Sunday service for 27 July 2025

Sunday 27 July 2025
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

Sanctuary Prelude Music

Welcome

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.

Call to Worship
One: The Lord, the Great I Am, is speaking:
All: Calling for freedom for the people.
One: To the powerful whose hearts are hardened, the Lord says:
All: Let my people go.
One: To the oppressed who watch as the world shakes around them, the Lord says:
All: You will be my people and I will be your God.
One: All the world will see:
All: The Lord’s power is at work, here and now.

Sanctuary Hymn 129: The Lord is King
The Lord is King! lift up your voice!

Prayer
Holy and Powerful God,
you reveal yourself in the world around us,
you are present in the midst of suffering,
you call us to follow your way of life and liberation.
As the ways of the world we have known seem to crumble
and even the earth itself cries out,
we confess that we often have hardened hearts.
We hear about terrible things on the news,
and we say “what a shame” and then return to our comfortable lives.
We see people struggling
and we blame them instead of the systems that ensure some have less in order to feed others greed.
We lament the changing weather and the way the earth is mistreated
and we carry on the way we always have.
Forgive us our hard hearts, O God.
Forgive us when we have turned inward,
serving ourselves but leaving the world you love as an afterthought.
Forgive us when there is no room for your compassion.
Forgive us when we have justified or rationalised or…
even, if we’re fully honest, sometimes a little bit enjoyed…
the pain of those we think had it coming, brought it on themselves, deserved it.
By the power of your Holy Spirit, set us free from all that harms us and others,
and hold us fast even in the midst of the chaos of this world.
We come before you to worship,
offering our praise and our prayer,
bringing our whole selves,
our faith and our fear and everything in between.
We trust you, for you have promised to be our God
and we are your people,
and so we stand firm in your word and your care,
and in the name of Jesus.
Amen.

Online Hymn 129: The Lord is King

Sanctuary Hymn 36: God Is Our Refuge and Our Strength

Children’s Time and Bible Story: Exodus 7-12
Last week we left off with the Israelites despairing, their spirits so crushed they couldn’t even hear the promises of God. Even Moses was feeling down, sure that it was a mistake for God to send him here. But God was still giving Moses and Aaron instructions about what to do next time they went to Pharaoh, and it’s with those instructions we pick up this week at the beginning of Exodus chapter 7.
When this story happened, Moses, who was the baby of the family, was 80 years old, and his big brother Aaron was 83. Never think you’re too old to do something big for God!
God told Moses and Aaron to go back to Pharaoh and say “thus says the Lord, God of the Israelites: let my people go to worship me.” But God also told them that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he wouldn’t listen…but that God was going to do signs and works of power so that everyone would know who was the real Lord in this land, and it wasn’t Pharaoh.
So Moses and Aaron went and delivered the message, and Pharaoh said “I don’t know this Lord you speak of…but show me some sign and maybe I’ll consider it.”
Aaron did the staff-to-snake thing…and so did Pharaoh’s advisors the magician priests…but Aaron’s snake ate theirs! But Pharaoh was not impressed, his hearts was hard.

God spoke to Moses and said: the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord…go out first thing in the morning and meet Pharaoh at the bank of the river.

1 Nile to blood…even the irrigation canals…animals died…smelled terrible…
Magician-priests did the same, so Pharaoh was not impressed, he went home to the palace
But the regular the people had to dig wells because there was no water
Seven days passed, and God spoke to Moses…

Go down to the riverbank and meet Pharaoh…let my people go, if you don’t there’ll be so many frogs…
2 Frogs filled everything
Magician priests conjured some frogs too, pharaoh not impressed, went back inside…
But pharaoh had to call Moses and Aaron to get rid of them…
“Tomorrow”….and they died and there were piles of rotting dead frogs
When Pharaoh saw the crisis was over, he hardened his heart and would not let them go.

