Sunday service for 29 August 2021

29 August 2021, 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Sunday School Revisited 14
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 an audio recording of this service, including music, phone 01475 270037. Please tell your friends, neighbours, and fellow church members who don’t have internet access!

Prelude Music

Welcome/Announcements

Call to Worship (from the Iona Abbey Worship Book)
One: Jesus says, “I am the Way for you.”
All: And so we come to follow Christ.
One: Jesus says, “I am the Truth for you.”
All: And so we come to dwell in the light.
One: Jesus says, “I am the Life for you.”
All: And so we come, leaving behind all else to which we cling.

Prayer
You are the Way that opens before us, making space for a deep breath and calling us to step onto a path that we know and yet cannot fully know.
Forgive us for insisting on our own way.
You are the Truth that supersedes argument and puts an end to strife, casting light that drives out hatred and illuminates the shadowy corners of our minds and hearts.
Forgive us for calling our opinions facts, and insisting our closed minds are the same as your word.
You are the Life that conquers death, laying a feast of abundance we can’t even imagine.
Forgive us for hoarding your goodness for ourselves, while our neighbours around the world starve for food, for water, for safety, for hope, for love, for peace.
Holy God, the news of the world makes us angry and drives us to despair, yet we admit that we cannot see past our own fear and complacency to discern what you would have us do, and so we lament and forget.
Forgive us, and loosen our grip on our own desire for comfort that we may join you in serving the world you so love. Strengthen our hearts, renew our trust in you, and lead us into fullness of life with all your people.
We ask in the name of Jesus the Christ, who lived your life among us in order that we might live with you. Amen.

Music
online: Plenty Good Room (African-American spiritual)

Children’s Time

Reading: John 14.1-10 New Revised Standard Version
‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’
Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

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: Roomy
Some of you may know that two new cats came to live in the manse recently. For the past two weeks, it has been a slow process of getting them settled in. We started out with several days spent in my bedroom — anytime I was home, I was in there with them, and the rest of the time they stayed in by themselves, door firmly shut. Then they were allowed out to explore the hallway and stairs to the upper floor…but all the doors to rooms were closed, so they couldn’t get into mischief. After a week, I took them one at a time to the sitting room for an afternoon, then to the study and kitchen for an afternoon — both of those days they were so exhausted that they slept about 9 hours straight overnight! Then we had a little time exploring just the ground floor, and then just the upstairs again, and finally a day when the gate was opened and they could go anywhere in the house, as long as I followed them around. And now they are able to roam freely and unsupervised around the whole house — except the rooms that are always closed for heat-saving purposes!

It’s a big house, so there’s plenty of room for them to run, have adventures, sprawl out on the floor for an impromptu nap, or hide behind the books on the shelf. They have plenty of toys in basically every room, and yet they have stolen cherry tomatoes off the counter, balanced precariously on the bannister on the top floor landing, and hidden under the duvet. They are not kittens, but they’re still fairly small creatures, so this three story house must feel like…well…like their mama’s house has many mansions.

I promise I’m not being sacrilegious, or comparing myself to God and God’s house. Just trying to give a different perspective on a text that many of us are very familiar with — whether from Sunday school and holiday clubs or from funerals. Every day there’s some new place in the house for the cats to discover…and every day there’s something new within God’s house for us to discover.

The thing that makes all that exploration of the house possible is the security of our relationships within it. Before they were out wandering the house, the cats had to get to know and trust me. Each time we went to a new room they knew it was okay because I took them there, and they could always come back to my lap. The same is true within God’s house — especially since, honestly, most of the time scripture uses the word “house” it’s actually about a relationship, a family, not a physical building! Jesus says there are many places to dwell in God…just as he and the Father dwell in each other, and just as he tells us to abide in him as he abides in us. To live in God’s house is to trust the relationship we have with God — a close relationship in which we live our lives together, meaning that we share our lives with God and God shares God’s life with us. When Jesus says he is the way to a relationship with God, this is why — because in Christ, God shared life with us and brought us into the family.

