want to talk about stuff God used to do, or about stuff their parents used to do, he wanted to talk to them about what God was doing right now, and what they were supposed to do as God’s people right now, not because their parents had done it that way but because it was a legitimately good way to live.
I suspect that some of them rolled their eyes the same way most of us have done when our parents or grandparents tried to tell us something they thought was important. But for him to start out by saying “not with our ancestors but with us”…Moses is trying to get every generation to realise that God is not about the past tense, but about the right now. Because the facts are that the people standing in front of Moses that day were not actually there when he brought the stone tablets down from the mountain forty years before. They weren’t even born. And yet he says that this is important right now, today, for these young people, because the truth is that God is too big for just one generation. God’s story can’t be contained in just one age group or one set of people. So Moses tries to help them see themselves in a story that started before they were born, and will carry on long after they die, generation to generation. Not just to dismiss the old as something irrelevant, but also to take seriously the now as a foundation for the future.
In other words, we are part of a sort of chain…we are connected to the people who came before us, even the ones who came so long before us we can’t imagine why they still matter, and we are also connected to the people who will come after us, even the ones who will live so far into the future we can’t imagine what it will be like or what we have to do with each other. And because even one damaged link in a chain makes the whole thing weak and easy to break apart, it matters that we take seriously our place in the story. That’s why God gives us the rules we often call the Ten Commandments — because they are meant to help us build a community that supports each other, cares for one another, and builds up each other for the good of the whole. And sometimes that’s obvious, like…don’t kill. Well, duh. Clearly killing breaks down community and damages the links in the chain. Same thing with stealing and lying, which damage relationships. And that whole business about coveting — most of us don’t even really know what it means to covet something, but it’s really about wanting and trying to take something that isn’t ours, not in the same way as stealing but more like setting up a system that would manipulate the thing you want so you can have it and others can’t — like stacking the deck of the world so that some people are at a disadvantage so that you can take advantage of it.
But every few sentences there’s another reminder that we’re all connected, not separate individuals or generations that can just do what we want without consequences to others. There’s the bit about honouring our parents so that our own legacy in the land will be long and fruitful…the part about remembering the old stories so that we don’t repeat the mistakes our predecessors have made…the instructions to teach all this stuff to the next generation too, including the reminders we might need along the way, almost like putting an alert on your phone to keep it in front of your eyes all the time…and that scary business about how God’s punishment and God’s blessing extend past us into the generations still to come — a thousand generations of blessing will follow those who live their lives according to these community-minded instructions, and three or four generations of bad consequences follow those who choose a different or more self-centred way.
It sounds so unfair. But we also know the truth of it, because right now we are living with the consequences of the actions of people in the past few generations. The climate emergency was not created by you young people here today, but you and your children are the ones who will suffer most. The economic situation we are in today was not of our making, but we still have to figure out how to live with the choices of those who came before. Social realities like racism and homophobia and sexism and bigotry weren’t our idea, but they are still part of our lives, just hanging on from generation to generation.
You know how whenever there’s a story about time travel, the characters say they have to be super careful because if they do something little that changes things, it could affect the entire outcome of history and change the world in unexpected ways?
Why don’t we ever think that about how we live right now? Like…small changes we make today could affect the entire outcome of the future. Literally change the world. Do you ever think of yourself as changing the world by how you live?
We are supposed to be good ancestors to the people who will come along in another twenty years, a hundred years, a thousand years. What we do today, how we treat each other today, how we build community that cares for each other today…all of that can change everything. We are responsible to and for each other, and for the future.
It isn’t that we’ve always done it this way, therefore we always have to do it this way, and we just keep doing the old ways. It’s that what we do today matters — to us and the people around us, yes…and to people far away who we may never meet but who live with the consequences of our actions, especially when it comes to stuff like climate change or politics or violence…and also it matters to people who will be born a long time after we die. The culture we create now, the way we choose to look out for each other and for the earth, will affect them. So I hope every day we will ask the question: am I being a good ancestor? Am I living, making choices, treating others, in a way that sets up a good foundation for the future? Or am I going to be one of those people that in a hundred years people look back and say “I can’t believe they did that and we have to live with the consequences now”?
Choosing the way of life God sets out — the way of love, the way of community, the way of caring for and looking out for each other instead of only for ourselves — that way of life sets up thousands of generations of blessing. Let’s be those people.
May it be so. Amen.
Online Hymn: What Kind of World Are We Passing On (Fischy)
Sanctuary Hymn 727: In the Bulb There Is A Flower
Offering
Sanctuary Offering Response: God Our Creator, vv. 1 & 4 (tune: Bunessan; words: John L Bell & Graham Maule)
God our Creator, you in love made us
who once were nothing but now have grown.
We bring the best of all our lives offer;
for you we share whatever we own.
And with the people summoned together
to be the Church in which faith is sown,
we make our promise to live for Jesus,
and let the world know all are God’s own.
Sanctuary Youth Dedication / Promises
Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
God of love and justice and freedom,
You are personally invested in your creation,
and we give you thanks for your attention and care.
We are grateful that you not only take notice of us,
but you come to be with us,
close by and interested in how we live.
We remember today those who feel alone, as if no one cares,
and we pray that your presence would be made known to them.
We pray for all those who think no one is paying attention,
and so it doesn’t matter what they do or how they feel or whether they’re here.
We ask that you would be visible, and your love so obvious that they can’t help but notice,
and know that they are beloved, wanted, and that they belong.
We remember today all those people who don’t have the luxury of sabbath,
who labour for others’ profit,
who have no choice but to keep working or to go hungry,
who long for a day off but can’t make ends meet.
May your abundance be a reality,
so that all people can experience the freedom of your kingdom.
We remember today those who have been victims of others’ greed,
who have lost lives, livelihoods, family, or friends to violence or jealousy,
and those who are unlucky enough to be at the bottom of the pile
when the system is rigged against them.
May your justice turn this world upside down,
and bring hope to those in despair and a future to those who see no way forward.
We remember today those who are caught in the ways of this world,
who can’t imagine anything other than the way we’ve always done it,
who want to believe that with you, all things are possible, but just don’t see it.
Reveal yourself, and your kingdom of justice and peace,
your way of life that overcomes death,
your truth that changes everything.
And remind us, again and again, of our part in your covenant story.
And on this 8th day of the month we join our hearts together as your church family to pray:
*For all who live and work in the centre of Gourock — for those who are neighbours of our churches, those who own businesses, those who use the library, and those who come into the centre of town for any reason.
**For those who use the building at St John’s — may they encounter your grace in our hospitality — and for the volunteers who keep the building clean and in good repair.
*For the land, people, and governments of the nations of Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, and Greece.
And we pray especially today for the people and land of Afghanistan in the aftermath of an earthquake, and of Ukraine as the war rages on, and of Israel and Palestine as the impossible situation there brings violence, destruction, fear, and grief yet again. May your peace that passes all understanding guard and guide all your people.
Teach us to love you with our whole heart, mind, and strength,
and to live as if your kingdom is coming on earth as it is in heaven.
