Sunday Service for 9 August 2020, eleventh Sunday of Pentecost

9 August 2020: 11th Sunday of Pentecost
Service prepared by the Rev. Teri C Peterson,
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Contact: tpeterson@churchofscotland.org.uk

* At this time the St John’s Kirk Session has decided, for a variety of reasons, not to open the building yet. We will continue to worship online and via the telephone recording ministry, with mid-week offerings on video and by email, and through phone calls and zoom gatherings. If you have questions about this, please do contact Teri, or Cameron, or your elder. However, the building works that were suspended during lockdown are resuming. If you see people around the church building, they are likely contractors, and we would ask that you go ahead and say hello but keep a safe distance, and do not enter the building at this time. It’s important that we do everything we can to ensure they have a safe worksite, so that they can continue the work both on the tower and inside the sanctuary as quickly and safely as possible.

Though we cannot be together in person, we can be together in spirit! Please note the following announcements:

* Coffee Fellowship Time will happen today on Zoom! The room will be open from 11:45 – 12:45 for you to drop in for however long you wish, so grab a cup of tea or coffee (or juice or whatever you prefer!) and maybe a biscuit, and come have a chat! We look forward to seeing you! 

* 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 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 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!

* We also now have an audio recording of the service available on the phone! Simply dial 01475 270 037 to listen to the most recent service. Please share this number with your neighbours, friends, family, and fellow church goers who don’t have the internet, so they can listen in!

* The theme for worship this summer is “Postcards of Faith” — we’ll be getting some postcards from God’s people throughout scripture, following their journeys with God and each other.

* This summer we are taking a Church Family summer trip! We’ll be journeying together from Shore to Shore — the shores of the Clyde to the shores of the sea of Galilee, to the hometown of St. John the Evangelist. Keep track of how much time you spend in prayer, reading the Bible, serving others, or going for a walk. For every 10 minutes, you move us 1km along the journey! Then each week send Teri a note, text, or phone call saying how far you “traveled” this week. On our return journey, we have now reached Kusadasi, Turkey — from where we can get the ferry to Samos!

* Children’s Time happens each Sunday morning at 11am on Zoom. If you would like the login details, please contact Teri. 

* The Young Adult Bible Study (BYOPizza) resumes via Zoom at 1pm next Sunday, 9 August. We will be studying the Book of Revelation! If you’re aged 15-25 and would like the login details, please contact Teri.

* Churches across Scotland are calling people to join together in prayer on Sunday evenings at 7pm, placing a lit candle in the window and spending time in prayer for others. Our Sunday evening prayer services will be shared across our “Fuzzy Parish” (now called CONNECT). Tonight’s service will be led by Karen, and will begin at 6:57pm on the Connect Facebook page, and be sure to like / follow it while you’re there!

* Feel free to share this with others, with the attribution information at the top. If you know someone who does not have access to the internet and who also does not receive the tape ministry, you can either print this service out and share it with them, or let Teri know via email or phone call and we will be sure they receive a printed copy.

* Sign up to our YouTube Channel so you never miss a video. Don’t miss “wine and the word” — an occasional series during the 5pm hour that helps us transition from one part of the day to the next, via reflections similar to those that would normally have been in the “God’s Story, Our Story” take home inserts given out each week. 

* Mid-week there is a devotional email, which is also printed and included with the following Sunday’s sermon distribution to those without internet access. You can sign up for the email here.

* If you or a church member you know is in need of friendly phone calls or help with anything while they self-isolate, please contact Teri. Elders are already in contact with people in their districts as well, and you can pass information to them! We are hoping to continue and even deepen our connections to one another, building up the Body of Christ even when we can’t be in the building.

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Hymn 543: Longing for light, we wait in darkness

Reading, Prayers, Sermon, and sneak-peek at our new stained glass window!

Song: Jesus Fed Five Thousand Men

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Call to worship

Today, hear the call of Christ,
for we come seeking him, following him,
to the hillside beside the sea;
and even to us he says:
Come.
There is enough.
There is more than enough.
No matter who you are or where you have come from,
no matter what you have laid aside to come to this time,
no matter how busy you have been,
no matter what you already understand or don’t understand,
there is room for you here.
So come, let us worship God together.

