Sunday service for 27 February 2022
27 February 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
Call to Worship
One: God is revealing glory to any who will look
1: from a new perspective
2: through strange eyes
3: in different bodies
4: by a variety of voices
One: right here, right now.
All: Let us open our hearts to see.
Prayer
O God, today in the midst of all the difficulty of this world,
when we can’t tear ourselves away from the news,
and fear and anger rise in equal measure,
we pray you would open inside of us a space to breathe and focus,
to look and listen beyond the soundbites and headlines and images,
to see your people and hear their stories and make room for hope.
You are a God of Truth,
and you call us to live in the reality of your kingdom, even now.
We confess that we operate mainly on assumptions.
We assume that the systems we are comfortable with are the best for everyone.
We assume that those whose bodies or minds work differently than our own are less —
less trustworthy, less mature, less capable.
We assume that those who don’t fit into this world’s economic or social ways
are lazy or undeserving.
Forgive us for relying on our privilege in this false reality,
when in truth it obscures your way.
Forgive us and open us to recognise the fullness of your kingdom reality,
and so be transformed to live differently.
Where we so quickly think we understand,
and fill in the gaps with assumptions,
pull us back and let all our senses work together
to experience the fullness of your grace
in community, in the world, in us.
In this time together,
may we be attuned to your presence in the unexpected,
and made ready to do your work in the world.
We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Music
Online: hymn 465: Be Thou My Vision
In person:
Mission Focus: Venda
Reading: John 9:1-41 (New Revised Standard Version)
Last week we heard about Jesus feeding the multitudes with only the gift of a young boy’s packed lunch, and then teaching that he is the bread of life. After that, John’s gospel tells us that Jesus “went about in Galilee” until the next festival in the autumn, several months later. Throughout the festival he was teaching in the Temple. The religious and political authorities were upset by this and argued about how to proceed — should he be arrested, or assassinated, or put on trial, or allowed to go about his business a while longer to see what would happen? During a confrontation between Jesus and the leaders, Jesus said “I am the Light of the World” and the authorities decided he must be possessed by a demon, and they attempted to stone him, but he left the Temple for the day. We pick up the story there, in the gospel according to John, chapter 9. I am reading from the New Revised Standard Version.
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’ When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbours and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’ Some were saying, ‘It is he.’ Others were saying, ‘No, but it is someone like him.’ He kept saying, ‘I am the man.’ But they kept asking him, ‘Then how were your eyes opened?’ He answered, ‘The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, “Go to Siloam and wash.” Then I went and washed and received my sight.’ They said to him, ‘Where is he?’ He said, ‘I do not know.’
They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, ‘He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.’ Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.’ But others said, ‘How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?’ And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, ‘What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.’ He said, ‘He is a prophet.’
The religious leaders did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, ‘Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?’ His parents answered, ‘We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.’ His parents said this because they were afraid of the religious leaders; for the leaders had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, ‘He is of age; ask him.’
So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, ‘Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.’ He answered, ‘I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’ They said to him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ He answered them, ‘I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?’ Then they reviled him, saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.’ The man answered, ‘Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’ They answered him, ‘You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?’ And they drove him out.
Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, ‘Do you believe in the Son of Man?’ He answered, ‘And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.’ He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshipped him. Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’ Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, “We see”, your sin remains.’
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: Whose story is this?
It’s so fascinating that we call this the story of the man born blind, or the story of Jesus healing a blind man, when really it seems to be a story of people whose eyes work perfectly well and yet they see nothing.
Jesus is explicit that there’s no sin involved in the man’s blindness, but there’s plenty of sin involved in the wilful choice not to see. And so the man whose eyes were healed sees progressively more, as he tells his story over and over again, until by the end Jesus says “you have seen” and he comes to follow Jesus.
But the other people in the story….his neighbours, who don’t recognise him now that he can see them. They can’t believe he’s the same person they used to walk past every day. Rather than trust his story of his own experience, they took him to the authorities…who also didn’t believe he was the same person, so they called his parents…and when the parents’ answers still didn’t fit the script they were looking for, they simply threw the man out of the community. The authorities have no interest in listening or experiencing anything that might challenge their worldview. It’s as if they simply cover their ears and shut their eyes and say “lalalalalala, we can’t hear you, you’re just a blind beggar who doesn’t understand anything, lalalalala.”
Some of us may have experienced being disbelieved when we spoke about our own experiences. I suspect not many of us have, as adults, had our parents called to check up on whether our story was true.
Of course, people even in our own community who have disabilities, or people who live on the streets, or refugees and asylum seekers, often find themselves infantilised this way still today. We don’t trust them so we ask around for a second opinion on their own stories or needs. We try to find ways to disbelieve what they tell us and get them to say what we think they ought to be experiencing or thinking or wanting. And when it doesn’t work, we escalate to the next level of authority, and make them tell the story all over again, or else we simply cut them off, turning our eyes away and acting as if the situation is somehow their fault.
It was after his own community rejected him, shoved him out and refused to engage with him truthfully that Jesus found him again. When he met the man the second time, Jesus recognised him, though his neighbours who’d known him for years hadn’t. Remember the man had never seen Jesus — he couldn’t see until after he’d gone and washed the mud from his eyes. Yet when Jesus spoke, his voice would have been immediately familiar, of course.
What Jesus said to this man who only began to see with his eyes a day or two ago was: you have seen me. And he worshipped — the first person in John’s gospel to do so.
Those other people whose eyes work perfectly well, and who think they understand everything, actually have none of the insight needed to see Jesus. Their insistence that they know best, which means they’re unwilling to hear someone else’s story, ends up blinding them to the reality of God in their midst.
I wonder if the reason we title this story to focus on the single man who sees despite not having eyes to see, rather than focusing on the majority of the community who do not see despite thinking they know all they need to know, is because that’s who we’d prefer to imagine ourselves as? We like to think we’re the ones who have had our eyes opened. Yet as a society or as a church, do we, a collective we, listen to and trust people’s stories of their own experience? Do we insist that a story that doesn’t fit our pre-cut moulds must be wrong or discarded? Do we ever push out people whose stories challenge our understanding of the world? Or when we encounter something that doesn’t make sense, do we simply ignore it and walk on by?
The man who sees is the man who was changed. The ones who don’t see are the ones who refuse to change. And there’s only sin associated with the refusal to change. The judgment is self-imposed, for those who choose not to see.
The things happening in the world and in the church are a reminder to us that insisting on only operating from what we think we know, and refusing to adapt or integrate new stories or try a new perspective, is a dangerous way to live. Running the same script over again will never address the challenges the church is facing. Running the same script over again will definitely not solve the problems on the world stage. We can never get to peace, or justice, or new life simply by doing what we’ve always done, no matter how well-worn the path. If we want to see Jesus, if we want to experience God’s kingdom among us, we will need to be open to a bit of mess — mud and water and stories that don’t make sense, new ways of thinking and listening and including and changing our minds and hearts to go a different way, which may require blazing a new trail…but we are never out there on our own, Jesus will always meet us there.
May it be so. Amen.
Music: When God’s Perfect Plans by Resound Music
In Person Hymn 352: O For a Thousand Tongues
Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer
You seek us out, O God, and bring us together into your community.
You do not leave us to walk this way alone,
and we offer you our gratitude for your companionship on the journey of life.
When we find it difficult to be taught, you persist.
When we can hardly believe our eyes, you bring us along slowly.
Hear our praise for your compassion and your wonders.
We lift up to you those who are looked down upon,
who have been infantilised because of disability or economic circumstance,
whom we do not recognise as our neighbours, people made in your image.
May they know their value, and experience love from you and from others.
We lift up to you those who say things the systems of this world do not want to hear,
and so are rejected because their ideas are threatening.
Give them your courage to stand firm and speak out.