We ask these and all things in the name of your son, Jesus Christ our Lord,
your living word, who taught us to pray together:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.
Sanctuary Hymn 737: Will Your Anchor Hold
Sanctuary National Anthem vv. 1 & 3
Benediction
Listen! Our God is the Lord, and God is Love. In a world with so many choices about who to serve: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
And as you go, may the Spirit of God go above you to watch over you. May the Spirit of God go beside you to be your companion. May the Spirit of God go before you to show you the way, and behind you to push you into places you might not go alone. And may the Spirit of God go within you, to remind you that you are loved more deeply than you can possibly imagine. May the fire of God’s love burn brightly in you, and through you into the world. Amen.
Sung Benediction Response (John L Bell, tune Gourock St John’s)
Now may the Lord of all be blessed,
Now may Christ’s gospel be confessed,
Now may the Spirit when we meet
Bless sanctuary and street.
EDICT FOR ORDINATION AND ADMISSION OF ELDER
Mr Joseph Heffernan, a member of this congregation, has been elected to be a ruling elder (and the Kirk Session has judged him to be qualified for that office and has sustained his election)*; Joseph Heffernan has accepted office as elder: if anyone has any objections why this member should not be ordained to office, they state their objection at the meeting of the Kirk Session in the small hall of Gourock: St John’s Church on Sunday, 15th of October, 2023, at 10.40am; if no relevant objection regarding life or doctrine is made and substantiated, the Kirk Session will proceed to the ordination.
* We plan to expand Bowl & Blether to add the 3rd Mondays of the month in the winter months, starting on the 16th of October. This will require a team of volunteers to make soup in the church kitchen in the morning, to make toasties, and to serve soup/toasties/tea/coffee, offering hospitality and a warm cheery chat to anyone who wants to come in through the winter. Please contact Teri if you would be willing to volunteer on the 3rd Mondays of the month over the winter.
* A funeral service for Mr Rodger Manson will be held at Old Gourock & Ashton church on Monday the 9th of October at 1pm.
* The Kirk Session will meet on Sunday 15 October at 10:40am.
* Wednesday Evening Bible Study meets in the manse on Wednesday 11 October at 7:30pm.
* A funeral service for Mr Norman Leitch will be held at Greenock Crematorium on Thursday the 12th of October at 1pm.
* On Sunday evening the 15th of October at 7pm we will have a special Songs of Praise, with Philip, the praise band, and the Connect+ singing group leading us. If you have any suggestions you’d like to submit, please send them to Teri by today.
* We worship in the sanctuary on Sundays at 11am, and all Sunday worship is also online. If you are able, please enter by the front door in Bath street, and only those who need step-free access should use the back door. If you feel unwell, please worship online, to protect both yourself and others in our community.
* Starter Packs are short of Shaving Foam, Shampoo and Cleaning cloths. The FoodBank are short of biscuits, UHT milk, tinned soup, tinned custard, tinned tomatoes. You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!
* Did you know that the ministry we do at St John’s costs about £3000 per week? Everything we do is funded by your generous giving — all our support for young people, older people, bereavement care, community outreach, worship, study, spiritual growth, and community work is because of your offering. If you would like to set up a standing order in order to facilitate your spiritual discipline of giving, or if you would like to make an extra gift to support the ministry St. John’s does in our parish, you can give online by clicking here. If you would like to set up a standing order, please contact Teri and she can give you the treasurer’s details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received. It is also possible to donate to the work of the new parish assistant, speak to Anne Love about how to go about directing new donations to that new item in the budget.
* Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Youtube, and to sign up for our email devotions! Midweek you can watch Wine and the Word on Youtube, pray with video devotions on Facebook, and consider a new angle on something with a devotional email. Feel free to share with your friends, too!
* Free period products are available in the church toilets for anyone who might need them, thanks to Hey Girls and Inverclyde Council.
* Youth organisations are in full swing, and we are especially looking for new members of the Anchor Boys and the Smurfs (P1-P3, boys and girls respectively). Young people are invited to come along to the Junior Section (P4-P6) of the BB on Monday evenings at 7, Anchor Boys (P1-P3) on Tuesdays at 5:30, Brownies and Guides on Wednesday evenings at 6pm and 7:30pm respectively, Smurfs on Thursdays at 6pm, and Company Section (P7-S6) of the BB on Fridays at 7. For more information on the Boys’ Brigade, email: 2ndgourock@inverclydebb.org.uk , for more information on the Smurfs (pre-Brownies), email Lyn at lyn41185@hotmail.com, and for more information on the Brownies/Guides, visit https://www.girlguidingscotland.org.uk/for-parents/register-your-daughter .
* The Church of Scotland has a new online learning platform called Church of Scotland Learning (more info here). The first set of modules is now available, and are designed with members of local congregations in mind and will help to grow faith, stretch minds and explore possibilities. They are set at an introductory level and accessible for all. We hope this will ignite people’s interest in learning more. Currently available topics include Vows for Elders; Vows for Ministers; Conversations in Discipleship, Exploring Discipleship, Talking About Your Faith; New Ways of Being Church; Knowing You Knowing Me (Learning to understand more fully where God is and what God is calling us to do); Theological Reflection for Everyone; Equality Diversity and Inclusion; and Unconscious Bias and Me. More modules will be added periodically, so sign up today by clicking here!
* Trinity College Glasgow and New College Edinburgh also both offer “short courses” for lay people — there are a variety of interesting modules available for online or in-person participation, including courses on Listening In Mission, worship, New Testament, Mission and our response to Presbytery planning, Creative Writing as a Spiritual Practice, and more. Please become a lifelong learner and dig into some of these opportunities that God is putting in front of us to grow in our faith and life together!
* Would you be able to host two university students from the USA from 8-11 June, 2024? They will each need their own bed, though they can share a room, and you would be providing them breakfast and dinner, bringing them to church on Sunday, and being a welcoming and engaging host as they get a cultural exchange experience. There would be some financial help to cover the food expenses. If you might be interested, please be in touch with Teri or Seonaid Knox, so we have a sense of how many students we can host.
Sunday Service for 1 October 2023
Sunday 1 October 2023 — NL2-4, Conversations With God 4
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143
Email: TPeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Email Charlene, Parish Assistant: CMitchell (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Prelude Music
Welcome & Announcements
*We Gather As God’s Family (As the Bible is brought in, we stand and sing)
A family gathered in love,
striving for justice and joy,
blessing the broken-hearted,
and sharing the hope of God’s kingdom.
Call to Worship
One: Sometimes we feel like asking God: are you paying attention?
All: And God asks us too: are we paying attention?
1: To the people right in front of us,
2: to the people who live with the consequences of our actions,
3: to the realities with which our neighbours live,
4: to the opportunities presented to us:
All: are we paying attention?
One: God sees, God knows, and God comes through us to respond.
All: We will listen, and look, and go.