(As the introduction to the reading today, we see the journey of our new stained glass window, from the first drawings to what it looks like today — glass waiting for lead!)

Reading: John 6.1-21 (New International Version)
Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing those who were ill. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Festival was near.
When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming towards him, he said to Philip, ‘Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?’ He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
Philip answered him, ‘It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!’
Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, ‘Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?’
Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, ‘Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.’ So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.’ Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were frightened. But he said to them, ‘It is I; don’t be afraid.’ Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.

Sermon: From the Old to the New (Postcards of Faith 8)

Where shall we get food for these people?

Philip didn’t exactly answer the question, did he? The question was where the food will come from…but Philip was first concerned about their lack of means to procure it.

To be sure, most of us would struggle if asked to buy food for 5000 men plus women and children. But in a time and place where the majority of people struggled to feed their own families, let alone anyone else, it was an absurd thought. I can imagine Philip panicking, even as I remember that one of the first things we were taught upon moving to Egypt was that people so valued hospitality that they would go into debt to put on a nice meal if you went to their house.

There are people in the world, and indeed in our own community, who would give anything for even just the taste that Philip’s six months of wages could have bought. Regardless of where it came from, even a bite of food that they didn’t have to agonise over or go into debt for would be a gift.

The way John tells this story, it was Jesus alone who thought of the need to feed this crowd of people, many of whom may not have eaten anything that day as they were walking, following him. The disciples may have assumed that either people packed their lunch for such a journey, or that they would simply go hungry. Indeed, the disciples were likely in the same situation as the crowd, coming from their working class backgrounds in the poorest outpost of an occupied land. Plus it’s easy to overlook hunger when we think we’re more in the business of souls than bodies.

But Jesus didn’t want to meet only the spiritual hunger people obviously had. He knew that their physical hunger was important too, that tangible needs must be met — both because our brains and bodies work better when we’re well-fed, and because pretending that physical hunger didn’t matter would be to perpetuate the injustice of the empire, which required that each person fend for themselves. The kingdom of God insists that if one person suffers, all suffer, and we are to support each other, not leave one another to figure it out or starve.

So Jesus asks — where shall we get this food? He’s hoping that his disciples will understand that there’s something new afoot, that the old empire ways of thinking can’t meet this new challenge, but that he has a kingdom-of-God vision and plan. Unfortunately, they are still trapped in the way they’ve always done it — there’s no money for that, Jesus!

But then Andrew meets someone.

Where will we get the food? From a young person who shares what they have.

That young person was taken seriously, both by Andrew and by Jesus. They affirmed his generosity and his leadership by receiving his gift, and St John affirmed it too, by including him in the story when it was written down. In this moment, Jesus and his disciples, and indeed the whole crowd, were living out the words of the prophet: that a little child shall lead them.

A child, who wasn’t even counted in the crowd that is reported to have been 5,000 men, not including women and children.

A child, who in other stories the disciples tried to shoo away.

A child, so often thought to be the future, not the present, and so is shunted off to another room until they can learn to sit quietly.

Where are we to get food for these people?

From a child who shares his gift.

I wonder if we, too, are willing to be led by young people? Are we willing to learn from the generosity of a child? Are we willing to follow their lead in addressing the crucial tangible needs of this world, like climate change, poverty, hunger, inequality, violence, and racism? There are young people around the world calling out to us about all these issues, doing the work of education and activism, begging the generations who have power and wealth to use them for good. Are we willing to be led if it means giving up our old ways of thinking and following into a new paradigm, a new worldview, a new set of mental categories about how things work?

The crowd couldn’t quite make that shift to the new way that was offered to them. They wanted to make Jesus king — to stuff him back inside the boundaries of the way they understood things. If he was acting like a shepherd, leading them and feeding them, and doing a better job of it than either their king or the emperor, he must be the new king who would also do everything else they wanted a king to do. Perhaps once he was squarely inside their conventional way of doing things, they’d be safe. But Jesus, who had fed them all from the generosity of a child, wasn’t in it for power and might, and he was unwilling to be controlled by their limited imaginations, so he took himself off to the mountains to reconnect with God, while the disciples went down to the boat to prepare for the trip home.