3 with no warning: bang staff on ground, Dust becomes gnats/lice
Pharaoh’s magician priests could not do it…even said “this is the finger of God!”
But pharaoh hardened his heart and would not listen to them

4 Let my people go, or there will be flies…but not in Israelite neighbourhoods…and there were flies just devastating everything, swarming and being gross.
Pharaoh says just worship here! No, we can’t…ok, go but not that far…pray for me!
I will but you better not be lying this time
Flies left but pharaoh hardened his heart

5 tomorrow all your livestock will die, but ours won’t…
Pharaoh finds out that Israelite livestock are all fine….but heart was hard

6 don’t say anything, just take some soot from the kiln and throw it in the air…will cause burning rash/boils
Magicians and advisors couldn’t do it, couldn’t reverse it, couldn’t even stand there, they were so afflicted
But God hardened pharaoh’s heart

God says “I could have killed you all but I didn’t so you would see my power”
7 hail … those who heeded brought their animals inside, everyone else, they died in the thunder/hail/lightning — human animal plants even trees. Except not Israelite neighbourhoods
Flax and barley were ruined but wheat and spelt weren’t as they hadn’t come up yet
Pharaoh says I have sinned, we are wrong…on you go to have your worship festival.
When it stopped, Pharaoh hardened his heart again and wouldn’t let them go

God says Pharaoh’s heart is hardened but these powerful things are going to be so big you’ll be telling the story for many generations, everyone will know I’m the real God in this and every land…
Threat of locusts…officials advise to let them go, “do you not understand Egypt is ruined”
Pharaoh acts like they can go but on hearing who all will go (not just the men), refuses and kicks them out
8 Locusts eat everything the hail hadn’t killed
Pharaoh hurries to summon them, “I have sinned…remove this deadly thing…”
Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart

9 with no warning, stretch hands to sky, and Darkness descends…so dark you can feel it.
Three days couldn’t move about as could not see anything…but Israelite neighbourhoods had light
Pharaoh says go but leave flocks/herds…Moses says no, we need the sacrifice
Pharaoh says no, get out, and never come back
Moses: “it’s true I will never see your face again” — there’s one more plague, and it will affect the greatest to the least, every family from yours all the way to the slave girls who mill the flour…one day soon, you won’t know when, the angel of death will come through the land and take the firstborn of every family, every generation, even animals.
Storms out.
Tell Israelites to ask their neighbours for stuff…
This is going to be so big, world-changing, we’re even going to change the calendar, this is the first month of the year now, because it’s a new beginning for us.
Get a lamb…on the day we say, you roast it, put its blood on doorpost…get dressed and have your shoes on ready to go as you eat it with flatbread and bitter herbs…no leftovers, burn them…And keep this same feast as a festival every year from now on. (Looking forward to a post-exodus life)

10 On the day they all had this feast, at midnight the Lord struck down all the first born, every last one in every class and every family, even livestock…but not Israelites.
In the night it was discovered and all Egypt cried out in grief, not one house without someone who had died.
Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron in the night and said “go away, get out of here, take everything, be gone! And ask for a blessing for me too!”

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.

Sanctuary Hymn: Go Down, Moses 

Sermon: Manufactured Crisis
Though I have some questions about the details, it doesn’t feel difficult to imagine this story happening. Disaster after disaster, a leader with a hard heart…feels like today’s news.

For the Israelites, it was happening all around them, to their neighbours but not directly to them. They still had to walk through streets piled up with dead frogs, and try to collect straw to make bricks when the hail and locusts had destroyed everything. It can’t have been easy watching the world fall apart as they clung to the promise of God like a tiny anchor in the chaos.

For the Egyptians…they were suffering directly. And maybe they were thinking it wasn’t their fault. Sure, they’d abused and enslaved the Israelites, sure maybe they’d pushed a child or two into the Nile, but they were just following the law. Or maybe they had never done any of those things themselves, but they never spoke up when their friends did. After all, it’s just how things are. But now they had no water, dead frogs in their mixing bowls, bug bites and rashes and blisters, a storm-damaged house, dead chickens and goats in the streets, no food, and it was so dark it was like they went blind. It must have felt like a never ending horror film, suffering upon suffering…how could it get worse? And then the final plague came and not one family was untouched by the grief and pain.

All because their leader had a hard heart, and insisted on playing out the full feud with God rather than admitting he was wrong.

