Sunday Service for 22 August 2021
Sunday Service for 22 August 2021, 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday school Revisited week 13
Rev. Teri Peterson, Gourock St. John’s
Manse phone: 632143
Email: tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
To hear an audio recording of this service, including music, phone 01475 270037. Please tell your friends, neighbours, and fellow church members who don’t have internet access!
Prelude Music
Welcome/Announcements
Call to Worship
1: Surely the Lord is in this place —
whether we know it or not, God is present here.
2: God’s promise is true,
and God’s blessing is for the whole earth.
Teri: Sleeping and waking,
at home and abroad,
at work and at school and at play,
together and alone,
All: God is with us.
Prayer
Blessed are you, O Lord our God, for you are everywhere present, and your word is everywhere at work. In every place, you speak to us — in a small small voice, in a cry for help, in scripture, and in silence. You call us to follow where you lead, and we confess that we mostly want you to follow where we lead. Forgive us when we take matters into our own hands, unwilling to make space for your way. We admit that we would prefer your voice to call us into the safety of a sanctuary, not out into the wilderness of the world, and so we hear only what we want to hear and see only what we want to see. Forgive us when we ignore you for our own convenience, looking away from your image reflected in every face and talking over your word calling out in our community. We admit that we are only protecting ourselves from receiving a blessing we do not want, a blessing that asks something of us rather than simply giving to us. Forgive us our selfish ways and create us anew as your image-bearers, made to love, serve, and care for your world. We ask in the name of Jesus the Christ, who was obedient to your way and calls us to follow him. Amen.
Music
Online: You, Lord, Are in This Place (Keith Duke)
In Person: “O Isis und Osiris” from The Magic Flute by Mozart
Children’s Time (in person: back to school blessing)
Reading: Genesis 27-28, selected verses (New Revised Standard Version)
When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim so that he could not see, he called his elder son Esau and said to him, ‘My son’; and he answered, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘See, I am old; I do not know the day of my death. Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field, and hunt game for me. Then prepare for me savoury food, such as I like, and bring it to me to eat, so that I may bless you before I die.’
Then Rebekah took the best garments of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob; and she put the skins of the kids on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. Then she handed the savoury food, and the bread that she had prepared, to her son Jacob.
So he went in to his father, and said, ‘My father’; and he said, ‘Here I am; who are you, my son?’ Jacob said to his father, ‘I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me; now sit up and eat of my game, so that you may bless me.’ But Isaac said to his son, ‘How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?’ He answered, ‘Because the Lord your God granted me success.’ Then Isaac said to Jacob, ‘Come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.’ So Jacob went up to his father Isaac, who felt him and said, ‘The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.’ He did not recognise him, because his hands were hairy like his brother Esau’s hands; so he blessed him. He said, ‘Are you really my son Esau?’ He answered, ‘I am.’ Then he said, ‘Bring it to me, that I may eat of my son’s game and bless you.’ So he brought it to him, and he ate; and he brought him wine, and he drank.Then his father Isaac said to him, ‘Come near and kiss me, my son.’ So he came near and kissed him; and he smelled the smell of his garments, and blessed him, and said,
‘Ah, the smell of my son
is like the smell of a field that the Lord has blessed.
May God give you of the dew of heaven,
and of the fatness of the earth,
and plenty of grain and wine.
Let peoples serve you,
and nations bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
and may your mother’s sons bow down to you.
Cursed be everyone who curses you,
and blessed be everyone who blesses you!’
Jacob left Beer-sheba and went towards Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the Lord stood beside him and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’ Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!’ And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’
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: Opposite Blessings
I used to think that my brother and I were pretty bad as far as fighting and sibling rivalry goes. When we were younger we broke things, hurt each other, and shouted ourselves hoarse. I don’t know how our parents put up with us honestly.
And then I read the Bible, and the things that siblings get up to, even just in the book of Genesis, puts our petty squabbles to shame.
Jacob and Esau are a good example. They’re twins, and even in the womb they were already wrestling. While she was pregnant, their mother Rebekah suffered a lot from their constant movement, and when she prayed about it, she received a vision from God to say that she was giving birth to two nations…and that the younger would take precedence over the elder. Now of course they’re twins, so there’s not much room for younger and older, especially since Jacob was born quite literally on the heels of Esau — it says that he was holding on to Esau’s heel with his hand!
From that moment onward, they were rivals in every way. One was their father’s favourite, and one their mother’s favourite. One was skilled in hunting, the other in husbandry. On and on the list goes of how they were polar opposites of each other. And of course there’s the story where we learned that Jacob was a typical Scot as well — he was able to cook a good hearty meal, and his lentil soup was so good that when Esau came in from hunting and was so hungry, he agreed to sell his birthright, his inheritance, to his brother for a bowl of it! A good cook and canny too!
So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that there’s a twist to the story of their father preparing for his last days, and thinking about his legacy, wanting to give his eldest son a blessing.
