Sunday service for 11 January 2026

Sunday 11 January 2026,
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse phone: 632143
Email: TPeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Email Charlene, Parish Assistant: CMitchell (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

Apologies for no video today — I’ve been coughing too much to record well! The full manuscript is below for you to read and worship, and there are videos or links to YouTube for the hymns so you can still sing along!

Prelude Music (praise band)

Welcome

God-sightings

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: Listen to the witnesses who tell us what they have seen: All: The Lamb of God is among us!
One: Listen to the friends who invite us to join in their journey:
All: We have found the Messiah!
One: Listen to the neighbours who want to share their story:
All: The Son of God is here!
One: Listen to the One who invites us:
All: You, yourself, come and see!

Hymn 506: All I Once Held Dear (praise band) (YouTube)

All I once held dear, built my life upon
All this world reveres, and wars to own
All I once thought gain I have counted loss
Spent and worthless now, compared to this
Knowing You, Jesus
Knowing You, there is no greater thing
You’re my all, you’re the best
You’re my joy, my righteousness
And I love You, Lord

Now my heart’s desire is to know You more
To be found in You and known as Yours
To possess by faith what I could not earn
All-surpassing gift of righteousness
Knowing You, Jesus
Knowing You, there is no greater thing
You’re my all, you’re the best
You’re my joy, my righteousness
And I love You, Lord

Oh, to know the power of Your risen life
And to know You in Your sufferings
To become like You in Your death, my Lord
So with You to live and never die
Knowing You, Jesus
Knowing You, there is no greater thing
You’re my all, you’re the best
You’re my joy, my righteousness
And I love You, Lord

Knowing You, Jesus
Knowing You, there is no greater thing
You’re my all, nothing less
You’re my joy, my righteousness
And I love You, Lord

Prayer
You see us where we are, O God,
and you know us better than we know ourselves.
You invite us into your life, Lord Jesus,
to see your everyday and recognise the connection you build
between heaven and earth.
We confess that we would rather have information and an instruction manual.
You invite us to come and see
and to grow into a relationship.
We confess that vulnerability makes us nervous,
we don’t know what we are supposed to see and we don’t want you seeing everything about us.
You invite us to come and see,
and then to share what we have seen with others.
We confess that we don’t like to talk about you to others, we don’t want to offend them…
but when we do it’s usually because we think they’re wrong and need correcting.
Forgive us for holding ourselves back from you, O God.
Forgive us for our lack of curiosity, and our lack of grace.
Forgive us when people see no sign of your welcoming arms
when they encounter your Body the Church.
Invite us again into your open heart,
and make us willing to receive and to share.
Inspire our curiosity,
that we may come to know you better
and so to follow and learn from you
day by day.
Amen.

God draws near to us in Christ, and draws us ever nearer through the Spirit at work in us. You are already known and loved, so simply come and see the One who pours out grace upon grace. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Children’s Time
Talk about “witness” — a witness is someone who sees something AND tells others about it. Examples…maybe get round to talking about how we share God-moments at the start of the service and that’s also being a witness…do they have any times they have seen something that made them think of God? … today’s story is about people being witnesses….and our song is also kind of about witness, because when we have experienced God loving us, we will want other people to experience love too…Jesus gives us so much and we want to share it!
(Hymn 611 in case we need instrumental support)
Holy Spirit, fill our hearts
overflowing with love.
May we shine with the light of God,
come, Spirit, come.

Repeat-after-me-prayer

Hymn 501: Take This Moment (YouTube)

Take this moment, sign and space;
take my friends around;
here among us make the place
where your love is found.

Take the time to call my name,
take the time to mend
who I am and what I’ve been,
and I’ve failed to tend.

Take the tiredness of my days,
take my past regret,
letting Your forgiveness touch
all I can’t forget.

Take the little child in me,
scared of growing old;
help me here to find my worth
made in Christ’s own mould.

Take my talents, take my skills,
take what’s yet to be;
let my life be Yours, and yet,
let it still be me.

Scripture Reading: John 1.35-51
Today we finish reading John chapter one, picking up right where we left off last week after John the Baptist had spoken to the questioners sent by the Pharisees, and then pointed his disciples to the Lamb of God. I’m beginning reading at verse 35, in the New Revised Standard Version.

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

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: see more
I think I like this telling of the gathering of the first disciples more than the version in the other gospels, where Jesus calls their names and they abandon their work and family and whatnot to follow him. This is probably the first and last time I’ll say this about John’s gospel, but…this way feels more real to me.

When we read about Jesus walking along the beach and summoning fishermen who just toss down their nets and walk away from their boats, it always feels a little…odd. It feels faraway and impossible for us. But the way John tells it feels exactly like how things really happen.

*A teacher recommends another teacher and the students are curious and go to see for themselves.
*Someone excitedly tells their sibling about the guy they met today and invites him to come meet him too.
*The rabbi meets someone and asks him to come along.
*Someone tells their most skeptical friend and convinces him to just come check it out.

Each one brings one.

None of them really knew what they were looking for when the invitation came. They just trusted the person who invited them, and they were curious enough to come along. And it wasn’t mainly the teacher who called them and gathered a disparate group together, it was friends inviting friends — the group growing organically, not from the top down.

And then there’s the invitation itself: come and see.

Not a lecture or an explanation, not a demand for a particular response, not a telling off about all the ways they’re wrong and should come do this better thing — just a completely open invite. Jesus doesn’t tell them what they’ll see. He doesn’t tell them where to look or what to think. He just invites them to spend time with him, and see what they see.

And what’s fascinating about that to me is that clearly each of them actually sees something a wee bit different. Because then when they go out and invite the next ones, they don’t all say the same thing: look at the Lamb of God, said John. Come and see the Messiah, says Andrew. Come and see the one Moses wrote about, says Philip. Nathanael responds to a few minutes with Jesus by saying “you are the Son of God and King of Israel.” They all start from a different place and a different attitude, and they get a different angle on who Jesus is…and that’s entirely okay. None of them understand the full picture before they go out and invite someone else… and no one is forcing them to one particular view or trying to pin down one box for Jesus to fit into for everyone. They each get their experience, and then they share that experience with someone else and invite them to have their own experience too — like grace that flows out from fullness.

The thing that binds them together is that when they have seen, they want to see more. And they want more to see.

We might wonder what it is that they saw. What could possibly have happened in that couple of hours after 4:00 that would make Andrew run to tell his brother they’d found the Messiah? What was it about the other interactions that made them so sure they wanted to bring their friends?

We can never know, of course, though perhaps we can imagine. But I do have a couple of thoughts…
I think it wasn’t actually about what the new disciples saw, but rather that they felt seen. They discovered that even though they didn’t know Jesus yet, he already knew them, and that sense of relationship and belonging was overwhelming.

Think about it…who do you just invite into your house for hours? Not random strangers. Who do you give a nickname to? Someone you’re close to. Who do you tease about their hometown or their bookworm-nerdy-ways? Someone you have a relationship with.

None of those disciples thought they had a relationship with Jesus yet…but he already had a relationship with them. He could say “come and see where I’m staying, and stay with me” because he saw them. He knew their curiosity and their desire even though they were super awkward. Jesus could say “yeah you’re Simon but I’ll call you Rocky” because he saw the foundational role Simon would play. Jesus could give Nathanael a little sarcasm in response to that can-anything-good-come-from-the-Port business because he saw him — not just mystically saw him talking to Philip but he saw him and knew his studious heart and knew that he wasn’t sly or fake.

Jesus saw them, and he invited them to see him too, by simply spending time together. What they saw was someone who sees and knows and still loves the world enough to pour himself out for them. That was so powerful they couldn’t wait to invite others to see and be seen, too.