We ask your transforming power to be at work in
those of us who find it so easy to refuse to receive the testimony of others;
those of us who speak easily of justice and love,
yet drive it out of our community when it’s inconvenient;
those of us too afraid to own up to what we have seen,
choosing instead to take the easy way out of hard conversations;
those of us who trust our own vision more than yours.
Heal our hearts that we may turn to your way of truth.
We pray fervently today for peace and justice, hand in hand.
You hold the people of Ukraine, their names carried in your heart.
In the darkness of invasion and in the mire of political machinations,
we pray for your light of hope and of justice and of peace.
Encourage those who are frightened,
comfort those who are grieving,
and give strength to those who stand to protect others.
May they find strength in you, and in those around them – near and far.
You hold, too, the people of Russia —
those who are demonstrating against war, at great risk to themselves and their families;
those who feel they have no choice but to comply;
those who have been dragged in to a situation not of their making.
We ask for your courage that they may stand and do what is right,
and we pray you would surround those who risk safety for peace with your care.
We pray for leaders of nations —
for a change of heart and direction for those who choose to make war,
and for strength of spirit for those in the worldwide family of nations
that they may find ways to respond with the wisdom needed to effect a peace that lasts.
And for ourselves, save us, we pray O God,
from not caring enough,
from turning away and believing this is nothing to do with us,
from rejecting the stories and needs and hopes
of those whose lives are being turned upside down.
You are transforming the world, one person at a time,
so we pray for the eyes and hearts to see all you reveal,
and for the minds and wills to live differently according to what we have seen.
In the name of the One whose truth dazzles our senses and calls us to live in hope,
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 622: We Sing a Love
Benediction
Go into your week with all your senses open to the transformation God is revealing around 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
* 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 David. 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 20 February 2022
20 February 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
Call to Worship
One: Come and hear the One who has the words of eternal life.
All: There is no one else like him.
One: Come and be fed by the bread of life.
All: There is nothing else that truly satisfies.
One: Come and abide in Christ, and let him abide in you.
All: We come to worship, to be raised to new life.
Prayer
O Word Become Flesh, you feed us with yourself, that we may live your life in body and in spirit. We confess that we prefer to separate the two, so that your spiritual food doesn’t get in the way of our desire to consume much that does not truly satisfy. Sharing in your body is a gift that asks much of us, so we confine the gift to our minds and hearts, in order that our bodies may be free for greed, self-centredness, and excuses for why we cannot be generous. Forgive us for refusing to embody our faith, as you embodied the Word. Forgive us for failing to make your grace a lived reality for all. Forgive us for separating this life and the next, while you insist the eternal lives here and now. Give us courage to live your way, in the flesh. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Music
Online: Hymn 550, As the Deer
In person:
Stained Glass Window Dedication
Holy God, you draw us to yourself,
revealing your love
and teaching us your way.
You accept our gifts,
and multiply them into blessings for your world.
Let the light of your grace stream in through this window,
illuminating the abundance of your grace,
shining not only in our hearts but through our lives.
With you there is
plenty where we have seen only lack:
plenty of room for all,
plenty of food for the hungry,
without worry about price.
May your story of welcome and providing,
whether seen from inside this room or from outside in the street,
be a beacon that calls us and shows us the way
to abundant living.
You are the bread of life,
and we come to you
to be fed, nourished, sustained,
for the eternal life that begins now.
Bless this window that it may be for us not only beautiful but also convicting,
not only art but also teaching,
not only light and colour but also a way in to the story you are still telling,
right here in this place.
We ask in the name of Jesus the Christ. Amen.
Reading: John 6.1-14, 35, 44-60 (Common English Bible)
Last week we heard about Jesus healing a boy whose father was a royal official, and also a man who had been ill for 38 years and had no one to help him. After the dispute that arose when the man reported Jesus to the authorities as the one who broke the sabbath by telling him to take up his mat and walk, Jesus taught about his purpose in the world, and how the stories told about him and by him were a way for us to come to understand God’s work. Today we pick up at the end of that discourse, in the gospel according to John, chapter 6. I am reading from the Common English Bible.
After this Jesus went across the Galilee Sea (that is, the Tiberias Sea). A large crowd followed him, because they had seen the miraculous signs he had done among the sick. Jesus went up a mountain and sat there with his disciples. It was nearly time for Passover, the Jewish festival.
Jesus looked up and saw the large crowd coming toward him. He asked Philip, “Where will we buy food to feed these people?” Jesus said this to test him, for he already knew what he was going to do.
Philip replied, “More than a half year’s salary worth of food wouldn’t be enough for each person to have even a little bit.”
One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said, “A youth here has five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that for a crowd like this?”
Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass there. They sat down, about five thousand of them. Then Jesus took the bread. When he had given thanks, he distributed it to those who were sitting there. He did the same with the fish, each getting as much as they wanted. When they had plenty to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather up the leftover pieces, so that nothing will be wasted.” So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves that had been left over by those who had eaten.
When the people saw that he had done a miraculous sign, they said, “This is truly the prophet who is coming into the world.”
…the next day they were looking for him, and after some questions, Jesus said:
“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
No one can come to me unless they are drawn to me by the Father who sent me, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets, And they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has listened to the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God. He has seen the Father. I assure you, whoever believes has eternal life.
I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that whoever eats from it will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
Then the Jews debated among themselves, asking, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them, “I assure you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me lives because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. It isn’t like the bread your ancestors ate, and then they died. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
Many of his disciples who heard this said, “This message is harsh. Who can hear it?”
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: A Hard Teaching
Even if the story of the feeding of the 5000 wasn’t familiar to us, even if we didn’t know how it was going to turn out, the beginning would still feel familiar because, frankly, it almost reads like the minutes of a meeting. Jesus said “how will we feed all these people?” Philip said “it costs too much, we couldn’t possibly.” Andrew said, “a member of the youth group offered an idea so I had to say it because we need to minute that we listened to the young people, but it’s so naive as to be silly.”
Be honest…haven’t you attended more than a few meetings that went like this? Or maybe you, like I, have actually said some of these things in the past? It happens in our political life, in business and nonprofits, but I think it’s most jarring when it happens in the church. After all, we know the story. We know what God can do, we know how Jesus works, we know the abundance of God’s providing…and we still, along with Philip and Andrew, start from “it costs too much” and we still find reasons to dismiss the offerings of young people.
But Jesus doesn’t.
Jesus takes the offering of the young boy, given with so much trust in what is possible in the kingdom of God, and turns it into a feast the people could not have imagined — not least because they could never imagine taking a child seriously enough to get started in the first place. But Jesus could see possibility where even the disciples saw only lack. In the hands of Jesus, even a small gift can make an enormous difference. And this small gift, taken seriously, became a meal so abundant that every single one of those thousands of people ate until they were full.
Remember, many of the people in the Roman Empire, especially out in the occupied territories, lived at or just above subsistence level. They relied on the regularity of the rainy season and prayed for a decent harvest every single year. They knew firsthand both the gift and the political manipulation of the Roman bread dole system. And this crowd — a good-sized town’s worth of people — ate as much as they wanted, and still had enough to take some home and eat more tomorrow. For some, perhaps it was even the first time they ever got to literally eat until they were full, and for most it was probably their first experience of leftovers.
And this abundance all came from the hand of Jesus himself…and it was started by the naive, idealistic generosity of a child, and it happened in spite of the disciples who couldn’t see past the budget.
The Word became Flesh became Bread of Life, offering himself to us so that we, in turn, can embody the Word in our flesh — he becomes a part of us, and we become a part of his Body.
In other words, sharing this feast changes us.