*Sanctuary Hymn: God of History — Recent, Ancient
Prayer
You are the giver of Abundant Life, O God,
and yet we so often accidentally choose the empire’s side of death instead.
We confess that we have allowed the perfect to become the enemy of the good,
and when we can’t do everything, we do nothing.
We admit that we have looked down on the little things as not enough,
while not actually doing any of the big things we talk about.
And so, little by little, oppression grows unchallenged until we are overwhelmed.
Forgive us, Lord, for our apathy that keeps us from resisting in even the smallest ways.
Forgive us for overlooking opportunities to do justice because they don’t fit our preconceived notions.
Forgive us for being so wrapped up in ourselves that we never even notice you calling.
As Moses turned aside from his everyday economic concern to see you doing a new thing,
turn us aside from those things that consume us
that we may be set ablaze by your call that brings life instead.
You Are, You Will Be, You…
Are Being itself,
a verb, always on the move,
not a name we can pin down and use and control,
a breath that slips in to even the smallest cracks
and sculpts the biggest landscapes
and just…IS.
We cannot understand you with our minds,
but we know your presence,
Your Being,
we know your story with us and with our ancestors.
We have seen you at work throughout history,
and your action anchors us in your goodness.
This is your name for all generations:
The God who IS, in relationship.
Thank you.
Amen.
Online Hymn: You, Lord, Are In This Place
Scripture Reading with Reflection: Exodus 1.8 – 2.10, 3.1-15 (Robert Alter translation)
And a new king arose over Egypt, who knew not Joseph.
*It seems too soon to stop and think about just one sentence, but…this sentence is important. When we decide that the past doesn’t matter, that we’ve moved on and there’s no need to learn about what our forebears have done…when we disconnect from history and think that it has nothing to do with who we are today…it’s easy to get into trouble. It’s something that comes up fairly often when we think about the legacy of slavery, for instance: it’s important for us to remember when our ancestors have exploited and oppressed people, participated in injustice, and made choices that have turned out to have long consequences. Even when we aren’t the ones who enslave or colonise or destroy the environment, we still enjoy the long tail of advantages while others still live with the disadvantage created by those who came before us, and honesty about that, and finding ways to repair that damage, matter.
In the case of this story, it actually sort of went the other way round. It had been around three hundred years since Joseph had saved Egypt, and his family’s arrival in the country all those years ago and their subsequent generations of peaceful living together and mutual benefit and interdependence should have been a reminder of the value of these two peoples, two cultures, living side by side together, growing together both maintaining their own cultures and also intertwining in various ways. Instead, historical amnesia led to irrational fear, xenophobia, and ultimately dehumanisation and oppression. It’s worthwhile for us to pay attention to this phenomenon, not least because it is happening again in our political discourse literally this week. It is eerie how relevant it sounds to say that a new generation of politicians arose over a country and did not remember their own nor their country’s history, and believed that their diversity was a danger.
We see what happens when we think that the ancient history doesn’t matter to us anymore:
And he said to his people, “Look, the people of the sons of Israel is more numerous and vaster than we. Come, let us be shrewd with them lest they multiply and then, should war occur, they will actually join our enemies and fight against us, and go up from the land.” And they set over them forced labour foremen, so as to abuse them with their burdens, and they built store cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Rameses. And as they abused them, so did they multiply, and so did they spread, and they came to loathe the Israelites.
**Just a quick pause here to note how rapidly this happened: from the political leader having this fear and saying it out loud, to the entire population coming to loathe their neighbours. All it took was a few speeches and some policy changes so that people who were different were now useable and expendable, and soon everyone hated them for just living their lives and having children.
And the Egyptians put the Israelites to work at crushing labour, and they made their lives bitter with hard work with mortar and bricks and every work in the field —all their crushing work that they performed. And the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was the named Shiphrah and the other was named Puah. And he said, “when you deliver the Hebrew women and look on the birth stool, if it is a boy, you shall put him to death, and if it is a girl, she may live.” And the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had spoken to them, and they let the children live. And the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “why did you do this thing and let the children live?” And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “For not like the Egyptian women are the Hebrew women, for they are hardy. Before the midwife comes to them they give birth.” And God made it go well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very vast. And inasmuch as the midwives feared God, he made households for them. And Pharaoh charged his whole people, saying, “every boy that is born you shall fling into the Nile, and every girl you shall let live.”
**I think it is fascinating that this story has only two named characters, and they are women. And not just women, but women who didn’t have families of their own, women whose job was to look after the women and children, women whose abilities would have been both revered and suspect. And they manage to use their position at the bottom of society to save lives and stand up against injustice, death, and the political power of the day. Can you imagine being given their instructions, and deciding that despite the visible and physical power of the Egyptian king, they would choose instead to serve an invisible God who appeared to have abandoned them to a terrible fate? They took their own lives into their hands when they stood before Pharaoh and lied to him, basically saying “you’re a man, you don’t know anything about childbirth, and you’re an Egyptian, you don’t know anything about Hebrews…basically the thing you want us to do is impossible and no one would be able to do it.” They didn’t want to be replaced by midwives who would carry out the order, so they made sure their excuse was watertight. They couldn’t have known that the next step would be for the king to simply order every person to do the thing the midwives refused to do. It’s unimaginable, isn’t it? That when the medical professionals insisted on saving lives, instead the whole population would be tasked with the murders the king wanted.
Of course it isn’t unimaginable at all…there are states in the US where neighbours are given rewards for turning neighbours over the police for seeking healthcare. There are places in the world where reporting on your neighbours’ activities is an expectation. There are plenty of us who are too afraid of the consequences to do what Shiphrah and Puah did and simply refuse to comply with policies that harm others. And plenty more of us who don’t look for God in the midst of it, assuming that the political and military and economic powers that seem to rule us are the only gods that matter. But the truth is that the God of Life who may seem to be absent or invisible is indeed present and is acting through the hands of those who keep their eyes and hearts open.
And a man from the house of Levi went and took a Levite daughter, and the woman conceived and bore a son, and she saw that he was goodly, and she hid him three months. And when she could no longer hide him, she took a wicker ark for him, and caulked it with resin and pitch and placed the child in it, and placed it in the reeds by the banks of the Nile. And his sister stationed herself at a distance to see what would be done to him. And Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the Nile, her maidens walking along the Nile. And she saw the Ark amidst the reeds and sent her slave girl and took it. And she opened it up and saw the child, and, look, it was a lad weeping. And she pitied him and said, “This is one of the children of the Hebrews.” And his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and summon a nursing woman from the Hebrews that she may suckle the child for you?” And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” And the girl went and summoned the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Carry away this child and suckle him for me, and I myself will pay your wages.” And the woman took the child and suckled him. And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became a son to her, and she called his name Moses, “For from the water I drew him out.”
*So often we love this part of the story, we have pictures of baby Moses in the basket among the reeds, floating along the river…but can we even imagine the horrific experience of trying to save our child’s life by sending them out on the crocodile infested waters and hoping for the best? A situation in which there is no other option than crossing the dangerous waters, when there is no way to live where they are and no way for them to go together to any new life, so she just has to let him go and take herself off to cry in secret?
