Sunday Service for 15 May 2022, fifth Sunday of Easter

15 May 2022, 5th Sunday of Easter
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by the Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143
Email: tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

Prelude Music (sanctuary only)

Welcome

Call to Worship
One: Come from your familiar and comfortable places,
to look for God in new ways.
All: We join our minds and hearts in seeking a glimpse of the One
in whom we live and move and have our being.
One: Come with your faith and your curiosity,
to meet others of God’s people.
All: We take the time to observe and learn,
trusting the Spirit will lead us to common ground.
One: Come to be present to all Christ places in your path.
All: We come, open to meet God, even here.

Prayer
In the marketplace of ideas, there’s always something new, O God. We confess that we are torn between our attachment to tradition and our belief that the latest fad will solve our problems, and so we trust the market to sort it out. We admit that when we contribute to public discourse, it is often either with judgment of others or demands for society to centre our feelings and desires. And we confess we are uncertain and anxious about sharing our faith story, worried we will get it wrong or offend. Forgive us, God, for our misplaced trust, for our misdirected speech, for our self-centering ways. Remind us that you are near, and give us confidence to allow your grace to take the lead, that we may be witnesses to the power of your love. Amen.

Online Hymn: You, Lord, Are In This Place, by Keith Duke
(Sanctuary Hymn 510: Jesus Calls Us Here To Meet Him)

(Sanctuary only Children’s Time and Song: Hallelujah Christ is Risen)

