Sunday service for 16 October 2022

Sunday 16 October 2022, NL1-6 (moving God-ward 3)
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143 
Email: tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

Sanctuary: Prelude Music

Welcome/Announcements

Call to Worship
One: For as long as you can remember,
All: God has been with us.
One: As far back as you can trace your family tree,
All: God has been providing for us.
One: Way back before our history even began,
All: God has been moving us toward God’s way.

Hymn 167: Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah

Prayer
Your story is not yet finished, O God.
You created for yourself a world, you called for yourself a people,
you guided and protected and taught and called and loved…
and still you do.
Even now you are coaxing and inviting, pushing and pulling,
bringing us ever closer to you and your kingdom.
We are grateful that you still have more to say,
and grateful to be a part of this story you continue to tell.
When we are tempted to think the story is ours to write,
open our ears and hearts once again,
to hear anew, from a new angle, with new emphasis,
what you long to say to and through us in this new time and place,
and give us the courage to meet your passionate commitment with our own.

The earth is yours, Holy God,
and you show your love in the word and in the flesh.
We confess that we have not listened when you reminded us that all we have is a gift from you.
Instead we have trusted in ourselves, relied on our own ingenuity and hard work,
believed this is ours to use and enjoy because we earned it.
And so we must also confess that we have not always recognised when your story is meant
as an example or as a signpost or as a record or as a warning.
We have used your word to justify our own desires for control and power and greed.
Because we made it all about us,
we thought nothing of re-enacting the past without thought for the consequences for others,
placing ourselves at the top of the priority list.
Forgive us, God.
We have come as far as we can thinking we can simply forgive ourselves,
but the truth is that this is bigger than we are.
Forgive us for taking what did not belong to us, and using your word to justify it.
Forgive us for calling ourselves your children while acting as if others are not.
Forgive us for ignoring the context so that your story could appear to support our hurtful ways.
Turn us around again, and move us along your way.
Just as you carried our ancestors through the wilderness,
just as you formed your disparate people into one Body,
we pray you would bring us once again to yourself,
that we may learn to love you more truly, and so to serve you fully,
for to serve you is perfect freedom.
Amen.

Sanctuary Children’s Time— Song: We will walk with God (Sizohamba Naye)

Prayer of the Season
The whole earth is yours, O God.
From the beginning of the story,
you have been drawing us toward you.
We give you thanks that you have brought us this far
even when we feel like we have to trudge every step.
Though we don’t know how to be your people,
still you coax, call, and carry us forward.
Show us again today what it means to be people who live close to your heart,
not through our own efforts, but yours. Amen.

Reading: Joshua 24.1-17, 24-26 (NRSV)
After God gave the covenant at Mount Sinai, and the people said they would do everything the Lord had spoken, the Israelites went on their way…and soon found that actually doing what they had committed to do was much harder than saying it. As they travelled, learning how to put God’s word into action, how to live as the community God called them to be, and how to trust God, the whole generation that had come out of Egypt died, and the new generation grew up in the wilderness. After forty years out there, God brought the people into the promised land, and the book of Joshua tells of battles and conquest, claiming this violence was done in God’s name. Today we hear about the gathering of the elders and other leaders of the people at the end of this time, when everyone was settling down and living somewhat peaceably for a time. The story is in Joshua chapter 24, and I am reading from the New Revised Standard Version.

Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel; and they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said to all the people, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Long ago your ancestors—Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor—lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac; and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I gave Esau the hill country of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in its midst; and afterwards I brought you out. When I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, you came to the sea; and the Egyptians pursued your ancestors with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. When they cried out to the Lord, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and made the sea come upon them and cover them; and your eyes saw what I did to Egypt. Afterwards you lived in the wilderness for a long time. Then I brought you to the land of the Amorites, who lived on the other side of the Jordan; they fought with you, and I handed them over to you, and you took possession of their land, and I destroyed them before you. Then King Balak, son of Zippor of Moab, set out to fight against Israel. He sent and invited Balaam son of Beor to curse you, but I would not listen to Balaam; therefore he blessed you; so I rescued you out of his hand. When you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, the citizens of Jericho fought against you, and also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I handed them over to you. I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove out before you the two kings of the Amorites; it was not by your sword or by your bow. I gave you a land on which you had not laboured, and towns that you had not built, and you live in them; you eat the fruit of vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.
‘Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.’

Then the people answered, ‘Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods; for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight. He protected us along all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed.

The people said to Joshua, ‘The Lord our God we will serve, and him we will obey.’ So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and made statutes and ordinances for them at Shechem. Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God; and he took a large stone, and set it up there under the oak in the sanctuary of the Lord.