Honestly we should be able to imagine, even if we don’t want to. Because this is still happening every single day. There are mothers and fathers who have no option but to set out over the dangerous waters, toward hostile places, because staying where they are is certain death. And the truth, however much we don’t want to hear it, is that we are not the Israelites in this story. We are not the ones fearing for our lives, desperate for our children to survive long enough to have a future, seeing no options other than leaving everything and setting out on a dangerous journey to a hostile place just so we can have a hope of living, let alone thriving. Our nations are the ones stationed along the Nile pushing the baskets back out.
Pharaoh’s daughter, though….she, like Shiphrah and Puah, had a very limited role in society and limited choices for how she interacted with the world. Her life was lived in a closed circle, surrounded only by the servants her father chose. She didn’t have any power in the usual ways, she had no voice to speak up against the injustice she heard her father and his government perpetuating, she could easily have considered the whole situation too big for her to do anything about…but when she saw that basket and she heard the cries and she looked on the face of the infant, and she knew instantly what this was: a baby tossed into the Nile at her father’s instruction. And she knew it was wrong, and she made a choice: to defy her father, just as Shiphrah and Puah had done, though she didn’t know them. She knew that she had to choose between life and death, and she picked life. She saw a human being in distress, and she responded to that life in front of her by offering what she had: a welcome, a home, a chance to live.
Given that we live in the empire of this story, how different would this world run by pharaohs be if more of us acted like Pharaoh’s daughter and responded to the distress of the person in front of us with welcome rather than with apathy, fear, dehumanising, or thinking ourselves superior so they deserve their fate out there on the water? We should not assume it’s all too big for us to do anything about, or that we don’t have the chance to do what she did, because for every one of us hearing this story today there are hundreds of mothers and fathers and children setting out on dangerous journeys, hoping against hope that they will encounter someone who will choose life, who will see God’s image in their face, who will offer welcome rather than disdain and hostility.
(**Moses grew up, and when defending an enslaved Israelite he killed an Egyptian, and so he ran away into the wilderness, where he took a wife in the land of Midian.**)
And Moses was herding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, priest of Midian, and he drove the flock into the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. And the LORD’s Messenger appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush, and he saw, and look, the bush was burning with fire and the bush was not consumed. And Moses thought, “Let me, pray, turn aside that I may see this great sight, why the bush does not burn up.”
*Can you imagine how long Moses looked at the bush before realising it was not consumed? To have noticed it out there off his path, when he was really out there tending the sheep, is remarkable enough. To have turned aside from his job, knowing that sheep wander off and get hurt, that he could lose money because he turned away to do something else, to look at something unusual for long enough to realise it was God…it’s incredible honestly. How many of us would turn off the path of economic security and family responsibility to see something strange God was doing? How many of us would even look up from those responsibilities long enough to notice…despite all the times we have prayed for God to give us a sign? But Moses did notice, in the middle of everything he had to do in his usual workday, and he did turn aside from his everyday routine to see what was going on.
And the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see and God called him from the midst of the bush, and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” And he said, “Come no closer here. Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said, “I indeed have seen the abuse of my people that is in Egypt and its outcry because of its taskmasters. I have heard, for I know its pain. And I have come down to rescue it from the hand of Egypt and to bring it up from that land to a goodly and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. And now, look, the outcry of the Israelites has come to me and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. And now, go that I may send you to Pharaoh, and bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
*A quick aside here — how great is it that God says “I have seen my people and their distress, and I am going to save them….now you go over there and save them!” The way God works is through people — sending and empowering and accompanying Moses is how God was present and acting. It’s still true: the way God works is through people.
And Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring out the Israelites from Egypt?” And he said, “For I will be with you. And this is the sign for you that I myself have sent you. When you bring the people out from Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” And Moses said to God, “Look, when I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘the God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘what is his name?,’ what shall I say to them?” And God said to Moses “ ‘Ehyeh-‘Asher-‘Ehyeh, I-Will-Be-Who-I-Will-Be.”
*Listen to that beautiful set of letters: ‘Ehyeh-‘Asher-‘Ehyeh. Spelling it out is like a breath, no hard consonants, just the breath of life flowing freely…the essence of Being itself. That’s God’s name: Being, the ground of being, the breath that makes life. Without God, there is nothing…because the very verb “Is” wouldn’t exist. God’s name is a verb, one you can’t pin down any more than you can capture breath or wind or spirit. God IS. Uncontrollable, everywhere, most foundational presence and truth of the universe…God is, are, will be…Being.
And he said, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, ‘ ‘Ehyeh has sent me to you.’” And God said further to Moses, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites: ‘The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, sent me to you. That is My name forever and thus am I invoked in all ages.’”
*I love how God clarifies here — in case the breath of life, source of being, was too nebulous for the person God was sending to carry out divine power, God reiterates: I am the God of your ancestors, the God who was in relationship with the people of your old stories, the God who worked in and through and for your family…and who continues to be in relationship and to work in and through and for you. God’s identity is best described in relationship with God’s people. We can’t pin down God’s breath or God’s fullness or God’s name so we could use it for our own ends, but we can know God through God’s action in history, through our shared story with people who came before and who are around us now, through the relationship that God has cultivated with us throughout the generations.
And so we come back to the beginning: when we disconnect from our history, from that shared story, we lose touch with the God who is best known in the relationships throughout that story. And it becomes easy to choose to live out another story instead. But the story of God working in and through people is a story of life in the face of death, it’s the story of regular people making whatever small choice for abundant life is available in the moment, even when it seems like they can’t make a difference, even when it feels dangerous, even when they have a lot going on. Without Shiphrah and Puah making their choice for the God of life every day, there’s no Moses. Without Pharaoh’s daughter deciding to use her small bit of privilege to defy Pharaoh’s orders, there’s no Moses. Without Moses turning away from his job and risking his economic security and his family’s displeasure, there’s no human hand or voice for God to use to cry “Let My People Go.” And on and on through time, all the way to today: without us turning aside to see, listening for God’s voice in the midst of everything going on, choosing to act with the God of life rather than all the world’s gods that only bring death…without us carrying on the story of our ancestors in the faith…what will be missing in the future story?
God is the breath who spoke to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to Sarah and Rebecca and Shiphrah and Puah and Pharaoh’s daughter, to Moses and Aaron and Miriam, to Joshua and Samuel and David and Nathan and Bathsheba and Solomon, to the prophets…the word that became flesh in Jesus and gathered the disciples….the breath that spoke to and through Peter and Paul and Lydia and Priscilla and Mark and Matthew and Luke and John…and all the way on down to today. All those faithful people who kept their conversation with God at the fore, and who acted to choose abundant life even in the face of the empire’s power of death…God’s relationship with them, and with us, is what defines defines God’s name for all generations, including the ones still to come.
May it be so. Amen.
For the word of God in scripture
for the word of God among us
for the word of God within us
thanks be to God.