It’s through the word that God draws us to the table…eating together is when our faith takes on flesh and bones and lives. We are fed in spirit and in body so that we can live differently, live as the Body of Christ, the word made flesh. Notice that Jesus doesn’t say anything until the people have all been fed — and gotten their takeaway containers too. Their tummies weren’t rumbling, and they weren’t wondering where their next meal would come from, so they were able to hear. And just as Jesus embodies God’s kingdom on earth, he feeds us with his own body so that we can do it too.
And the people following Jesus, both his committed disciples and the others who have come to see what all this abundance is about and where it leads, say:
This is a really hard teaching. Who can do this?
Now on the surface, it’s a hard teaching because the Bible forbids eating anything with blood, so that bit is out. And because it kind of sounds like cannibalism, which is also taboo.
But even in the ancient world, people understood metaphor — perhaps even better than we do today, actually. They were used to interpreting things scripture, prophets, and teachers said. It would have been shocking, yes, but they would quickly have understood there was something deeper here than the literal meaning of the words.
So why is it such a hard teaching, then?
Is it a hard teaching because Jesus says that when we feast on the Word Made Flesh, then we won’t want to participate in the consumer culture anymore — the one where we try to fill ourselves up with all sorts of things, even though it’s harmful to the creation and our community? What would happen to the economy if everyone who comes to this table suddenly decided that we didn’t need to fill ourselves with all that stuff the world tells us we need, or should want, or must buy? Can’t do that…
Is it a hard teaching because eating this bread and drinking this cup will naturally lead us to questions about other eating and drinking — and perhaps wondering what Jesus has to say about what we eat and drink, and how, and with whom, and who gets to have plenty and who doesn’t have enough? Everything Jesus says in this story comes after he fed people, indiscriminately. Even those who probably didn’t “deserve” it, and those who didn’t know what was going on, and those who were really far down the hill on the edges of the crowd and hadn’t heard anything. Who will we not just allow but invite to our tables once we’ve experienced this kind of hospitality?
Is it a hard teaching because we’d prefer to keep mind, body, and spirit separate, where they’re easy to manage and isolate and make judgments about, and Jesus keeps knitting them back together with bread and flesh and word?
Is it a hard teaching because the idea of Jesus being the embodied word of God, and then that body living inside of us so that we too become the embodied word of God, makes us different? To take the body of the Lord into ourselves, and so to become a part of the body of Christ, must change how we live. Not only how we think or how we feel or what we say we believe, but how we live. Otherwise we’re just having a snack really. The bread of life brings us into the eternal life Jesus is constantly talking about throughout John’s gospel — eternal life starts now, and is marked by abundance.
Life marked by abundance is hard to imagine. But that’s what Jesus offers us: abundant life. And we know the story. We know that God’s kingdom operates on an abundance economy. When Jesus gives us himself, when we taste and see, it should move that knowledge into action, into reality. And that is indeed hard. It’s hard to refuse to be shaped by the first thought of “it’s too expensive” and choose instead to be shaped by the reality that God gives us what we need to meet the calling he places in front of us. It’s hard to switch from thinking “we don’t have enough” to thinking “God always has more than enough, we just need to open our eyes to see what we do have and how to use it.” It’s hard to change our mindset about whose voice matters, and what constitutes “naive” or “wise.” It’s hard to imagine a future different from the past.
Probably most of us have grown up with scarcity, careful use of resources, waste-not-want-not, you’ll understand when you’re older. But Jesus doesn’t say “here’s just enough to get by,” he gives them bread and fish until they’re stuffed full, satiated, satisfied…and have some left over, which doesn’t go to waste but goes to feed their imaginations as well as their stomachs. Jesus doesn’t say “silly adorable kids” and pat them on the head and send them out to another room, he says “bring him here” and puts the child’s offering front and centre in a miracle.
Being transformed into the Body of Christ that acts like Jesus is hard work. I won’t pretend it isn’t. We have a lot of history to overcome. We have a lot of tradition that needs examining. We have a lot of ingrained internal messages that need to be recorded over.
In the next part of the story, that we didn’t read today, a bunch of the people who had been following Jesus leave at this point. It’s too much. They don’t want to do all this hard work. They don’t want to change. They’re fine just coasting on the way they’ve always done it and not getting too close to this God who might ask something of them. And Jesus asks the twelve: do you also want to go away?
I imagine they thought about it for a minute. I hope we all think about it for a minute before answering, so that when our answer comes, it’s honest and committed. Peter says “to whom would we go? You have the word of eternal life.”
Where else can we experience the abundant life Jesus, God’s word made flesh, offers? Nowhere. Which means the question is really: do we actually want that abundant life? Even if it changes things? Jesus is handing us the bread of life: take, eat, that I may live in you, and God’s kingdom may be visible, here and now.
May it be so. Amen.
Music
Online: Take My Life by Resound Worship
In Person Hymn 655: For Your Generous Providing (words: Leith Fisher; tune: Holy Manna)
Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer
From the beginning,
You have carried us close to your heart,
and we give you thanks for your care through every circumstance of this life.
You raise us up and call us into life,
providing in order that we in turn may share with others.
We come today with gratitude,
and with concern for those who do not experience your abundance.
The world is marked by a sense of scarcity,
so we pray for those who have been left to go hungry
while others see only the monetary cost.
We pray for those who have been offered only spiritual solutions to physical needs.
May their bodies be cared for by your healing and compassion.
We pray for those who have believed your word has nothing to say about our daily habits.
May their minds be renewed by your call.
We pray for those who find themselves unfulfilled by all they consume,
and those whose only options are unhealthy or unsatisfying.
May they be emptied of all that harms, and nourished by your grace.
We pray today for your bread of life to transform us from the inside out,
changing the way we inhabit this world,
the way we love our neighbour,
the way we share your gifts,
that we may once again be made into your Body on earth,
loving, serving, and caring for the world you so love.
We ask in the name of the One who offers himself to us and for us,
Jesus the Christ, living bread,
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: Communion
In person Hymn 673: Let Us Talents and Tongues Employ
Benediction
You are the Body of Christ! Having been filled with the Word Made Flesh, go from this place to embody the Way, not only to think and pray differently but also to live differently. For it is in you the Spirit dwells, in you God’s love is made visible, in you that Christ himself lives. Go in peace, satisfied and ready to serve. 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
* 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 Teri. 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!
* If you have contributions for the Spring Church Notes, those are due by TOMORROW. Please email them to tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk
Sunday service for 13 February 2022
13 February 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
Call to Worship
One: Jesus is here, working for God’s kingdom.
All: We come, laying aside our worldly pride and status.
One: Jesus is here, asking questions and pushing boundaries.
All: We come, leaving behind the powers to which we cling.
One: Jesus is here, in the everyday wonders as much as in spectacular signs.
All: We come, to know life in all its fullness.
Prayer
You are a God who sees —
you are paying attention, even when we are not.
While we rarely notice those around us,
your eyes miss nothing,
and we give you thanks.
You see the needs of your world,
and the possibilities.
You see the fears and strains,
the hopes and wonders,
the pain and grief.
You are our help in every trouble,
you have promised never to leave us nor forsake us.
You reveal yourself that we may know your grace and live your abundant life.
We confess that we would like to see a dramatic miracle,
so we could be sure it was you.
For we rarely think of everyday life in miraculous terms,
we simply go along day by day,
so we miss you at work around and among us because we are not looking.
Forgive us for our narrow vision, and our poor attention.
Forgive us, and help us recognise your subtle signs,
that we may faithfully follow your way.
Give us your vision, that we may see what you see,
and therefore love as you love.
We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Music
Online: Healer of Hearts (David MacGregor)
In person: Prelude in c minor (Pachulski)
Children’s Time (in person only)
Reading: John 4.46 – 5.18 (New Revised Standard Version)
Last week we heard about Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well, and how she brought many others from her city to meet Jesus. He stayed in that Samaritan city two days, and many people heard him and came to trust the Word made flesh. Today we pick up after those two days in Samaria, reading from the gospel according to John, beginning at chapter 4 verse 46. I am reading from the New Revised Standard Version.
Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.’ The official said to him, ‘Sir, come down before my little boy dies.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your son will live.’ The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, ‘Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.’ The father realised that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live.’ So he himself believed, along with his whole household. Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.
After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralysed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
Now that day was a sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, ‘It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.’ But he answered them, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Take up your mat and walk.” ’ They asked him, ‘Who is the man who said to you, “Take it up and walk”?’ Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.’ The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.
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: Do you want to be made well?
I think healing stories can be really difficult. I suspect most of us have had some experience of being ill and needing help…or worse, someone we love has been ill and it has felt like we couldn’t do anything useful, and every moment it seems the options close off until we’re either overcome by grief or spurred into doing something that would have seemed insane before. We know the worry that seems to settle into our stomachs, and we know how impossible it can be to think about anything else, or hear anything else, when we are in the midst of the crisis or the grief.
Sometimes I hear people say that if we just had more faith, or we just prayed harder, or we just asked more specifically, healing would come. And other times I hear people resign themselves, saying all the suffering must be part of God’s plan. But today’s stories, and the rest of the Bible too, tells us that neither of those is right.
In the first story, a father of a sick boy heard that Jesus was back in Galilee, and he — a courtier to Herod Antipas, an official who was meant to be at the beck and call of the king — left his job and home and walked, possibly as long as two days, to another town to find this man.
That action tells us two things. First: he’s desperate. And second: he already knows what Jesus can do, and trusts that he will do it. Otherwise why would he make that journey, rather than staying at his son’s bedside where he would surely rather be?
When he found Jesus, this father did not waste a single moment. He simply walked up and begged Jesus to heal him before it was too late.
It’s not often that we hear about royal officials begging for anything, but that’s what it says — he begged. Perhaps even on his knees, grasping at the hem of Jesus’ cloak, tears in his eyes. Maybe you have prayed like that for someone — I know I have. And Jesus’ first answer, which was more about Jesus’ single-minded mission than about the man’s request, feels as cold as many of us have felt when we didn’t get an immediate answer.
So he said again: Lord come down before my boy dies. It’s all he can think about.
Jesus’ second response was still not what the man expected. Instead, he said, “Your son lives.”
Not just that he’s getting better…he lives. This is the word that Jesus uses throughout John’s gospel to talk about that abundant life, eternal life, that starts now and continues forever, life that is grounded in a here-and-now relationship with God and so is full of grace and truth. Your son lives. And the man believed his word and went home. He had asked for Jesus to come with him, but on the strength of this one word, he turns and walks the many hours back by himself, trusting the Word Made Flesh even in the midst of the fear, uncertainty, and hopelessness of the situation. Though he cannot know what will happen, he walks.
In the second story, Jesus seems to have purposely sought out the place where sick people were. Unlike the father who came begging for his son, now we meet a man who had no one to plead on his behalf, no one to help him, no one to be his community. In the porches around this pool, everyone was on their own. And the man Jesus spoke to had been there for 38 years.
In a time and place where the average life expectancy wasn’t much more than that, we’re talking about a lifetime lying there, struggling and suffering. This man may well have been laying near this pool, unable to reach the healing waters at the right mystical moment, surviving on the charity of passers-by, since he was a teenager or even younger. His whole life had been spent knowing that he was alone and uncared for, that he didn’t matter to anyone.
He didn’t ask for anything, he didn’t even know who Jesus was, he didn’t proclaim his belief…Jesus just walked up and asked him: do you want to be made well?
It seems a silly question–who would say no? Of course we all want to be made well.
But the man’s answer is not an answer. Instead he said “well, there’s no one to help me…I can’t get there by myself…I’m sick, you see, and I have been for a long time, and other people always get there before me.” He doesn’t exactly say no, but he doesn’t say yes either. It’s almost as if his illness has so overtaken his identity, he can’t answer the question. All he knows how to do is point out the problem and place nebulous blame.
When Jesus healed him anyway, this man too began to walk. But his walk is very different from the other story. This man walked right back into old ways, and found himself rebuked for breaking the Sabbath, then passing the blame to Jesus. Rather than walking into the new life Jesus gave him, he remained trapped in the story he’d been telling about himself.
This is starting to sound a bit like the Body of Christ, not just one man’s body. And so I wonder, what if we read these stories as options for the Body of Christ, The Church? The question is there: Do you want to be made well?
What if it means breaking the rules of how church is supposed to be?
What if it means walking into the unknown?
What if it means letting go of the story we have always told about ourselves?
What if it means trusting, forgiving, healing, listening, praying, working…with no certainty about what will happen at the end?
Do you want to be made well?
The man by the pool told Jesus “I’ve been here a long time, and my body doesn’t all work together properly, and there’s no one to help me, and other people always get there first.”
I’ve heard The Body of Christ say those things too. All over The Church, the same conversation is happening: we look at the numbers, at the bigger churches down the road, at the changing demographics, and most of all at the way things used to be. We tell a story where the best days are behind us and the problems should have been solved by someone else. Our disagreements descend into gossip and hurtful words, and our desires are for our own comfort as we deal with the grief and isolation of a long slow decline. We have no idea what could be, because our story is all about what was and what isn’t.
Jesus waltzes right into that story and offers another way. God’s vision is always for life—not just for bodies that walk and talk, but people and communities made whole and transformed. Jesus even says so at the end of today’s reading: “Regardless of the rules you’ve set up, regardless of the box you’ve stuffed God into, my Father is still working, and so am I.” In fact, Jesus continues to waltz right into our stories and offer another way. New life is possible. And it’s also possible to live the old story instead, complete with blinders and rose coloured glasses and fault always being someone else’s.
Both of these stories are about receiving Jesus’ promised abundant life, the kind of eternal life that starts now, where we live life in all its fullness in relationship with God, here, today. But what they do with it is very different. The first man puts one foot in front of the other, every step a choice to trust and hope, rather than despair. The second man isn’t able to imagine those steps into abundant life.
There is another difference between these two stories. In the first, though the people watching over the boy knew he got better, it was only when the father asked the time and shared that it was the very time Jesus had spoken that everyone in the household came to believe. They were looking, and they saw what happened, and they walked into new life. In the second, the people who saw only the threats to their institution and power missed the miracle entirely. They saw only a man carrying his mat on the Sabbath, not a neighbour who’d been ill for nearly four decades. There is another lesson for the Body of Christ here — if we want to see a miracle, we need to be paying attention to the people who are desperately waiting for one.
Do we want, as the Body of Christ, to be made well? Will we, Christ’s church, walk the path even when the future is uncertain? Will we trust Jesus that life is ahead? Where are we looking — in at ourselves and our traditions and our comfort, or out at the people in need, people God has placed us in community with even thought they may never walk through our doors? Will we break the rules of what church is supposed to be in order to risk living the life God has in mind?
Ancient Greek philosophers said, “it is solved by walking.” Or, we might say today, “we’ll figure it out as we go along.” We may not have all the answers, or know the final outcome, but one step at a time we can follow Christ’s way…and on the way, we might find healing and wholeness, but we will definitely find Life.
May it be so. Amen.
Hymn 259: Beauty for Brokenness
Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
You hear us when we call, O God, and we give you thanks.
We bring our gratitude for your care for us,
even when we are not fully focused on your goals.
We bring our longing to be made whole,
to be made faithful, to be true to your calling.
We carry with us our cares for those dear to us,
and beg for your help to bring them into abundant life.
For those at the end of their earthly journey, and those who love them.
For those struggling with illness and treatment, hoping for good news.
For those living with chronic illness, feeling alone in their pain.
For those who are hungry, and those for whom clean water is a distant dream.
For our neighbours who must choose between heat and food.
For those who have no one to carry them to you,
no one to check in, nothing to look forward to.
