Sunday Service for 11 April 2021, Second Sunday of Easter
Sunday Service for 11 April 2021, Second Sunday of Easter
Prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson, Gourock St. John’s
Manse phone: 632143
Email: tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
To hear an audio recording of this service, including music but without communion, phone 01475 270037. Minutes should be included in your phone package.
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Call to Worship
There’s more to the story.
Whatever part we have played so far,
whoever we are and wherever we’ve been,
whether we’re certain of all the facts
or still trying to figure things out —
there’s more to God’s story.
So come to hear the others,
the perspectives and pieces, past and present.
We come to remember, and be re-membered,
that we may recognise Christ among us,
for Christ is risen, he is risen indeed!
Let us worship together.
Let us pray.
Set our hearts aflame and open our eyes,
O Risen One.
We want to hear you again,
from in the beginning to why do you look for the living among the dead?
Unfold the mysteries of scripture to us,
that when we welcome the stranger, break bread together,
care for others, or proclaim your good news,
we might find ourselves in your story,
remembering things we didn’t realise were within us all along.
Amen.
Music
Online: Hymn 414, Come you faithful raise the strain
In-person: ‘Alma Virgo’ by Hummel (organ arrangement)
Prayer of Thanksgiving for the Life of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (from the Moderator of the General Assembly)
Almighty and everlasting God, the life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field — the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But you are forever, from everlasting to everlasting, and we put our trust in you, for you have promised never to leave us nor forsake us. Loving Lord, in this last year, through the worst of a global pandemic, we’ve been face to face with our fragility and vulnerability, perhaps for some of us as never before. Against that backdrop of hurt and loss, we give you thanks for the life and service of Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh. Some are called to the front of the stage, others to supporting roles. We rejoice in the way he supported Her Majesty the Queen through all the years of her reign. We remember, too, his work supporting charities, and perhaps most memorably for young people, for over 60 years his patronage of the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme. In this hour of loss we offer our heartfelt prayers for Her Majesty, and her family. Comfort them in their loss, bind up their wounds, and grant them the consolation of a store of treasured memories. Grant Her Majesty the peace that comes from knowing you, and which passes all understanding. These and all our prayers we ask in the name of Jesus, who through his life, death, and resurrection offers us hope instead of despair, life instead of death. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
Reading: Luke 24.13-35, NRSV
Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognising him. And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’ Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognised him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
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: Making Sense of It All
Have you ever had the experience of trying to figure something out, but you just can’t get everything to make sense? Like you have multiple pieces of information, but they don’t seem to fit together, and no matter how much you obsess about it — or what I call “thinking about things” — it just doesn’t come together into a complete picture. So you keep thinking it over, trying to see if you’re missing a piece, or if there’s something that you thought was right but isn’t, or maybe if you just think in a different order, it’ll all work out.
Now add in grief and crushed hopes, and that’s where these disciples were, on Easter afternoon. They had a lot of information, but it didn’t make sense. And when someone joined them along their walk and invited them to talk it through out loud, they started their story with past-tense hope. They used to hope. Once they had hoped. Their hopes were dashed, left behind, and all they had was a bunch of disjointed bits that they could not for the life of them figure out.
The stranger on the road listened to them as they wrestled with their confusion — with their “besides all this” and “moreover” and “but” — and then he started the story from the beginning. He talked of God’s work through people and places and events, from the shores of the Red Sea to the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and showed how all these seemingly disparate bits fit together as pieces of the larger picture. He invited them to see themselves as part of God’s story — in a way that only the living word made flesh could do.
Before they knew it, both their journey and the story were at an end — or at least, so it seemed. The two disciples were perhaps feeling a bit less scattered than they had been before. When their companion waved goodbye at their door and stepped off into the twilight, they did what any follower of Jesus would do: they invited him in for an evening meal. They had learned well the lesson of hospitality, as they traveled the countryside two by two, visiting villages with the good news. So they insisted he come in, and together they sat down at the table.
There, around their own kitchen table, with a simple evening meal, their companion picked up the bread and did what the host usually did: he took the bread and said the blessing: “Blessed are you, O Lord our God, ruler of the universe, for you have brought forth bread from the earth.” And he broke it in pieces, and gave it to them, serving them as if it were his own table.
In that moment of broken bread, they remembered. I mean, they re – membered. They put it all back together, and they themselves became whole again as everything fell into place. Their eyes were opened and they recognised him — recognised: to understand something they had known before. They saw Jesus, right there at their own table, being the host. And though they couldn’t understand it all, that moment drew them into a deeper reality that was there all along. They remembered all the other times he had taken bread, blessed and broken it, and given it to them — with the crowd on the hillside and at home after synagogue and in the borrowed upper room. They remembered the story he had told them on the road, and with the pieces of bread in their hands, it all just…clicked. Their eyes were opened, and they recognised him.