Because that’s what disciples do: they make disciples. Each one brings one. They didn’t need to have the right words to say, they didn’t need to know the right information, they didn’t need to prepare anything. They didn’t need to be experts or be good enough. And they also didn’t need to control what that other person would see or experience, they didn’t try to get them to do it exactly the way they did, or to think the same things they had thought. They just had to invite them. Jesus who sees and knows us before we know him did the rest.

So often I think we are hesitant to invite people into Christian community, into places where they will meet Jesus, because we assume that they don’t want to be invited. Or we don’t know what to say or have the answers to all the questions we anticipate they might ask. Or we don’t want to sound judgmental…or sometimes we do judge that they need to change before we would invite them. Or we’re afraid that they might come and have a different experience than we have. But this story shows us people who were skeptical, people who were doing other things and studying other paths, people who already had a teacher and weren’t looking for another one…and all of them simply invited to come and see, without obligation or pressure. Just an invitation to meet the One who knows and loves you already.

What if we tried it? What if we just invited someone to come and see. Come and see what God is doing here. Come and see Jesus reflected in a community that tries its best to serve. Come and see love lived out. Come and see. Not for answers. Not for outcomes. Not to have the exact same experience or belief or understanding as me. Just to encounter God in whatever way God is revealed to you today…just to experience being seen and known and loved, to experience belonging.

Disciples make disciples…we come because we want to see more. Do we also want more to see? If so…let’s show them. Each one bring one — start with next week!

May it be so.
Amen.

Hymn: I Will Follow (praise band) (YouTube)

Where You go I’ll go
Where You stay I’ll stay
When You move I’ll move
I will follow

All Your ways are good
All Your ways are sure
I will trust in You alone
Higher than my sight
High above my life
I will trust in You alone

Where You go I’ll go
Where You stay I’ll stay
When You move I’ll move
I will follow You
Whom You love I’ll love
How You serve I’ll serve
If this life I lose
I will follow (You)
Yeah I will follow You yeah

Light into the world
Light into my life
I will live for You alone
You’re the One I seek
Knowing I will find
All I need in You alone
In You alone

In You there’s life everlasting
In You there’s freedom for my soul
In You there’s joy unending joy
And I will follow

I will follow You yeah
I will follow You yeah

Offering (organ)

Offering Response (tune: 555 Amazing Grace)
When we’ve been there ten thousand years
bright shining as the sun,
we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
than when we’d first begun.

Concerns of the Church
*Wednesday Bible Study
*Readers Rota
*Smalls for all – new pants, children and women any size
*choir rehearsal
*Prayer groups

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
Each day you reveal more of yourself, O God,
and we look on in wonder
as earth and heaven come together
in your Word made flesh.
You who know all things and all people
draw us to yourself,
inviting us to see your glory,
showing us how to live as beloved.
We bring our gratitude and praise,
and our awkward questions,
and our longing and desire for a better world,
and we offer them all to you,
a jumble of human thoughts and emotions,
wonderings and hopes and fears,
trusting that you will hold us with grace.
We lift up to you all who are searching,
seeking something they don’t yet know how to describe,
following different ideas to see where they lead.
May they encounter the beauty of your light and turn toward it.
We lift up to you all who are struggling to find the right words to share your good news,
those afraid to tell others about their experience with you,
those skeptical that you could be asking them to speak up.
May they be so excited by your story they can’t help but tell it.
We lift up to you all who live in places others overlook or look down on,
those who persevere in places that have fallen out of the news cycle,
those whose lives are beautiful and interesting yet denigrated or ignored by those in power.
May they know your attention and care for them.
As the pages of the year turn over
and our eyes look forward to new things,
we lift up to you all who struggle with change and newness,
all who have believed they must become different in order to be good enough,
all who are scared of what a new year might hold.
May they know your constant presence lighting the way.

On the 11th day of the month we join our hearts as your St John’s family to pray:
*For all who live and work in the Castle Levan area.
*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 Mauritania, Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.

You invite us to dwell with you, O God,
to find ourselves most fully in your Way, Truth, and Life,
so we pray for the grace to come and see where you are, what you are doing, how you are living,
and then to join in with our whole heart.
We ask these and all things in the name of the One who abides with us, day in and day out,
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.

Hymn 533: Will You Come and Follow Me (YouTube)

Will you come and follow me
 if I but call your name? 
Will you go where you don’t know 
and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown,
will you let my name be known,
will you let my life be grown
in you and you in me?

Will you leave your self behind
 if I but call your name?
 Will you care for cruel and kind
 and never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare
should your life attract or scare,
will you let me answer prayer
in you and you in me?

Will you let the blinded see
 if I but call your name? 
Will you set the prisoners free 
and never be the same?
 Will you kiss the leper clean 
and do such as this unseen,
 and admit to what I mean
 in you and you in me?

Will you love the ‘you’ you hide
 if I but call your name? 
Will you quell the fear inside
 and never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found
to reshape the world around
through my sight and touch and sound
in you and you in me?

Lord, your summons echoes true 
when you but call my name. 
Let me turn and follow you 
and never be the same.
 In your company I’ll go 
where your love and footsteps show. 
Thus I’ll move and live and grow
 in you and you in me.

Sending
Author Madeline L’Engle once said “We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.” Go from this time together to show others that lovely light you have seen, to share the blessing that you have received, to live with the Christ who dwells with us.
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 (organ)

Announcements

* 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 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.

* Starter Packs are in need of Shaving Foam, Shampoo, Soap, Hand Wash.
 The FoodBank are short of everything except pasta, so anything you can donate will be gratefully received! You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!

* Bowl & Blether is on the first and third Mondays through the winter, with doors open from 11:30-1:30, and lunch served from noon. All are welcome for a bowl of soup, a toastie, a friendly chat in our warm hall! See you a week tomorrow, the 19th of January.

* The Contact Group meets this Tuesday the 13th of January when Teri will be the speaker. The syllabus of events is available from Fiona Webster or Anne Armour. The syllabus donation of £5 will go towards our charity fundraising.

* We are participating in the Rotary Club’s “Smalls for All” collection — if you can donate NEW underpants in any size (especially for women and girls), please bring them to the box by the front door over the next few weeks. Thank you!

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

* 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 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.

Sunday service for 4 January 2026

Sunday 4 January 2026, all age service
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

If the video isn’t working on this page, please click here to view it on our YouTube Channel. (YouTube is having some difficulty playing nice with our website!)

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: Come with your questions
All: but not with pre-conceived answers.
One: Come looking for the One God sends
All: without deciding in advance who it will be.
One: Come seeking an experience
All: even if its meaning is a mystery.
One: Come and be open to what God will do!

Sanctuary Hymn: Come All You People

Prayer
You send your witnesses, Lord God,
who testify to the wonders they have seen…
and we confess that we aren’t entirely sure we trust them.
We don’t like to take someone’s word for it,
and there’s so much fake news and so many influencers,
on top of advertisements and echo chambers,
that we don’t even know what to believe anymore.
Forgive us when we cannot discern because we insist on our own categories instead of yours.
Forgive us when we will not allow those outside the system to speak your word.
Forgive us when our attention is captured by the wrong thing, so we miss out on what you are doing.
Holy One,
open us to wonder today.
Open us to possibility,
to mystery,
to unexpected grace.
May this time together
gathered around your word,
singing your praise,
seeking your will
bring us into closer communion with you.
As you reveal your purpose here,
turn us to follow your way
whatever you have in store.
Amen.

Online Hymn 465: Be Thou My Vision

Sanctuary Sung Prayer: Hymn 611 Holy Spirit, Fill Our Hearts, verse 1

Holy Spirit, fill our hearts
overflowing with love.
May we shine with the light of God,
come, Spirit, come.

Sanctuary quiz: Who Is It?
(Sandal, megaphone, water, point to the lamb?)

