Sunday service for 13 June 2021

Sunday service for 13 June 2021, Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson, Gourock St John’s
Manse phone: 632143 
Email: tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

To hear an audio recording of this service, please call 01475 270037

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Prelude Music (in person only)

Welcome/Announcements

Call to Worship
1: Sometimes Jesus sits down beside us, teaching and feeding and healing.
2: Sometimes Jesus sends us on ahead, to prepare the way for him.
1: Sometimes Jesus invites us to join him in his work, following in his footsteps and doing what he does.
2: Sometimes Jesus calls us to come to him, stepping out of the boat onto the stormy sea.
All: All the time, he is with us. So let us worship together.

Prayer of Confession
Gracious God, from age to age you are the giver of every good gift, the One who calls us out of ourselves to meet you. You are at the centre and at the margins, working wonders. Your goodness is the foundation of all life, and we gather as your people to praise and bless you. From near and far, with comfort and anxiety, carrying hope and wonder alongside frustration and longing, we come together to seek your blessing. We admit to that we are of two minds, uncertain of your place and faltering in our trust. We confess to you, Lord, that more often than not, our minds and hearts of full of things that bear little resemblance to you, and our lives reflect that mind set on human rather than divine things. We feel divided, and we allow our energy to be consumed with ourselves—our fears, our wishes, our feelings, our thoughts, our work, our scarcity, our position. Forgive us, O God. Forgive us our self-focus. Forgive our divided attention. Forgive our inability to trust you and your providing and guidance. We trust that in your hands, brokenness can become a blessing, fear can turn to trust, and there will be enough. Empty us of all that does not glorify you, and fill us instead with your word of hope, your promise of abundant life. Lead us in walking your Kingdom Way, as your people forgiven, loved, and free. We pray in the name of Jesus the Christ. Amen.

Music
Online: How Clear is Our Vocation, Lord (words by Fred Pratt Green, tune: Repton)
In Person: Mozart Adagio K356

Children’s Time (in person only)

Reading: Matthew 14.22-33
Today’s reading is from the gospel according to Matthew, chapter 14, beginning at verse 22, and I’m reading from the New Revised Standard Version. We pick up directly at the end of the story of Jesus feeding 5000 men, plus women and children, with just 5 loaves and 2 fishes. The disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers, and then…

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking towards them on the lake. But when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’
Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’

Sermon: Tipping Point

What do you think are the chances that the disciples were singing a first century middle eastern version of a sea shanty that night in the boat? They had only a few miles to go, yet with the wind and the waves, they could not row hard enough to bring the boat to shore. A rousing work song to keep them rowing in sync would be just the thing…though I suppose the wind might just carry their voices away.

Several of the disciples were experienced fishermen, who’d had their share of nights straining at the oars in an unexpected squall. These were people who knew what to do and how to do it. They knew the traditions, the stories, and the rituals, they knew the lake, they knew the way things were supposed to be done. In that boat, they would have been implementing all the strategies they had learned from a lifetime of experience.

And yet, it wasn’t working. The wind was against them. With or without a jaunty tune to sing, they weren’t moving in the direction they wanted to go.

I have a feeling many of us can relate. Whether we’re looking at our work and the way our usual ways of organising our work flow or handling our email or communicating with new employees don’t seem to be getting the same results…or looking at our personal lives and realising that they’re out of balance and need re-prioritising because we’re tired of being tired…or looking at the church and wondering why doing the things we’ve always done doesn’t seem to reach people the way it used to. Perhaps it feels like we’ve just stalled, or maybe like we’re going the wrong way. Home, work, politics, or church….We have probably all had that feeling of the wind being against us, of working ourselves to exhaustion yet getting nowhere.

When Jesus came strolling up to them, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a storm, in the middle of the lake…they were not just physically tired, they were mentally tired from trying to figure out what to do next, how to adapt to the fact that nothing was working. They didn’t have the capacity to imagine a different way, so they continued on with the way that wasn’t working, hoping that maybe this time…so it’s no wonder they thought they were seeing a ghost. There was no space for something new. But Jesus said “I’m here, don’t be afraid.”

Now, as an aside: I know I’ve said this before, but telling someone not to be afraid never works. Honestly it’s something I would have expected God to learn by now…but I suppose even God has habits that are hard to break despite the fact they don’t work! And these disciples were already afraid because they had tried everything they knew and nothing was working, the wind and waves were battering them, and now they were looking at Jesus standing on top of the water. It’s just a new fear on top of the fear that had been building all night.

Anyway…Peter was the one to speak up. And Peter was the one who decided to get out of the boat.

Remember, there was a storm going on. The waves have been battering the boat. The wind was against them. They had rowed all night and gotten nowhere, or worse than nowhere, backwards. Yet even with the wind and the waves and the exhaustion, Peter decided that the best option was to step out of the boat, onto the sea — the symbol of chaos, remember.

Which means that the status quo, continuing to try and fail, repeating the same traditional ways over and over again without any results, was more painful, more frustrating, more fear-inducing, than going into the chaotic unknown.

Peter had no idea what would happen when he got out of the boat. He only knew two things: first, that he could not keep putting energy into something that wasn’t working, watching it dissipate into thin air like their voices carried away on the wind, and second, that Jesus was outside the boat.

Often the moment when we decide to consider change is the moment when the balance tips and the pain and frustration of the old ways starts to outweigh our fear of the unknown. It becomes worse to stay put than to move…so we move. Most of us don’t move quite so dramatically as to step out of a boat in the middle of a storm, but it still might feel like that emotionally or spiritually!

It’s risky, to step out into the unknown. But it’s also risky to stay in the boat, doing the things we’ve always done, exhausting ourselves without anything to show for it. The question is: which is the greater risk?