Speak, Lord, and make all things new.
Speak healing, speak peace, speak hope, speak community into being.
We lift up your church, longing for a new story.
We call for your presence and your vision to be made clear,
and for courage to follow in faith.
We see the broken places, we feel the hurt, we grieve many losses,
and we recognise our tiredness from trying to do it all and keep things as they are.
We long for the abundant life you have promised for your people.
Help us to trust you, to turn to your way, to take one step at a time.
You are faithful, Lord.
And you have made us in your image,
created us to love, serve, and care for the world.
We take you at your Word, O God,
and pray for eyes and ears and hearts open to hear and respond.
In the name of the One who makes us well and commands us to walk,
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.
Benediction
Go into the world paying attention. Look and listen to the people God places in your path, for in community we will find wholeness. And know that you can take Jesus at his word when he proclaims life, for that is why he came: that we may live. 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
* 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 Karen. 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!
* Next Sunday 20 February will be a communion service, as we hear the story of the feeding of the 5,000, and offer a prayer of dedication for our new window depicting this story.
Sunday service for 6 February 2022
6 February 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
Call to Worship (in person — Hymn 510: Jesus calls us here to meet him)
One: The time is coming, to worship in Spirit and truth,
All: to reach across dividing lines
and let go of our fear that someone might see.
One: The time is here and now, to worship in Spirit and truth,
All: for in Jesus God’s kingdom is fulfilled
and living water flows.
One: Come and see the One who goes out of his way to draw us in
and gives us a holy story to share.
Prayer
Loving God, you come to us in broad daylight,
drawing us out of ourselves to meet you in the midst of everyday life.
You sustain us with your word and by your power.
In doing your will, we find ourselves filled with your grace.
In seeking your way, we are nourished by your presence.
We pray this day you would strengthen us for the work of your harvest.
Give us hearts open to receive the gift of labouring in your kingdom,
that we may rejoice together with all your servants in this and every place.
For we confess that we have a lot of ideas about what you should do,
where you should be, who you should talk to,
and those lines look very like the ones we draw for ourselves.
We like to know what categories to put people in, so we know how to behave:
when to act like we know more than we do,
when to change our accents,
when it’s fine to dismiss or talk over or when to listen or when to flatter.
And we admit that we use those categories to subconsciously decide
who is worth our attention,
and who is beneath us,
and who we wouldn’t want to be seen with.
Forgive us, O God, for we create these categories based on
assumptions and stereotypes and old grudges and long lost history,
and rarely allow new facts or personal stories to change our minds.
Forgive us, O God, for we have confined you to the same boxes we put ourselves and others in.
Forgive us, O God, and give us the courage to reach across divisions
and find you there on the other side, offering us streams of living water.
We ask in the name of the One who disrupts the world with love, Jesus the Christ.
Amen.
Music
in person: Children’s Time
Reading: John 4.1-42 (New Revised Standard Version)
Before we hear today’s reading, we need a little bit of historical context. You may recall a few months ago when we read the prophets, speaking about the Assyrian and Babylonian empires conquering first the northern and then the southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and taking the people into exile. Well, neither empire took 100% of the population away into exile — they did a simple divide and conquer, leaving the people who were least likely to cause trouble: the poor, the peasant, and the demoralised. The people who had been taken from the northern kingdom never returned, but the descendants of those taken from the southern kingdom were able to return, several generations later. In the meantime, those who had been left in the land, especially in the north, had continued to develop their traditions, including by some intermarriage with others who had been moved into their land. When the returnees in the South began to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, the northerners resisted, as they believed they now had the proper place of worship in the north. By the time of Jesus, that northern territory was known as Samaria, and the people living there were the Samaritans. They followed the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, but they did not include the prophets or books of kings in their scripture. They worshipped, but in a temple on Mount Gerizim instead of on the Jerusalem Temple mount. Judean Jews and Samaritans hated one another, thought the other were heretics and apostate and wrong about literally everything. And the territory of Samaria stuck out into the middle between Judea and Galilee, so Jews who needed to travel between them would most often go around the longer way, crossing the Jordan and going around, rather than go through that evil place.
When we left off in John’s gospel, we had just read chapter 3, when Nicodemus came to meet Jesus. He was a religious leader and he chose to come at night, and at the end of his conversation with Jesus he was still in the dark, never quite managing to understand what Jesus was trying to teach him. Today we pick up just after that conversation, in chapter 4, verse 1. I am reading from the New Revised Standard Version, and as you hear this story, I invite you to close your eyes and picture the scene, as if it is a film playing on the screen of your eyes. Notice the set, the colours and sounds and sights and smells, and the people, their expressions and tone of voice and body language. Let the film play and draw you in to the story.
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, ‘Jesus is making and baptising more disciples than John’— although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptised— he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’
Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’
Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’
Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’
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.
Reflection
In the scene that played in your mind, what does the woman look like?
— what age is she?
— what is her hairstyle like?
— what is her body type and shape?
— what does her face look like?
—if you looked into her eyes, what would you see there?
*Talk about the woman.
*Talk about the theological conversation she has with Jesus…starting with the Big Thing that everyone knows separates Jews and Samaritans, and moving on from there.
In the scene that played in your mind, what are the disciples like?
—what age are they?
—what are their faces like?
—if you looked into their eyes, what would you see there?
*Talk about betrothal scenes at the well — throughout the bible this is where the biblical heroes met their wives: Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Zipporah. Everyone would immediately think of these stories when it begins with a man and a woman meeting at a well!
*The shock of seeing Jesus talking to a woman at a well!! And in Samaria!!
*God so loved the world…Jesus says “look around: can’t you see the harvest is ready here in this place that God loves even though you do not love it?”
**Who are the samaritans for us today? Who are the people with whom we have long standing differences, that we would avoid on the street, that we can’t imagine Jesus talking to?
To see Jesus, we must first look past “the way things are” or “how we’ve always done it”
—those historical/cultural/traditions are barriers that obscure the Truth of Love in the world
—the assumptions we make about people
—the assumptions we make about church
—the assumptions we make about the community around us, in which we live
—the assumptions we make about “others”
**What assumptions or traditions are obscuring our vision and stopping us from offering what we have to give, or inviting our community to Come and See the Word made flesh for themselves?
In the scene that played in your mind, what are the other Samaritans from the city like?
—how many are there? Age? Gender mix?
—If you looked into their eyes, what would you see there?
*The woman offers her community her story,
and a question that invites them to Come and See.
*they believed her story and came to see for themselves — they heard the Word made Flesh!
**What do we have to offer our community?
Nicodemus, the professional religious person, came to Jesus and night and went away in the dark. The foreign woman with a difficult past came to the well at high noon, the brightest, lightest part of the day…and looked past her social status, past the rules about what was allowed, past her fear of what might happen if she was caught breaking tradition and doing something new…and she not only walked in the light herself but brought all her neighbours into the light as well. She amplified Christ’s light into the community, like a beacon shining a blessing into her town and inviting everyone to come and see.
May we go and do likewise.
Amen.
Hymn 540: I heard the voice of Jesus say
Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
We come to draw from the deep wells of your grace and help, loving God,
giving thanks for your persistence and patience
with all our questions and confusion and wrong-headedness.
We want what you offer, but we do not quite know what to live it.
We pray this day that you would quench our thirst
and satisfy our souls with your presence.
Make us again into your body,
and teach us to live as you live,
for the earth cries out for your good news, O Lord.
We are divided by race, class, and football team.
We turn a blind eye when others are exploited.
We use violence for our own ends.
We insist that one person cannot change things.
Yet still you call, whispering persistently.
Still you lead us through the wilderness toward your stream of living water.
Still you desire abundant life for all creation.
And so we come, hearts heavy with the daily news,
minds overflowing with to-do lists,
bodies hurting as they’re pushed beyond limits.