Scripture Reading: John 1.19-34
This is the testimony given by John when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but he confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said,
“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ ”
as the prophet Isaiah said.
Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Why, then, are you baptising if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptise with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal.” This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptising.
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but I came baptising with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptise with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptises with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Chosen One.”

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: Re-membering Baptism
*with hymn 636 v. 3 – organ (Bunessan)
Baptised in water,
sealed by the Spirit,
marked with the sign of Christ our king;
born of one Father,
we are his children,
joyfully now God’s praise we sing.

Reflection: Who Are You?

Online Hymn: Take My Life (Resound)

*during the passing out of 2026 words we’ll sing: (CH4 795)
Take O take me as I am;
summon out what I shall be;
set your seal upon my heart
and live in me.

Sanctuary Song: You Are a Star (Fischy video)

Sanctuary Offering – organ

Sanctuary Hymn 465: Be Thou My Vision vv. 1, 2, 4

Concerns of the Church
*Wednesday Bible Study
*Bowl & Blether tomorrow
*Prayer groups

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
You are the One who reveals paths that looked impossible,
You are the One who sets us free from what harms us,
You are the One who opens the way of life,
and we give you thanks.
With gratitude we offer our praise
for even when we don’t understand,
you are in our midst.
And because we trust that you are here even when our vision is clouded,
we are bold to bring you our prayers for the living of these days.
As one year turns to another,
we give thanks for your timelessness
that steps into our human time,
bringing eternity down to us, in the flesh.
We ask for bigger vision and broader minds,
that in the year to come we might recognise you more clearly,
and be ready to bear witness to your kingdom breaking in among us.
As one year turns to another,
and so many of us are trying something new yet again,
we hold in our hearts and before you
those who are seeking something they don’t yet know how to name,
those whose longing is unfulfilled,
those who have tried many ways to fill an emptiness and found them all wanting.
May your Word take root in their hearts,
and your love be made real in community,
and your truth be heard in every place.
As one year turns to another
and there’s so much emphasis on being made new,
we hold in our hearts and before you
those who have been made to feel not good enough,
those who see themselves as broken or incomplete or ruined,
those who see others as problems or issues or labels,
those who struggle to recognise your image in every face.
May your glory be revealed in the mirror, and in the neighbour and stranger,
may your love be made real in community,
and your truth heard in every place.
As one year turns to another
we hold in our hearts and before you
those whose tomorrow will be the same as yesterday —
hungry, cold, grieving, overwhelmed,
surrounded by violence or fear,
lonely, worried, scared, lost.
For all whose days are an endless march
of appointments, applications, dashed hopes, and unanswered calls.
May your healing and peace and providing strengthen faint hearts and hands,
may your love be made real in community,
and your truth be heard in every place.
On the 4th day of the month we join our hearts as your St John’s family to pray:
*For the churches of CONNECT: St John’s, Old Gourock & Ashton and St Ninian’s, the Lyle Kirk and St Margaret’s, and Westburn.
*For the many volunteers who keep St John’s ministry vibrant: the flower team, Bowl & Blether volunteers, sound and powerpoint volunteers, those who count the offering, and so many others.
*For the land, people, and governments of the nations of Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, San Marino, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Austria.

Your Word made flesh changes things, O God —
give us the courage to be changed,
and to follow where you lead.
We ask in the name of the One who is indeed 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.

Hymn 530: One More Step (praise band)

Sending
Go out from this place to live as God’s beloved people, set free by Christ, following the Spirit’s lead.
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.

Sanctuary Postlude Music (organ)

Announcements

* Starter Packs are in need of Shaving Foam, Shampoo, Soap, Hand Wash.
The FoodBank are short of everything except pasta, so anything you can donate will be gratefully received! You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!

* The Contact Group meets on the 13th of January when Teri will be the speaker. The syllabus of events is available from Fiona Webster or Anne Armour. The syllabus donation of £5 will go towards our charity fundraising.

* Wednesday Evening Bible Study resumes Wednesday 7 January at 7:30pm in the manse.

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

Sunday service for 28 December 2025, first Sunday of Christmas

Sunday 28 December 2025, Christmas 1
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse phone: 632143
Email: TPeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Email Charlene, Parish Assistant: CMitchell (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

YouTube and our website are not cooperating with each other as consistently as we would like, so if you don’t see the video here (or if you see something asking you to put in the unintelligible letters and it just keeps going in an endless horror loop), please click through here to see the video directly on our YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe while you’re there so you never miss a video!

Sanctuary Prelude Music

Welcome

Call to Worship
One: In the beginning, God said “let there be light”
All: and through the Word, the light shone.
One: Since the beginning, light has been shining,
All: sparks of hope, peace, joy, and love embedded in the world.
One: Even today, the light shines,
All: revealing life in all its fullness, grace upon grace.

Hymn 306: O Come, All Ye Faithful

Prayer
You come to us in the flesh, O God,
living among us,
knowing the fullness of our humanity
and revealing to us the fullness of your glory.
Your word of life shines, O God,
and we confess that we often prefer the shadows.
We don’t actually want to know all that your light might illuminate.
We like the comfort of the darkness where we can hide.
The ways of this world may not be compatible with your kingdom,
but they are the ways we know,
and change is hard.
Forgive us when we want to proclaim your good news but not to let it change things.
Forgive us when we have much to say to others but not to ourselves.
Forgive us when we pray for light and then promptly turn it off.
Forgive us when we look back and get stuck,
rather than looking forward to what you will do in the year ahead.
Come among us again with your power
and re-make us as your children,
ready to reflect your light and life into all the world.
We ask in the name of the One who shines and is never overcome,
Jesus the Christ.
Amen.

Friends hear this good news: from Christ’s fullness we receive grace upon grace. Live now in the light. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Sanctuary Children’s Time

Online Hymn: God With Us by All Sons & Daughters

Sanctuary Hymn 314: Child in the Manger

Scripture Reading: John 1.1-18
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ”) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is the only Son, himself God, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

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: threads
Whenever I read this first bit of John’s gospel, I hear in my mind a sort of low and mysterious music, like deep strings rumbling and waving, with then some flashes of percussion or bright brass…and then the deep mysterious part gives way to like a floatier sort of woodwind melody or something. It’s such a dark atmospheric sort of feel that turns to warm light. Many of you have heard me describe the gospel writers as giving different perspectives on Jesus — Mark giving us the perspective from right next to him, hand in hand almost…Matthew from behind, looking forward through the lens of the Old Testament, Luke from ahead looking back like a historian documenting what he thought was important for people to know….but John…John has a cosmic perspective. He is symbolised by the eagle and I describe that often as because he looks down from a birds-eye view, from a big picture perspective. John sees Jesus from the full universal perspective, like looking down on earth from space and seeing that we are one part of the vastness of everything. That feels like it should be accompanied by that sort of swirling mysterious kind of music, don’t you think?

This part of John’s gospel is usually called the prologue — the part that sets up everything that is to come. I sometimes think of it like an overture: the part of a musical or an opera where you hear the melodies that will appear throughout the show. In these 18 verses, John lays out several themes I think we want to be on the lookout for as we read through the gospel from now to Easter. Among those are that Jesus is the very word of God, the embodiment of that word that created, and we know from that Isaiah reading two weeks ago that God’s word never fails in accomplishing God’s purpose, it waters the earth like rain and brings it to fruitfulness. When you want to see what God looks like, John says you should look at Jesus, because in him, God literally tabernacled with us, camped among us, pitched a tent in human community and lived here for a while. You might recall from our summer series on Exodus that the tabernacle, the place to meet God, was in the middle of the camp, and by the end even the pillar of cloud and fire that held God’s presence never left its place in the middle of the people. If that wasn’t enough, any idea that God is invisible or inaccessible or hidden comes to an end with the incarnation, because now we can see Jesus, we can see God’s glory and grace and truth in the flesh. So when we are reading John’s gospel we should be asking ourselves what it is about God that Jesus is revealing, in his interactions with people, his teaching, and his signs — because John never describes Jesus doing miracles, he says he performs signs: works that point to something else. So we should be always looking at what they are pointing to!