And before they could do or say anything, he vanished from their sight.
It turned out that neither the journey nor the story had ended. Jesus was alive, but not back, if that makes sense. They wouldn’t be able to grasp onto Jesus and hold him in place and just pick up where they left off before the trauma of losing him. Just a few verses after the end of our reading today, Jesus blesses his disciples and then ascends to heaven, leaving them to do all that he taught them — to teach his word, to heal, to welcome, to challenge injustice, and to take bread, bless and break it, and share it, so that others might also see him. Jesus is alive, and leading us forward into life too — and he left us with the power of the word and the bread together, and that was enough for the disciples. They still didn’t get him back to the way things used to be, but he gave us something we can do anytime to remember and be re-membered: to hear the word and break the bread, and see. Wherever they were, at any table, they could see him. Wherever we are, at any table, we can see him.
We are inundated with more information than we can really make sense of, but the story of God’s love and providing and leading is still there for us to enter into, and it can tie together things we never thought would be part of the same big picture. There are still unexpected companions on our journeys, and there are still people who need inviting in to share a meal. And we still need to share our experiences of seeing God. Because it is in telling the story of God’s saving grace to others that the Body of Christ is able to see the fullness of God’s goodness. It took the women’s story, and Peter’s, and the two disciples who went to Emmaus, all seen together in light of the others for the truth to become clear: that Christ is alive, and brings us into new life with him. Not into our old lives, but new life. Jesus may have vanished from their sight, but he is still visible when we make him known.
When we break bread together, we are re-made, re-membered into the Body of Christ. We are the ones who live as his hands and feet in our community, we are the ones whose voices speak his word. We remember all that he did and said, and by pulling that past story into the present, we help others experience God today. If we will not act like Christ and share his word, where will people see him?
The first step into new life with Christ is that we must see him — not just a jumble of facts and moments, but a whole story God has been telling from the beginning of time and continuing on today. And we see best in the breaking of bread.
Look at your table.
Its familiar contours, that scratch on the leg, that one spot you shouldn’t lean too hard on.
Look at your table.
Everyone has a place at Christ’s table —
whether we sit at the same spot every time or have never sat at the table before.
Despite all appearances and expectations,
Christ is the host at this table — even your table.
He is the One who tells the stories,
the One who takes, blesses, breaks, and shares,
the One who knows us better than we know ourselves.
Christ is the host at your table,
at every table,
and in him all our broken pieces are re-membered into his Body.
So take your place at Christ’s table,
listen,
be fed,
and your eyes will be opened to recognise him.
Music
Online: “Let us stay together for a time” by Brian Woodcock
In person: Ave Verum by Mozart (organ arrangement)
Prayer & Lord’s Prayer
Blessed are you, O Lord our God, ruler of the universe,
for your story that makes sense of all our lives.
In the beginning, you called for yourself
a people and promised life abundant.
When we turned away from you,
you spoke through prophets and priests,
foreign kings and servant girls,
and then you sent your Word become flesh,
living and real and for us.
We give you thanks for the many ways
Jesus showed us how to follow you,
eating with sinners, touching the outcast,
loving all.
After you raised him from the dead,
making everything different by the power of your love,
he promised your Spirit to go with us as we proclaim the good news
that you have triumphed over death,
that life and love have the last word.
And now we wait to feel again the movement of your Holy Spirit,
giving gifts and expecting us to use them.
We look around at your world,
praying for eyes to see and ears to hear you—
in the face of the stranger,
the tears of the refugee,
the love of our pets,
the fear of our neighbours,
the pain of our friends,
the laughter of children.
And when we have seen, give us courage to speak and act
as witnesses to your presence, your love, your good news.
Where there is despair, make us beacons of hope.
Where there is suffering, make us your healing hands.
Where there is violence, make us creators of justice and peace.
We give you thanks for your unending love for us,
and for your gift of broken bread, for you are host even at our own tables.
We pray you would make yourself known to us, and through us.
Make us again into your Body, witnesses to your good news,
loving, serving, and caring for your world.
We pray in the name of our Risen Lord 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.
Music (online only): Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord
Benediction
Go into your week to make Christ visible through your actions and words, sharing your story of encountering God so that all may see the love of God 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.