Online Hymn: Our God Was A Refugee (Resound)
*Sanctuary Hymn: There Is A Line Of Women
Sanctuary Offering (choir to sing)
*Sanctuary Offering Response: God Our Creator, vv. 1 & 4 (tune: Bunessan; words: John L Bell & Graham Maule)
God our Creator, you in love made us
who once were nothing but now have grown.
We bring the best of all our lives offer;
for you we share whatever we own.
And with the people summoned together
to be the Church in which faith is sown,
we make our promise to live for Jesus,
and let the world know all are God’s own.
Introducing Rob
Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
We give you thanks this day, O God,
for you pay attention to this world you have made.
In the beginning you had your hands in the dirt and your breath in our faces,
and it was good.
In every time and place you have been faithful to your people,
leading Abraham and Sarah in the wilderness,
keeping watch over Hagar in the desert,
feeding your people through the ingenuity of Joseph,
saving them through the hands of Shiphrah and Puah,
making the way for a future through the quick thinking of Miriam…
in every generation you are at work,
revealing your care and your presence through the action of your faithful people.
We give you thanks, O God,
for your voice that echoes through history
in the prophets and the ordinary people,
for your Word embodied in Jesus,
for your servants who have carried your good news to every place.
We pray that we might be re-made into your Body
ready to bear your message of hope and justice in this world,
for the need is very great.
Today we must turn our eyes to the reality you call us to see…
and so we lift to our attention, and to yours,
the families with no options, facing choices we do not want to imagine,
who are so desperate to save their children that they will risk anything and endure our hostility;
the women who work behind the scenes,
with no status and no resources beyond their own imagination,
who yet work for abundant life and secretly find ways to stand against oppression and injustice;
the people whose privilege protects them and yet they use it to lift up others,
in defiance of expectations…
without them, there would have been no Moses,
and without them today there will be no future for your people.
We lift to our attention, and yours,
those places where the everyday things we take for granted are an unimaginable dream,
where the neighbours you call us to love are abandoned to rising seas, famine, and war,
where the very people we celebrate at today’s feast go hungry and ignored.
As we pray for and with the whole world today,
do not let us forget them when we leave this place.
For you came among us, word made flesh,
to get as close as humanly possible,
and nothing escapes your attention.
And on this the first day of the month, we join our hearts together as your church family to pray:
*To see your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, O God.
*For the Bible Study groups at St John’s, for the Intercessory Prayer Group, that they may encounter you, Living God, in word and prayer.
*For the land, people, and governments of the nations of Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
*And we pray for Rob as he begins his placement here, and for Charlene as she begins her placement in Largs, that they may learn and grow in their life of ministry among your people.
We pray for our community to be strengthened and built up in friendship,
on the firm foundation of your love.
Make us your Body living and breathing and serving and transforming
this world you so love.
We ask these and all things in the name of the One
who lives good news among us, Jesus the Christ, who taught us to pray together:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.
*Sanctuary Hymn: God It Was
Benediction
Go from this place to pay attention to who and what God has placed in, or near, your path. May you remember the story God has been telling. May you see the image of God in each face. May you find the space to turn aside to see God at work. And may you know the blessing of God’s presence in each and every moment.
And as you go, may the Spirit of God go above you to watch over you. May the Spirit of God go beside you to be your companion. May the Spirit of God go before you to show you the way, and behind you to push you into places you might not go alone. And may the Spirit of God go within you, to remind you that you are loved more deeply than you can possibly imagine. May the fire of God’s love burn brightly in you, and through you into the world. Amen.
Sung Benediction Response (John L Bell, tune Gourock St John’s)
Now may the Lord of all be blessed,
Now may Christ’s gospel be confessed,
Now may the Spirit when we meet
Bless sanctuary and street.
Postlude Music
Announcements
EDICT FOR ORDINATION AND ADMISSION OF ELDER
Mr Joseph Heffernan, a member of this congregation, has been elected to be a ruling elder (and the Kirk Session has judged him to be qualified for that office and has sustained his election)*; Joseph Heffernan has accepted office as elder: if anyone has any objections why this member should not be ordained to office, they state their objection at the meeting of the Kirk Session in the small hall of Gourock: St John’s Church on Sunday, 15th of October, 2023, at 10.40am; if no relevant objection regarding life or doctrine is made and substantiated, the Kirk Session will proceed to the ordination.
* We plan to expand Bowl & Blether to add the 3rd Mondays of the month in the winter months, starting on the 16th of October. This will require a team of volunteers to make soup in the church kitchen in the morning, to make toasties, and to serve soup/toasties/tea/coffee, offering hospitality and a warm cheery chat to anyone who wants to come in through the winter. Please contact Teri if you would be willing to volunteer on the 3rd Mondays of the month over the winter.
* The next Bowl & Blether will be TOMORROW Monday 2 October, doors open at 11:30 and soup and toasties are served between 12-1:30. It’s a great opportunity to get out and meet some friends, invite a neighbour, and have a meal and some social time!
* The next meeting of the Contact Group is this Tuesday, 3 October at 2pm in the large hall. The speaker will be Ailsa Russell who will tell us about her attendance at the South Korea Scout Jamboree last month. All are welcome at this and any of the meetings held fortnightly. The group’s syllabus is now available from Fiona Webster for a donation of £5.
* There’s a Christian Aid Coffee Morning next Saturday the 7th of October from 10a.m. – 12 noon at Westburn Parish Church. Tickets are £2.50 or pay at the door.
* Next Sunday, 8 October, is our autumn youth service, with youth organisations parading from Binnie Street at 10:25am. You may want to come early to get a good seat to support the young people as they lead the service.
* A funeral service for Mr Rodger Manson will be held at Old Gourock & Ashton church on Monday the 9th of October at 1pm.
* The Kirk Session will meet on Monday 9 October at 7:30pm.
* Wednesday Evening Bible Study is off this week, and will meet again in the manse on Wednesday 11 October at 7:30pm.
* A funeral service for Mr Norman Leitch will be held at Greenock Crematorium on Thursday the 12th of October at 1pm.
* On Sunday evening the 15th of October at 7pm we will have a special Songs of Praise, with Philip, the praise band, and the Connect+ singing group leading us. If you have any suggestions you’d like to submit, please send them to Teri by next Sunday.
* We worship in the sanctuary on Sundays at 11am, and all Sunday worship is also online. If you are able, please enter by the front door in Bath street, and only those who need step-free access should use the back door. If you feel unwell, please worship online, to protect both yourself and others in our community.
* Starter Packs are short of Shaving Foam, Shampoo, Soap, Toothpaste, Bathroom/Kitchen Cleaner, Kitchen Roll and Teabags. The FoodBank are short of biscuits, UHT milk, soup, tinned fish, and tinned meats. You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!