Another thread that John gives us a preview of here that will come up again and again is the idea that people didn’t understand Jesus until after the resurrection. They didn’t know…didn’t accept…in other words, we should not be surprised to experience some confusion when we read through John, and we should not be surprised that things that seem obvious to us as people who know the end of the story were not obvious to people living through it for the first time, because in John’s understanding, we can’t get it until we know the end…and many times he’ll say “after he was raised they remembered he said this” and imply that’s the only way to put the pieces together.

It makes sense that resurrection would be required to see the threads coming together, because a major theme of John is that Jesus is Life — he came to bring Life, not just like oh we go about our business or whatever, but Life with a capital L, life essence, life force, the very concept of life. In a world so shaped by empire, by forces that use life and death as bargaining chips and power plays, that Life shines as light…and those forces of darkness can’t understand it. They try their best to grasp it for themselves, to use it and manipulate it, to cover it up…but they never win. They can’t surround it. They can’t put it out. They can’t overcome it. They never have and they never will, but not for lack of trying.

Which is why the Light always needs witnesses — like John, who spoke up when he saw it, and who kept speaking, insisting it wasn’t about him, it was about pointing to Jesus. He was one of those people who could see something more True with a capital T (John’s gospel has a lot of these capital-letter type things!) than the stuff the powers of this world want us to believe, and he showed it to others. He understood his job in a way I think sometimes many of us fail to do. We are not the messiah, and neither is anyone else around us!…and we need to be careful not to get too attached to the messenger, or even to our own role as the messenger, or to the particular methods we use to share the message. The world needs people who can see the light and point to it without needing to play a starring role themselves. It’s why being in community is so important — because sometimes we lose sight of the light, sometimes we lose sight of resurrection life as a current reality, sometimes we lose sight of the Word. But in community there is always someone who can help us to see and love the light again, maybe in a different way than we have experienced before. So we keep pointing beyond us to the far more lovely truth.

The last of the themes of this overture that I want to pull out today for us to keep in mind over the next weeks and months in our journey through John is this from verse 16: “from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” We should picture something like a cup that overflows and so has to be poured out — there’s no option but to pour. The Word made Flesh is so full of God’s grace and truth that there’s nothing to do but pour it out on us all. Not some of us…we have all received grace upon grace, tumbling over like a waterfall that just keeps coming. Like rain and snow that come down from heaven and water the earth making it fruitful. Like manna that covers the ground every morning. Like streams of living water, and a few loaves that multiply beyond the need. The Word made flesh is not separate from all the ways God has created and redeemed and sustained throughout history. The Word made flesh is not different than the word God has spoken from the beginning or through the law and the prophets. Jesus IS that word, embodied. Jesus is that light, embodied. Jesus IS God’s word — no longer trapped on a page, no longer restricted to those who can read or who can hear the story, no longer able to be put away on a shelf, no longer just an idea we can think about and argue about and then set aside…the word is alive in the world, living with us as a neighbour and friend and teacher and companion on the journey. He lives in the same empire we do, with the same human systems and powers of darkness, the same culture of greed and self-interest, the same failings of human nature…and in his very being and by every action and word, he shines with light, he pours out grace, he brings the essence of Life into reality.

The Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth, and we have all received from his fullness grace upon grace…
Grace upon grace…poured out and overflowing so that we can live as light in the darkness, life in the face of the powers that threaten, hope and healing in the midst of hurt, truth in the swirl of lies.
Grace upon grace that gives us the power to become children of God, for that is what we are!

May it be so. Amen.

Silence for Reflection

Online Hymn: Emmanuel by David MacGregor
Sanctuary Hymn 308: Behold the Great Creator Makes

Sanctuary Offering: Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus (praise band)
Offering Response: Hymn 324 vv. 4 and 5
Though an infant now we view him,
he will share his Father’s throne,
gather all the nations to him;
every knee shall then bow down:
Come and worship
Christ, the new-born King.
Come and worship,
worship Christ, the new-born King.

All creation, join in praising
God the Father, Spirit, Son,
evermore your voices raising
to the eternal Three in One:
Come and worship
Christ, the new-born King.
Come and worship,
worship Christ, the new-born King.

Concerns of the Church
*Wednesday Bible Study — off now until after new year
*Bowl & Blether back on the 5th
*Prayer groups

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
Creator God, Word of Life,
you make yourself known to us
and we give you thanks.
As we celebrate your coming among us,
and as we look ahead to the year to come,
we pray you would bring your kingdom close in these days,
and break through all that keeps us from your abundant living.
We pray today for those who feel alone,
those isolated and lonely,
longing for connection.
You know what it is to feel different,
to walk a difficult road and wonder if anyone understands.
Journey with them today, O God,
and hold them close to your heart.
We pray today for those who love your story, and who love to teach others.
Strengthen their witness.
Set them free from over-attachment to method or outcome,
that they may always point faithfully to you.
We pray today for those who struggle in this life,
those who hear of you making home among us and wish they had a home too,
those who hear of fullness and can only feel their hunger,
those who hear of life but are weighed down with grief,
those who hear of grace and truth but whose days are marked by the lie that war can bring peace.
Come into the dark corners, the empty tables, the hurting hearts
with your comfort and your help
and your peace that passes understanding.
We pray today for those who are caught in the ways of the world,
those who no longer even see a problem with the powers and systems in which we live,
who see only the benefits and ignore the costs.
May they hear your word and desire your life.
We pray for all those places in the world
where it feels like your light is losing ground.
You promised that it will not be overcome,
that the shadows cannot understand, cannot encircle, cannot take hold.
You come in the flesh to live your love among us, O God,
and we ask for the power and courage to embody your love in the flesh in this community, too,
revealing your grace and truth to all,
until the whole creation is transformed
and indeed your light shines on everyone.
On the 28th day of the month we join our hearts as your St John’s family to pray
*For Clydeview Academy — for the young people, 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 into the people you are calling them to be.
*For the many volunteers who keep St John’s ministry vibrant: the pastoral care team, the flower team, Bowl & Blether volunteers, sound and powerpoint volunteers, those who count the offering, and so many others.
*For the land, people, and governments of the nations of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Bahamas, Bermuda, Bonaire, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, and Cuba

As one year turns to another,
we pray to leave behind all that harms
and move forward in your grace and truth.
We ask these and all things in the name of the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us,
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.

Hymn 320: Joy to the World

Sending
The light shines — go to reflect God’s light into the world desperate to see it!
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.

Sanctuary Postlude Music (organ)

Announcements

* The first Sunday of the month at 11am is 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.

* Starter Packs are in need of Shaving Foam, Shampoo, Soap, Hand Wash. Also in preparation for Christmas they are collecting hats, scarves and gloves for children and adults, selection boxes, chocolates and biscuits.
The FoodBank are short of everything except pasta, so anything you can donate will be gratefully received! You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!

* Wednesday Evening Bible Study resumes on Wednesday 7 January, at 7:30pm in the manse.

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

Sunday Service for 2 January 2022

2 January 2022
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 and Announcements

Call to Worship
One: Who are you?
All: We are the ones God has called, to tasks large and small.
One: What are you looking for?
1: We are looking for someone who can change things,
2: We are looking for a better future,
3: We are looking for answers to our wonderings,
4: We are looking for justice,
1: We are looking for peace,
2: We are looking for a teacher,
3: We are looking for an easier way,
4: We are looking for hope,
All: We are looking for a million things we don’t even know how to express.
One: Why are you here?
All: We are here hoping to recognise and understand the Spirit among us,
for we trust God is at work.
One: Come and see!

