Sunday service for 30 March 2025, fourth Sunday in Lent

Sunday 30 March 2025, 4th Sunday in Lent
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143 
Email: TPeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Email Charlene, Parish Assistant: CMitchell (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

Prelude Music

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
1: Come and find yourself in God’s story
2: Come and have your imagination expanded
3: Come and meet the Living Word
4: Come and see what the Holy Spirit wants to show you
All: We come at Christ’s command, to be transformed.

Sanctuary Hymn 520: Ye Who the Name of Jesus Bear

Prayer
Compassionate and merciful God,
you call us into relationship with you and one another.
You call us to step out of our usual ways to truly see.
You call us to reach across the chasms of this world to create one beloved community.
We confess that we find it easier to ignore them,
because we don’t know what to do or how to fix the situation,
so we avoid even seeing the people you place in our paths.
We understand that it’s the way of the empire to keep us separated and atomised,
yet we confess we do not resist —
indeed, that we have bought the lie
that we are each isolated individuals who can’t do anything on our own.
Instead we insulate ourselves from the suffering we do see,
using our privilege and position to protect ourselves,
lusting after the trappings of even greater wealth and comfort,
looking for reasons others deserve their suffering.
Forgive us, loving God,
for believing and living un-truths that contradict your word and your kingdom.
Forgive us for our inability to see our neighbours as fully human.
Forgive us for seeing yet doing nothing, as if we deserve better than others.
You invite us to a new world,
so different from what we know of the way things are.
Open us today to hear your word afresh,
to see what is possible in your eyes.
Awaken us today to your vision,
and make us willing to try your way
even when it contradicts the way of the world
before it is too late for yet another generation
to live in the fullness of your kingdom life today.
We ask in the name of the One who died and was raised to show us the way, Jesus the Christ.
Amen.

Sanctuary Sung Prayer — Hymn GWA 111: God, Come Now to Explore My Heart

Online Hymn 253: Inspired by Love and Anger

Sanctuary Children’s Time (Mothering Sunday)

Scripture Reading: Luke 16.19-31
Last week we heard Jesus teaching in parables about looking for the lost and restoring the wholeness of community. He proceeded straight after the story of the Lost Son to tell some very confusing parables related to how we use our resources, especially wealth, ending with the statement “you cannot serve God and wealth.” Some Pharisees and other leaders heard him teaching and they mocked and criticised him, and Luke describes them as “Pharisees who were lovers of money.” Jesus then says to them, “you justify yourselves before others but God knows your heart.” That’s where we pick up the story today, in Luke chapter 16, at verse 19.

Jesus told this parable: “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ”

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: chasm
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the chasm between the rich man and Lazarus…fixed in place in their afterlife so that no one can cross it.

But that afterlife chasm seems to reflect the this-life chasm…and in this life, it isn’t yet fixed. We might think it is, but in reality it’s perfectly crossable. The problem is that most of us don’t want to cross it.

The rich man seems to have known Lazarus — he knew his name, and he implies that his still-living brothers would know him by sight too, and know that he had died. He walked past him every time he left his house. Perhaps sometimes he even had to step over Lazarus, depending how close he was to the gate, and how much he moved in trying to get even a scrap of help or food or mercy, or just to get away from dogs.

Yet…did he see him? Or did he choose not to see?

Do we see people? Or do we choose not to see?

Who are our neighbours that we are walking past, stepping over, looking over?

The rich man acted as if there was a giant chasm between him and his nearest neighbour. But the reality is that he could have literally reached out and touched Lazarus, anytime. He could have housed him. He could have fed him. He could have helped him. But he didn’t.

And every time we don’t, the chasm grows a little more fixed. A little more impassable. But it isn’t until we take our last breath that it’s permanent. Up until that point, we always have the chance to turn around, to put out a hand, to lift up another. Or perhaps I should say: we always have the choice.

What is stopping us from making that choice?

Perhaps our relative comfort and the desire to keep it insulates us from the realities other people have to live with. Perhaps the rich man in the story simply enjoyed his life, his beautiful clothes and beautiful food and beautiful home, as many of us do…and that was like a buffer that kept him safe from having to encounter people whose lives were less enjoyable than his.

Perhaps we see those around us but fear of what might happen to us if we stepped out of the norm stops us from doing anything about it. We don’t want to be the only ones acting differently from others of our circle, or others of the status we want to have. We don’t want to draw attention, or to potentially have negative consequences…whether those consequences would be losing some of our own comforts and resources, or drawing the ire of people in power, or something more serious. Maybe the rich man knew Lazarus but couldn’t bring himself to risk helping him. Maybe we see what’s going on but we don’t want to risk being associated with it.

