Sunday Service for 20 March 2022, third Sunday in Lent

20 March 2022, third Sunday in Lent
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by the Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse phone: 632143 
Email: tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

To hear the audio recording of this service, please phone 01475 270037. It’s a local landline number so minutes should be included in your phone plan.

Prelude Music

Welcome

Call to Worship
1: Come into the presence of Christ,
for he is making us ready for holiness.
2: Come into the presence of community,
for together we lift one another into faithfulness.
All: In humility and trust, we come to be made into Christ’s body.

Prayer with Hymn 776: Ukrainian Kyrie
Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison.

You love us to the end, and beyond, O God.
You give yourself to us,
beyond our comprehension.
We cannot fathom the depth of your love
nor the cost of your gift,
yet we see the path you walk and the way you choose.

Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison.

You, Lord, kneel in front of us, and we are uncertain how to respond.
We confess that we do not like the feeling of not being in control of what you’ll do next.
You are the source of all holiness, yet you stoop down to serve all,
and call us to do the same, and we admit it makes us uncomfortable.
We confess that we love to serve, but on our terms,
so that we never have to be vulnerable enough to receive.
Yet you insist that we must experience the fullness of your love,
if we are to share it.
So forgive us for refusing to allow you to work in us, and wash away our self-reliance.
Forgive us for our unwillingness to truly break down the power structures
that make us always the giver and others always the needy,
and wash away our arrogance.
Cleanse us and make us ready to stand in your presence
and to walk your way of love for the world.

Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison.

You break down dividing walls
and social norms and power structures
with nothing but a basin and a towel,
gathering all your people into your holy presence.
As we are made new this day, make us ready to follow your example,
to create a community of mutual care that transforms the world.
Amen.

Music
Online: The Servant King 
In person:
 