Prayer
Holy One, you will make a way…
A way that leads beyond our established systems and rules,
calling us to new possibilities, new community, new ways of life.
Holy One, you call us to make a way…
A way for those left out to join in,
calling together all who long for a new day.
Reveal our part in your story this day,
that we may take up our role
and use what gifts and power you give us to bring about your will,
here and now.
Loving God, we thank you for the people who have brought us to you — those who have told us your story, who have taken us by the hand and accompanied us in prayer, those who have invited us into the community of your disciples. We remember with gratitude the whole cloud of witnesses who have brought us to this point in our journey with you and your people.
And we confess that we are shy to do what they have done. We admit that we find it difficult to say to another that we have experienced a grace and love that changes our lives. We long for your Church to grow, yet we keep silent about the joy and challenge of Christian community. We read of your disciples calling each other, and we celebrate those who have shared your good news with us, but we confess we can’t quite get there ourselves.
Forgive us our reluctant witness. Forgive us our over-reliance on “use words if necessary” in a world where few see our deeds or even know to ask a question. Forgive us for lamenting decline while holding our faith as private. Forgive us for keeping this experience of grace and mercy and love and hope to ourselves, even while you continually call “Come and see.”
Show us your glory once again, and give us courage to share it. We ask in the name of Jesus the Christ. Amen.

Music
online: From Life’s Beginning (let praise resound) by Resound Worship
in person: ‘On Dulci Jubilo’ by F.Liszt/arr P.Norris

Children’s Time: Magnifying glasses

As we enter a new year, you are invited to look at the world, other people, yourself — everything, really — through a new lens. How does the lens through which you look colour the way you see the world? Does looking through a new lens help you to see God more clearly, to look for the movement of the Spirit, to see Jesus?

Magnifying glasses help to make small things visible, large and clear. And they are an essential part of the detective’s kit, as they look for clues. So you are invited to use a magnifying glass word (like the Star Words we have sometimes done before), as a lens to look for clues of God’s work, to enlarge and clarify and colour the details of the world so that you can see Jesus in a new way in your life and in the world around you.

If you would like a magnifying glass word, you can either pick one up from the manse porch anytime, or let Teri know and she’ll pray and draw one out for you and post it to you (or WhatsApp/email a photo until the post can reach you!).

Music: Your Light Has Come by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan

Reading: John 1.19-51 (New Revised Standard Version)

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, ‘I am not the Messiah.’ And they asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’ Then they said to him, ‘Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?’ He said, ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord” ’, as the prophet Isaiah said.
Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, ‘Why then are you baptising if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?’ John answered them, ‘I baptise with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.’ This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptising.
The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” I myself did not know him; but I came baptising with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptise with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptises with the Holy Spirit.” And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’

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: Peer-to-Peer

We have begun our journey through John’s gospel, from now through Easter in the Narrative Lectionary…though I confess that today we have actually read the passage assigned for last week as well as the one for today, because the lectionary had cut apart this one long story into two halves, meaning that the second half started with the words “the next day, John was again…” and I was immediately curious about two things. First of all, what happened the previous day? And second, what was John doing a second time? So I had to back up, and when I read the entire story together as it was meant to be, it seemed to make more sense. This is why it matters to read sometimes long chunks all at once, because when we cut it up, we might miss something important!

Today’s story took place over the course of four days. On the first day, the authorities questioned John, and he told them that he was just pointing the way to the one who was coming after him. They were not excited about this answer, because not only does John not fit into any of their categories, he was also engaging in religious rituals without their oversight, and people were finding meaning and belonging in his new way…which means the authorities were losing control over the spiritual lives of people.

On the second day, John saw Jesus and declared him to be the lamb of God that he’d been waiting for. That was a very weird thing to say, especially since John followed up with “I didn’t actually know him, but this is definitely the one” — and apparently those who heard him say it didn’t think much of it. Even after hearing about the Spirit descending on Jesus, nothing seems to have happened! John said that he hadn’t known who Jesus was at first, he didn’t understand, but now he did…and then he went home and went to bed, apparently!

The next day, John was again standing with two of his disciples — which tells us that they heard him say those things about Jesus the day before! I picture the scene like John and his disciples just hanging around in the village square, chatting and having a coffee or whatever they did back then. Jesus walked past, as presumably dozens of people did, and John said “remember what I said yesterday? Here he is again!”

This is the part we normally wouldn’t notice if we only read the little bit assigned for each Sunday: that it was the second time John had said the same thing before these two disciples decided they’d better go see what Jesus was all about.

It makes me wonder if perhaps the night before, after John had said it the first time, did they have an evening of discussion round the fire? Perhaps they talked late into the night about what they saw God doing and what their part was, and he explained a bit more about his role — which he clearly knew was temporary and minor, yet he played his part faithfully — and the role of the One who was to come. Or maybe the disciples just laid there in the dark and thought about what their teacher had said, wondering what it might mean. Whatever happened that night, when Jesus walked past them on the street again the next afternoon, they jumped at the chance to learn more.

That’s when something really fascinating happened. John’s disciples appear to have basically just…left John standing there on the street corner and started following Jesus around, in a way that was hopefully not at all creepy. He could probably feel their eyes on him and hear their footsteps behind him, so he turned around and instead of saying “what do you want?” he said “what are you looking for?”

What are you looking for?

That is the question, isn’t it. We’ve already talked about how we look, and gotten some new lenses to look through…but what are we looking for?

Those two disciples of John didn’t seem to have an answer. I suspect many of us would be similarly paralysed if we were asked this question. Think of when you attend a workshop or class and the instructor starts off asking people to go around the room and say why they signed up for this course, what you’re hoping to learn…and how uncomfortable we all are answering that specific question! Now imagine Jesus asking it, face to face: what are you looking for? I suspect we’d all be even more tongue-tied than usual!

Instead of an answer, they stuttered out their own question: where are you staying? The word there is actually “abiding” — where do you abide? And Jesus doesn’t exactly give an answer. Instead he offers an invitation: Come and see.

Come and see. That’s it. No pressure. No commitment. No prerequisites or vetting. No experience necessary. No need to be able to answer the question. Just…come and see.

Don’t you wonder what they saw?

Whatever they saw, the experience made them want to invite others to come and experience it too. Andrew went home and found his brother Simon Peter and invited him, and he came to check it out and see what had gotten Andrew so excited.

The next day, the fourth day, Jesus met Philip and invited him…and Philip’s experience was also interesting enough for him to go find his friend Nathanael and invite him too. Now Nathanael was likely the studious one of the bunch — to say someone sits under the fig tree was a metaphor for studying Torah. He resisted at first, because he knew from scripture that Nazareth wasn’t an important town…and sometimes when we think we know something, it’s really only part of the story. But operating on that incomplete knowledge as if it’s the whole truth is dangerous — as we see when Nathanael comes out with his prejudiced slur about people from Nazareth! But Philip is persistent, so he uses the same words: Come and see. Just come check it out, and see what happens. Come have this experience with me.

And the experience Nathanael has changes everything — he realised in that moment that for all his studying, he still had only partial understanding, and in the presence of Jesus he met God more fully than ever before.

Come and see…but be prepared that having an experience might change your mind, or your life.

The thing I find fascinating about these four days is that nearly everyone who comes to Jesus comes because of what we might call a peer-to-peer invitation. It’s a friend, a teacher, a brother who invites them. And sometimes they take some convincing, or have to be invited twice! And yet they come, maybe even just to please their friend or brother and then go home later with a good story…but even when they didn’t know what they were looking for, they found the fullness of God dwelling in human flesh and the experience changed them.

