Sunday service 16 February 2025

Sunday 16 February 2025
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143 
Email: TPeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Email Charlene, Parish Assistant: CMitchell (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

Prelude Music (praise band)

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 with your faith and your hope
2: Come with your questions and your doubts
3: Come with your wondering and your certainty
4: Come with your expectations and your open mind
All: Come and see what Jesus is doing, and let the good news live in you.

Sanctuary Hymn 158: God Moves in a Mysterious Way (tune: French/Dundee)

Prayer
What do we come out to see, God?
You draw us close to you,
and we come to hear your good news,
to experience your kingdom-time,
to find healing for the world.
Reveal the fullness of your grace today:
grace enough for our hurts and scars that make us unsure,
grace enough for our cautious desire,
grace enough for our questions and dreams,
grace enough for the life you call us to live.
Living God, you came among us as Jesus, your Word made flesh,
and even today you are among us as Holy Spirit, breath of life.
We are so grateful for your presence, your Love that underpins all things.
And we also admit we have expectations of how you will act,
we have plans for you,
a box you need to stay in,
a system we can understand.
We confess we want you to follow our ways,
and to explain yourself to us when you go off some other direction.
Forgive us when the job description we have written for you is too restrictive,
and forgive us, too, when we think you’ll actually stick to what we think you should do.
Forgive our narrow vision,
our childish games that miss the point,
and our arguments about what we think about you while we ignore what you call us to do.
Forgive our focus on ourselves,
missing the good news you bring to those on whom we think you are wasting your grace.
Set us free from our need to figure everything out before we allow you to act,
and give us the vision to recognise your kingdom at work
even in ways we do not understand.
We ask in the name of Jesus the Christ, your Word made flesh.
Amen.

If anyone is in Christ, the whole creation is made new — the old has gone and the new has come. In Christ, God does a new thing. And we who are in Christ are also gifted a new thing: life beyond those narrow boxes, a life of expansive grace. Receive this gift today: the gift of broken expectations that give way to forgiveness bigger than we can imagine. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Hymn GWA146: Waymaker (praise band)

Sanctuary Children’s Time

Scripture Reading: Luke 7.18-35 (New Revised Standard Version)
Last week we heard about Jesus healing a slave who was near death, because the slave owner and the community interceded for him, and then about Jesus raising a man from the dead so that his widowed mother would not be alone and vulnerable. We now pick up the story immediately after he brought the widow’s son back to life, in Luke 7, beginning at verse 18. As we hear how Jesus responds to questions about his ministry, recall the scripture he claimed as his mission statement back in chapter 4: “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, to bring good news to the poor, release to the captive, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

The disciples of John reported all these things to him. So John summoned two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ When the men had come to him, they said, ‘John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” ’ Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were blind. And he answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.’
When John’s messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who put on fine clothing and live in luxury are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written,
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
   who will prepare your way before you.” 
I tell you, among those born of women no one is greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.’ (And all the people who heard this, including the tax-collectors, acknowledged the justice of God, because they had been baptised with John’s baptism. But by refusing to be baptised by him, the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves.)
‘To what then will I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the market-place and calling to one another,
“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
   we wailed, and you did not weep.” 
For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, “He has a demon”; the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Nevertheless, wisdom is vindicated by all her children.’

One: For the word of God in scripture
For the word of God among us
For the word of God within us
All: Thanks be to God.

Sermon: how you know Jesus is near
You know the saying “you can’t please all of the people all of the time?” Jesus must have been thinking that through the whole conversation he had in this story. Some people want a Messiah who is super-holy, fasting and praying all the time. Some people want a Messiah who is super-powerful and politically savvy, defeating the Romans and bringing back the glory days of their nation. Some people want a Messiah who heals and helps and brings people together. But how can one person meet everyone’s expectations?

Even John the Baptist seems to have a set of expectations that Jesus might not be fulfilling…after all, Jesus literally raised someone from the dead in the verse before today’s reading began, and still John sent his disciples to ask if he’s the one or not. It makes you wonder what exactly he thought was on the Messiah’s job description?

Honestly this whole story feels like an annual performance review and Jesus has to defend his way of doing his job when a bunch of people who don’t do his job every day think they know what he should be like. And he handles it beautifully, though he’d probably get marked down for being defensive! He simply tells John’s disciples to report what they have seen for themselves: that where Jesus is, the world is changed. Impossible things happen. People are healed. Communities are restored. Circumstances are transformed. That’s it: the world is changed where Jesus is. Go and tell what you have seen.