Remember Rebekah had been told by God that “the elder will serve the younger.” She simply did, in her mind, what she had to do to ensure that God’s word came true. So she and Jacob worked out a plan to dress Jacob in Esau’s clothes, to cover him in goat hair, and to take in Rebekah’s best cooking. After all, Isaac’s eyesight had failed, and he wasn’t mentally as sharp as he’d once been either, so the plan that Rebekah and Jacob concocted paid off. They were able to manipulate and scheme their way into Jacob getting his father’s blessing.
Esau was murderously angry, of course, which is why Jacob fled towards Haran — the homeland of his grandfather Abraham, running away with only what he could carry. No servants, no livestock, no extra baggage allowance, just what he was wearing and a bag on his back as he headed into the wilderness.
When he laid down that night, exhausted from running, having left his mother with his dying father and his angry brother, the only thing he had to hand was a stone. We always think he used it as a pillow but it’s more likely to have been a large stone that he laid down next to, his back to it, protecting his head and back and hiding him from at least one angle as long as he didn’t stick his legs out. The wilderness is a dangerous place, especially at night, that’s the best he could hope for in terms of protection.
There, in the middle of nowhere, under the stars, his back to a stone, exhausted and sad, Jacob slept.
There’s nothing more vulnerable than a person who is mentally and physically exhausted, exposed to the elements, asleep.
And that is when God appeared.
Not when Jacob was controlling the situation and scripting the conversation, but when he was asleep, outside, far from home, alone.
There he saw the connection between earth and heaven, and how easy it is to move between them for those messengers doing God’s work. He understood that even there, in the wilderness, he was in the house of God, literally sleeping at the gates of heaven…and he had no idea.
Now at this point I could go on for quite some time about the fact that we, like Jacob, so often have absolutely no idea that God is in this place. Right here and now, wherever we find ourselves, is the gate of heaven. God has not left a single square millimetre of the universe without divine presence, it’s just that we choose not to see God all around us, and we choose to treat the creation as if it is not God’s house, but our own to abuse as we wish. Rather than being vulnerable and open to receiving the truth of the interconnectedness of heaven and earth, we have chosen to stay closed in order to manipulate and overpower creation for our own purposes, as if that will have no consequences for us or others or for the kingdom of God.
And that is all true.
But what I most want to notice with you today is slightly different. Related, in a way, but different.
Take a look at the blessing that Jacob and Rebekah worked so hard to get from Isaac. It is about two main things: material prosperity first (the fatness of the earth, plenty of wine), and power second (let peoples serve you, be lord over your brothers).
Those are things that many of us strive for. To have more than enough to satisfy our desires, and to have a higher status than other people. To work our way up the ladder, socially and economically, to be better off than our parents were — isn’t that what we’re culturally conditioned to work for our whole lives, and what our western economies require of us?
Now take a look at the blessing God gives to Jacob while he is sleeping at the gate of God’s house. God says “I am with you and will keep you wherever you go” and promises that this land will be full of his descendants, people who will be a blessing to others.
God blessed him with the knowledge of God’s constant presence everywhere, not just in holy places, and with the gift of being a blessing to others, to all the families of the world.
It’s the opposite of the blessing he’d manipulated his father for, which was about being served while God’s blessing is about being a blessing.
One is what we often think of as blessing, we work for it or we say we’re “so blessed” when we have prosperity and power. And the other is what God thinks of as a blessing: to know God’s presence and share it with others, to spread the news that “surely the Lord is in this place” and to work for a world where all can experience God’s goodness here and now.
In other words, as Jesus put it, to receive a blessing is not to be served, but to serve. To love as we have been loved. To represent God’s image in the world.
This doesn’t only apply to us as individuals, though it is the opposite of the way we use the word “blessed” culturally. It also applies to the church as a whole. A blessed church is not a church that has a lot of people and a lot of money and a high profile in its town or nation or the world. A blessed church is a church that gives itself away as a blessing to others. A blessed church isn’t a church with a beautiful building, a blessed church is a church that knows the people are the church, wherever we are. A blessed church isn’t a church that’s packed to the rafters, standing room only, a blessed church is a church that is reflecting the image of God outside the sanctuary walls, loving its neighbours in every neighbourhood where the church lives. A blessed church isn’t one that controls or manipulates to get what it wants, a blessed church is one that recognises God’s presence everywhere and stands up to say “Surely the Lord is in this place” — in the high street and in the train station and in the dark alleyways and in the deprived empty town centre and in the hospital and in the funeral parlour and in the drugs den and in the beautiful park and in the school and in the eyesore of a building and in the pub and in the fancy restaurant and in the community garden and in the close no one is caring for and in the care home and in the library and in the council offices and in the chippy and in the big fancy yachts and everywhere else.