This word-of-mouth invitation from a friend is always the best advertising for anything, of course — we all do it. Besides the online reviews many people write, we’re all more than willing to share about a restaurant we’ve visited, or the hotel we loved on our holiday, or where the best walks are around here. And often we’ll say “oh, I’ve been wanting to try xyz place, want to meet there for lunch?” or we’ll offer to show someone our favourite place to take photos of the cruise ships or share the train ride to a favourite show. A few years ago I practically begged one of my friends to come to Disneyland with me, and even though she would have preferred to go kayaking or something, she came and we had a great time, even staying until the park closed at midnight! We share the things we enjoy, and invite people to have their own experience of them because we thought they were great. Maybe even life-changingly good.

But we don’t do it much with church. How often do we have an experience in church, or with our church family, that makes us want to tell other people about it, to invite them to have an experience too? When have we seen God at work and thought “I need to let so-and-so know about this because they will want to see it for themselves”? Maybe we even wonder what people would see, if we invited them to come and see? Would they experience God here? Would they see Jesus in our community? Would they sense the Holy Spirit moving among us? Do we?

The beauty of these four days here at the beginning of John’s gospel is that, paradoxically, those who try to use all the right words to explain what they believe or what they think God is supposed to do are the ones who struggle with the first invitation. It’s the experience of being with Jesus, of abiding with him, in his presence, that changes people. Not the knowledge, and not the pretty words; they actually, in some way, obscure. So often we think “I don’t know enough, I’m not sure what to say” but it turns out that what to say is “come and see” — and then the experience we have together is what opens our eyes and hearts to a new Jesus-life. What matters is to come into the presence of Christ…then we’ll see where it leads.

This season, as we look for Jesus, don’t forget to invite others to come and see with you. Together we’ll be changed in his presence.

May it be so. Amen.

Hymn 320: Joy to the World
in person Hymn: New Days Come (words: Tom Gordon, tune: Regent Square)

Prayer for a new year
It’s a new day, O God, and we long to know what the year ahead holds,
but we trust you hold all these days in your hand.
We have high hopes and also significant worries,
looking ahead at what might be.
We pray for your presence to be made known to us, whatever may come.
For those who face days of grief, anxiety, or pain, we ask your comfort.
For those who face empty cupboards and cold boilers,
watching bank accounts drain and wondering where to turn, we ask your providing.
For those whose new year will hold more of the same as the old,
illness or treatments or struggling along day to day with no change in sight,
we ask your healing.
For those who hope this is finally the year when peace comes, when justice is done,
we ask your courage.
For your church, seeking your path
and wondering how to be faithful in a changed world,
we ask your Spirit to strengthen our will to work for your kingdom.
For all the longings and hopes and fears in our hearts,
we ask your help and we trust your grace is enough for us.
As we step into the future you have in mind for us,
we pray for the vision to see as you see.
We ask for your strength to lift our burdens,
that we may enter this year with light hearts,
ready to overflow with compassion.
We ask for your hope to infuse our lives,
that we may enter this year with a spring in our step,
ready to move forward with conviction.
We ask for your wisdom to clear our minds,
that we may enter this year with curiosity,
open to the possibility of your plans.
You know us, God, better than we know ourselves,
and we pray that we may come to know you in all your fullness,
and to follow faithfully through whatever is to come.
Lead us. Guide us. Show us. Keep us. Empower us.
We ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, who taught us to pray together:

Benediction
Friends, go out into this new year looking for the kingdom of God come among us, and ready to invite others to come and see what Jesus is doing in your life. 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.

Announcements
* This winter our theme is “Seeing Jesus.” Where do you see Jesus? What is he up to in your life, and in our community’s life?

*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 Jonathan. 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 and/or Westminster Wednesdays 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!

Sunday service for 19 December 2021, fourth Sunday of Advent

19 December 2021, 4th Sunday of Advent
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 and Announcements

Lighting the Fourth Advent Candle
1: In the depths of night, God’s grace lights the way.
2: In the shadows before dawn, God’s life lights the way.
3: In the confusion and chaos, God’s truth lights the way.
4: In the longing and waiting, God’s Word lights the way.
All: God is coming, and the world will never be the same!
~candle is lit~

O come, thou Wisdom from on high,
who orderest all things mightily:
to us the path of knowledge show;
and teach us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to thee, O Israel.

Prayer
Your glory shines, Holy One, yet we confess that we find it easier to live in the kingdoms of this world than in yours. We understand how the systems work, and we admit that though the price the powers and principalities demand is high, still we choose them. We confess that we have fallen into the trap of speaking one way and living another — we claim the truth of your word and at the same time live as if the empires of this world have ultimate power and sway. They obscure your grace and love, and we admit that in the fog and shadows we have gotten turned around, so we find ourselves serving the death-dealing powers rather than your life and light. Forgive us and turn us again to your way, enlightened by your truth and grace. We ask in the name of the one who forever bound word and action together, your Word become Flesh among us, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

Online Hymn 274: Comfort, Comfort, Now My People

Children’s Time (in person only)

Reading: John 1.1-18
For several weeks, we have been reading from the prophets, with their concerns and promises for the people in exile, looking for God’s presence and call in unfamiliar territory. Today we transition from the Hebrew Bible to the New Testament. From now through Easter we will be reading from the Gospel According to John, which was written between 90-100 CE to a community struggling with how to differentiate themselves in an increasingly hostile environment, as they no longer fit into synagogue life but were also threatening to the Roman Empire. Each of the four gospels has a unique perspective as they tell the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. We might think of John as looking at Jesus from above, from a cosmic perspective, seeing a big picture rather than small immediate details. We’ll hear this from the very beginning, as the gospel opens with an overture that, just like a musical overture, hints at the themes that are to come. I am reading from chapter 1, beginning at verse 1, from the New Revised Standard Version.
~~~~~

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” ’) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

~~~
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 Word Became Flesh

This time of year means that everything I read or see calls a song to mind…this week I’ve been non-stop humming

God of God,
Light of light,
Lo! he abhors not the Virgin’s womb;
very God,
begotten not created;
O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord!

In just a few sparse lines of poetry filled mainly with words we rarely use anymore, the carol gives us a summary of John 1: the Word was God…light shines in the darkness…the Word became flesh, loving and blessing this human body…and when we see, we will orient our lives around praise.

A few weeks ago, when we read from Isaiah 9 about “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light,” I said that the shining of the light doesn’t change the path on which we walk or the obstacles in our way, it changes us and our ability to navigate the journey to which God calls us.

John’s understanding of the light is the same. The Word, who is the light of all people, became flesh and lived among us, moved right into our neighbourhood and set up home and shop in our community…and we have seen his glory. That glory, that light, illuminates the world around us, showing us things we might not have seen before. Just the same way that a stream of sunshine through the window can highlight the dust floating in the air or the fingerprints on the windows, the light of the world highlights the things we live with everyday without even noticing. Things that the empires of this world want us to not see.

The Word became flesh and lived among us, and in the light of his glory we can see that we are children of God — our ancestry is not the determiner of our status in God’s family. The empires of this world want us to believe that where we’re born, or what we look like, or who our parents are, determines our value, and our place in the world, and how we ought to relate to other people. They have even used this ancient poetry to claim that dark skin is inferior to light skin, so we have to be careful when we use these powerful metaphors. Because the truth is that being a child of God, made in God’s image, has nothing to do with any of that. When we see that truth, we can live differently, walking in the light of life for all people.

The Word became flesh and lived among us, and in the light of his glory we can see that there is power in humility. John the baptiser recognised that though his role was important, he was not the light. He saw his job was to point the way toward the coming Christ, rather than trying to gather fame and power and wealth for himself. And even Jesus did not try to elevate himself or take equality with God for granted, but humbled himself. Which reminds me of another carol:

Hail, the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
risen with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that man no more may die,
born to raise the sons of earth,
born to give them second birth:
Hark! the herald angels sing,
‘Glory to the new-born King.’

The empires of this world want us to focus attention on ourselves, and on what we can gain or earn, how we can get ahead, not on God himself laying his glory by the wayside. But when we see the truth of our place in God’s story, we can live differently, pointing the way to the one who is greater than we are.