This summer we too have been on a journey — both as a church family, as we combined our walking, running, cycling, praying, and bible reading to travel together from Shore to Shore, and also a journey with people in scripture. Today’s reading actually includes three different physical journeys — to the far shore of the lake, then up the mountain, then onto the lake again, where Jesus walks through the storm to meet his disciples in the boat.

But there is another journey happening here, one that I hope we are all traveling, and that is the journey from the old things to the new, as the hymn puts it. From the ways we have previously understood the world to work, to the way God wants the world to work. From the worldview we have received from our culture and history and society, to the kingdom-oriented worldview that sees God’s purpose, presence, and power everywhere. From the categories and expectations we had of God, ourselves, and each other, to the far more expansive reality of God’s grace. More than bread was broken open and shared on that hillside.

In the story, the turning point in that journey is a young person, taking the lead, and his elders taking him seriously. There are plenty of young people in our midst who have ideas, gifts, and hearts to share — and though they may seem small in the face of the huge issues facing the world, in the hands of Jesus they are more than enough. So let us, now, be the Body of Christ!

May it be so. Amen.

Hymn 258: When the Hungry Who Have Nothing Share With Strangers
(Cuando el Pobre, text by Jose Antonio Olivar and Miguel Manzano, translated by Mary Louise Bringle)

When the hungry who have nothing share with strangers;
when the thirsty give such water as they have;
when in weakness, we lend strength to on another:
God goes with us on the pathways of our lives.
God goes with us on the pathways of our lives.

When the suffering find their comfort in our blessing,
when despair is turned to hope, radiant and bright;
when all hating melts in embers of our loving:
God goes with us on the pathways of our lives.
God goes with us on the pathways of our lives.

When rejoicing overtakes our hearts and gladness;
when the truth is in our lives and on our lips;
when our love for simple things helps conquer sadness:
God goes with us on the pathways of our lives.
God goes with us on the pathways of our lives.

When true goodness makes each home a hallowed shelter;
when our warfare yields to peace, and earth is blest;
when we find Christ’s human face in every neighbour:
God goes with us on the pathways of our lives.
God goes with us on the pathways of our lives.

Prayers

All we have and all we are comes from you, O God—
your generous providing sustains us all our days.
You give and give:
life and breath, creation’s bounty,
communities of care, hope and love.
You ask in return only that we live with gratitude,
extending the grace we have received,
sharing the blessings we have been given.
We confess that grace and gratitude are rarely our starting point,
for we are caught by our fears, our preconceived notions,
our usual ways of thinking and being and doing.
We ask your forgiveness for those times
we have held tightly to what is ours,
forgetting that all things belong to you,
and for those times
we have been unable to imagine a different way,
and sought to hem you in with our ideas.
We also ask your forgiveness and transforming grace
because we are so prone to separating physical and spiritual needs,
believing one is more important,
forgetting that you cared about the whole person
and bringing earthly justice as well as heavenly peace.
So we pray this day for all who are suffering,
in mind, body, or spirit, in home or community or nation.
We lift up our prayers for the people of Lebanon,
grieving and angry and still searching for loved ones.
We lift up our prayers for those dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane,
cleaning up and waiting for electricity to be restored.
We lift up our prayers for those who are ill,
especially at this time when illness isolates even more than usual.
We lift up our prayers for those who are grieving —
the loss of family or friends, the loss of job or home,
the loss of health and well-being through this difficult time in our world.
We lift up our prayers for those young people and families
whose exam results were not what they would have wished,
and for the teachers and staff who will help them discern their next steps,
and we rejoice with those celebrating their achievement.
We lift up our prayers for teachers, staff, and students
preparing to head back to school
with so many new pressures to manage and protocols to learn.
And we pray that you would make the rest of us
ready to receive the leadership of these young people, Lord,
as you are preparing them to share their gifts with the world.
We thank you, God, for your constant care,
for your willingness to meet us where we are and provide what we most need.
We pray that you would form and re-form us into your Body,
loving, serving, and caring for the world.
We ask these and all things
in the name of the One who gave himself for the life of the world,
Jesus the 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
As you go out into your week, whether that involves going out into the world physically or only virtually, or staying in, may you know that Christ himself cares for you, and may you also find a place to follow the lead of the next generation. 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.

Benediction Response
Words and tune (Gourock St. John’s): 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.