Sunday Service for 25 September 2022

Sunday 25 September 2022, NL1-3
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse phone: 632143
Email: tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

Prelude Music

Welcome/Announcements

Call to Worship
1: Come, all who seek God’s blessing.
2: Come, you who think of yourselves as blessed, and you who feel lost or alone.
3: Come, you who have it easy, and you who can’t get a break.
All: We come, trusting God is with us, in the good times and in times of trouble.
We come, for God is faithful, and calls forth our faithfulness.
We come, to learn to recognise God’s blessing in all its forms.

Sanctuary Hymn 153: Great is Thy Faithfulness

Prayer
You promise to work all things together for good, O God,
and we gather trusting your promise.
When shadows encircle and our steps falter,
we look and find you there beside us,
guiding us with your compassionate hand.
Yet when we pray you would remove the trouble from us,
so often you simply make your presence more tangible,
revealing your love in ways we did not expect,
giving us what we need to get through, rather than simply get over.
When everything falls into place and life is rosy,
when we forget to look because we’re so busy basking in our own power and cleverness,
believing we have no need of help,
still you are there beside us.
Forgive us for believing our earthly circumstances are a reflection of your blessing.
Forgive us for our uncharitable attitude, for blaming people when things go awry.
Forgive us for choosing not to pay attention when vulnerable people are taken advantage of.
Make us mindful and aware of you, even when we forget to look, even when we don’t want to look.
Whatever your blessing looks like today,
help us to receive it graciously, and use it wisely, for your purpose and your glory.
We ask in the name of the Trinity of Love, God in Community, holy and one.
Amen.

Online hymn: The Lord’s My Shepherd (Townend)
Sanctuary Hymn 37: God is our Refuge

Children’s Time— Song: We will walk with God (Sizohamba Naye)

Prayer of the Season
You long to be in relationship with us, O God.
You call us to walk with you,
and you choose and empower human beings to carry out your work in the world.
We do not understand why you would choose us,
what reason you might have for calling us to be your partners in love, grace, and justice.
And yet you do.
You call us to build when others tear down.
You call us to leave behind what we know while others get stuck in what might have been.
You call us to speak when others keep silent, and to listen carefully to meaning behind the noise.
Why us?
Only you know, Lord,
and we pray you would help us trust your judgment.
Open our spirits to receive your word this day,
and open our lives to walk with you, wherever you may lead.
Amen.

Reading: Genesis 39.1-23 (NRSV)
Last week we heard about Abram and Sarai traveling to and through the land of Canaan, following where God shows them. Throughout their lives they continued following God’s lead, sometimes faithfully and sometimes taking matters into their own hands, sometimes demonstrating God’s care and sometimes demonstrating human cruelty, sometimes trusting and sometimes laughing at God’s plans. Eventually, at age 90, Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Isaac married Rebekah, the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother. Together they had two sons, Jacob and Esau, who did not get along. Eventually Jacob married two sisters, Leah and Rachel, and also their maids, Bilhah and Zilpah. Between the four of them they bore Jacob twelve sons. The second youngest was Joseph, who was his father’s favourite. Jacob gave Joseph a fancy, long-sleeved coat or dress, as a sign of his favour. The other brothers were, of course, jealous, and one day they conspired to get rid of him. They sold Joseph to passing traders, and took his fancy coat, dipped in animal blood, home to their father to pretend he was dead. Jacob was inconsolable. We pick up the story today in Genesis chapter 39, beginning at verse 1, and I am reading from the New Revised Standard Version.

Now Joseph was taken down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man; he was in the house of his Egyptian master. His master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord caused all that he did to prosper in his hands. So Joseph found favour in his sight and attended him; he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had. From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had, in house and field. So he left all that he had in Joseph’s charge; and, with him there, he had no concern for anything but the food that he ate.
Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking. And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, ‘Lie with me.’ But he refused and said to his master’s wife, ‘Look, with me here, my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my hand. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?’ And although she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not consent to lie beside her or to be with her. One day, however, when he went into the house to do his work, and while no one else was in the house, she caught hold of his garment, saying, ‘Lie with me!’ But he left his garment in her hand, and fled and ran outside. When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, she called out to the members of her household and said to them, ‘See, my husband has brought among us a Hebrew to insult us! He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice; and when he heard me raise my voice and cry out, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside.’ Then she kept his garment by her until his master came home, and she told him the same story, saying, ‘The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought among us, came in to me to insult me; but as soon as I raised my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside.’
When his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, saying, ‘This is the way your servant treated me’, he became enraged. And Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined; he remained there in prison. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love; he gave him favour in the sight of the chief jailer. The chief jailer committed to Joseph’s care all the prisoners who were in the prison, and whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. The chief jailer paid no heed to anything that was in Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with him; and whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper.