Fill us with your love, O God.
Give us courage to do your will, even when we don’t have all the answers.
Give us the voice to tell your story to anyone who will listen.
Where there is division, may we seek your peace.
Where there is hate, may we be agents of grace.
Where there is violence, may we be healers.
Gather us around your story and form us into your community,
we pray in the name of the living Word, 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.
in person Hymn 683: Go to the world! (Tune: Sine Nomine)
Benediction
Go to reach across the dividing lines and tell the story of your encounter with the living God! May your witness be a blessing to all who hear, drawing together a new community in Christ. 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
* 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 Karen. 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!
* Update from Venda:
School
Wow, I know it has been a long since I promised the last newsletter for 2021, life has been really hectic here for personal and professional being a mother, working, and also studying part-time. I just want to catch you up on a few of the happening since the beginning of the 4th term (October to December).
2021 was a difficult year for people in South Africa, specifically for school-going children and youth. It is estimated that 49% of people are unemployed, more than 11 million people go to bed without a meal to eat and more than half of high school children have dropped out of school. We are pleased to announce that VMS remained open throughout the year and learners attended school every day. We are COVID -19 compliant schools and our service is regarded as essential service. Here at VMS, we believe that education is the best tool to alleviate poverty and children are the future.
We would like to convey our sincere gratitude to everyone who has supported our children, their extended families, and the 9 staff members of the Vhutshilo Mountain School. Without your generous support, we would never have been able to provide each of our 63 children with an excellent early education, two daily nutritious meals, a fruit snack as well as transportation to and from school, winter blankets, and second-hand clothing as needed. We were able to pay monthly salary to our 9 staff members 6 of them are single mothers and 2 are widows. Hand over 160 decent food parcels in 2021 to needy families.
The graduation ceremony
On the 26 of November 2021, the graduation ceremony was for 8 Grade R and a farewell party for 13 grade 1 students. 40 parents/guardians attended the ceremony and we had guests from the department of education and social development. Before the pandemic, we normally have 250+ guests during the graduation ceremony. The day was filled with lots of music, dances and children perform lots of items and after a long day, lunch was served to all our guests. The local community, parents/guardians make donations of money or kind to help with the graduation lunch. The parents/guardians cooked the lunch together with the VMS staff.
All COVID-19 protocols were followed during the ceremony and it lasted for 2 hours only to keep everyone safe.
Youth on a Mission….
Zwonaka Network members had a busy month of December going around the villages doing manicures and pedicures also educating their clients about gender-based violence. Not only did they earn an income but have shared necessary information regarding domestic violence.
Warm regards,
Khathu Nemafhohoni.
(Director)
Sunday service for 16 January 2022
16 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
Call to Worship
One: This is the day the Lord has made —
All: we will rejoice and be glad in it.
One: This is the day we see God’s presence face to face —
All: not bound in a building or a tradition, but in the flesh.
One: This is the day our relationship with God changes —
All: we will push through our fear to trust God’s goodness.
One: This is the day we have been waiting for —
All: when God’s vision becomes reality in the Body of Christ.
Prayer
What do you see when you come among us today, O God?
We come seeking an experience of your presence,
but we confess that we rarely look at our worship through your eyes.
Show us the truth, and reveal to us your vision —
for we confess there is more of a gap than we would like to admit.
Forgive us when we have reduced our relationship with you to a transaction,
when we turn up and say the words and make our offering
and expect you to bless us in return,
to come when we call and turn away when we don’t want you to look.
Forgive us when we have created barriers to seeking you in our community,
either saying or implying people must be, or look, or speak, or give, a certain way to belong.
Forgive us when we have believed, or even insisted,
that our tradition is the only way to meet you,
that the way we’ve always done it is the way it must always be done,
that what we understand now is all there is to know.
With some trepidation we pray you would come among us again this day,
turn over the tables and drive out our hubris,
that we may see as you see,
and then pursue your vision.
Your Spirit blows where she will, and we are listening, O God,
praying to be ready to move when you call.
We do not know where you are leading,
so we ask for the blessing of curiosity to overcome our fear,
that we may seek you, by day or by night.
When we speak without understanding,
give us also ears to listen for your story in the voices of others,
that we may learn the deeper truth you call us to live.
Bring your kingdom to birth among us, and within us, and through us, we ask,
in the name of the One who embodies your presence,
here and everywhere, Jesus the Christ.
Amen.
Music
(online) hymn 593: She Sits Like a Bird
(in person) Organ by Philip
Children’s Time (in person only)
Reading: John 2.13 – 3.21 (New Revised Standard Version)
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.’
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: new birth
I once attended a worship service where, when we walked in the front doors, the entire church was in disarray. Chairs were overturned and piled everywhere, the hymn books were scattered about, the banners were crooked, the offering plates looked as if they’d just stopped rolling across the floor, it felt as if there’d been a terrible rampage through the place. Nothing had been actually been damaged, it was just all upside down and messy, and everyone who came in was shocked and disoriented. Some felt uncertain, others angry, others sad, others just…bewildered. We looked around without really knowing what to do — should we put it back in order? Should we just each get a chair and sit in it ourselves and let the rest do whatever they were going to do? When a voice came through the microphones, we didn’t even really know where to look as we heard the story of Jesus turning over tables and driving out animals and challenging the very structure of worship at the biggest and busiest holiday of the year.
Jesus’ words sounded different when it was OUR space, OUR traditions, OUR comfort that had been disrupted.
In John’s gospel, Jesus has what I call his Temple Tantrum at the very beginning of his ministry. This is the first time he’s really been out in public, and he definitely made an impression. We might think of it, even, as the first painful push toward a new birth.
It was the big holiday, the time when everyone who could would come. The traditions were important and meaningful, and everyone wanted to get it right. On those big days, people come to experience the best of the way it’s always been, of course.
But the way it has always been doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the way it should be, or the way it always will be.
Jesus pushed on the idea that you have to have enough resources to be able to afford to worship. He pushed on the idea that you had to have the right kind of money or animals. He pushed on the idea that the part of the building that was accessible to newcomers was filled up with things they couldn’t use, leaving no space for them to worship or pray in their way. He pushed, hard, using a whip to drive out the idea that worshipping God is based in transactions. Buying and selling in order to worship God…but also the idea that giving something to God would lead to God answering prayers, forgiving sins, or doing something for us. This kind of transactional worship, transaction-based faith, is really a way for us to control God. If I do this, then God will do that in return.
But Jesus wants us to come out from that narrow place, that box that we put both God and ourselves in, to a bigger, more spacious place where we can grow and move and live abundantly, not simply in a ledger with columns for me and God.
Birth hurts, though. It’s disruptive and difficult and sometimes traumatic. It changes everything we thought we knew, everything about the way it’s always been — starting with some of those things that are most deeply embedded in how we think and what we do and how we see ourselves and how we see God.
It was disturbing enough that Nicodemus felt he needed to ask some more questions…but not where everyone could see, so he went at night. His conversation with Jesus was another painful push toward new birth, as Jesus challenged his insistence on taking everything literally. Nicodemus wanted the teacher to speak plainly and to fit into his preconceived notion of what a rabbi gifted by God would be like…and instead Jesus spoke in stories, metaphors, and poetic images. All of which leave room for interpretation, which is exactly what Nicodemus didn’t want. Wiggle room, space to move about and walk around and explore and experience…that’s what we’re birthed into, but sometimes the old boxes are comfortable and cozy and everything is clear and understandable.
Like the way Nicodemus and many of his fellow Pharisees — and, if we’re honest, the way many Christians still today — understand faith — as a way of life bounded by rules that were meant to keep you out of trouble and on God’s path. Every aspect of life then is carefully regulated so that you don’t step out of line and accidentally upset God…and if you’re careful enough, you might even come close to pleasing God, or maybe even experience God yourself through this careful faithfulness.