I’ve wondered what to say about this story when the news is full of stories from Gaza, when my TikTok for you page is person after person pleading for help feeding themselves or their family, grieving the deaths of children, standing in front of what used to be their homes, asking for help to buy one day’s worth of flour that costs as much as my whole weekly shop, because there is so little to go around.

I’ve wondered what to say, knowing that today as in Exodus, the entire crisis is manufactured by human beings…human beings who must have hard hearts, if they sleep at night. Human beings who can’t admit that they have played a part in creating the situation, and that people are suffering because they refuse to even contemplate any other options.

Today’s situation, like the one in Exodus, took many decades to develop — hardness of heart rarely happens overnight. It’s a gradual process of being desensitised, of growing complacency and apathy, and ultimately buying into a picture that has been painted for us, so that like the Egyptians of old, we don’t really think anything of it, we either participate or we stand by as others do.

Until the suffering becomes overwhelming, unbearable, and we wonder…how did we get here? Surely our leaders know better than this? How long will the feud between hard-hearted political leaders and the God of justice and liberation last? And how many will suffer as each side tries to prove their own power and righteousness?

When I teach P6 children about this story during the Easter Code, one of the things we taste is the parsley dipped into salt water. The salt water reminds us of the tears of the Israelites who were oppressed, enslaved, suffering. But we always dip a second time to remind us of the tears of the Egyptian people — the ordinary people who also suffered when Pharaoh refused God. We don’t celebrate their suffering, even though they were complicit in the oppression of the Israelites. Because it is still true today that the political leaders who make the decisions are rarely the ones who have to live with the consequences…and we are God’s people, called to weep with those who weep. We serve a God who is present in the midst of suffering, who walks alongside those who are in despair, who lifts up the downtrodden…and even calls us to love our enemies.

So when the world is falling apart around us…when the disasters are piling up and our leaders are still refusing to admit they were wrong or to change course…when the suffering is intense…when hearts are hardened…what do we do?

We make sure our own hearts are not hardened. When we are numb to the suffering of others, we participate in it and perpetuate it, maybe we even celebrate it…we need soft hearts that weep with those who weep, soft hearts full of love for our neighbour and even our enemy, compassion that moves to doing mercy. No hard shell, no hearts of stone. It’s difficult to allow ourselves to be touched by so much misery in the world, but when it doesn’t, that’s when we should be truly afraid.

Like Moses and Aaron…we don’t give up. When it feels like we’re too old to confront the government: they were 80 and 83. When it feels like there’s no point, no one is listening: they went back over and over again. When it feels dangerous, like we’ll just end up in trouble ourselves: they kept going and speaking up, demanding truth and justice. When we’re tempted to dance around and use diplomatic language: they called pharaoh out for lying, they refused to mince words, they delivered the message and they followed through.

We hold on to the God who is like what TS Eliot called “the still point of the turning world”…the one stable truth when all around is chaos, the clarity of God who is love and who always moves toward freedom. At the centre of it all, the core truth: I am who I am, and I am for you.

Hold on, keep trying, and don’t grow such a thick skin that your heart gets hard. This is how the kingdom of God becomes visible, even in our days.

May it be so. Amen.

Online Hymn: Go Down, Moses

Sanctuary Offering and Response 809 (tune: Old Hundredth)
Praise God, the Source of life and birth;
praise God the Word, who came to earth;
praise God the Spirit, holy flame:
all glory, honour to God’s name.
Amen

Concerns of the Church
Food Bank –
Bible Study
Holiday Club – decorations, donations, prayer
Prayer Groups: Sunday morning at 10:10, Brian; intercessory group Fiona W.