But once they leave, you can almost feel Jesus venting…what did they expect? How is he supposed to meet all these conflicting expectations? When even John the Baptist doesn’t get him, and he’s the greatest human of all time, the one who prepared the way…what is he supposed to feel and do?

We sometimes talk about how Jesus was different than what most people expected from the Messiah at the time. But I wonder if we ever stop to put into words our own expectations of the Messiah? What do WE expect Jesus to do, to be like? We have the stories of his life, death, and resurrection, so we know more than the people who lived around him at the time. But that doesn’t stop us from having expectations based on those stories, the same way they had expectations based on Old Testament stories.

Have we considered what we think the job description of the Messiah is? And whether at this moment, in the year 2025, Jesus seems to be fulfilling it to our satisfaction?

The question might make us uncomfortable…

As it should.

That discomfort reveals something important. Jesus isn’t here to live up to human expectations. And indeed, as he said in this chapter of Luke’s gospel, that would be impossible even for God. The truth is that Jesus is here to fulfil God’s purpose, God’s word in the flesh. And he told us what that would be, back in his first sermon in Nazareth: to bring good news to the poor, release to the captive, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. That’s what he’s here to do. And when John’s disciples asked if he was the one, those are the same things he told them to report back to John: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor get good news.

The list of things Jesus tells them to report is fascinating to me because lots of them feel like characteristics we really can’t do anything about. Those who are blind, deaf, disabled, living with a chronic illness, or dead don’t normally have the chance to change that. There are workarounds, there are coping mechanisms or adaptations or help — except for the dead, of course. But those are things we just have to live with, in one way or another. But poverty…it’s like a game of “one of these things is not like the other.”

Or is it? Poverty is also an all-encompassing thing, that you need adaptations and workarounds to live with. It takes up time and energy, it changes the way you interact with the world around you, it means some things others find easy are impossible. But is it unchangeable? Is it a core part of who someone is, the way sight loss or chronic illness or disability might be?

We want to think not. But we also know that cycles of poverty are difficult to escape. And if we’re honest we also know that to those on the outside, it’s easy to talk about “the poor” as well as “the disabled” or “the vulnerable” or “the immunocompromised” or whatever, isn’t it? We slip so easily into defining people by their condition, whether that’s an illness or disability or an economic situation.

Jesus says that he is doing impossible things like giving sight to people who are blind, lifting up those with disabilities so they can walk, healing those with incurable illnesses…and bringing good news to those who are poor. Why is it impossible to imagine that good news would come to those in poverty?
Well, to be fair there’s not much good news in the midst of poverty. But to think that poverty is a condition that makes good news impossible…requires us to be more honest about both the reality of poverty and our stereotypes and assumptions than we usually are. And yet Jesus says that is a core part of his mission: to bring good news to those who normally get none.

This is what happens where the Messiah is: things that we thought were impossible, things we thought were “just how it is,” things we actually thought of as part of someone’s identity…they are changed for the better, transformed into a new way of life. That’s how you know that Jesus is near, because healing and good news are everywhere and people can’t stop talking about the change.

I expect many of you can anticipate what I’m going to say next.

And we are the Body of Christ.

Is this what happens when we who bear Christ’s name and Spirit are near? Healing and good news are everywhere and people can’t stop talking about how their lives have been changed for the better?

And if not…why not? Why is Jesus not visible through his Church in this way?

And what are we going to do about that?

Sure, perhaps we can’t miraculously make someone walk or see or hear or not need medicine. But surely we can bring good news. Surely we can offer other kinds of healing. Surely, at the very least, we could be the ones who can’t stop talking about what a difference Jesus has made in our lives.

Or are we too caught up in our expectations of him? Or are we too caught up in trying to make excuses for how he doesn’t live up to the expectations of those outside the church, or those who have been hurt or disappointed by the church? Forgetting that we are the Body of Christ, the ones called and commissioned and gifted to live out his mission, his purpose, on earth? If we’re waiting for Jesus to meet everyone’s demands, we’ll wait a long time. He told us what to do, and he showed us how to do it, and he gave us the Holy Spirit so we would be empowered to do what we had seen and heard. Not so we could try to fit him into the job description we wrote for him, or the one those who haven’t experienced his presence wrote for him…but so that we could fulfil the job description he left for us — which is the same as the one he proclaimed for himself. You know Jesus is near…and you know the Body of Christ is near… when healing and good news are everywhere, even where we thought it was impossible, and people can’t stop talking about the change. And if that isn’t happening, then Church: we have work to do.