Sermon: highest highs and lowest lows

Joseph’s life was one of massive swings between up and down…he was his father’s favourite, then he was sold into slavery, then he was in charge of his master’s household — though still enslaved, so not powerful in any usual sense — and then he was in prison…he was in charge of the jail, but as a prisoner…he was a foreigner and outsider, ethnically and religiously and culturally different, and yet also rose to be Pharaoh’s right-hand man. It was quite a life of rising and falling through every level of what might be considered blessing and curse.

I imagine that if Joseph ever asked, at one of those low points, “why me?” — why did these things keep happening to him??? — that it might be tempting, for those of us who are the elder siblings, to point out that there’s a certain schadenfreude to watching the favoured youngest get a bit of comeuppance. After all, he was the worst of the indulged younger child, prancing around in his princess dress as a way to get out of doing chores, talking about his dreams that everyone in the family would bow down to him. Even when he was enslaved in Potiphar’s house he was bragging about his position to Potiphar’s wife, as part of his rejection of her advances. That old saying about pride going before a fall seems apt. But of course even the most annoying little brother does not deserve to be abused, trafficked, enslaved, wrongfully accused, or forgotten in prison. It isn’t his fault and he does not bear the blame for how other people treated him. Even in my most cynical older sister moments I would never say he brought it on himself. He was a victim of others’ greed and narrow-mindedness, and his suffering was real. “Why me” is something many of us would ask if it happened to us!

But then Joseph may also have wondered occasionally “why me” when he was in those favoured positions, too. Why was he his father’s favourite son, instead of any of the other eleven? Why was he the slave that grew to such prominence in Potiphar’s household, when presumably there were others as well? Why did the jailer put all the responsibility in his hands, rather than anyone else? After all, he was the inferior one here — not just a slave, but a Hebrew slave in the Egyptian court. Sure, a good looking one, but an ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic, and social outsider nonetheless.

But when he was enslaved and when he was successful, God was with him. That might be a shocking thing to suggest — because if we just looked objectively from the outside, we might be more likely to say that Potiphar was blessed rather than that Joseph was. After all, Potiphar was wealthy enough and had put together such a good team that he was able to delegate literally everything in his life except for deciding what to eat. He didn’t worry where his next meal was coming from, he didn’t worry about whether his house was warm enough or if his kids did their homework or what his boss thought of his job performance…all he had to consider, in his day to day life, was whether he wanted rice or bread with his stew; ale or wine. A friend described it as being “disconnected from responsibility” — and isn’t that kind of a goal for many of us? It’s why we like holidays, and why business coaches are always touting the importance of making sure you have the right staff. It’s like a life goal, to be so disconnected from responsibility that all we have to think about is whether we want sticky toffee pudding or crème brûlée. Potiphar had it made.

Meanwhile, Joseph was an enslaved member of that team that made the dream happen for Potiphar.

It seems clear who’s blessed here, doesn’t it?

And yet the story tells us that the Lord was with Joseph. The Lord blessed Joseph. The Lord showed steadfast love to Joseph. And because of Joseph, the people around him were blessed as well.

That was, of course, the promise God made to Abraham generations before, the promise we heard last week — that through you, because of you, all the peoples of the earth will be blessed. Abraham and his descendants were to live among the nations as a blessing, sharing God’s grace and promise with everyone they met. And here is an example of God’s blessing coming to others, to people who were not the chosen ones, people who did not worship the same God, people who looked and sounded different…they experienced blessing because Joseph was among them as God’s blessing.

Let me pause a moment and say that we had better not walk away from this story thinking that victims of domestic violence and human trafficking are blessed in that situation. The violence people experience is not a pathway to knowing God’s love. I am not saying that God caused or even allowed these terrible things to happen to Joseph so that he could experience blessing or so that he could share blessing with the world. I am saying that in the highest heights and the lowest lows, God is with us. And while we wish that God would maybe intervene to avoid those lowest of lows, the truth of human cruelty is that we do terrible things to each other. God’s intervention doesn’t really work the way we might like. Instead God is always showing us a still more excellent way, sending the Holy Spirit to transform our hearts and minds, calling us to be amongst each other as a blessing instead of a curse. Terrible things happen, and God is with us offering us ways to respond. Some choose to respond to injustice or violence or hate with more of the same, and it cycles through the generations and the curse ripples out into the world. Some choose to respond with nonviolence, peacemaking, hope, faithfulness, doing justice and walking humbly and loving kindness, and that too cycles through the generations and blessing, however small, ripples out into the world. When God is with us, those choices are both open to us.