* Did you know that the ministry we do at St John’s costs about £3000 per week? Everything we do is funded by your generous giving — all our support for young people, older people, bereavement care, community outreach, worship, study, spiritual growth, and community work is because of your offering. If you would like to set up a standing order in order to facilitate your spiritual discipline of giving, or if you would like to make an extra gift to support the ministry St. John’s does in our parish, you can give online by clicking here. If you would like to set up a standing order, please contact Teri and she can give you the treasurer’s details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received. It is also possible to donate to the work of the new parish assistant, speak to Anne Love about how to go about directing new donations to that new item in the budget.
* Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Youtube, and to sign up for our email devotions! Midweek you can watch Wine and the Word on Youtube, pray with video devotions on Facebook, and consider a new angle on something with a devotional email. Feel free to share with your friends, too!
* Free period products are available in the church toilets for anyone who might need them, thanks to Hey Girls and Inverclyde Council.
* Youth organisations are in full swing, and we are especially looking for new members of the Anchor Boys and the Smurfs (P1-P3, boys and girls respectively). Young people are invited to come along to the Junior Section (P4-P6) of the BB on Monday evenings at 7, Anchor Boys (P1-P3) on Tuesdays at 5:30, Brownies and Guides on Wednesday evenings at 6pm and 7:30pm respectively, Smurfs on Thursdays at 6pm, and Company Section (P7-S6) of the BB on Fridays at 7. For more information on the Boys’ Brigade, email: 2ndgourock@inverclydebb.org.uk , for more information on the Smurfs (pre-Brownies), email Lyn at lyn41185@hotmail.com, and for more information on the Brownies/Guides, visit https://www.girlguidingscotland.org.uk/for-parents/register-your-daughter .
* The Church of Scotland has a new online learning platform called Church of Scotland Learning (more info here). The first set of modules is now available, and are designed with members of local congregations in mind and will help to grow faith, stretch minds and explore possibilities. They are set at an introductory level and accessible for all. We hope this will ignite people’s interest in learning more. Currently available topics include Vows for Elders; Vows for Ministers; Conversations in Discipleship, Exploring Discipleship, Talking About Your Faith; New Ways of Being Church; Knowing You Knowing Me (Learning to understand more fully where God is and what God is calling us to do); Theological Reflection for Everyone; Equality Diversity and Inclusion; and Unconscious Bias and Me. More modules will be added periodically, so sign up today by clicking here!
* Trinity College Glasgow and New College Edinburgh also both offer “short courses” for lay people — there are a variety of interesting modules available for online or in-person participation, including courses on Listening In Mission, worship, New Testament, Mission and our response to Presbytery planning, Creative Writing as a Spiritual Practice, and more. Please become a lifelong learner and dig into some of these opportunities that God is putting in front of us to grow in our faith and life together!
* Would you be able to host two university students from the USA from 8-11 June, 2024? They will each need their own bed, though they can share a room, and you would be providing them breakfast and dinner, bringing them to church on Sunday, and being a welcoming and engaging host as they get a cultural exchange experience. There would be some financial help to cover the food expenses. If you might be interested, please be in touch with Teri or Seonaid Knox, so we have a sense of how many students we can host.
Sunday service for 10 September 2023
Sunday 10 September 2023 — NL2-1, Conversations With God 1
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143
Email: TPeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Email Charlene, Parish Assistant: CMitchell (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Prelude Music
Welcome & Announcements
Sanctuary Gathering: We Gather As God’s Family (As the Bible is brought in, we stand and sing)
A family gathered in love,
striving for justice and joy,
blessing the broken-hearted,
and sharing the hope of God’s kingdom.
Call to Worship
One: Breathe…
In and out, each breath both ordinary and a miracle.
All: In and out, each breath in sync with the artist whose breath was our first.
One: Close enough to look into each other’s eyes,
seeing this new world for the first time.
All: Breathing together with God,
we come alive.
Sanctuary Hymn: Creation sings! (Words: Martin E. Leckebusch (CCLI/Kevin Mayhew), tune: 188 St Petersburg)
Prayer
In the beginning, Your hand worked the soil,
forming and planting and teaching us how to care for your garden.
In the beginning, Your compassion created community.
In the beginning, You offered all that is good and invited us to trust.
Not in the abstract, but in the particular,
You create, O God.
You see what is needed, and you bring it into being,
weaving together earth and water, garden and steward, companions and partners,
a careful balance of colour and sound and silence and texture,
your living vision.
We confess that we have cared little for your balance,
and under our weight the tapestry has torn.
We do not steward, we exploit.
We do not partner, we dominate.
We do not work together, we stand alone and above.
Not in the abstract, but in the particular,
we have damaged your creation, and we have not wished to inconvenience ourselves for its repair.
Forgive us for forgetting our interdependence with the soil from which we come.
Forgive us for setting ourselves apart from the companions you gave us.
Forgive us for dismissing your handiwork and taking it for granted.
Not in the abstract, but in the particular,
in this place, in this land, with this water, breathing this air,
in these bodies,
forgive us and set us once again in our rightful place in your beautiful world.
Make today a new beginning, Lord God.
Work the soil of our hearts by hand,
form and plant and teach,
create us into your compassionate community,
and give us courage to accept your invitation to goodness.
Amen.
Online Hymn 147: All Creatures Of Our God and King
Sanctuary Hymn 171: Take Up The Song (tune: Highland Cathedral)
Sanctuary Children’s Time
Scripture Reading: Genesis 2.4b – 25 (4-6 and 10-14 Inclusive Bible, remainder Women’s Lectionary Year W)
At the time when the sovereign God made the heavens and the earth, there was still no wild bush on the earth nor had any wild plants sprang up, for the sovereign God had not yet sent rain to the earth, and there was no human being to till the soil. Instead, a flow of water would well up from the ground and irrigate the soil.
The sovereign God crafted the human from the dust of the humus, and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living soul. And the sovereign God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there placed the human whom God had formed. Out of the ground the sovereign God made grow every tree pleasant to the sight and good for food, and the tree of life in the middle of the garden, along with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
A river flows through Eden to water the garden, after which it branches into four tributaries. The first stream is named Pishon, or “Spreader.” It circles through Havilah, a land rich in gold, gold of the highest quality. There are gum resins there, and precious onyx stones. The second stream is named Gihon, or “Gusher,” and it flows through the entire land of Cush. The third stream is the Tigris, which borders Assyria on the east. The fourth stream is the Euphrates.
The sovereign God took the human and settled it in the garden of Eden to till and tend it. Then the sovereign God commanded the human, “from every tree of the garden you may eat freely, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat from it, you shall surely die.”
Then the sovereign God said, “it is not good that the human should be alone; I will make it someone to rely on as its partner.” Then the sovereign God crafted from the humus every creature of the field and every bird of the skies and brought them to the human to see what it would call them; and what ever the human called every living soul, that was its name. The human gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal in the field; but for the human there was not found one to rely on as its partner.
The sovereign God caused a deep sleep to fall on the human, and it slept; then took one of its sides and closed up its place with flesh in place of it. And the sovereign God built the side that had been taken from the human into a woman and brought her to the human. Then the human said,
“this time, this one is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called a woman,
for out of a man this one was taken.”