Perhaps deep down we’re actually afraid it will happen to us, and the more we separate ourselves from the difficulties — whether of poverty, or injustice, or violence, or even grief — the more we can tell ourselves we’re safe. Maybe deep in his heart the rich man worried about losing everything — because when you serve a master as fickle as wealth or popularity, it’s always going to lead to anxiety about losing it. Acknowledging Lazarus, or helping him, would bring the rich man too close to the very thing he was afraid would happen to him, so he had to turn away, in order to keep up the pretence that they were different, that he deserved all he had and Lazarus deserved what he got too. Because isn’t that the corollary? If we have earned our comfortable life, then those suffering must have somehow earned that. And when it’s something like an illness or tragedy, we can’t face the idea that it could happen to us, so we keep well away.

Perhaps we just don’t actually know what to do. We see that people are suffering and we see that cycles of poverty and injustice persist and we pray for God to do something because we don’t know what else to do. We turn our eyes to heaven and avoid meeting the eyes of our neighbours we pray for. Maybe the rich man prayed for Lazarus. But as the book of James reminds us, faith without works is dead. Prayer without action is self-serving, not God-serving.

There could be many reasons we don’t choose differently. But the truth is still the same: the chasm is not permanent until we take our last breath. And all those reasons we have actually boil down to excuses, especially when we claim to follow a God who literally laid his life down to bridge the chasm between earth and heaven.

The trouble with perpetuating the chasm — whether because we want that safety buffer or the comfort bubble or because we are afraid or think we’re powerless — is that it isolates us from community. And that isolation withers up our compassion. It may feel safer or easier, but in reality it is dangerous to our souls to stay on our side of the chasm and act as if it is impassable in this life.

The rich man discovered this too late…that God has been calling us to empathy and mercy and community the whole time. He learned too late that relationship and active compassion — in other words, loving God and loving our neighbour and loving the stranger — was the whole point of the Torah and the prophets. Only when he saw that chasm fixed into place did he realise that it was not real, he had only acted as if it was real, and that repeated choice to isolate himself and refuse relationship and mercy had created his eternity.

Now…this story Jesus tells is a parable. It isn’t a photograph or textbook about the afterlife. It’s a story that’s meant to make us think, meant to open up possibilities, meant to put things side by side so we can see more clearly. In this case I think it’s meant to give us some insight into something we rarely see in this life: that we have to choose between serving God and serving wealth. It was the last thing Jesus said before telling this story…that we can’t have both. We can, as A-J Levine said in chapter 1 of Jesus for Everyone that we discussed last week, serve God with wealth, but that still requires choosing to serve God. And that choice means recognising that the chasm we sense between us just is not real. It’s entirely made up. So we need to ask ourselves: who does it serve? If it harms our souls, and it harms our neighbours bodies, and it harms the creation…who is served by us all seeing a chasm that isn’t really there?

And what are we going to do, when we see people on the other side of it? People sleeping rough. People who have to rely on food banks. People dying and losing homes because some nation’s government wanted to kill one person who lived in their apartment block. Children being shot by snipers or buried under rubble during airstrikes. People desperate for safety and opportunity but with no options we will accept, so they have to take any route they can.

Or maybe we should ask…what are we going to do when we see people on this side of that fake chasm, celebrating those airstrikes with strong arm and fist bump emojis, funding them with our taxes while encouraging us to give extra to charities that try to mitigate the disaster, taking benefits from people with disabilities, allowing the raiding of churches to arrest people who talk about what to do in the face of so much injustice?

The chasm isn’t real until we take our last breath. But the consequences of acting like it is are very real, physically and spiritually.

Meanwhile, God’s word walked on earth in a human life, erasing the biggest chasm we have ever created. Meanwhile, Jesus chose relationship even with those who would do anything to maintain that chasm. He saw how we treat each other, he knew how we would treat him, and he still laid himself down as a bridge to bring us together, to prove that the separation isn’t real: not the separation between earth and heaven, not the separation between holy and human, not the separation between neighbour and stranger and enemy and friend, not the separation between rich and poor, not the separation between any of us…he broke down the dividing wall and offered us a new way. If only we have eyes to see and hearts to act.

May it be so. Amen.

Online Hymn GWA216: Build a Longer Table

Sanctuary Hymn 253: Inspired by Love and Anger

Sanctuary Offering and Response Hymn 465 vv. 1 & 4
Be thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart,
naught be all else to me, save that thou art;
thou my best thought in the day or the night,
waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Riches I heed not, nor earth’s empty praise,
thou mine inheritance, now and always;
thou, and thou only, the first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my treasure thou art.

