Sunday service for 3 December 2023, first Sunday in Advent

Sunday 3 December 2023 — NL2-13
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143 
Email: TPeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Email Charlene, Parish Assistant: CMitchell (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

Prelude Music

*We Gather As God’s Family (As the Bible is brought in, we stand and sing)
A family gathered in love,
striving for justice and joy,
blessing the broken-hearted,
and sharing the hope of God’s kingdom.

Welcome & Announcements

Call to Worship
One: Looking around at the world, it’s easy to lose heart.
All: The evidence we see doesn’t look good — we need a big breakthrough.
One: We want to believe God’s promise,
All: but some days it’s hard going.
One: Into this world, where so much is wrong,
All: into this weary world where we struggle along,
One: God speaks: The days are surely coming.
All: The days are surely coming!
One: It seems impossible, and yet…
All: Any moment could be the moment God breaks through.
The days are surely coming when God will fulfil the promise.

Online Hymn: O Come, Divine Messiah

Sanctuary Hymn: Now the Heavens Start to Whisper (text: Mary Louise Bringle; tune: Hyfrydol)

Lighting the Advent Candle
One: Look at the world —
All: But it feels like endless bad news
poverty / cruelty / war / grief / inequality / hate
One: Look at the world —
All: The world is weary.
*All sing: (hymn 303 it came upon the midnight clear v3)
But with the woes of sin and strife
the world has suffered long;
beneath the angels’ hymn have rolled
two thousand years of wrong;
and warring humankind hears not
the love-song which they bring;
oh, hush the noise and still the strife
to hear the angels sing.

One: Hush the noise.
Look closely.
You may have to
squint.
You may have to
peer
into the shadows.
But when you do…

~Candle is lit~

sharing / art / friendship / laughter / faith / community /

One: Look at the world —
All: The world God so loves
One: This is where the Messiah comes
not some faraway galaxy
not waiting for a perfect world
not a safe, sanitised, rose-tinted past
not where there’s plenty of room and plenty of time.
Here.
All: A thrill of hope: Emmanuel, God with us.

Hymn 273 vv. 1 : O Come O Come Emmanuel

Prayer
You are the source of our hope, O God.
We love the word hope, and the shiver of anticipation,
and the warm fuzzy possibilities of feeling good,
so we confess that we are easily seduced by the shallow, naive hope
that ignores the trauma of the world.
We don’t know how to face it all honestly,
so we use platitudes and shiny baubles and cheer, wishing for them to be good enough.
Or we decide to hold off,
not allowing any hope until the pain is already over and we can see the clearing of the way ahead.
But your hope is rooted in reality,
in the middle of the story not waiting for the best moment,
and real hope’s power is in its impossibility that opens a crack for light to shine in.
Forgive us for the times we say “it’ll be fine” as a way to make ourselves feel better,
even knowing it doesn’t help.
Forgive us for the times we’ve dismissed hope as naive,
assuming it can’t help us now.
Forgive us for insisting on choosing either suffering or hope,
rather than holding both as true.
Make space in us for your new world to become a possibility,
that we may trust you in the hardest of days and look for your promise to break through.
We ask in the name of the coming Righteous One who will restore all things.
Amen.