Reading: John 13.1-18 (NRSV) — Annette Holliday
Last week we heard about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. The religious leaders saw that as a dangerous act, and from that moment they began looking for a way to get rid of him. Jesus continued to go about the community, teaching and sharing meals. At one such meal, at Lazarus’s house, Lazarus’s sister Mary brought a large amount of expensive perfumed ointment and used it to anoint Jesus’ feet, and Jesus proclaimed that she had anointed him for his death. The next day, he entered Jerusalem while crowds waved branches and shouted Hosanna. Many at all levels of society believed and many others did not, so there was division among the leaders about what to do, but the most vocal were looking for a way to kill him, even though it was just a few days until Passover. And then, after three years of teaching and miraculous signs, he retreated with his disciples to teach them the last things he needed them to know. This section of John’s gospel is called the “farewell discourse” and today I am reading from the very beginning of that discourse, in chapter 13, beginning at verse 1. I am reading from the New Revised Standard Version.
~~~~

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.’ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’

After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do 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: The Voice of Self-Sufficiency
Whenever I say that this is the reading coming up, people get a slightly scared look in their eye, and with much trepidation they ask “are you going to make us wash each others’ feet?” Even as I was preparing the cover slide for this Sunday, I tried to find a picture that wouldn’t make people afraid that I was planning a foot washing ceremony. For some reason, we really really don’t want to do that.

It’s interesting because I think the discomfort is mostly on one side. I suspect that many of us would be perfectly happy — if we could physically get down on the floor, anyway — to be the one doing the washing. After all, Jesus said that we should be like him, serve others. We hear that call to serve and we want to do it. We recognise our privilege and want to help those who have less. We count our blessings and want to give to those whom we think are somehow less blessed. We see that we have more than we need and we want to give some of that extra to people who don’t have enough. Serving others is part of who we are as Christians, what we understand to be our purpose as people who follow Jesus.

Sometimes we forget that when he washed his disciples’ feet, it was a reversal of social status and hierarchy — for the teacher to lower himself literally to the floor in front of his disciples to serve them was a shock. But still, we don’t mind, as long as it isn’t too terribly inconvenient. We will kneel and offer our bit of extra, leftover time or money as a gift of care to people who haven’t experienced much compassion or grace from others.

But when it comes to being the one sitting in the chair, receiving a gift of care, allowing someone else to serve us, we rapidly become like Peter. “You will never wash my feet!” I can’t even count the number of times people have said to me “I don’t want anyone to have to help me.” Especially from people who have spent their lives helping others.

We are far more comfortable serving than being served.

Usually I then invite people to consider that they would be creating opportunities for someone else to fulfil their calling to Christian service…if no one is willing to accept help, to let themselves be served, then how are we supposed to serve one another?

But ultimately I think there’s a bigger issue here. Because in the ancient world, the far and away most common way foot washing happened was that people washed their own feet. The host would provide basins of water, and guests washed themselves. It was only the poshest of homes that an enslaved person might do it for you. It was certainly never the host himself, of course, but in the vast majority of instances, people washed themselves.

And we are so used to the ideal of being self-sufficient, aren’t we? We can do it ourselves. We can take care of ourselves. We don’t need anyone.

Friends I am here to tell you that the voice of self-sufficiency is a liar. All of these ideas are lies, and they draw us away from the way of Christ.

Notice what Jesus said to Peter, when Peter said he would not allow Jesus to wash his feet, meaning that he would wash his own feet, thank you very much — Jesus said “unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”

That’s a pretty harsh assessment. Peter was perfectly capable of washing his own feet. And if Jesus had asked, he probably would have gotten down on the floor and washed Jesus’ feet too. What Jesus actually asks is much harder: to wash each other. Which means both serving and being served, giving and receiving, caring and being cared for.

The thing is, when we wash ourselves, we’re in control. And actually, when we serve someone else, we’re also in control. But when we’re the ones being cared for, we are no longer in control. It’s a vulnerable situation to be in, and we don’t like it. But Jesus says that if all we want is control, and never want to be vulnerable…that’s not a real relationship. It’s a power play. And there’s no room in the Body of Christ for power plays, however well intentioned or subconscious it may be. Heeding the voice of self-sufficiency means that we are not listening to the voice of Christ…and the voice of self-sufficiency is loud and persistent, ingrained in us so we hear it both from outside, in the culture, and from inside ourselves as we replay the ways we were brought up to never be dependent on anyone, because then we might be like “those” people — the people we think are beneath us, the underprivileged, the less. Following the voice of Jesus instead of the lies of self-sufficiency will align us with exactly those people that we subconsciously look down on as we help them.

Just before today’s reading, in chapter 12, Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with very expensive perfumed ointment, and Jesus received that gift of service and love from her. Judas complained the money should have been given to the poor, and Jesus said “the poor you always have with you” — meaning not that there will always be poor people we can give to, serve, or patronise, but rather that literally, Jesus’ disciples will always be with the poor. Not distant from them, giving from afar, but literally with — no them and us, just us — in one community, serving each other. Giving and receiving, with no distinction between who has the privilege of always being the giver and who has the need to always be the recipient.

Having had his own feet washed and anointed, Jesus then turns and washes his disciples. All of them, even Judas who was already preparing his betrayal, perhaps in part because of that teaching about being in community with the poor. This is the example Jesus sets: everyone, including the denier and the betrayer, get washed. Everyone, even Jesus and even Judas, is called to give and to receive. No one is so far above that they never receive, and no one is so far below that they never give. The Body of Christ is a community of interdependence and mutuality. Anything else and we are choosing the voice of self-sufficiency instead, and so we have no share in Christ.

And Jesus says: if you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

May it be so. Amen.

(Online hymn 694: Brother, Sister, Let Me Serve You)
In person Hymn 484: Great God, your love has called us here

In person: Baptism

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer

Let us pray.
Eternal God,
your essence is love
and you made us in your image.
For your love which surrounds and infuses
all things, O Lord,
we give thanks.
For your love which shines in every face,
we give thanks.
And we pray for the courage to live love,
to be vulnerable and real,
to share and hold confidence and offer peace.
We pray for those places where love seems absent—
where despair grows and shadows threaten.
We long for answers,
or at least a sense of your guiding presence in the confusion.
We lift up those who live daily with violence and fear,
especially in Ukraine, and also so many other places near and far.
We lift up those here in community with us,
holding hurts and hopes in your loving light.
We lift up all those who have been seduced by the voice of self-sufficiency,
and pray that your voice of gracious mutuality and interdependence
would come through loud and clear.
Fill us again with your grace,
that we may know
the cleansing and renewing, calling and empowering
water flowing over us,
until we learn to both give and receive generously,
to love each other as you have loved us,
and to let love grow even beyond these walls
until all are welcomed into your kingdom.
Make us bold to proclaim your grace, your forgiveness, your hope, your way.
Make us ready to receive it.
Make us again into your body, sharing your love with the world.
Remind us of the love poured on us in our baptism,
and bring us once again to new life with you.
Water the seeds that have been planted this day,
and help us bear fruit for your kingdom, living in your love.
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.

Benediction
Christ himself has prepared us for the Way, and given us this truth: If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. So go into your week to be blessed and to be a blessing: follow Jesus’ example, to both lift others and to be lifted by others, that together we may embody beloved community. 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

* We are now about halfway through the season of Lent, a season of preparing for Easter. During Lent we are invited to be particularly attentive to our spiritual practices, to remove things from our lives that are hindering our relationship with God, and to be diligent in pursuing faithful ways. This season is meant to get us ready to meet the risen Christ on the other side of the tomb, and to follow him wherever he will lead. The theme for worship during this Lenten season will be “Who’s Calling?” — thinking about how we incline our ear to the voice of Jesus through the cacophony of the world around us.

*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!

* 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 1m distancing between households. 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 with Christians across the nation for evening prayer on the Connect Facebook Page, led tonight by Teri. 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 Kirk Session will meet today after worship, with a light lunch provided.

* St John’s is hosting the Easter Code for P6 pupils on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday the 21st – 23rd of March, from 9-12 each day. If you would be available to help out on any or all of those mornings, please contact Teri.

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