The blessing we’ve been pursuing so hard for ourselves is actually no blessing at all, and while we’re putting all our energy into that, we can’t see what’s right in front of us. Which means a blessed church has to be one that is full of people who are willing to pause, to let our guard down, to be vulnerable, to stop working so hard for our own institutional survival and the desires of those already inside the walls, and instead make space for God to speak…even if it’s to give us a blessing we aren’t sure we actually want. Because that’s what comes when one sleeps at the gates of heaven.
When we are vulnerable enough to recognise that the Lord is in this place, and that the Lord is calling us to be a blessing to others, then what will we do? How will we give ourselves away to share the good news, to spread the blessing far and wide, to participate in the work that all those messengers of God are doing when they go to and fro between heaven and earth?
When we answer that, we’ll find ourselves in God’s house, wherever we are.
May it be so. Amen.
In-person Hymn 716 Come and Find the Quiet Centre (in person only)
Online hymn: God of Justice
Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer
Loving God,
you are the giver of every good gift,
the one who bestows blessings,
even on the unworthy.
We give you thanks for your love
that transcends our boundaries,
overflowing our meagre dreams.
You have promised your presence,
walking with us every step of this life,
through pain and suffering as in joy and triumph.
And yet we long to know you,
we often wonder where you’ve gone,
and it seems the world looks in vain.
Where there is suffering, Lord, make your healing Spirit known.
We know you are present and we pray for people to see you in our neighbours
in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Yemen,
in places where the virus rages and vaccines are scarce,
in places fighting fires and reeling from floods,
in homes where tempers boil over and children live in fear,
in hospitals and homes, in schools and churches.
Fill your world with so much grace that we cannot help but love.
Fill your world with so much light that the shadows cannot get a foothold.
Fill your world with so much hope that all may know your abundant life.
We seek your face, O God. Reveal yourself again,
that we may know this and every place as the gate of heaven.
…
God, you created the world and called it good,
you made us in your image,
you called together your church to be your body in the world.
Create us anew this morning that we may reflect your glory,
your compassion, your love, your justice, your grace,
in every word and every action.
Guide us to do what you are blessing, that the world may know blessing through us.
We pray in the name of Jesus the Christ,
who came not to be served but to serve,
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 yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.
Amen.
in-person Hymn: God Be The Love to Search and Keep Me
Benediction
Friends, go out into the world looking for God’s presence and sharing God’s blessing, for it is in so doing that you will be blessed yourself. 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
* 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 will be 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, and families with children, 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 David. 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!
**** Do you know how to work an iPad or other tablet? Would you be willing to help someone else, one-on-one, learn to use theirs for basic things like email, YouTube, Facebook, and Zoom? Contact Teri for more information about volunteering, even just for a few hours a month, to help combat isolation by getting people connected.
** We are looking for someone to organise the coffee rota. We hope to offer tea and coffee after the service again soon, but first we need a coordinator who will keep track of the volunteers and supplies. If you’d be interested in learning more about what’s involved, please Contact Teri, Anne L, or Rab & Eileen G (former coordinators).
**Vhutshilo Mountain School 3rd Term Update
All staff received their Covid vaccine on the 9th of July and Vhutshilo Mountain School’s 3rd term began on the 26 of July. To date, staff and children are all healthy and well, as we continue to follow all Covid-19 protocols.
We have 63 students: 38 are sponsored thank you! and 25 fee students. Our multi-grade class has 20 students, pre-school class has 25 students, and toddlers has 18 students. We are busy educating them! We are now receiving assistance from the local department of education with curriculum development and teaching materials. The department liaison, Mr. Savhase, is very knowledgeable and helpful.
Computer lessons are going well. We have applied for improved internet connection, which should be available soon, providing greater access to students. We are very happy about this development and the many ways it will improve student learning.
VMS Outreach program
The vegetable garden is producing plenty of vegetables for both school and family food parcels. We handed out over 800 seedlings to caregivers between April and June. We will continue to offer vegetables and seedlings to our students and members of the community in need of food support.
Youth on A Mission continues to educate local school children through school visits and through a local weekly radio talk show. Flyers were designed and printed that provide information on sexual assault, HIV/AIDS, and teen pregnancy. It had been a challenge to distribute them due to the pandemic. Beginning next week we will again be visiting schools.
A local NGO, The Zwonka Network (Zwonka means beautiful), received funding to educate and train young women and girls in nail technology and education and training on gender-based violence, HIV/AIDS, and positive living skills. Trainees will be prepared to educate their peers in these same areas. Ten girls from VMS’s HIV+ support group were selected and are currently attending the training. They are gaining new skills that better prepare them for life and earning a living. The training began on the 2nd of August for the first ten young women. Another ten girls have been identified and a new training session will start on August 21st.
Ridgeway College, located in Louis Trichardt, recently donated multiple items of clothing, food and 45 blankets to our vulnerable students and support group children. These items were much needed and appreciated by all.
We appreciate your ongoing support! We couldn’t do it without you.
Thank You
Khathu Nemafhohoni.