For the word of God in scripture,
for the word of God all around us,
for the word of God within us,
thanks be to God.

Sermon with Act of Commitment
Every time the Israelites have a turning point moment in their community’s life, they pause to tell their story. At Mount Sinai, just three months after leaving Egypt, they had to be reminded of how God had dealt with the Egyptians and parted the sea and fed them for their journey. Forty years in the wilderness brought the new generation to the banks of the Jordan, where they heard Joshua telling them the story of God moving them from a people who were shaped by their experience of enslavement to a people who were shaped by God’s providing and care, able to trust that God would help when they were in need and protect them when they were in danger. And then once they entered the land, and encountered the people who already lived there, the story they told was of fighting and killing everyone to take possession of their land and homes and fields and towns — a story that doesn’t always match the archaeological record but was important for how the people understood themselves as chosen…and it shaped how they would behave in future, with the belief that God fought for them. At the end of that period of conquering, whatever form that actually took, we find today’s story, when Joshua brought the people together to remind them again of the story they were in danger of forgetting.

People who have recently won battles — or told tales of winning battles, anyway — may not always remember the whole truth. After all, the story told by the victors often blanks out the story of those who were conquered, doesn’t it? And sometimes our rightful pride in achieving something we worked hard for eclipses the truth that we also had help — both help from God and help from others. Whether that help is in the form of direct assistance from family and friends who support us with a listening ear, a friendly face, a shoulder to cry on, an encouraging word, a home cooked meal, or even things like help with our bills, or a place to live, or help with childcare…or in a more societal way, with schools and roads and healthcare all supported by the whole community through taxes and service and more…the reality is that none of us have achieved entirely on our own. We are part of an ongoing story that began before us and will continue after us, and our accomplishments are a chapter — an important chapter, yes, and one that could only be done this way by us! — but a chapter, not the whole.

At these turning point moments, the people of God stop to remember the bigger story, to acknowledge that they didn’t do this on their own, they are part of something God has been doing, and will continue to do. Joshua reminds the people of God’s initiative — starting all the way back with God calling Abraham from beyond the river, tracing his family and the ways God led them, the help God gave when the people were oppressed in Egypt, the protection God offered from stronger nations who opposed them at every turn.

I wonder how we would tell the story of St John’s, at this turning point in the life of the Church of Scotland? What are our accomplishments, our successes, the important moments where we have seen God’s hand at work in our community life?

(Recent events…)

—changing of sanctuary seating in late 1990s
—putting the membership roll on the computer in 1988
—beginning of tea and coffee after worship in 1985
—finally ordaining our first women elders in 1980, nearly 15 years after the Assembly allowed it
—first Easter sunrise service on Tower Hill in 1978
—full parish visitation in 1964
—change to non-alcoholic communion wine in 1914
—making our voice heard on various community, national, and global issues, whether it was protesting the bowling club selling alcohol on Sundays in 1976, or protesting Sunday trains in 1846 when the train line didn’t come to Gourock yet but we still cared about what was happening around us, or sending financial assistance to support mission work and relief efforts in Ethiopia and South Africa and Malawi, or supporting local charities like the coal fund…or being the first in Gourock to promote Christian Aid week in the late 1960s
—perhaps we would want to look back to the origins of this congregation, in 1843 when the minister and 311 members of the established church in Gourock came out and formed the Free Church, later to be called St John’s, and the first building our ancestors built was both church and school. From the very beginning we have been engaged in the everyday lives of young people, not only their Sunday lives.
—It’s important to look back honestly at our part in God’s story — including the reality that one of those elders who came out in 1843 was Colonel Darroch, who donated the land on which this building sits…land which was acquired by his ancestors by money they made from enslaved labour in Jamaica.
—Maybe we would want to go even farther back, to the Scottish Reformation and John Knox…or farther, to Martin Luther and his 95 theses nailed to the church door in Wittenberg that sparked the protestant reformation…or farther, to the Roman Empire making Christianity the state religion and embedding in us ideas of our place in the power structures of society and government…or farther back, to the apostles in the book of Acts and the ways they shared everything in common…or back to Jesus…or, with Joshua, all the way back to Abraham…or perhaps even back to Noah, or to the moment God planted the human being in the garden with instructions to be a good steward of the earth.

What if we told the story of this church not through the building and the ways it has changed, or not changed, and not through the lens of who the minister was, or what we have done, but rather through the lens of what God has done? How does it feel to think of God leading the Rev. Dr. Donald McLeod out into the unknown and financially uncertain future in 1843? God opening the hand of Colonel Darroch to give away wealth that came through unsavoury means and dedicate it for the service of God’s kingdom? God leading us to the top of Tower Hill in 1978, and every Easter since? God leading us to start sharing fellowship after worship in 1985, and God drawing us through the link corridor every Sunday? God inviting us to remove the pews and put in chairs? God calling leaders and families into the youth organisations nearly every weeknight for the past 125 years? God sending us into schools rather than relying on Sunday mornings to reach children?