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer (Ann Stephenson)
Dear Lord,
We come to you amidst the challenges and chaos of our broken world.
A world we find hard to comprehend:
countries at war,
tormented citizens living in desolation at home and abroad,
world leaders making terrible decisions-appearing too arrogant to care or to listen,
governments acting out brutal revenge,
children dying of starvation,
food being used as a weapon of war.
We ask, “where is God ?“ but we should be asking where are we? Are we living as we should?
The grief and sorrow of this world not only make those suffering weep but us weep. Those suffering are our neighbours.
Lord, reveal yourself to us in powerful ways.
Open our hearts and minds to understand your will and your way.
In the face of adversity, we remember that God’s power can achieve the impossible.
Let us hold on to God’s promise that a New World is coming. Help us to trust in God’s promises, power and presence and act in faith. Remembering that God’s authority will overpower earthly powers.
Empower us to alleviate the suffering of God’s people. Give us strength to speak out against the injustices of this world. Hear our cries for justice for the poor, the weak and desperate.
For when one of God’s people hurt then we all hurt.
In a moment of silence let us pray for the injustices close to our heart.
SILENCE
Let us be
God’s hand in action in the world, reaching out to other people’s despair.
God’s voice in this world, focussing on the truth of God’s word.
Obedient to your calling and live a disciplined life.
May we realise that You God will guide us through all the difficulties we may face in life.
Letting go of our own burdens gives us the freedom to experience the beauty of faith in action.
May Your goodness and compassion be evident in our lives, and may we always proclaim Your name.
And on this the 27th day of July we pray for our local communities.
We pray for St Ninian’s Primary School — for the children, the teachers, the staff, and the families. Bless them with bright minds and open hearts and willing spirits, with friendship and laughter and the graciousness it takes to be in community together. May the school have the resources it needs and the families the support they need to ensure the children grow in mind, body, and spirit.
For the leaders of St John’s congregation: for the elders, the Kirk Session, the Session Clerk and Assistant Session Clerk, and the Treasurer.
For the land, people, and governments of the nations of Dominica, Guadeloupe, Antigua & Barbuda, St Kitts & Nevis, the US and British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and the British Overseas Territories of Anguilla, Turks and Caicos, and Montserrat.

Amidst the chaos of this world.
We pray for Peace
– peace for those who have been set free from what burdens them.
-peace for the people who are experiencing grief and devastation and
-peace for ourselves

May the Holy Spirit guide and inspire us and now let us join together in saying the Lord’s Prayer:
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: 709 The Right Hand of God 

Sending

Go into the world with courage — don’t let your heart get hardened! don’t give up! persist in speaking up and standing up for what is right…and hold on to the God who is love, even when all around is chaos. And as you go, may the Spirit of God go above you to watch over you…and 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 if you thought you were 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

* Registration is now FULL for our Summer Exploratorium: Holy Histories! It’s a week for P1-P7 getting into the messy side of Bible stories and learning how God’s love is for us even when things get messy. It runs every day between 4-8 August, from 9am – 1pm, including lunch, and with an optional breakfast club from 8am. Please be praying for the team as we prepare, and for the children and families who will come!
***We are in need of some donations, if you can help please bring these to the church ASAP: large disposable tablecloths (that you won’t need back)…some large plastic tubs/bins, like the kind we use to put food bank donations in, or the flat kind that you would use to store things under the bed.
Food donations: there are post it notes on the board in the large hall with the items we need to feed the children through the week — if you can take a post it (or a few) and bring those items back on Sunday the 3rd, that would be great! Non-perishable items can be brought before then, but perishables on the Sunday please, unless the note specifies another date.

* We worship in the sanctuary on Sundays at 11am, and 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.

* The first Sunday of the month at 11am is now an all-age service, with different ways of encountering God’s word without a traditional sermon. All people — young and old, different personalities and learning styles, are welcome! You’ll find a more informal service with a variety of music, a Bible story, prayer, and some more interactive elements. The online service for the first Sunday will therefore also be different — there will still be a reading, prayers, and music, but usually not a sermon.
HOWEVER: In August, our all-age service will be on the SECOND Sunday, the 10th, to celebrate the end of the Exploratorium.

* Starter Packs are in need of most things as they have given out a lot of packs in the past month!

The FoodBank are running low on pasta sauce, diluting juice, and UHT milk.
You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!

* Did you know that the ministry we do at St John’s costs about £3000 per week and we are currently running about £500 short? 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 parish assistant, speak to Anne Love about how to go about directing new donations to that item in the budget.

* Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Youtube, and to sign up for our email newsletter! 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. 

* Wednesday Evening Bible Study is at 7:30pm in the Manse and we are reading Luke!

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