God was with Joseph, even in the literal pit of despair, even though it might not look like it to an outsider. Honestly it’s not even clear what it felt like to Joseph! The story doesn’t say that Joseph was faithful and had expectations God would be faithful in return — it says God was faithful, and that Joseph was a blessing that paid forward. And the sign of God’s presence and God’s blessing in Joseph’s life was…more work.

You can see why I might wonder what Joseph thought of it all. Because every time it says “the Lord was with Joseph” that’s followed by an increased list of tasks and responsibilities! He ends up being the overseer of Potiphar’s entire household, which is a big task involving managing staff and resources and schedules and maintenance. And that huge job…which he undertook as an enslaved person…was a sign of God’s presence and favour. Then he fell even lower, an imprisoned slave, and the sign of God’s steadfast love was that he was in charge of taking care of all his fellow prisoners — managing rations, health, exercise, accommodation, guards.

It’s the opposite of the kind of blessing we recognise in Potiphar’s life — the blessing of being disconnected from responsibility. Instead it’s a blessing of increased responsibility. I don’t know about you but I might prefer the blessing of a bigger cell, or better food, or, I don’t know, the blessing of not being unjustly imprisoned or enslaved in the first place. But what he’s given is the chance to be a blessing among more and more people…of a lower and lower status.

It’s easy for the Potiphars of this world to attribute their blessings to themselves, their hard work or talent or ability to manipulate the world around them to their own liking. Not so for the lowly, the outcast, the marginalised. In this story you wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at them who was the blessed one…it turns out that God is explicitly with, loving, and blessing the one who is at the bottom of the heap, the least likely candidate, the one on the outside edge of society, and the blessing comes to others through him.

When we experience the blessing of ease and comfort, this story invites us to disturb that comfort enough to ask whose invisible or marginalised labour made that blessing possible. When we find ourselves in a low point, this story offers us just enough stamina to look for God’s presence. And when, as I suspect many of us are, we mostly find ourselves somewhere in between, bobbing along rather than enduring the biggest peaks and troughs, this story reminds us that God’s blessing comes in order that we may be a blessing to others — and that just as injustice rolls down to most affect those who can least afford to weather it, so too blessing can roll down to most affect those who have been pushed out or trodden upon or forgotten, if we will take up the tasks and responsibilities that come with our blessing. The people of the Way will always be found working to be a blessing to those who most need it.

May it be so. Amen.

Online hymn 153: Great is Thy Faithfulness
Sanctuary Hymn 31: I Waited Patiently For God (Tune: Amazing Grace)

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
We praise you, gracious God, for your grace that sustains us all our days.
We offer our gratitude for your gifts that seem to hide from our view,
yet empower us to live and serve in every place you call us,
and for blessings we find it easy to count.
Today we remember those who are longing for a different or better life.
We lift up those who have been betrayed by family or friends,
abused by employers, misjudged by neighbours, or harassed because of their identity.
We call to mind the ongoing horror of human trafficking,
people forced to labour to serve others’ greed and to enable our consumption.
We pray for those still being harmed by historic wrongs,
living with the consequences of racist systems and cycles we have not yet broken.
May your justice transform our ways of being,
that all people might know the blessing of equity, kindness, and freedom.
…
We lift up those whose lives are marked by war and oppression,
whose voices are silenced by fear, or neglect, or power they cannot access.
We call to mind the ongoing global horror of violence against women and children,
and the pain endured by those who do not fit our stereotypical images.
We pray for those still being harmed by traumatic experiences,
living with physical and mental and spiritual and relational challenges we may not see.
May your compassion move us to action,
that all people might know the blessing of peace, comfort, and security.
…
We lift up those who suffer from illness in body, mind, or spirit,
who are waiting for answers or undergoing treatment,
and for those who cannot get the healthcare they need to flourish in this life.
We call to mind the ongoing horror of preventable disease stealing lives,
and the work of those who seek solutions for sanitation, clean water, hunger, and access to medicine.
We pray for those living with chronic conditions,
still being harmed by long-covid, by pain as a constant companion,
by the stress of multiple appointments and the uncertainty of what a day will hold.
May your healing spirit fill them,
that all people might know the blessing of wholeness in the midst of it all.
…
We thank you, O God, for you have promised to be with us.
We pray you would change things so this world looks more like your kingdom…
and we pray for hearts and wills open to recognise
when you are changing us to be an answer to our prayers.