The Word became flesh and lived among us, and in the light of his glory we can see that even those seemingly small roles matter. John was certain that his task was small and temporary — he wasn’t the light, he was a witness, and he wasn’t the first or the last. But he still went about his ministry faithfully, doing what God needed him to do, and it mattered. It made a difference to the people he baptised, the people who heard his teaching, the disciples he sent to follow Jesus, and even the religious and political leaders who were so disturbed by him. The empires of this world want us to think that small efforts make no difference, that if we can’t solve everything in one go, we should simply give up and let them carry on with their destructive ways. But when we see the truth of our place in God’s story, we can live differently, confidently doing even the smallest thing God asks of us, trusting it matters to God’s kingdom or else God wouldn’t call us to do it!

The Word became flesh and lived among us, and in the light of his glory we can see that flesh and blood matter, these bodies matter. Surely God could have sent the Word in any number of intellectual or spiritual ways, but God chose to take on a body, to live with the pains and joys and limitations and senses of a human body. Our bodies are not incidental to God’s story, they are a gift, a blessing, and it’s through a human body that God blesses the world. The empires of this world want us to separate mind, body, and spirit, and to believe none of them are good enough, to measure ourselves against some impossible standard so they can sell us more things. But when we see the truth of God’s emBodiment, we can live differently, treasuring the gift of physical presence and honouring and taking care of this body God gave us for a purpose.

The Word became flesh and lived among us, and in the light of his glory we can see that the darkness itself is already past, despite what the empires of this world think about themselves. This reading uses only past-tense words to say “the darkness did not overcome it” while the light shines in ongoing present tense verbs. The powers of this world, which do not have grace and truth at heart and are not serving God’s kingdom, want us to think they are the ultimate reality. I’m reminded of that old quip about “he’s a self-made man, and he worships his creator” — that’s what the ways of the world are like. They think they are the self-evidently correct, ordained since the beginning of time, or even only possible way things could be. And people uphold them because we can’t see any other way, so we assume it’s true that this is just the way things are, nothing to see here, nothing we can do about it. But ultimately that’s idolatry — the empire worshipping itself as if it’s the only way.

In the light of God’s Word, we see that they are past tense, holding on only by keeping us in the dark. When we see the truth of God’s ongoing life, we can recognise what is truly ultimate reality…and then we can live our lives in light of that reality instead of the one the world so desperately wants us to believe. Some do not see, despite the light shining. Some don’t accept the vision the light reveals. Some choose the shadows, because it’s easier and more profitable. But the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. The light overcomes the confusion and obfuscation, offering clarity we can only describe as grace upon grace.

In which kingdom would we prefer to live? Christ was born to shine the light of truth, not from far off but from right here, as close as God could get — pitching a tent in the back garden, moving in to the kitchen, meeting us at the front door — so that we could see God’s glory, up close and personal. This Christmas, and beyond, may we see, and walk, in the light.

Amen.

Online Hymn: Emmanuel – Living Word (by David MacGregor)

In Person Hymn 308: Behold the great Creator makes (vv. 1, 2, 3, 5)

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
We take a deep breath and feel your spirit in our lungs, O God.
We feel your breath expanding, filling, stretching us, bringing us to new life.

We give thanks for these bodies you have gifted us.
As we place our hands on our legs,
we are grateful for muscles and joints,
and for assistive devices like sticks and chairs,
that bear heavy loads,
that move us from place to place.
We pray this day for those who feel trapped, unable to move.
We lift up those who are confined to home or hospital,
those who are self-isolating,
those who live with pain in their joints or muscles,
those who mourn the loss of freedom or mobility.
May they be upheld and moved by your strength.

As we place our hands on our stomachs,
we are grateful for all that goes on inside of us, out of sight.
We thank you for all the organs that keep us going,
for the way you have knit us together
and created a body that cares for itself.
We are fearfully and wonderfully made!
We pray this day for those who do not have enough to eat,
whose tummies rumble and whose systems suffer from lack.
We lift up our neighbours who are ill and awaiting tests or treatment,
whose stomachs are full of butterflies and nerves as they wonder what the future holds.
May they be fed and healed by your power.

As we place our hands on our arms, wrapping ourselves in your gift,
we give thanks for the ability to feel, to know you through our senses.
We are grateful for wonder and tenderness, compassion and joy,
there for us to experience in every way.
We pray this day for those who are starved for touch,
who are lonely and longing for a hug.
We lift up those whose senses show them only pain,
who are surrounded by fear or shadows or abuse.
May they be cared for by your love.

Your word is the foundation of reality,
your grace pre-dates history,
and still you choose to reveal yourself to us,
still you call us your children.
We come, longing to see your glory,
praying you will once again speak life into being, O God,
and call us to walk by your light.

We ask in the name of the Word made Flesh, Jesus the Christ,
the light and life of the world, 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.

In Person Hymn 313: See! in yonder manger low (vv. 1, 2, 5)

Benediction
May you walk in the light of grace and truth this Christmas. 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.

Postlude Music

Announcements
* This Advent our theme is “EmBodied” — encountering the Word Made Flesh, in our own bodies and in our own places where God has planted us.

* Follow your St John’s Embodied Advent Calendar! There’ll be a Facebook Live for some of the St John’s Advent Calendar too.

* Bring your Reverse Advent Calendar donations to church or to the manse and we will get them delivered.

* Christmas worship Schedule:
Longest Night (a quieter Christmas service recognising the darkness in which the Light shines) on 21 December at 7:30pm
Joint services for Christmas Eve at 7:30pm at St. John’s and 11:30pm at Old Gourock and Ashton
Christmas Day, 11am, on ZOOM with all of Connect
Sunday 26 December, 10:30am, joint service with St Ninian’s Larkfield and OGA, at Old Gourock.

* 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.

* 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!

Sunday Service for 2 August 2020, tenth Sunday of Pentecost

2 August 2020: 10th 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 Antioch — the city where followers of the risen Christ were first called Christians!

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

* Late-night Mayhem Club happens each night this week, Sunday – Friday, at 10pm on Zoom! Contact Teri for login details and a craft packet!

* 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 all three Connect Clergy, and includes the launch of the Prayer Path that can be found this week at all our area CofS churches. the service 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.

~~~~~~

Hymn: Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord

Prayers, Reading, Sermon

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

~~~~

Call to Worship and Opening Prayer

Whoever you are,
Wherever you are,
Whenever you are taking this time to worship,
The call is the same.
Jesus says to us: Come and See.
Come and see grace and love, justice and peace, hope and faith.
Come and see.

Let us pray.

In the midst of everything, O God, you are.
You promised to be with us, in joys and sorrows, in times of hard work and times of rest.
While we go about our daily lives, you are there.
When we aren’t even sure what we’re looking for, you are there.
We praise you for your constancy, for your faithfulness, for your persistence.
For we confess that we are not always good at noticing you.
And we admit that often, when we do look for you, it’s with the hope that you will confirm our desires, our biases, our preconceived notions, so that we will feel justified in whatever action we take, even at the expense of others or of the earth.
Today, Lord, we confess that we are tired of those justifications.
We are exhausted from going our own way and massaging things to make it look like your way.
We have glimpsed a more excellent way, and we want to know more.
We have heard your word and we long for an up-close view of what life with you could be.
So we pray that you would forgive our hard-heartedness.
Forgive the blinders we have put on our eyes and our minds.
Take away those things that keep us from coming close to you and seeing your truth.
Take away those things that keep us from living for your glory.
Take away those things that distract us from your way.
And then fill us again with your grace, that we may indeed live as your people, forgiven, loved, and free, and ready to share your story, that all who seek may indeed find — for you are never far from us, filling our lives with your very breath of love.
We pray these things in the name of Jesus the Christ, who continually calls us through all the tumult of this life, 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 the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours,
now and forever. Amen.