If you think of faith as a transaction, then every single action and thought could cause God to respond in kind, so it’s best to be very very careful.
Jesus offers Nicodemus a glimpse of something else — something wider and brighter. But it might hurt, leaving behind that cocoon of safety. Remember back in history, when the Israelites were delivered from slavery to freedom, through the waters of the sea? The delivery was difficult, and when they had come out into the openness and possibility of life with God rather than bondage to Pharaoh’s rules, they sometimes wanted to go back. But a new people had been born, of water and the Spirit, and the only way to go was forward. Now Jesus tells us that is coming again — he is pushing us out into a spacious abundant life, and the Spirit is going to do what she will. Just as we don’t ask to be born, and we don’t control the process, the same will be true for this new birth. All we do is follow the Spirit wherever she goes and trust that, paradoxically, leaving behind the small comfy place for the wideness of God’s mercy will actually bring us closer to God, not farther away as it feels at first.
Because new birth will require leaving behind the old place, the old ways…and it will be a loss. It will feel uncertain, unsafe, and uncomfortable. We’ll wish for the closeness we experienced when we were on the inside…but it’s on the outside where we can know abundant life in all its fullness. It’s on the outside that we can grow. It’s on the outside that we can experience family and community. It’s on the outside that we can see everything God has for us. Even when it seems cold and harsh and bright, God’s desire for us is to be born anew into the light of life.
Jesus gives a third hard push then. He reminds Nicodemus of the time when the Israelites were punished by venomous snakes during their wilderness journey, and Moses made a snake statue so that people who got bitten could look at it and be healed. They had to face their fears, and their sins, and when they looked at them head-on, eyes wide open, they could be healed and move forward. It seems like a random story to tuck in to this midnight conversation, but Jesus goes on to say that those who look at the truth revealed in the Word Made Flesh — even though it may be painful — will find themselves birthed into new life, here and now.
And those who can’t bear to look, who close their ears to the stories of others, who close their hearts and hands and retreat from the community around them, who insist on staying within the four walls of their comfortable box…they miss out on walking in God’s light today. They prefer to hide their brokenness rather than be honest about it, and so they end up groping around in the dark. They insist that the ways they’ve understood God, the ways they’ve worshipped, the ways they’ve lived, the rules they’ve created and the narrow worldviews they’ve built, are the only way to reach God…and as long as they do that, they are condemned to that small dark place. But for the sake of love, God in the flesh labours and pushes, and the Spirit calls and coaxes, because there is a whole new world of a life abundant with love and grace waiting, if we allow those old walls to fall away and face the truth.
Whether we are being confined by the way we’ve always done it, or by our desire to have everything be literal and clear, or by our unwillingness to be honest about our shortcomings, the Spirit is bringing us to new birth. Whether we are trapped in a transactional faith that requires us to be perfect and do certain things a certain way so that God will respond the way we want, or stuck in rules and regulations, or holding on to the hurt that poisons us because we don’t want anyone else to know about it, the Spirit is bringing us to new birth. Whether we have lost sight of the purpose of our traditions and ignored the ways they push others out, or decided to hide our approach to Jesus because we don’t want anyone else to see us talking to him, or find ourselves walking in the dark even after all this time, the Spirit is bringing us to new birth.
It may be scary. It may be painful. It may feel as if everything is turning upside down. But the promise is this: not that we were good and earned or bought our way to relationship, but rather that God so loved the world that he gave his Son, who was born that we too might finally be born, who delivers us through the waters into a good and spacious land, where we can flourish in the family of God’s people, growing up into maturity, into the full stature of Christ. Jesus pushes us out, to a new and abundant life. Come and see.
May it be so. Amen.
(online) Hymn 617: Great and Deep the Spirit’s Purpose
(in person hymn: Come Out of the Darkness (words: Kathy Galloway; tune: Sing of the Lord’s Goodness #157))
Prayer & Lord’s Prayer
We remember your word, Holy One —
we remember what you have said and done,
we remember your promise.
We come today with all our experiences and thoughts,
the trials and joys of the week, and of the past years,
to lift them into the light of your life
that you may reveal new truth we could not see before,
and draw us into deeper faithfulness,
in your name.
Loving God, you come among us
that we may recognise the truth and so live your abundant life, even now.
Your grace opens us to the honesty that allows us to change directions.
Help us to face those things that have hurt us, hurt others, and hurt your creation,
and to tell the truth about them, that we may be healed.
You are Love, O God, and your love brings life to all.
We approach with gratitude and praise
for you make space for our confusion even as you draw us into your heart.
We do not understand how, but your Spirit is at work,
and we give you thanks,
as we pray for your guidance
for those who wander in the shadows,
shadows of grief, despair, or mental illness,
shadows of addiction, loneliness, or fear,
shadows of poverty, violence, or injustice.
Let your light shine with hope and possibility, loving God.
And fill our hearts to overflowing with grace,
that we may be agents of your help,
reaching out, advocating, lifting up, and caring for our neighbours.
Give us ears to hear their stories, and minds open ready to trust them.
Give us hands ready to share our resources and wills ready to act.
Bring your people through the deep that we may be born into new life,
opening out before us with beauty and justice.
We ask these and all things in the name of 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.
(in person) Hymn 617: Great and Deep the Spirit’s Purpose
Benediction
Go out into the world — out from the confines of the safe place, letting go of what holds you back from growing into the full stature of Christ, out to be born anew into the light of abundant 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.
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.
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!
* Teri will be away from 21 January – 2 February. If you have a pastoral need during this time, please contact Cameron on 630879 and he will connect you with an elder or the minister on call.
* 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 Teri. 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!
* Update from Venda:
We commenced with the 4th term of school on the 11th of October 2021. The lockdown level fluctuated until the 15 of September 2021, and we are now on Level 1 which means children can do some physical activities like dancing, subject to COVID-19 compliance. It has been very hard to not hug the children, although all staff members got vaccines we don’t want to risk. Children need love and we have missed hugging our children. Now children from the age of 12 years old are also getting vaccines. And there are lots of campaigns encouraging people to get vaccines as most people are still skeptical about it.
Sunday service for 9 January 2022
9 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: Come, all you who are curious,
Come, all you who wonder,
Come, if you’ve just met Jesus a few days ago, or known him all your life,
Come to the celebration!
All: We’re not sure how we got an invitation,
but we are here to see what God can do.
Prayer
Your works reveal your glory, Holy One,
right in front of our eyes and yet hidden from view.
Your abundance surprises us every time,
in the everyday sustenance
and the once-in-a-lifetime celebration
and every in-between moment,
filled to the brim with your grace when we weren’t looking.
Your kingdom unfolds before us —
give us eyes to see your signs.
God of grace and glory,
you work all things together for your good purpose,
whatever the situation.
We confess that we like a timeline, a blueprint, a schedule, a plan…
and we will wait until everything is in place, perfectly aligned,
before we take the first steps.
We admit that we sometimes use planning and preparation,
committees and studies,
as a way to put off taking the risk of following you.
Forgive us when we distance ourselves from your messengers
and let opportunities pass us by because we don’t feel ready.
Forgive us, fill us to overflowing once again with your abundant life,
and empower us to work on your task,
even if we cannot see the moment of the miracle ourselves. Amen.
Online Hymn 336: Christ Is Our Light (words: Leith Fisher; tune: Highland Cathedral)
Christ is our light!
the bright and morning star
covering with radiance all from near and far. Christ be our light,
shine on, shine on we pray
into our hearts, into our world today.
Christ is our love!
baptised that we may know
the love of God among us, swooping low. Christ be our love, bring us to turn our face and see in you
the light of heaven’s embrace.
Christ is our joy!
transforming wedding guest!