We pray these and all things in the name of Christ Jesus 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.

Sanctuary Hymn 513: Courage, Brother, Do Not Stumble

Benediction
In the hardest days and the best moments, God’s blessing be with you.
When you see it and when you don’t, God’s blessing be with you.
For receiving and for sharing, God’s blessing be with 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
*You are invited to join in reading the Bible in a year for 2022 — immersing ourselves in God’s word throughout the year. We get together to discuss each week on Wednesday at 7:30pm in the manse at 6 Barrhill Road. All are welcome, no experience necessary! Feel free to invite a friend, too! Anyone who has ever wondered just what the Bible actually says and what it has to do with us is welcome.

* We are hosting an October holiday club for Primary aged children, 18-20 October, on the theme “Life in Plastic, NOT Fantastic: Caring for God’s Good Earth.” More information and registration is available at our website. If you are interested in volunteering in any way — whether helping shepherd groups, cooking lunch, providing leadership, or a little light decorating, please contact Teri!

* All worship is online (or on the phone at 01475 270037, or in print) and we also meet in the sanctuary at 11am. If you are able, please enter by the front door in Bath street, and only those who need step-free access should use the back door. If you feel unwell, please worship online, to protect both yourself and others in our community.

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

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

* Youth Organisations have begun! If you or anyone you know is interested in the Boys Brigade (P1 – S6), please contact Alan Aitken or 2ndgourock (at) inverclydebb.org.uk. If you or anyone you know is interested in the Brownies or Girl Guides, please visit the website to register. For the Smurfs, our youngest girls, please contact Teri and ask to be put in touch with the leader.

*Young Adult Bible Study meets in the manse TONIGHT — on the 2nd and 4th Sundays — at 7pm for a meal and a study of the gospel according to John. If you’d like more information, for yourself, a family member, a friend, or neighbour who is in their 20s, please contact Teri for the dates/times and other information.

*Philip is organising a choir for any interested singer to come and have fun, learn some of the new hymns, and sing sometimes in worship. Please contact Philip for more information: philipnor617@gmail.com

*Next Monday, 3 October, is the next Bowl and Blether — come along for a bowl of soup and a chat with friends and neighbours! if you’re interested in volunteering either in the kitchen or in welcoming/hospitality/serving, please speak to Teri.

Sunday service for 18 September 2022

Sunday 18 September 2022, NL1-2
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143
Email: tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

Prelude Music

Welcome/Announcements

Call to Worship
Leader: God’s voice speaks: go where I will show you.
1: To those who are comfortable where we are
2: To those who are stuck in a rut
3: To those who have never heard God’s voice before
4: To those who think they know God best
Leader: The call and promise comes to us all:
go, and I will bless you, and I will make you a blessing.
All: Together we seek what God will show us today, and commit ourselves to respond.

Hymn: Glory to God! Our Living Songs We Raise (Words: Leith Fisher (1941–2009), tune: The bleacher lass o’ Kelvinhaugh)
Glory to God! Our living songs we raise
with all your folk of every time and place;
with saints both old and new we lift our praise
to fill with swelling sound this holy space.

Glory to God! With thankful hearts we come
for all who loved and served your people here,
for all who for the Christ made room and home,
their faith inspiring us to persevere.

Glory to God for years of service true
in church and home and in community;
the acts of grace which brought your truth to view,
the sacrifices that made others free.

Glory to God for challenges today
which call us forward into service new,
which reawaken faith and deepen prayer,
which lift our worship, and our song renew.

Glory to God! Let now our lives resound
as we step forward on the narrow road;
may you, Lord Christ, our journeying surround
and bring us safely to our home in God.

Prayer
You are a God who blesses,
a God who risks being in relationship,
a God who creates beginnings out of endings.
Because of who you are,
you call us to be who we truly are.
And in your choice to pour out your grace,
you push us to be a blessing beyond ourselves.
As we mourn the death of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II we cannot help but see
from the example she set throughout her days,
the many ways in which we have fallen short as faithful servants.
We bless you For her dedication to duty and diplomacy For her commitment to country and commonwealth For her faithfulness and loyalty to your ways of love and peace. We give you thanks for the respect and affection in which she was held by people of different nations and generations.
You blessed her with insight, humour, and faith,
you guided her through the massive changes of seventy years,
and we are grateful for the ways in which she followed you
into the new ways of being you laid before us all.
O Lord our God, we hear you calling us as you have called the Queen and others before us,
but we confess that we mainly want to keep things as they are,
and today we admit our fear and vulnerability as the stability of the ages passes away.
We hear you calling, but we confess that we find it difficult to step out on an unknown journey.
We hear you calling, but we admit that we do not always trust that we will encounter you out there.
Forgive us.
Forgive us for insisting only on our constrained imaginations, rather than looking for your vision.
Forgive us for our inability to carry our experiences of your grace into other places and situations.
Move us today, O God —
to look for what you will show us next,
to be among this world as your covenant people.
Give us again the blessing of your call to go and be a blessing to others, in your name.
Amen.