Sung Prayer #159 (words: Timothy Dudley-Smith, tune: Lord of the Years by Michael Baughen)

Lord, for ourselves; in living power remake us,
self on the cross and Christ upon the throne;
past put behind us, for the future take us,
Lord of our lives, to live for Christ alone.

Scripture Reading: John 1.35-46 (Common English Bible)

The next day John was standing again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus walking along he said, “Look! The Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard what he said, and they followed Jesus.
When Jesus turned and saw them following, he asked, “What are you looking for?”
They said, “Rabbi (which is translated Teacher), where are you staying?”
He replied, “Come and see.” So they went and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.
One of the two disciples who heard what John said and followed Jesus was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Christ ). He led him to Jesus.
Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).
The next day Jesus wanted to go into Galilee, and he found Philip. Jesus said to him, “Follow me.” Philip was from Bethsaida, the hometown of Andrew and Peter.
Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law and the Prophets: Jesus, Joseph’s son, from Nazareth.”
Nathanael responded, “Can anything from Nazareth be good?”
Philip said, “Come and see.”

Sermon: Come and See (Postcards of Faith 7)

I love picturing this first scene like a film — imagine: John the Baptist and some of his disciples are standing around, loitering on the corner. He sees Jesus and points (he wouldn’t be the subtle type to just nod his head and say “don’t look now, but here comes the lamb of God”, he would definitely point). And the two disciples walk away from John, leaving him standing on the corner alone. They follow Jesus at a discreet distance, perhaps, but he senses that he’s being followed and turns around to confront them, and when he asks what they’re looking for, I picture them as a bit tongue-tied. What are they looking for? Do they even know?

We know that John had been teaching that he wasn’t The One, that he was preparing the way for one who would come after him and be greater than he could even imagine. So when he finally pointed to Jesus in the flesh, perhaps it’s no surprise that Andrew and the other disciple with him simply dropped everything and changed schools without a blink. Or perhaps there was a bit more thought involved — I think of how difficult it was to leave behind my hairdresser and my therapist when I was moving here, and how much more difficult it would be to leave behind a spiritual teacher like John the Baptist! Yet off they went. But when Jesus turned around, they suddenly realised there was more to this than they’d thought.

What are you looking for?

When we come to Jesus, what are we looking for?

Are we looking for someone who will comfort us through difficult times?
Someone who will ease our discomfort at changes in the world by offering us a bubble of pious words and pictures?
Someone who looks like us and will help us maintain the status quo?
Are we looking for answers to difficult 21st century questions?
Are we looking for 5 easy steps to a good life?
Are we looking for hope in the midst of the despair of this world?
Are we looking for a friend who will go along with our ideas, or one who will challenge us to be our best selves?
Are we looking for God, creator, redeemer, and sustainer of the universe, in the flesh beside us?
Are we looking for someone who will lead us through green pastures and through the valley off the shadow of death, who will invite us to a feast in the presence of our enemies?
Someone who will open our eyes to see the truth of this world, and who won’t let us shy away from big challenges?
Someone who will steer our steps toward the people who are poor, ill, outcast, foreign, and undesirable? Or who will call us to change the systems that keep people poor, marginalised, and seen as less-than?
Are we looking to have our hearts broken when God’s heart breaks?
Are we looking for love so overwhelming that it spills over to people who don’t deserve it?

What are you looking for?

Andrew and his friend don’t appear to have an answer, so they simply indicate that they want to be close to Jesus — except they do it in the creepiest way possible. Having followed him around town and gotten caught, they then just say “where are you staying?” Luckily, Jesus knows their hearts. He knows they aren’t stalkers or celebrity-obsessed paparazzi. He knows that they are seeking something they don’t yet know how to articulate, and that the best way to find it is to stay close to him. So he issues them an invitation: Come and see.

And those two go, and they see, and then they find their siblings and friends and give them the same invitation: come and see.

Notice there are no answers in the story, no pithy sayings, no clarifying of positions on political issues yet. So far, we’ve got Jesus inviting disciples, and then those disciples inviting more. And for thousands of years, that’s exactly how it has worked. We come to Jesus and see, and then we invite others to come and see with us.

Whatever we think we’re looking for, the answer will be the same: come close to Jesus, and see what he is doing and saying, how he is living and being, where he is going, who he is spending time with, and that will change us, and it will change the world.

When we come close to Jesus, we’ll discover there’s no room for the casual racism that enables a question like “can anything good come from Nazareth?” Those dividing walls are torn down and the kingdom of God encompassing all can be seen, when we join Nathanael in rooting out those internalised prejudices.

When we come close to Jesus, we’ll see that the way our thoughts become actions is more important than just believing the right things.

When we come close to Jesus, we’ll learn that love isn’t just a feeling, and it isn’t just for the people we like. It’s an action that has to be chosen every day, in every situation, toward everyone — because that is how the world will know that we are his followers, by our love.

When we come close to Jesus, what we see will make us want to invite others to come as well, because there is no one else in whom abundant life can be found, and surely we will want to share that when we have found it.

So hear the invitation again today: come and see.

May it be so. Amen.

Hymn 510, Jesus Calls Us Here To Meet Him (vv. 1-3)
(words: John L Bell & Graham Maule, tune: Lewis Folk Melody)

Jesus calls us here to meet him
as, through word and song and prayer,
we affirm God’s promised presence
where his people live and care.
Praise the God who keeps his promise;
praise the Son who calls us friends;
praise the Spirit who, among us,
to our hopes and fears attends.

 Jesus calls us to confess him
Word of life and Lord of all,
sharer of our flesh and frailness,
saving all who fail or fall.
Tell his holy human story;
tell his tales that all may hear;
tell the world that Christ in glory
came to earth to meet us here.

Jesus calls us to each other,
vastly different though we are;
creed and colour, class and gender
neither limit nor debar.
Join the hand of friend and stranger;
join the hands of age and youth;
join the faithful and the doubter
in their common search for truth.

Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession

Loving God, we thank you for the many ways you reveal yourself to us — through the beauty of your creation, through the laughter of children, through the caring companionship of family and friends. We thank you for the wonders of four seasons in one afternoon, and for the glimpse of grace that we get from seeing our community come together to help each other in the midst of a crisis. We are grateful to feel your breath in the wind, to remember our baptisms when we unexpectedly get caught in the rain, and to hear your call in the voices of our neighbours near and far who cry out for help, for healing, and for justice.
You call us to come and see, to stay close to you and follow your lead. And so we pray for the courage to walk your way, Lord. For the strength to love as you love, to include those you include, and to do the work that you have left for us to do as ambassadors of your kingdom.
We remember this day those who have been left behind, forgotten, or silenced…those on the margins of society, overlooked because their stories are inconvenient for those in power. We pray that they may be heard, and valued, and welcomed.
We remember those who sit in the places of power and decision making, and we pray that they might have the wisdom and compassion to seek your way, to build a more just society where none are expendable.
We remember your creation, groaning under our weight. We pray for the vision and the discipline to be good stewards of this earth you have entrusted to our care, that it may indeed provide for all, as you intend.
We remember your people who are suffering —
with illness of body, mind, or spirit;
with uncertainty, unemployment, or loss;
with grief, pain, or despair;
with violence, hatred, and war.
We pray for your comfort to surround them, your healing to fill them, your justice to roll down like waters.
For all the ways in which the world does not yet look like your kingdom, we ask your help, O God.
Bring us close to you, and let us see your truth.
Guide us in seeking your way, and gift us for the task of being your Body, tearing down dividing walls of hostility and building up a society of love, compassion, and justice.
Then send us out to tell your story, to invite others to come and see, that together we may live always for your glory.
In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Benediction
Wherever you find yourself in days to come, keep your eyes on Jesus, for he will show you the way — the way to abundant living, the way to invite others, the way of love for all. 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.

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