The answer to that question, for Peter, was in the second thing he knew. Jesus was outside the boat. And it is always — ALWAYS — riskier to be apart from Jesus than with him. So even if he is doing something impossible or crazy, it’s better to be where he is.

Did you notice that when Peter stepped out of the boat, he was doing it? He was walking on the water, against all odds, contrary to everything he thought he knew about himself and the world and what was right or even possible. It was only when he took his eyes off of Jesus that he began to sink. As long as he was focused on Jesus, on doing what he was doing and going where he was going, he was succeeding at the impossible new thing.

Many people right now are rethinking their patterns of life and work. Do we have to keep working the way we used to, even though we know it isn’t the only way and maybe not even the best way for our health or for the planet’s health? Or could there be a different way of relating to work, to politics, to society, to the earth, to our neighbours and coworkers and employers and employees…a different way of relating to ourselves?

The church is also undergoing a huge and difficult shift — there is change coming at every level of the church, from the national structure down to the local buildings and ministers. The way we are used to doing things is not working, and we are at — or perhaps even past — that tipping point, where the risks of staying the same are higher than the risks of doing something new. Like the disciples in the boat, we have worked ourselves to the bone, doing and doing and doing the things that used to work…we’re exhausted and frustrated, and scared, and we’re not getting anywhere. If anything, we’re going backwards, and the wind is against us. We are finally beginning to come to the same understanding as Peter: we can’t keep putting our energy into something that isn’t working.

I think we are still looking for his second realisation though: that Jesus is outside the boat.

Out in the chaos, uncontained by the structures and the restrictions of the boat…Jesus is out there on the waves, walking wherever he wants to go.

Did you know that one of the old metaphors for the church was a boat? Many church buildings are designed to look like an upturned ark, in fact, keeping us all safe inside, in the midst of the stormy seas of life.

But Jesus is outside the boat.

And it is ALWAYS riskier to be apart from Jesus than to be with him. No matter how safe the boat feels, no matter how much we would prefer the problems we know to the ones we don’t know, the truth is that persisting in our own ways under our own power, while Jesus is out in the world doing a new thing, will be the death of us. There is a reason that we say that “we’ve always done it this way before” are the seven last words of the church. Because doing that just to keep afloat will literally suck our energy away, until there’s nothing left, and the waves and wind will overwhelm the boat.

Jesus is out there…calling us to join him. Calling us to trust him. Calling us to step into something new and scary, yes — into a way of life, and a way of being the church, that we never imagined and that feels impossible. But like Peter, if we keep our eyes on Jesus, he will not let us fall.

May it be so. Amen.

Music Online: Voice of Truth by Casting Crowns

Online Announcements/Prayer concerns
Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer
We look for you, Lord, in all kinds of places—
in the church, and in the creation, and in the boat, and in our hearts.
But you appear where we least expect it, in the impossible,
walking toward us on the stormy water,
right through the wind and waves.
And you call us to join you.
Focus our eyes on you,
and give us courage to leave what we know and step into your way.

We listen for you, Lord, in all kinds of places—
in your word, in our churches, in prayer, in other people’s voices.
We listen, hoping to hear a word that confirms our faith and our hope.
But you speak where we least expect it,
in the impossible, from your place outside the boat,
and when we listen carefully all we hear is you saying the impossible:
do not be afraid.
Give us ears to hear you calling from beyond business as usual,
in the voices of those who have been left behind,
in the groaning of the earth,
in the cries of hungry children and fearful parents,
in the shouts for peace and the silence of the despairing.

We wonder about you, Lord, in all kinds of places.
We wonder how you got out there and what you’re doing outside the boat.
We wonder how you can possibly say “do not be afraid.”
We wonder whether we should stay in the boat or step out on the waves.
Give us hearts that want to be where you are, more than we want to be comfortable.
Fill your Church with your Spirit,
that we might be moved to join your mission even when it feels scary.
Use us to reveal your goodness and love and justice and hope to a world in need.

Teach us, O God.
Teach us to see you in the unknown and unexpected,
and guide us into the new life you offer.
We pray in the name of 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.

In Person: SUNG Hymn 352: O For A Thousand Tongues to Sing

Benediction
This week, lift your eyes out of the usual ways and look for Jesus…and when you see him, ask for him to call you to where he is, even if that’s out of the boat. Keep your eyes on him, he will not let you fall. 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 (tune: Gourock St. John’s, words by John L Bell)
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 (in person only)

Announcements

* All worship is online (or on the phone at 01475 270037, or in print) and we also meet in person, subject to the usual protocols for distancing, hand hygiene, mask wearing, and some limited singing! We can welcome approximately 35 people for worship, so if you would like to come in person, please phone Cameron (630879) on a MONDAY afternoon between 1-3pm or Anne Love (07904 617283) on a Saturday morning between 10-12 to book a place.

* Young Adult Bible Study is on Zoom at 1pm, we are reading through the Gospel According to Mark. Contact Teri for login details.

* Tonight we will gather with Christians across the nation for evening prayer on the Connect Facebook Page. Karen is leading tonight’s service, log on at 6:58pm to join in.

* The Kirk now has online giving! If you have not already 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 Peter Bennett, our treasurer, or Teri and she can give you his details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received. Remember: no one is coming to your door to collect your envelopes, so please stay safe!

* 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!

* You can download a free summary / recap of this year’s General Assembly from the Life and Work website here. 

* Starter Packs update: in May Starter Packs were provided to 24 homes. Within these homes were 17 single people, 8 families including 13 children. The Monthly Focus for June is Children’s Shower Gel, Shampoo, Sponges/Face Cloths. Items in short supply: Shaving Foam, Soap and Hand Wash. As always, thanks to everyone for your continued support.