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
Holy God,
we give you thanks for you have reached across the chasm of the universe
and brought us to yourself.
You draw us close to you
and reveal your kingdom life
and we can never plumb the depths of your grace,
so we simply come with gratitude.

You call us beloved — for you loved us first,
and we are grateful and we commit to loving you and others as we have been loved.
You call us family, and you place us in families,
and we give thanks today for all those who have been mothers to us,
showing your love, nurturing us, giving of themselves for us.
And we are mindful that as many celebrate the loving mothers in their lives,
others are grieving — feeling the loss that comes with great love,
or the emptiness that comes with hope and love unfulfilled or unrequited.
We take this moment to lift up to you those people who have been an example for us,
who have loved us unconditionally,
who have nurtured us whether they knew it or not.
And we pause to give thanks for our church family,
for the love we share,
the life experience we pass on to one another,
the journey we walk together,
the ties that bind us as your people.

And we pray this day for those we have not loved,
those we have walked past,
those we have avoided or ignored.
And we lift up all those who have been left to suffer,
blamed for their own circumstances,
stepped on and stepped over,
with not even a compassionate glance thrown their way.
Comfort them with your presence, O God, and hold them close.
Your providing is so abundant,
we ask that all people would have enough.
Your love and compassion pour out on your creation,
we ask that more people would be conduits rather than dams.
Your healing grace crosses every barrier,
we ask for wholeness and care for all.
And we ask for the commitment to carry out your word,
to create your beloved community,
to live as you call.
We pray this day for those who create the chasms of us-and-them on purpose,
those who believe that chasm serves them,
those who prefer the comfort and convenience of their side
without the disruption or discomfort of the other.
We hold in your light those who cannot believe that they have already received their consolation,
those who see not neighbours but people to be used or abused,
those whose compassion has been stunted by their self-protection and self-interest.
Your wisdom is more valuable than gold or jewels,
we ask for imagination that can stretch to receive.
Your voice speaks through your word and Spirit even still,
we ask for the ability to hear and obey.
Your mercy is from everlasting to everlasting,
we ask that it would transform hearts and minds, and so the world.
And we ask for the commitment to carry out your word,
to create your beloved community,
to live as you call.
On the 30th day of the month we join our hearts as your St John’s family to pray:
*For the whole community of Gourock, for our beautiful natural environment: the river, burns, lochs, soil, air, flora and fauna of all kinds, and for all who live, work, play, pray, and pass through in this place.
*For the youth organisations of St John’s: for the Anchor Boys, Junior Section, and Company & Senior Section of the Boys’ Brigade, for the Smurfs, Brownies, Guides, and Rangers, and for the Exploratorium holiday clubs. For their leaders, volunteers, young people, and families. May they grow in faith, hope, and love together.
*For the land, people, and governments of the nations of Mexico, the USA, Canada, and Greenland

We also lift up all those affected by the earthquake in Myanmar and Thailand, those still searching for loved ones, those trapped, and those wondering how to move forward with so much destruction.
We remember those in Gaza and the West Bank and Israel and Ukraine and Russia who suffer as war goes on.
We turn our attention to those who don’t make the news, as conflict causes so much suffering in Yemen, in South Sudan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo…as fires rage in South Korea…
The world longs for your peace, your comfort, your hope, your justice.

You bring us together with your people through the ages
to share in the goodness of your promise.
Give us the grace to reach beyond ourselves,
to stretch across the chasm, as you have done,
and find wholeness together.
We ask in the name of Christ,
who laid himself down for the world to know your kingdom come on earth as in heaven.
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.

Sanctuary Hymn GWA216: Build a Longer Table

Sending
Go into the world in peace, and have courage. Hold on to what is good. Honour all of God’s children. Love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit.
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

* 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 Sunday evening service is on a break for Lent so that we can focus on the Monday evening book group (more info below). The Sunday evenings will re-launch after Easter.

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

* Starter Packs are in need of handwash, soap, kitchen/bathroom cleaners, washing up liquid and tea-bags

The FoodBank are in need of diluting juice, tinned carrots and other vegetables, tinned meat & tinned meals.
You can bring donations to the church and place them into the boxes in the vestibule. Thank you!

* Teri is leading a Lent book group on Monday evenings in the Spinnaker at 7pm. The book is Jesus For Everyone, Not Just Christians. All are welcome — come along and have your dinner, or a drink, or just come for the discussion!

* We are having a Smarties fundraiser this season — pick up your tube of Smarties, enjoy them, then fill the tube with £1 or 20p coins, and bring it back at Easter!

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

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

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

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