Through water turned to wine the feast was blessed.
Christ be our joy; your glory let us see,
as your disciples did in Galilee.
Renewal of the Baptismal Covenant
In the waters of baptism,
we are born anew to live in God’s ongoing re-creation,
day by day growing in grace.
And we are forced to admit that we don’t understand any of it —
the mystery is always just below the surface, just behind the veil.
Yet the good news is this: That Jesus was born, and lived among us;
he taught and healed, he enabled celebration and defied shame,
he sat at table with sinners and strangers,
he poured water and wine, he broke bread,
and he spoke new things into being;
he suffered the worst the world could do,
and he broke the power of death by rising to new life…
all this he did for us, though we do not understand yet.
And so the scripture is fulfilled: we love because God first loved us.
We may not understand how miracles happen.
We may not know exactly where the sign points us to go.
We may not untangle the mysteries of life and love and faith.
But we may get a glimpse of glory, in water —
carried from one place to another,
set aside from a common to a sacred use,
transformed for a new celebration.
And we may hear Christ’s call again, in water —
to take up the task,
to set out on the path,
to be a part of something we don’t yet see or understand, a miracle in the making.
So we come to be renewed as God’s covenant people,
surrounded and upheld by the weight of God’s glory
and committing ourselves to continue in Christ’s way.
Do you renew your commitment, with God’s help,
to live before all God’s children in a kindly and Christian way,
and to share with them the knowledge and love of Christ?
If so, please say “I do” and use the water to make the sign of the cross on the palm of your hand.
All of us are called to model God’s grace in all that we do,
whether our interactions are with friends or strangers,
children or peers or elders,
church members or not.
Today we particularly promise to this young family, but the promise extends to all of us.
Will you take up this call to build up Christ’s body,
nurturing one another in faith,
upholding one another in prayer,
and encouraging one another in service?
If so, please say “I will” as you use water to make the sign of the cross on your other palm.
You belong to Christ, in whom you have been baptised, alleluia alleluia alleluia.
Reading: John 2.1-11 (New Revised Standard Version)
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
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: Because I Said So
Can I just ask: has anyone here ever used the phrase “because I said so”? My parents used to use it when I wanted to know why I had to clean my room, or get my shoes on, or watch my brother. My teachers used to use it when I wanted to know why I had to write an outline first instead of just writing the essay, or why I had to show my work rather than just getting the right answer on a maths test. And then one day, when I was teaching in Egypt, I heard myself say these words to a class of P1 girls who were just starting to learn English, and neither my Arabic nor my patience was up to the task of explaining to thirty 5 year olds why they could not run inside the library. A few years later I found myself saying it to a youth group full of cheeky suburban 13 year olds who wanted to know why they had to turn the lights out and go to bed at 1am on a retreat, as that’s hardly the time of day to try to reason with a hyper teenager.
“Because I said so” is the last resort of parents and teachers everywhere. It seems that the mother of Jesus had taken it to the next level, though — she didn’t even technically ask Jesus to do anything, yet when he resisted getting involved, she just gave him a look and said to the servants “do whatever he tells you.” It is pretty impressive to be able to say “because I said so” without even actually saying the words, and to have it work on her 30 year old son!
But far more impressive, I think, is that when Jesus instructed that over 150 gallons of water should be brought in from the well, no one batted an eye. They just all picked up their buckets and walked to the well and carried the water. Back and forth they went, until the jars were filled to the brim. No “why?”, no moaning, no questions, no excuses about how they were in the middle of a wedding and very busy serving guests who were just now realising the bar was closed…they just carried water, because Jesus said so. They had no idea what he was going to do with it, or what all this water had to do with the problem at hand. They’d filled those jars not long before, for the rituals at the start of the wedding ceremony, and now here they were doing it again and they didn’t know why, only that Jesus had told them to do it.
And somewhere along the way, a miracle happened. Scarcity was transformed into abundance, fear and shame were transformed into celebration.
The people carrying the water didn’t see exactly what happened. No one did, in fact. And all that labour: taking the buckets to the well, pulling water up, filling the buckets, carrying them back, lifting them to pour it into the jars, repeat…all of that is glossed over. It just says “Jesus said to fill the jars with water, and they filled them up to the brim.” Depending on how far away the well was, and how many people were doing it, we’re likely talking about an hour or two or more of hard work…with growing anxiety and pressure as the guests sobered up, the gossip was flying around the party, the groom and his family were getting more and more embarrassed, and the other servants were finding it harder and harder to cover. People surely saw them scurrying about, though no one understood what was going on.
But God was at work. We don’t know when, exactly. No one does. But when the first cup was placed under the spout, those people who had spent the entire afternoon running back and forth with buckets of water knew. They knew Jesus had done something amazing, that the God was a God of abundance and goodness and celebration of love. And they knew it couldn’t have happened without them — even though no one else did, and no one thanked them or recognised their work. But though they did not know it while they were doing it, afterward they knew they had participated in a miracle.
Sometimes the Christian life feels like that, doesn’t it? Like we’re just going about these tasks, carrying bucket after bucket of water with no idea why or what it’s for, with no one really noticing, just doing what Jesus said even though it feels silly, or unproductive, or like it might not matter, or it’s just the same small thing over and over…but doing it anyway because Jesus said to…whether that’s cleaning the church every week, or moving chairs, or delivering flowers, or praying for people we don’t even know, or standing at the door as a friendly face week after week, or coming to join our hearts and voices in worship, or phoning people who never seem phone us back, or making the millionth powerpoint hymn, or adding another starter packs item to our shopping trolley, or opening packet after packet of snacks for our youngest youth organisation members, or writing yet another email to our elected officials holding them accountable to our highest ideals, or giving a little extra to the mission we do…whatever that small task, however repetitive it seems, whether you know exactly how God is using it or not…doing it faithfully simply because Jesus said so is the stuff of miracles, though we do not know it yet. When it’s filled to the brim, we will see that Jesus has done something amazing we couldn’t have imagined before.
All those small everyday prayerful acts of love and faithfulness add up. Through our lives lived in response to Jesus’ instruction, even when we do not understand it yet, God’s kingdom unfolds right in front of us, in hospitality and celebration and abundance and grace — more than enough of the best wine for everyone. Because Jesus said so.
May it be so. Amen.
Online Hymn: God of All Comfort (by Resound Worship)
Prayer & Lord’s Prayer
Loving God, your care extends to even the smallest situation,
and you know our need.
In the moments that make up our lives, you are present.
We give you thanks that when we don’t quite know how to ask,
still you answer.
And so we bring you our prayers this day,
for the needs at the forefront of our minds,
and the ones we keep hidden, ashamed even to ask for help.
We bring the prayers we don’t even have words for,
the uncertain and faltering and inarticulate hopes, fears, dreams, longings.
…
We bring ourselves, just as you invited us,
however uncertain we are of our belonging,
and offer our whole selves to the work of your unfolding kingdom.
You are the giver of every good gift.
As you ensured the celebration at Cana,
we pray too you would gladden our hearts with the abundance of your blessing,
confirm us in your way,
and strengthen our spirits to serve you as you call.
We ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord,
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.
Benediction
Friends, go into your week to carry water…to live faithfully in every action, doing as Jesus asks, knowing that in the living of each day is the stuff of miracles, though we may not know it yet. 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.
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!
* Update from Venda: We commenced with the 4th term of school on the 11th of October 2021. The lockdown level fluctuated until the 15 of September 2021, and we are now on Level 1 which means children can do some physical activities like dancing, subject to COVID-19 compliance. It has been very hard to not hug the children, although all staff members got vaccines we don’t want to risk. Children need love and we have missed hugging our children. Now children from the age of 12 years old are also getting vaccines. And there are lots of campaigns encouraging people to get vaccines as most people are still skeptical about it.
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.
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.
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!