Joshua ends his story by asking the people standing there that day to make a choice. Their ancestors had made the choice to be a part of God’s story, but it isn’t enough to simply rest on the choices of those who came before — now they had to make that choice for themselves. It is important to be reminded of the bigger picture and wider truth: that God has brought us to this point, and given us a life that is a next chapter of a story, not a standalone story we created, and not one we can simply repeat from the past. Once we hear that reminder, though, we have a choice to make: do we want to take up our part in this ongoing story, or do we want to choose another story? Joshua calls us to the decision, here, now, today: choose this day whom you will serve, whether it’s the Lord or some other god that clamours for your attention. Choose this day whether God’s priorities will also be ours, or whether we will focus on our own desires and comfort.

So today we are invited to choose: do we want to take up our part in God’s story, and prioritise what God calls us to do today — which may not be what God called our ancestors to do last year or forty years ago or 140 years ago?

As a mark of their commitment, Joshua set up a stone. Today as a mark of our commitment, I invite you to light a candle. Just as a city on a hill cannot be hid, and lamp should not be covered up but give light to all in the house, we are invited to commit to letting the beacon of blessing shine from this hilltop into every part of this parish, this town, this world. Choose today: to pick up the torch and be the light God has kindled.

May it be so. Amen.

Online Hymn: I Will Follow (Chris Tomlin)
Sanctuary Hymn 500: Lord of Creation

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
You call, O God,
and you provide.
We cannot measure or count all you have done for us,
and so we pray for the strength to show our gratitude in our lives.
As we remember and give thanks for all you have done for us,
and for those whose faithfulness brought us to this place,
we also pray for our neighbours whose stories are often unheard.
We call to mind those who have been displaced or conquered,
whose lives have been uprooted
and whose stories are overwritten simply because they were not victorious.
We remember that they too are beloved, and deserving of care,
and that they have longed for recognition and compassion.
May all people have a place to call their own, to rest and be known and be at peace.
We lift up those around the world who are not able to tell their own story,
whose voices are subsumed in statistics or headlines,
or who find themselves a prop in someone else’s play.
We ask your help for those who are not able to choose their own work, home, relationships,
or even how they will use their own bodies.
May all people be free to commit themselves to whatever you call them to do.
We offer our prayers today for those lands that are marred by violence,
where the landscape itself tells stories we have tried to hide.
We hear your creation crying out, and we pray for courage to face the truth
as its prayers rise through us to you.
May the world know abundant life, as you promised.
We ask these and all things in the name of Christ,
through whom we are connected with all your people,
in whose story we find ourselves.
and 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: I Will Follow (praise band)

Benediction
Friends, each day we must choose whom we will serve. Go into the world committed to God’s story in a new way — to share the good news of God’s liberation and providing, to turn the page away from conquest and toward Christ’s peaceful community, to depend on the Spirit. And as you go, may you experience the blessing that is both for you and for you to share. 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

* We are hosting an October holiday club for Primary aged children this coming week, 18-20 October, on the theme “Life in Plastic, NOT Fantastic: Caring for God’s Good Earth.” More information and registration is available at our website. If you are able to help in the kitchen from 11-1 on Wednesday or Thursday, please contact Teri ASAP!

* TONIGHT, 16 October, at 7pm we are hosting a BIG SING, with the Connect+ singing group! The group will lead us in short songs from around the world, including songs from Iona, Taize, various countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, and will guide us in harmonies and rhythms we didn’t know we could do. It will be a wonderful evening of making a joyful noise. No experience necessary, no need to read music, just the willingness to join in!

* You are invited to join in reading the Bible in a year for 2022 — immersing ourselves in God’s word throughout the year. We get together to discuss each week on Wednesday at 7:30pm in the manse at 6 Barrhill Road. All are welcome, no experience necessary! Feel free to invite a friend, too! Anyone who has ever wondered just what the Bible actually says and what it has to do with us is welcome.

* All worship is online (or on the phone at 01475 270037, or in print) and we also meet in the sanctuary at 11am. 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.

* 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 be 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!

* Young Adult Bible Study meets in the manse on the 2nd and 4th Sundays at 7pm for a meal and a study of the gospel according to John. If you’d like more information, for yourself, a family member, a friend, or neighbour who is in their 20s, please contact Teri for the dates/times and other information.