Announcements
* All worship is online (or on the phone at 01475 270037, or in print) and we have also begun to meet in person, subject to the usual protocols for distancing, hand hygiene, mask wearing, and no singing yet. We can welcome 33 people for worship, so if you would like to come in person, please phone Cameron (630879) on a MONDAY afternoon between 1-3pm (note this change!), or Anne Love (07904 617283) on a Saturday morning between 10-12 to book a place.
* Young Adult Bible Study is on Zoom at 1pm, we are reading through the Gospel According to Mark. Contact Teri for login details.
* 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!
* The theme for worship during the season of Easter is “Re-membering” — being put back together as a community, perhaps in new ways! Easter is a season that lasts 50 days, from Easter Day until Pentecost.
* 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!
The coffee money that we normally send on to the school in Venda has been exhausted. If you would like to contribute to keep our donations to the school going, please contact Rab & Eileen for bank details for donations, phone 634159.
Sunday Service for 4 April 2021, Easter morning
Sunday Service for 4 April 2021, Easter Day
Prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson, Gourock St. John’s
Manse phone: 632143, Email: tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
To hear an audio recording of this service, including music, call 01475 270037. Minutes should be included in your phone plan for landline numbers.
Today’s video service was recorded at sunrise from Tower Hill. There is no manuscript. However, the sermon from the Easter Eve service and the sermon for the 11am service are both printed below, for those who would like to read them, as neither service was recorded. They are both following the same text, Luke 24.1-12.
Easter Eve message: “Remember”
It’s such an interesting question — “why do you look for the living among the dead?” The short answer, of course, is that they weren’t looking for the living. They were looking for the dead. Going to the grave to pay their respects, as so many of us do. They had prepared everything, and gone out at the first possible opportunity — walking through the valley of the shadow of death as they navigated the pre-dawn shadows outside the city gates. They were doing the same thing that thousands of people have done this year — just a handful of them, still in shock from something that should not have happened, gathering to grieve in a way that they never imagined.
When the men at the open tomb said “he is not here, but has risen” I imagine their minds could not comprehend the words. What could that mean?
Then they said — remember?
Remember.
Look back, and draw those moments together into the present. The meaning of all those teachings, and healings, and meals, comes together in this moment. All the pieces from the past, the promises of God’s faithfulness, the reminders of God’s call, the bread and wine, the sermons in the boats, the calmed storms, the blind who see and the lame who walk and the outcast who are included…when we re-member, put it together, we see the truth that has been there all along: that God was in Christ, bringing us into the kingdom even now…and of course God cannot be defeated by the empire or by death or by anything else. There is nothing that can separate us from Love, and God’s love was certainly not going to be stopped by a tomb.
The women ran back with this news — they remembered, and that gave them strength to see and live anew. In remembering, they too were re-membered, put back together. All the broken pieces that shattered on Friday were re-made and the breath of life was flowing through them.
The other disciples were still in the shadowed valley. They hadn’t gone to do the grieving, and they were stuck…they thought this was silly women being delirious. It would take some time for them to remember, and to be re-membered. The women faithfully told the story, putting pieces together. They may not have understood it all, but they trusted that Jesus’ word was true.
Isn’t that how all of us are, really? We don’t understand it. We expect the shadows of death to hold our grief and confusion and hearing the words “he has been raised” contradicts everything we’ve ever experienced. But if we can remember…and trust…we may just find ourselves telling an unexpected story of life and love and grace and light that changes everything.
Easter morning 11am sermon: “Goo”
I have mentioned before about perhaps my favourite ever podcast episode, when I learned what happens to caterpillars once they build themselves a chrysalis. The caterpillar spins its cocoon and then, basically…dissolves into goo, and is entirely re-made into a butterfly. Scientists discovered that somehow, though, butterflies retain memories of their caterpillar life…and they also discovered that if you were to dissect a caterpillar, you would be able to see the structure of future butterfly wings tucked up under the skin. So a caterpillar already contains the seeds of what will be…and a butterfly remembers things from its past…even though in between it’s just a slimy sticky pot of goo.
I have been thinking a lot about that story this week, because it feels a little bit like what happened that first Easter morning. The women and the other disciples had experienced the worst possible trauma, watching their friend be tortured and killed, all their hopes and dreams dying along with him. Everything they thought they knew was sealed up in a tomb, and they retreated behind closed doors during the Sabbath. With the curtains drawn and the door locked, it was the perfect time to fall apart, to dissolve into tears and let the grief wash over them, because soon they would need to pull it together and attend to the details.