Sanctuary Children’s Time

Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 33.1-4, 10-16 (New Revised Standard Version)
The reading today is from the prophet Jeremiah, the 33rd chapter. This word from God came to Jeremiah when he was imprisoned, and the city of Jerusalem was under siege by a conquering army. The first round of leaders and artisans and elites had already been taken away into exile, and worse was yet to come. The people of God were in the middle of an epic disaster when Jeremiah passed this message on to them, and they were not sure there was anything worth hoping for.
~~~

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah a second time
while he was still confined in the court of the guard:
Thus says the Lord who makes it,
the Lord who forms it to establish it—
the Lord is his name:
Call to me, and I will answer you
and will tell you great and hidden things
that you have not known.
For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel,
concerning the houses of this city
and the houses of the kings of Judah that were torn down
to make a defense against the siege ramps and before the sword:

Thus says the Lord: In this place of which you say,
‘It is a waste without human beings or animals’,

in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate,
without inhabitants, human or animal,

there shall once more be heard
the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness,
the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride,
the voices of those who sing,
as they bring thank-offerings to the house of the Lord:
‘Give thanks to the Lord of hosts,
   for the Lord is good,
   for his steadfast love endures for ever!’
For I will restore the fortunes of the land as at first, says the Lord.

Thus says the Lord of hosts:
In this place that is waste, without human beings or animals,
and in all its towns
there shall again be pasture for shepherds resting their flocks.

In the towns of the hill country,
of the lowlands,
and of the Negeb,

in the land of Benjamin,
the places around Jerusalem,
and in the towns of Judah,

flocks shall again pass under the hands of the one who counts them, says the Lord.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord,
when I will fulfil the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David;
and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.
And this is the name by which it will be called:
‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

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: Practice Hope
Tomorrow morning is the first of six days of Bubblegum & Fluff — a workshop we do for Primary 5 classes about Christmas. The whole P5 year group from each school comes to a church hall for a morning of learning, and we play games, sing songs, do crafts, have a puppet show, and learn the real Christmas story. It’s a bit of a manic week but it’s really worthwhile as hundreds of children will learn the meaning of Christmas that’s sometimes hidden beneath the fluff but is still there at the core of it all.

Part of the programme involves talking about waiting…waiting for Christmas to come, waiting for the surprises that come with Christmas, waiting for what seems like forever, counting down the days…waiting waiting waiting. And we talk about how the people of God were waiting for God to do something, because they were living in a world where they knew things weren’t right, they were suffering under occupation, they were longing for God’s promises to be fulfilled…and that people had lots of different ideas about what exactly God was going to do — maybe a superhero, maybe a military leader, but ultimately God did something that no one was expecting and no one would have thought could work: came as a baby.

All that waiting, longing, yearning…all the desperation…that’s what the season of Advent is about. Today is the first day of Advent, despite what your chocolate or cheese or gin advent calendars might have said the past two days. Advent is the time when we enter into the desperate longing, the waiting, the hope for God to do something we can’t even imagine or expect. It can be tempting to jump right to the end of the story, to the good part we know is coming, but that instant gratification also makes it easy to move past the good thing too, to throw out the wrapping paper and put the gift on the shelf and just move on to something else, the next shiny excitement that catches our attention. Instead we have this season when we are forced to wait.

The church calendar may seem a mystery sometimes, or a pointless old tradition with no meaning in our modern world. But it does have a purpose: to guide us into an experience, so that we enter into the fullness of the story of God in Christ. It’s about finding ourselves in the living word and becoming a part of what God is still doing — from the waiting and hoping for something, to the Incarnation, the Word Made Flesh, to the revealing of God’s presence with us to the world at Epiphany, then into the gritty reality of Jesus’ life and ministry that upset the status quo in Lent, the consequences of his obedience to God’s way even though it felt like a dangerous wilderness in this world, experiencing his passion in Holy Week, the truth that God’s power of love and life is stronger at Easter, the time spent practicing being resurrection people, and then empowered by the Holy Spirit to be the Body of Christ throughout the season of Pentecost…until we come back around to the beginning of the story again with the longing and hoping. Every year we live and re-live this story, hoping that we will grow deeper in Christlikeness with each time around.

And so every year begins with Advent — today is like the New Year’s Day of the liturgical calendar. We start on purpose with the longing, the near-despair, the desperate hope that God can do something. Because when God came among us, took up residence in human community, reconciling the world to God’s own self, bringing the kingdom of God to us in the flesh, it was in real time, in a real body, in the real world where real and terrible things were happening. It wasn’t already perfect, it wasn’t an ideal situation, it wasn’t even the kind of moment where you think “something incredible is about to happen.” It was in a time and place and people who couldn’t see any evidence that God would fulfil a promise. And so we begin the journey anew by returning to the prophets — the people who somehow had the ability to see the possibility of God’s good news in the middle of the ravaged world.