Therefore, a man leaves his mother and his father and clings to his woman, and they become one flesh. And they were, the two of them, naked, the man and his woman, and were not ashamed.
For the word of God in scripture
for the word of God among us
for the word of God within us
thanks be to God.
Sermon
This week I read a news story about a patch of snow. Which seems a weird thing to be reading about in September…especially since it wasn’t about snow falling, but rather about snow melting! You may know that there is a place up in the Cairngorms where there has been snow on the ground almost constantly for…ever, basically. Until a hundred years ago, it was assumed this hollow up in the mountains just always had snow. There have been only ten times in over three hundred years that there was no snow in this hollow. It melted completely away this week, for the fifth time the past six years. At this moment, there is no snow on the ground anywhere in Scotland, for only the tenth time in three hundred years, and five of those are in the past six years.
This is the kind of news story that’s almost guaranteed to appear on the pub quiz, but it hit me differently this week when I was also thinking about this creation story from Genesis 2.
The very beginning of this creation story is different from the one we often think of that starts with the earth being all chaos and without form until God says “let there be light” and then things start to happen. In this one, we have an earth with a spring of water, but no plants or anything…just dirt, dust, a blank canvas. And I’d never really noticed this before, but it says there were no plants because it had never rained, and the reason it had never rained was because there was no one to tend and care for the earth.
Why water the earth if there aren’t any plants to grow…and why start plants growing if there’s no one to take care of it all? Basically, there was no point. God didn’t want to waste the effort or resources.
And so God, desiring a garden, decides first to sculpt a human being to enjoy and tend the earth, and only after that human being is available to work does God plant the garden.
And God did all of this by hand.
A handmade sculpture is a beautiful thing, unique and interesting. The clay has to be smooshed and rolled, stretched and pressed, unstuck from the artist’s fingers, looked at from different angles, and tweaked with a little squeeze here or a smoothing down there. And only when God stepped back from the sculpting and decided it was good, did God then come close enough to breathe into the face of this handmade masterpiece, and it came to life, still bearing God’s fingerprints.
Then, with the first living piece of priceless art looking on, God’s hands went into the dirt again and began to plant the garden of God’s dreams. Soon it was beautiful…lovely to look at, full of trees and plants, everything you could need to eat and sit under and enjoy. And the human was there to take care of it all, to be alongside God with hands in the soil, tending and keeping it beautiful.
Usually, when we receive something handmade, we treasure it. We often seek out artisan things — our town here is full of artisans making lovely things from paintings to glass to greeting cards to jewellery to handmade soap. We admire the workmanship, we show it off to our friends, we treat it with love and handle those objects with more care than we might something easily replaced at Ikea or somewhere similar. Even more so when it’s the maker themselves giving us the handmade thing, even if it’s something simple like homemade shortbread, we savour it differently than a box from Sainsbury’s!
One of the reasons for that extra treasuring is, of course, that we know the love that went into making it, and if it was a gift, the thought that went into selecting it from among a world filled with identical mass-produced stuff. We understand the care, the time, the effort, the trial and error, the skill and talent, the tears and laughter that goes into making something beautiful and putting it out into the world, and we value it more highly.
One might ask why we don’t do that with God’s handmade workmanship?
The earth and the plants and the creatures…all hand made, gifted to us by God whose very first identity is artist.
And our own human bodies…and, perhaps more to the point, the human bodies of our neighbours: sculpted by hand by God, still bearing God’s fingerprints and breathing God’s breath, and placed here on purpose.
Why do we not treat these things like the artisan treasures they are?
What would we do differently, if we were treating the earth, the creation, ourselves, and our human siblings like they’re handmade gifts from God?
Well obviously we would treat it all with more care, I hope. We would treasure the earth and each other, and we would grieve when something breaks or is lost or harmed, and we would stand up and say no to people that want to use it in ways that will ruin it. We would refuse to allow our handmade treasure to be destroyed just for a fleeting moment’s pleasure, or to make someone rich. We would tend it, keep it, show it off to friends, share it with joy.
All the usual things like not littering, and picking up litter when we see it, limiting our use of fossil fuels, choosing to repair or repurpose things rather than throwing them away, buying local, and all that stuff we already know is important. Many of us are doing what we can, and the truth is that still isn’t enough. Our fellow handmade treasures are still being damaged. The snow has all melted for the fifth time in six years after hundreds of years of always being there. The last three months on earth were the hottest on record by more than half a degree celsius — and that’s an average that includes the southern hemisphere where it’s winter. People are already having to move because of sea level rise, drought and failed crops, fires, and unbearable temperatures. Children are dying because of famine. Wars are being fought over water and farmland. We are not tending and keeping the handmade treasure of our neighbour and the creation in which we all live. We must do more.
What is that more? We have to go to the institutions that struggle to change when their bad ways are profitable…and either make those ways not profitable, or make so much noise that they become convinced there’s a better way. It will take corporations and governments changing their priorities and actions if we are going to turn this around, not only the individual things we have all learned to do. Our voices and our money are frankly our most powerful tools in tending God’s garden today. And the humans, creatures, plants, water, and soil need us to use them.
Notice in the story that the rivers are named — this is a particular place God is known to walk and work. The animals are all given names by God’s first sculpture — they are seen, known, valued, and meant to be companions in community. And the very first relationship in the creation is between God the artisan craft maker, and the soil. The second relationship is between God and the human being God sculpted from the soil. And the purpose of that sculpting was to create the third relationship of creation: between these first two of God’s loves: the human being and the soil and the garden that grows in it.
It’s all lovingly made and placed together for a purpose. In the midst of everything else we try to force this story into saying, whether or not it says what we want it to say, we have too often ignored the thing it does say: that we are deeply, intimately, at our core, connected and interconnected with the earth and every living thing on the earth, both plants and other animals and humans. And we exist because God needed someone to take care of the earth and so created us explicitly for that task.
Knowing that should convict us, and call us to take up that task for which we were created, to tend and keep the earth and its creatures and its community, to treasure it and care for it as God’s beloved…because together, we are.
May it be so. Amen.
Online Hymn: We Are Tenants of the King (Resound Worship)
Sanctuary Hymn: Monarch and Maker (words: John L Bell & Graham Maule; tune: Woodlands)
Sanctuary Offering
Sanctuary Offering Response: God Our Creator, vv. 1 & 4 (tune: Bunessan; words: John L Bell & Graham Maule)
God our Creator, you in love made us
who once were nothing but now have grown.
We bring the best of all our lives offer;
for you we share whatever we own.
And with the people summoned together
to be the Church in which faith is sown,
we make our promise to live for Jesus,
and let the world know all are God’s own.
Prayer and Lord’s Prayer (ends with the prayers from our prayer book…and in the St John’s part, I’ve borrowed from the 11th)
Creator God, you are so tuned-in to your creation,
its very breath is yours.
We thank you for your hands-on care,
bringing your vision to fruition.
You sculpted and built this world,
and your goodness is visible at every turn.