The disciples didn’t really know what was going on when Jesus talked this way. Then, as now, people just can’t really fathom the idea that God’s house, God’s family, is roomy enough for everyone. We’ve usually got quite a list of people we just frankly don’t have time for, but God has all the time in the world, for each of us… and for each of “them.” That’s what it means to have roominess in God’s “house”, God’s family — the relationship is spacious, there’s room to walk around, to learn and grow and change, to ask questions and to explore and to know we can come back to the safety of resting in God’s hand. Because God gave Godself to us, and we give ourselves to God. That’s how committed relationships work.

The disciples, though…they thought they had to understand first in order to commit. They thought they had to have the right words, the right map to follow, before they’d be allowed in. They were so afraid of being left alone, so afraid of the future Jesus was trying to prepare them for, that they couldn’t see what was right in front of them.

In reading their story from the outside, we can see very clearly what they could not when they were in the midst of those last days of Jesus’ earthly life — that fear obscures vision. When all they could think about is how to save themselves and the way of life they had come to love from certain death and destruction…when all we can think about is how to save ourselves and the way of life we have come to love…it’s like having blinders on. We see so narrowly, and so dimly, that the expansive Way of Truth and Life becomes impossible. We miss out on relationship because we’re too afraid to allow the fullness of God to meet our whole selves. So we reduce Jesus to a tool that buys our salvation but locks the gate to others so that we can feel safe.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby once said that “Fear imprisons us and stops us being fully human. Uniquely in all of human history, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the one who as living love liberates holy courage.” Fear imprisons us and stops us being fully human — it locks us up and blocks us from full relationship with God and with others, rather than stopping “them” who we wanted to be kept out…and Jesus lives God’s love so fully that it sets us all free to be courageous, to live this life with God rather than simply waiting for the next.

Courage is actually exactly where Jesus began this teaching: do not let your hearts be troubled. We so often read this at troubling times that I think we have decided to live with only the shallowest meaning of “do not let your hearts be troubled.” Yes, it certainly can be a reminder that Jesus gives us peace beyond all understanding. But deeper down, it’s an instruction to take heart, to not allow the troubles of the world to narrow our vision and weaken our courage to do good and stand up for what is right.

Even when we are afraid.
Even when it looks like the shadows are overtaking the light.
Even when the world is threatening.
Even when it feels like we are drowning in grief.
Even when the problems are bigger than we can solve and all we can see are obstacles.
Even when it’s our lives, or the life of our beloved institutions, at stake.

In fact especially at those times, take heart, and act like the members of Christ’s family that we are. Do not let fear obscure our vision of the roominess of God’s house or tempt us to use Jesus to lock the doors behind us so that we can live in ignorant or apathetic comfort. There’s space to spare, and God has time for refugees, and people who are homeless or hungry, and people who look and sound different, and people who need extra support, and people who work for peace and those who are trying to change their ways, and people who can’t see past the dark cloud of despair, and people suffering from climate change, and people struggling with addictions, and and and…so we, who are made in God’s image and grafted into God’s family tree, had better have time and space for them too. Because it’s when we act like Jesus that we will most likely see him. When we choose, like Philip and Thomas, to focus on ourselves and our fears of the future, we’ll miss God’s presence literally in our midst.

The house is roomy, and Christ has set us free to live life to the full within it — all of us. Take heart.

May it be so. Amen.

In Person Hymn 344: And Jesus said: don’t be afraid (tune 117-1, Mother Julian)
online Hymn:  The Love of God Comes Close (by John L Bell, tune Love Unknown)

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer (by the Very Rev Derek Browning, for Life and Work Sunday, interspersed with “Jesus Christ, here among us” by John Bell)

(Refrain)
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, here among us
Go with us, stay with us, grant us your peace.

Ever-Present God
You are our life.
You are the One Who, from the chaos of creation
Called us into being,
Shaping who and what we are.
You are the artist and the architect.
You are the poet and the musician.
You bring colour and form, words and harmony
Into the world where we live,
And the lives that we live.
(Verse 1 and refrain)
You are the way and the truth and the life;
in you the fullness of God is found.
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, here among us
Go with us, stay with us, grant us your peace.