Reading: Acts 17.16-34 (New Revised Standard Version)
Last week we heard about Paul encountering Jesus on the road to Damascus, and having his perspective changed and his life transformed as a result. He then went to various places to proclaim the good news and invite people into communities that follow Jesus together. Along with Barnabas, Silas, and Timothy he traveled from Antioch to Cyprus and many cities of modern day Turkey in between, including Thessalonica and Philippi. In many places, they encountered opposition from those who did not wish to receive the message about Jesus as God’s messiah, and they had to leave quickly and go to the next town. We pick up the story today in Acts chapter 17, beginning at verse 16, just as they have escaped a riot, with Paul, Silas, and Timothy leaving town separately to meet up again in the next city. I am reading from the New Revised Standard Version.
~~~~

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there. Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.’ (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.’ Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said,
“For we too are his offspring.”

Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’

When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

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: Good New Days
Once upon a time, Athens had been the centre of everything. It had been well known as the place for intellectuals in every field, brimming with ideas about mathematics, philosophy, government, and the arts. People came from all around to experience it.

By the time Paul arrived in Athens, those bright days had dimmed into the past. The centre of power had shifted to Rome, and Athenians were left trying to recapture what once was. They filled their city with statues and shrines, and filled their time with ideas and debates, hoping desperately that something would bring them back to the days when they were bursting at the seams with young people, money, power, and vitality.

The people of Athens tried everything that used to work, and the things they saw other people doing too. They made statues and sacrifices and offerings in every place and to every god they could think of. They worshipped at the altar of memory, of success, of fashion, of the latest trends and the oldest mysteries. They covered all their bases, hedging their bets even with an altar to an unknown god—just in case they might have missed one along the way.

It was a strategy of desperation, full of activities, bound by extremes, and longing for something they couldn’t quite put their finger on. While the Epicurean and the Stoic philosophers—as far apart on opposite ends of the spectrum of philosophy as you can get—debated in the marketplace, the people gorged themselves on any crumb that might bring back the good old days.

Paul walked in and said “I see how religious you are,” and that can sound sarcastic to us, because of course in hindsight we can see that they’d missed the point. Religion isn’t about doing things that look religious, it’s about connection and relationship and experience between God and human, which can’t be bought. But in the moment, Paul was simply acknowledging the hope the Athenians held, that they might be able to do what they’d always done and find it returned them to the glory days they remembered.

Paul started where they were, and then built on that hope—he started with a bright spot: an altar to a god unknown, a desire for more, a longing for a new story—and he combined it with their own familiar words in order to offer them The Truth: God, who created all things, cannot be controlled by us, no matter how many statues and sacrifices we make. God, who created all things, is so close to us that it is impossible to know ourselves apart from the divine. And God, who created all things, is doing a new thing even right now, even while we are busy trying to recreate the past. He took their old story and showed them how it could be the beginning of a new story, rather than simply re-treading the old ways that no longer worked. He used their own poets, their own storytellers, their own words, to give them a way in to seeing their part in God’s story.

It’s so interesting that the Athenians, for all their seeking, could not see God already in their midst. Their own poets said “he is not far from each one of us.” Their own altars had a sense of mystery. It was clear that their attempts to get their way by controlling the gods were ineffective. It had to be obvious to them that the past was never coming back—I mean, even their public discourse had descended into arguments between polar opposites.

And yet it had not occurred to them that maybe God, in whom we live and move and have our being, was also dynamic, not static. It had not occurred to them to look around and see what God was doing, or if there might be a future just as bright as the past. They spent so much time looking at yesterday that there was no room for tomorrow.

It makes you wonder: what can’t we see? What has never occurred to us? Are there ways we are like the Athenians? How have we trapped God in a static set of ideas and missed out on God’s dynamic, ever-moving ways? Have we also crowded out tomorrow by clinging to yesterday? And what next chapter could be written from the seeds of our well-known stories?

The next chapter will feel ridiculous, of course. Because raising someone from the dead is, frankly, ridiculous. If God does things like resurrection—things so completely uncontrollable and unbound—then what does that mean for those who want to be in relationship with God? If God can’t be bought, or appeased, then how are we supposed to relate? If God is God—loving, just, and faithful—no matter what we do, then what exactly are we supposed to do? It seems that if the relationship with God is not a transaction, where we control at least a portion of the situation, then it’s not worth it. If it’s true that our life, movement, and existence is held by God, is in God — a God who can do anything, even overcome the power of sin and death — then we cannot be separated, we cannot be cut off, we cannot truly be lost, and there is nothing to earn.

The implications were too much to handle for many of the people who heard — just as they still are today, if we’re being honest. Ever since that day they met Paul, people across time and place have heard this story and decided to turn away—sometimes we have turned away by constructing elaborate theological systems that allow us to feel like we have some control, and sometimes we have turned away by simply insisting it doesn’t make sense, or even by simply glossing over the power and shock of resurrection and acting as if it’s so normal it makes no difference. Sometimes we have turned away by believing the church is a building we visit now and then, like a shrine to an idol, and sometimes we have turned away by using the words of scripture to pretend that God’s grace is only available to some. There are many ways to scoff at what God offers, because we cannot comprehend unconditional love.

But a few people followed the Way. And a few people said “we want to hear more.” It wasn’t a giant crowd that converted that day, but it was enough. Those few changed lives, and those few curious hearts, were enough to set a new story in motion:
a story that didn’t look sideways at what others are doing,
or backwards at where we used to be,
a story that helps us learn to see God right in the midst of
where we are right now, who we are right now,
to discover that God is as close as our own breath—
and is always leading us forward into the kingdom,
into the good new days God has planned.

May it be so.
Amen.

Hymn 506: All I Once Held Dear by Graham Kendrick

Mission Focus: Inverclyde Youth For Christ

In sanctuary worship today, we are commissioning Charlene for her role as youth worker with Inverclyde Youth For Christ. She will reaffirm her faith, and answer questions about her commitment to reaching young people with the grace of God. We as a congregation will also answer questions about our commitment to support her ministry in whatever way we can, including prayer and financially. We will pray for her and give her a blessing, too: “may you know the blessing of being present, the blessing of making space for others, and the blessing of the right words at the right time, as you bear the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit into the lives of young people. Amen.”

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer

You came to live among us, Lord,
knowing the fullness of human experience,
starting where we are yet revealing the way to your kingdom.
We give you thanks for your incarnate Word,
and for your resurrection power bringing us into community with you.
And we pray that you would move us along the journey,
for this world feels so stuck.
We are divided, and unwilling to loosen our grip on our rightness.
We are captured by nostalgia and can’t imagine a future.
We insist on doing what we’ve always done, hoping for a different outcome.
And so we cannot find our way to a story of peace, or justice, or hope.
We see news of violence in Palestine, in Sri Lanka, in Afghanistan, in Ukraine, in South Sudan,
and we feel helpless to change anything,
yet we pray that people may be comforted in grief,
strengthened in resilience,
encouraged in adversity,
and challenged to turn away from hatred and oppression and injustice.
And when they must flee, seeking refuge or a better life,
when desperation drives them to dangerous crossings of sea and desert,
we pray that people may be met with warmth and hospitality,
with compassion and practical help,
for we remember that whatever we do to the least of these, we do to you.
Just as you taught us to do to others as we would have done to us,
grant us the courage to treat our neighbours of other nations
with the same love and care we have received from you and would expect for ourselves.
We give thanks for our ability to participate in our community and government,
and we pray for our councils as they organise for a new session of serving the common good,
and we ask for your spirit of grace and wisdom to be their constant guide.
We pray today especially for the situation in Northern Ireland as they seek a way forward,
and also hold in our hearts the people of Lebanon as they vote today.
May all who find themselves in positions of power or influence be faithful
in pursuing truth, justice, and a future with hope.
You are a God who meets us where we are
yet does not leave us there but calls us forward into your kingdom.
Show us how to follow you this day,
to be fully here, wherever you have planted us,
to listen well and value whatever glimpses of you others show us,
to speak the truth we know without needing to control the outcome.
We ask in the name of the risen Christ, who taught us to pray together…

(Sanctuary Hymn 252: As a Fire is Meant for Burning)

Benediction
Go from the familiar and comfortable, with curiosity and faith, to look for God in unexpected places, to hear Christ’s word through unexpected voices, to follow the Spirit leading you to unexpected opportunities. 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 (sanctuary only)

Announcements
* Happy Easter! Easter is a season that lasts for 50 days, so we will be celebrating resurrection for the next several weeks.

*You are invited to join in reading the Bible in a year for 2022 — immersing ourselves in God’s word throughout the year. Click here to find a reading plan that’s five days a week (leaving a couple of days for catch up each week!). Watch this space for information about a Bible study as we go through the scriptures together!

* Join our team walking for Christian Aid in the month of May! You can sign up here with Christian Aid to join in, and be sure you join our St John’s fundraising team! If you can’t walk all 300,000 steps yourself, you can do it as a group or a family, too! If online fundraising doesn’t work for you, you can also pick up an envelope at church. 
**You can join Teri for a midweek walk on Wednesday at lunchtime this week — meet at the top of Bath Street beside the church at noon, or at the cenotaph at 12:05, for a walk-and-talk along the front (nice and flat!). 

* 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. We can now welcome up to 85-100 people for worship with one-chair-between-households distancing. No booking is required. Masks are required at all times inside the building, including while singing. 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.

* Tonight we will gather for evening prayer on the Connect Facebook Page, led tonight by Karen. 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!

* The Spring Church Notes are now available! You can read them by clicking here.

*Young Adults Bible Study is on Zoom most Sunday afternoons. Contact Teri for the link to join and for a copy of the book they are using.

* To learn more about Inverclyde Youth For Christ, and to support the ministry Charlene is doing with young people in our community, click here to visit their website.