Jeremiah was in prison when he proclaimed this message to the people — and worse, he was in prison during a siege of the city of Jerusalem. The Babylonian army had been outside the walls for a year already. Houses near the city walls had been demolished to protect the city from the attackers, they’d tried to reinforce the walls, but the truth is that things were getting desperate and the bodies were piling up. Thousands of people from Jerusalem had already been taken into exile. Everything looked bleak, and it was going to get worse before it got better.

Into that situation, Jeremiah spoke God’s word of promise, offering hope to people who had no reason to be hopeful. There was certainly no evidence that “the days are surely coming” — all evidence was quite the contrary. The headlines got worse every day. And Jeremiah did not pretend otherwise. He didn’t say “don’t worry, it’ll all be fine.” He was honest about the reality in which they were living — the land was laid waste, nothing whether everyday life or celebratory moment was normal or possible. And then he was honest about what he could see of God’s vision: that this reality was not the end of the story. There would be light shining, even though there wasn’t any sign of it yet. The days are surely coming when God will fulfil the promise. A righteous branch will spring up from that stump that seemed destroyed. There will come a day when the people of God will be known for their relationship with God — they’ll even be called “the Lord is our righteousness.” There will be justice, and therefore peace — for the land and the people, in every place from the highlands to lowlands, cities to deserts, every single place that had suffered together would also be gathered in together under this righteous branch springing up from the stump of David’s line.

That journey to justice is hard going, because the fact the world is not in alignment with God’s vision means that the systems we have become comfortable with but are harmful to people and creation will have to be dismantled. In order for God’s justice to be done, the world built on injustice has to come apart. And it will feel like unravelling, and it will hurt, and we won’t want to hear it. We want to skip to the end, to the beautiful baby and the fuzzy sheep and the singing angels. But the real hope, the kind that leads to lasting change, lasting peace, lasting good news — that real hope is rooted in honesty about the real situation, and about God’s real presence.

This kind of hope takes practice. It’s not just a Christmas wish list, or a warm fuzzy feeling. Activist Mariame Kaba puts it beautifully when she says “hope is a discipline.” It’s a practice we have to do all the time, over and over again. Every day, we have to practice hope in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Otherwise it becomes sickly sweet nonsense that doesn’t sustain anyone. But the discipline of hope — like our other spiritual disciplines, prayer, reading scripture, worshipping together, serving others, giving our time and our money to the work of God’s kingdom — the discipline of hope is like a nutritious meal before a race, like a good night’s sleep before an exam, like all the healthy things that make our bodies and minds work at their best, but for our spirits. Practicing the discipline of hope means that we keep looking for the spark, the tiniest of lights, shining amidst this world. We keep looking for God’s promise even though the headlines are bad. We keep looking…yearning, longing, desperately seeking…because when we give up looking, when we give in to despair, when hope atrophies so we can no longer take a stand…that’s when we allow the injustice to win, just let the way things are carry on even though we know it isn’t right, because we don’t have it in us to do anything else.

Advent is about this practice of hope…waiting in the shadows, longing for light, trusting that God’s word is true, refusing to give up on God’s vision of a better world. Because any moment could be the moment when God will break through! Any moment could be the one. And the more we practice hope, the stronger our hope muscle grows…and the more we can share that bright hope with others, the more we can be the ones who see what Jeremiah sees, so we can say with confidence: the days are surely coming.

May it be so. Amen.

Hymn 291: When out of Poverty Is Born

Sanctuary Offering (organ reflection music)

*Sanctuary Offering Response: Hymn 305 verse 5
What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb,
if I were a wise man I would do my part,
yet what I can I give him,
give my heart.

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer (Rob)

Gracious and Merciful God,

As we come toward the end of our time of worship, our hearts overflow with gratitude for the richness of your Word and the fellowship we share. Gratitude for how free we are to gather, to read your Word aloud, to be Christian, to be who we are, who you made us and be safe, supported and loved in this family.

We thank you for the prophetic voice of Jeremiah, reminding us of your promise to restore and bring forth righteousness in the land. May the words we’ve heard today take root in our hearts and blossom into lives that bear witness to your redemptive love.

Help us not just to be listeners but to be doers. Not just spectators but team players. To be brave and aware of the gifts you have given each of us. Help us to carry the hope of your word out with us from this place to sally forth and plant it like a battle standard of love and fairness, compassion and justice, in places others see as barren of hope. To speak out, stand our ground and to consider others more than ourselves. To overcome evil with good and hopelessness with faith.

We pray for your other Churches in Gourock: for St Ninian’s RC Church, Old Gourock & Ashton Parish Church, Gourock Community Baptist Church, Struthers Church, Bethany Hall, the Vineyard Church, and other independent churches.