May it be so. Amen.

Hymn 362: Heaven Shall Not Wait

Sanctuary Offering and Response GWA148, chorus
I will sing a song of love
to the One who first loved me,
and I’ll sing it as a child of God,
who is named and known and free.
For the love of God is good,
it is broad and deep and long;
and above all else that matters,
God is worthy of my song.

Concerns of the Church
*Bowl & Blether
*Contact Group fundraising concert 23rd February
*Bible Study
*devotions
*Lent begins in a couple of weeks…to prepare, rather than pancake Tuesday we’ll have pancake Sunday on the 2nd of March, which is both an all-age service and communion.
*During Lent, starting 10 March, I’ll be leading a book group that will meet on Monday evenings in the Spinnaker — time is TBC but the book is Jesus for Everyone, Not Just Christians, so get your copy now!

Please consider yourself invited to participate, and to pray for all the activities, ministry, and mission God is calling us to do together.

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
Living God, you are active even when we do not recognise the activity as yours.
We thank you for your continuous creativity and care,
for your constancy and persistence,
unbound by our expectations and rules.
For all the ways your kingdom of justice and compassion overflows our boundaries,
we give you thanks.
And we ask for more vision,
to know your presence and to participate in your good news.

We lift up to you our neighbours who so rarely get good news —
for those who struggle in poverty, in cycles of violence, under a cloud of mental ill health —
carrying burdens that weigh heavily and change how people see them,
making it difficult to be in community or get support.
You are the one, O God, who can lift that burden and bring peace,
so we pray for your abundant life,
creating clarity and revealing possibility for your future with hope.

We lift up to you those who long for healing,
those who live with illness and treatment,
those waiting and wondering,
those nearing the end of their earthly journey,
and also those who care for others, using their gifts to be your healing hands.
You are the one who brings wholeness,
so we pray for your spirit of life to fill every corner of your creation.

We lift up to you the questions of our hearts,
the things we carry that we don’t know how to handle,
the uncertainties that float along in our minds,
the expectations we hold, and those that hold us in place too,
and we ask for your help keeping them from dividing us into factions that harm your Body.
You are the one who liberates,
so we pray that you would hold us with love that sets us free.

On the 16th day of the month we join our hearts as your St John’s family to lift up to you:
*all who live and work in the Hillside Road / Arran View (Weymouth Crescent) neighbourhood, and those who visit and walk around the reservoir.
*the music ministry of St John’s: for the choir, the praise band, the organist, and all who enable our worship and prayer through music.
*the land, people, and governments of the nations of Ethiopia, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea.

In your presence, healing and good news happen,
so we pray you would keep us alert to you who are With-Us,
that we may participate in your work of wholeness for all.
We ask in the name of the One who embodies the fullness of your truth and life for 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.

Sanctuary Hymn GWA224: Sing a New World Into Being (tune: Nettleton)

Benediction
Go into the world following the path the Spirit sets out for you, following Jesus who is not bound by our expectations or arguments. And as you go, may you experience God’s blessing of vision to see the kingdom coming alive in this world.
And 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 the 2nd and 4th Sundays of each month. We have toasties and sandwiches together from 5:30 and the service will start at the back of 6. All are welcome for this simple meal and time of worship. The Sunday evening service is informal and reflective, with guitar-based music, Bible readings, and prayer for our parish. Come along and discover practical ways to apply the word to your life, in a chilled vibe that fosters connection and reflection.

* 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.

* Conversation Corner with Charlene is on Wednesdays in February from 1-2pm, in the Vestry.

* The Contact Group is hosting a fundraising concert with special guests the Wherries on Sunday 23 February at 3pm, tickets are £10 and available now or at the door!

* Bowl and Blether is on the first and third Mondays of each month through the winter, the next one is TOMORROW Monday 17 February. Doors open at 11:30am, soup and sandwiches are served from noon – 1:30. All are welcome to join us for lunch and a chat in our cozy warm hall. Volunteers are also needed and welcome, please speak to Teri, Graham Bolster, or Charlene if you’d like to volunteer for soup making (9-11:30am), toastie-making (11:30-1:30), serving (11:15-1:45), or clean up (1:15-2:30).

* 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!

* 2 March is the last Sunday before Lent, when traditionally we observe Transfiguration Sunday — and this year we are celebrating it as Pancake Sunday, rather than Tuesday! It’s also an all-age service and a communion Sunday, and all are welcome!

* Teri will be leading a Lent book group on Monday evenings in the Spinnaker beginning Monday 10 March 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!

* 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.