Ever-Active God,
With You we work:
To bring peace and justice,
To bring comfort and blessing
Into the world where we live.
In partnership with You and with others,
We shape and reshape our world
To make it a place where all are welcome,
And all find a place to be safe.
(Verse 2 and refrain)
You are the lover and light of the world;
even the darkness is light to you.
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, here among us
Go with us, stay with us, grant us your peace.

There is life to be lived;
There is work to be done;
For life continues to refresh around us each day,
And work continues to unfold in the vision You give us
And in the dreams we have
For what our world and our communities might yet be.
(Verse 3 and refrain)
You are the shepherd who calls us by name;
none who respond will be turned away.
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, here among us
Go with us, stay with us, grant us your peace.

God of life, God of work,
Blend these twin realities for us,
That in our living and in our working,
We may honour You,
And follow You,
And change this world,
To Your unending glory.
(Verse 4 and refrain)
You are the vine which is rooted in God;
grafted to you we will bear much fruit.
Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, here among us
Go with us, stay with us, grant us your peace.

We pray these and all things in the name of the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Jesus the Christ, who taught us to pray together…

in-person Hymn: The Love of God Comes Close

Benediction
Take heart! God’s house is roomy and full of light. Go into your week to live with Christ and allow Christ to live through you. And as you go, may the Spirit of God go above you to watch over you. May the Spirit of God go beside you to be your companion. May the Spirit of God go before you to show you the way, and behind you to push you into places you might not go alone. And may the Spirit of God go within you to remind you that you are loved more deeply than you can possibly imagine. May the fire of God’s love burn brightly in you, and through you into the world. Go in peace. Amen.

Sung Benediction Response (John L Bell, tune Gourock St John’s)
Now may the Lord of all be blessed,
Now may Christ’s gospel be confessed,
Now may the Spirit when we meet
Bless sanctuary and street.

Postlude Music

Announcements

* Today is Life and Work Sunday — celebrating the ministry of the magazine of the Church of Scotland. For over 140 years Life and Work has been informing, engaging, educating, sharing news, inspiring, uplifting, and connecting our church together across the nation and world. Learn more about the history of Life and Work, its founder, and some of its highlights over the years — and get a discount on a subscription! — by clicking here, 

and also check this out if you’d like to see what’s made the cover over the past 142 years!
— You can also speak to our Life and Work Coordinator, John Reid, anytime with questions or to subscribe!

* All worship is online (or on the phone at 01475 270037, or in print) and we also meet in person, subject to the usual protocols for distancing, hand hygiene, mask wearing. We can now welcome up to 85-100 people for worship with 1m distancing between households. No booking will be required. Masks are required at all times inside the building, including while singing. If you are able, please enter by the front door in Bath street, and only those who need step-free access, and families with children, should use the back door.

* Tonight we will gather with Christians across the nation for evening prayer on the Connect Facebook Page, led tonight by all four Connect clergy. Log on at 6:58pm to join in.

* The Kirk now has online giving! If you have not already set up a standing order in order to facilitate your spiritual discipline of giving, or if you would like to make an extra gift to support the ministry St. John’s does in our parish, you can give online by clicking here. If you would like to set up a standing order, please contact Peter Bennett, our treasurer, or Teri and she can give you his details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received. Remember: no one is coming to your door to collect your envelopes, so please stay safe!

* Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Youtube, and to sign up for our email devotions! Midweek you can watch Wine and the Word on Youtube, pray with video devotions on Facebook, and consider a new angle on something with a devotional email. Feel free to share with your friends, too!

**** Do you know how to work an iPad or other tablet? Would you be willing to help someone else, one-on-one, learn to use theirs for basic things like email, YouTube, Facebook, and Zoom? Contact Teri for more information about volunteering, even just for a few hours a month, to help combat isolation by getting people connected.

** We are looking for someone to organise the coffee rota. We hope to offer tea and coffee after the service again soon, but first we need a coordinator who will keep track of the volunteers and supplies. If you’d be interested in learning more about what’s involved, please Contact Teri, Anne L, or Rab & Eileen G (former coordinators).