They must have still been feeling a bit fragile, a bit gooey, even, when the women left the house in the morning darkness. The men stayed in, leaving the women to do the dirty work of tending to the dead. Perhaps they weren’t ready to venture out yet, to show the depths of their grief, or perhaps they were still asleep after the trauma of the past few days, or perhaps they just assumed it was women’s work — though they could have at least come along to move the stone! In any case, it’s the women who moved silently through the shadows when the sun was still just below the horizon. And it’s the women who got the shock of their lives when they reached the tomb.
When the men in dazzling clothes spoke, their question was ridiculous. Why do you look for the living among the dead? Well….because they’re looking for the dead, that’s why. But then the instruction the men give points them to the future by way of the past: remember.
Though you’ve felt all dissolved and like nothing can ever be the same again, remember. Reach back through the goo, through the veil of tears, through the fog of grief, and remember. Call up his face and hear his voice echoing in your mind. Remember what he told you — along the road, around the table, in the boat, amidst the crowds. Remember what he did — touching the bodies of the blind and sick, speaking words of healing from afar, restoring community. Remember.
And they remembered his words.
In that moment, when they remembered, it was as if they were being re-made too — from the dissolved pool of goo that was left of their former life, something new and beautiful was born. They trusted that the frame of what would be in the future was already in them before, just like the wings of the butterfly are built in to the caterpillar.
So the women ran back to tell the other disciples…and they weren’t quite ready to hear it. They assumed that the women were wild with grief, not thinking straight, talking nonsense.
My first reaction always is something like — of course they thought the women were just being hysterical and ridiculous, because no one ever believes what women say. But also, to be fair, it’s a pretty outrageous thing they’re saying this time. The idea that someone would be raised from the dead was indeed nonsense. Even today, we know all too well the reality that death is irreversible. Our faith tells us that death does not have the last word, but that doesn’t make it hurt less in the moment…and the other disciples didn’t have that faith yet, it was brand new that morning.
Those disciples who hadn’t been at the tomb at dawn had to rely on the stories told by others. The testimony of those witnesses would be the pieces they needed to also put the bigger picture together, to remember and so be re-membered themselves. The women’s story of trust and renewal could be what would kickstart their own re-making out of the goo of grief, helping them remember what Jesus had said and done so they could see the wings just under the surface and grow into something beautiful and new.
That morning, they couldn’t do it. They couldn’t allow the story to be true, whether because of grief or because they thought they knew better. But ultimately, we need each others’ stories of faith. We need to hear about encounters with the Living God, because hearing those stories help us to remember, and to look forward. We may not be able to see every angle ourselves, but listening to others gives us a clearer glimpse of the picture. That also means we need to be ready, like the women, to share our stories! To tell others what we have seen, even if it’s more about trust than full understanding — that’s what will make it possible for others to move through the goo toward new life as well. It takes all of us, sharing and listening, to be the Body of Christ, to grow together and keep the good news moving through the world.
Whatever stage we’re at — caterpillar, goo, butterfly; women on the way to the tomb, or remembering and being re-membered, or other disciples uncertain how to make sense of these stories, or dazzling messengers pointing others forward through the old stories — hear this good news. God has planted within us what we are meant to be. It’s already in us. And remembering Jesus, God’s word made flesh, and how he embodied God’s kingdom, his teaching and healing and companionship, his death and his resurrection, is how we become who God made us to be — it’s how we are re-membered, put back together into something more beautiful than we could have imagined before.
May it be so. Amen.
Announcements
* All worship is online (or on the phone at 01475 270037, or in print) and we have also begun to meet in person, subject to the usual protocols for distancing, hand hygiene, mask wearing, and no singing yet. We can welcome 33 people for worship, so if you would like to come in person, please phone Cameron (630879) on a Friday morning between 10-12, or Anne Love (07904 617283) on a Saturday morning between 10-12 to book a place.
***Easter weekend will have two services: An Easter Vigil on Saturday evening at 8:30pm, and Easter Sunday morning at 11am. The same booking procedure applies to both services. An Easter service will also be available on our recording ministry by phoning 01475 270037 anytime after 11am on Easter morning.
* 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!
* The theme for worship during the season of Easter is “Re-membering” — being put back together as a community, perhaps in new ways!
* 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!
* Evening Prayer with Connect will be led by all three Connect clergy this evening. Join us on the Connect Facebook Page at 6:58pm.
***The coffee money that we normally send on to the school in Venda has been exhausted. If you would like to contribute to keep our donations to the school going, please contact Rab & Eileen for bank details for donations, phone 634159.