We lift up today those who have been denied their place in your creation,
treated not as equals or partners but as inferiors and servants.
We remember those who have no one to call “my people,”
who have been cast aside or left out or dismissed.
We ask for your blessing of a community
where we can hold one another up and hold one another to account,
where we can be real and not ashamed.
We lift up today those places where the fabric of creation is so torn,
where abundant life feels impossible,
and the holes left by our destruction harm those trying to survive around the edges.
We remember our neighbours who struggle each day
without ever getting a moment in our news cycle.
We ask for your blessing of inspiration, courage, and strong will
to do what is right for others, not only what is convenient for ourselves,
and for leaders in business and politics
to lay aside their greed and lust for power and seek the common good.
We lift up today (today’s local concerns: — BB 125 charity ball celebration, people grieving/suffering, war, gatherings of world leaders)…
And on the 10th day of the month we join our hearts together as your church family to pray
*For all who live and work in the Midton and Trumpethill areas.
*for the music ministry of St John’s: for the choir, the praise band, the organist, and all who enable our worship and prayer through music.
*For the land, people, and governments of the nations of Libya, Malta, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Western Sahara, and Cape Verde.
We ask for your blessing of peace, grace, and love that endures.
We ask these things, trusting in your creative Spirit and your compassionate presence,
in the name of Jesus the Christ,
who taught us to pray together:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come,
your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. Amen.
Sanctuary Hymn 141: Oh the Life of the World
Benediction
Go forth with the courage to be in relationship — with the earth, with your neighbour, with God. In that relationship may you find joy, challenge, commitment, and creativity.
And as you go, may the Spirit of God go above you to watch over you. May the Spirit of God go beside you to be your companion. May the Spirit of God go before you to show you the way, and behind you to push you into places you might not go alone. And may the Spirit of God go within you, to remind you that you are loved more deeply than you can possibly imagine. May the fire of God’s love burn brightly in you, and through you into the world. Amen.
Sung Benediction Response (John L Bell, tune Gourock St John’s)
Now may the Lord of all be blessed,
Now may Christ’s gospel be confessed,
Now may the Spirit when we meet
Bless sanctuary and street.
Postlude Music
Announcements
* We plan to expand Bowl & Blether to add the 3rd Mondays of the month in the winter months, starting in October. This will require a team of volunteers to make soup in the church kitchen in the morning, to make toasties, and to serve soup/toasties/tea/coffee, offering hospitality and a warm cheery chat to anyone who wants to come in through the winter. Please contact Teri if you would be willing to volunteer on the 3rd Mondays of the month over the winter.
* We worship in the sanctuary on Sundays at 11am, and all Sunday worship is also online. If you are able, please enter by the front door in Bath street, and only those who need step-free access should use the back door. If you feel unwell, please worship online, to protect both yourself and others in our community.
* Starter Packs are short of Shaving Foam, Shampoo, Soap, Toothpaste, Bathroom/Kitchen Cleaner, Kitchen Roll and Teabags. The FoodBank are short of biscuits, UHT milk, soup, tinned fish, and tinned meats. You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!
* Did you know that the ministry we do at St John’s costs about £3000 per week? Everything we do is funded by your generous giving — all our support for young people, older people, bereavement care, community outreach, worship, study, spiritual growth, and community work is because of your offering. If you would like to set up a standing order in order to facilitate your spiritual discipline of giving, or if you would like to make an extra gift to support the ministry St. John’s does in our parish, you can give online by clicking here. If you would like to set up a standing order, please contact Teri and she can give you the treasurer’s details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received. It is also possible to donate to the work of the new parish assistant, speak to Anne Love about how to go about directing new donations to that new item in the budget.
* Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Youtube, and to sign up for our email devotions! Midweek you can watch Wine and the Word on Youtube, pray with video devotions on Facebook, and consider a new angle on something with a devotional email. Feel free to share with your friends, too!
* Wednesday Evening Bible Study is taking the next two weeks off, and will meet again on Wednesday 27 September at 7:30pm.
* Philip is playing a recital at Kelvingrove Museum on Saturday 16 September at 1pm. Music will include items written by Henry Purcell, William Mathias, Malcolm Arnold and Philip himself.
* St John’s Contact Group will start the new session on Tuesday 19th September at 2pm in the church hall. Entertainment will be provided by The Skelpies Ukulele Band, followed by tea, cakes and time to chat. All are welcome to this opening meeting and the fortnightly meetings thereafter. The syllabus of events will be available soon.
* The next Bowl & Blether will be on Monday 2 October, doors open at 11:30 and soup and toasties are served between 12-1:30. It’s a great opportunity to get out and meet some friends, invite a neighbour, and have a meal and some social time!
* Free period products are available in the church toilets for anyone who might need them, thanks to Hey Girls and Inverclyde Council.
* Youth organisations are in full swing, and we are especially looking for new members of the Anchor Boys and the Smurfs (P1-P3, boys and girls respectively). Young people are invited to come along to the Junior Section (P4-P6) of the BB on Monday evenings at 7, Anchor Boys (P1-P3) on Tuesdays at 5:30, Brownies and Guides on Wednesday evenings at 6pm and 7:30pm respectively, Smurfs on Thursdays at 6pm, and Company Section (P7-S6) of the BB on Fridays at 7. For more information on the Boys’ Brigade, email: 2ndgourock@inverclydebb.org.uk , for more information on the Smurfs (pre-Brownies), email Lyn at lyn41185@hotmail.com, and for more information on the Brownies/Guides, visit https://www.girlguidingscotland.org.uk/for-parents/register-your-daughter .
* The Church of Scotland has a new online learning platform called Church of Scotland Learning (more info here). The first set of modules is now available, and are designed with members of local congregations in mind and will help to grow faith, stretch minds and explore possibilities. They are set at an introductory level and accessible for all. We hope this will ignite people’s interest in learning more. Currently available topics include Vows for Elders; Vows for Ministers; Conversations in Discipleship, Exploring Discipleship, Talking About Your Faith; New Ways of Being Church; Knowing You Knowing Me (Learning to understand more fully where God is and what God is calling us to do); Theological Reflection for Everyone; Equality Diversity and Inclusion; and Unconscious Bias and Me. More modules will be added periodically, so sign up today by clicking here!
* Trinity College Glasgow and New College Edinburgh also both offer “short courses” for lay people — there are a variety of interesting modules available for online or in-person participation, including courses on Listening In Mission, worship, New Testament, Mission and our response to Presbytery planning, Creative Writing as a Spiritual Practice, and more. Please become a lifelong learner and dig into some of these opportunities that God is putting in front of us to grow in our faith and life together!
* Would you be able to host two university students from the USA from 8-11 June, 2024? They will each need their own bed, though they can share a room, and you would be providing them breakfast and dinner, bringing them to church on Sunday, and being a welcoming and engaging host as they get a cultural exchange experience. There would be some financial help to cover the food expenses. If you might be interested, please be in touch with Teri or Seonaid Knox, so we have a sense of how many students we can host.