For the leaders of St John’s congregation: for the elders, the Kirk Session, the Session Clerk, the Treasurer, the pastoral care team, the flower team, and the many other volunteers.

For the land, people, and governments of the nations of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Andorra, Spain, and Portugal.

And now we come together in unity, as we join our voices as a family, and pray as the Lord Jesus taught his disciples:
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 315: Once in Royal David’s City 

Benediction
We may not know exactly what is to come, but we do know this: the days are surely coming when God’s vision will become reality. Hold fast to this hope, even now, even here, even with everything going on all around.
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

* Christmas Post: Our youth organisations will again deliver Christmas cards in Gourock and in the west end of Greenock. Delivery will remain at 30 pence per card, and they can be brought to church on Sundays, 3rd, 10th, and 17th December. The money raised by the Christmas Post funds our youth ministries throughout the year, so it’s a good cause as well as saving you a lot of money compared to the post office!

* Bubblegum & Fluff, the chaplaincy team’s programme for P5s about the real Christmas story, will be on OGA on Monday and Tuesday 4 and 5 December, and in St Margaret’s on Wednesday and Thursday 6 and 7 December, from 9-12. We need volunteers so please come along — if you can let Teri know you’re coming that’s great. Thanks!

* This Advent we are asking everyone to update your Gift Aid information, so we can ensure we are maximising our Gift Aid opportunities. Look out for a request to update your Gift Aid forms soon!

* The next Bowl & Blether is TOMORROW 4 December, with doors open from 11:30-1:30. It’s a great opportunity to get out and meet some people and have a meal and some social time! The next B&B in St Margaret’s is next Saturday the 9th, same time! All are welcome!

* Many thanks to everyone who helped make Inner Visions: Art & Spirituality festival such a success! Hundreds of people came through the exhibition, via events, visits, and just popping in. It was a wonderful opportunity to offer hospitality, engage with our neighbours, and grow our community closer through creativity and shared values. Thank you to those who hosted throughout the weeks, who prepared and served and cleaned up food, who did shopping and turned on heating, and to all who visited the artwork and engaged with the experience. Many people have asked if we’ll do something like this again — thanks to your generosity and hospitality!

* A funeral to celebrate the life of Mr. George Turner will be held in the church on Thursday 7 December at 12:45pm, with a brief committal afterwards at Greenock Crematorium.
* A funeral to celebrate the life of Mr. Alex Fairhurst will be held in the church on Tuesday 12 December at 1:45pm, with a brief committal afterwards at Greenock Crematorium.

* We worship in the sanctuary on Sundays at 11am, and all Sunday worship is also online. 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.

* Starter Packs are short of Razors/Shaving Foam, Bathroom/Kitchen Cleaner, Tea Towels and Cleaning Cloths.

The FoodBank are short of biscuits, UHT milk, tinned soup, tinned custard, tinned tomatoes. You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!

* Wednesday Evening Bible Study meets at 7:30pm at the manse.

* This year our Advent Gift Day will be received NEXT Sunday 10 December, and will be an offering for Inverclyde Faith In Through-care, which supports people coming out of prison and re-integrating into society. IFIT believes everyone deserves the chance to learn new life skills, access training and employment opportunities, and develop positive relationships. Their goal is to empower individuals to realise their full potential and make positive changes in their lives.
There are a number of ways to participate in this Gift Day. We are looking for donations to enable the staff to provide supermarket vouchers during the holiday period and to help provide a trip to Camas next year; for items that can go into gift bags for the participants (shower gel kits, hats, scarfs, gloves, socks, etc — most participants are men but there are a few women as well); and for items for children of participants: four girls, aged 7, 9, 14, and 15, and two boys aged 11 and 16.

* The next meeting of the Contact Group is next Tuesday, 12 December at 3pm (note later time) in the large hall for a service of carols and readings.

* Clydeview Academy is hosting a Christmas lunch for our mature members on Wednesday 13 December at 1pm. Tickets are available from Teri.

* There will be carolling round the Cardwell Bay Christmas Tree on Thursday 14 December at 6pm — all are welcome!

* Greenock Philharmonic Choir have a Christmas concert on 16 December at 7:30pm in the Lyle Kirk. They will be joined by the Riverside Youth Band. Tickets are £12, on the door or from Calum: 07847 250529 /   info@greenockphilharmonic.co.uk

* Free period products are available in the church toilets for anyone who might need them, thanks to Hey Girls and Inverclyde Council.

* Did you know that the ministry we do at St John’s costs about £3000 per week? Everything we do is funded by your generous giving — all our support for young people, older people, bereavement care, community outreach, worship, study, spiritual growth, and community work is because of your offering. If you would like to 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 Teri and she can give you the treasurer’s details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received. 
It is also possible to donate to the work of the new parish assistant, speak to Anne Love about how to go about directing new donations to that new item in the budget.

* 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!

* Registration is now open for Jump Into January, the Winter mini-Exploratorium: 3rd-4th January, 9am – 1pm, we’ll be Jumping Into January with children in P1-P7 — tell all the kids you know! If you can volunteer for breakfast club (8am), during the morning, or in the kitchen for snacks and lunch, please speak to Teri or Charlene or Graham Bolster.