Sanctuary Hymn: Faith Begins By Letting Go

Sanctuary Children’s Time— Song: We will walk with God (Sizohamba Naye)

Reading: Genesis 12.1-9 (Robert Alter translation)
Last week we heard the story of Noah, his family, and the animals sailing in the ark, and then God making a promise to all the people and creatures of the earth. Noah’s family included three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The oldest son, Shem, is the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather (that’s seven greats!) of Abram, who we are going to hear about today. Abram had two brothers, one of whom died, leaving a son. The whole family, including Abram’s wife, his father, Abram’s brother and his wife, and their nephew decided to move away from their home in Ur and go to the land of Canaan. Along the way, they stopped in a town called Haran — which was also the name of Abram’s brother that had died. The family stopped there and couldn’t bring themselves to go any further, and Abram’s father died there. We pick up the story today when the family is there in Haran, in the book of Genesis, chapter 12, beginning at verse 1, and I am reading from Robert Alter’s translation.

And the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your land and your birthplace and your father’s house to the land I will show you. And I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse, and all the clans of the earth through you shall be blessed.” And Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him and Lot went forth with him, Abram being seventy-five years old when he left Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew and all the goods they had gotten and the folk they had bought in Haran, and they set out on the way to the land of Canaan, and they came to the land of Canaan. And Abram crossed through the land to the site of Shechem, to the Terebinth of Moreh. The Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “to your seed I will give this land.” And he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. And he pulled up his stakes from there for the high country east of Bethel and pitched his tent with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east, and he built there an altar to the Lord, and he invoked the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed onward by stages to the Negeb.

For the word of God in scripture
For the word of God all around us
For the word of God within us
Thanks be to God.

Sermon: Keep Calm and Carry On

Can you imagine what it is like to hear God saying so clearly: “Go”? The moment of realising that in order to do what God has in mind, you’ll have to leave comfort and family and follow a path of duty that will take you to who-knows-where? Knowing that other people will look on from the outside and wonder, and judge, and talk, and you will have to stand firm even when you’re not at all sure about the next step? I suspect many of us have had at least some part of that experience, even if not always obvious at first that it was God’s voice.

I wonder if that’s how the Queen felt. She knew one day her moment would come, but it happened far sooner than she expected. And then for seventy years, while the rest of us looked on, she simply carried on faithfully. The moment when she was called to service was a decisive one, but then she had to navigate all kinds of unfamiliar terrain as the world changed drastically over the years. And yet she continued, regardless of the gossip, or the unclear path, or the wishing things might be different. She dedicated her life to serving both God and country as best she knew how, and sometimes she chose a good way forward and other times made mistakes, like any human being, and still she carried on.

When God spoke to Abraham, he and his whole family had been in Haran for a while. They had left their ancestral homeland during a time of grief…when one brother died, leaving a son behind, the family decided to pack up and move. But in the middle of that move, they came to a town with the same name as their lost loved one, and they simply sat down and stayed.

I think most of us recognise that feeling, when something drastic has happened, and we know we need a change…but then partway through, we get caught up in the grief or the desire for comfort and stability, and we just get stuck. And then life happens, and we just stay in the same habit and routine, because even though it wasn’t where we thought we were headed, at least it’s comfortable for now. Many of us have experienced this as individuals or families, and if we look at history we can see how it happens to whole churches and communities and nations, too. We start out on a journey of change and new life, and then get sidetracked into something safe, where we can feel comforted and secure when everything around is shifting and strange and hard. And then even when difficult things happen, like Abraham’s father dying in that place, they somehow just dig us deeper into the nest, because we can’t fathom facing the vulnerability of more change.

God spoke at that moment — the one when Abraham, or any of us, would have preferred to stay in that cozy place, surrounded by comforting memories of his family who were no longer with him. After all, Abraham was 75 years old, he didn’t have any children, one of his brothers and his father had already died…he could be forgiven for thinking that he was settling in for the end of his story. But what God said was: you were on a journey and I need you to get back on it again. You’ve gotten stuck here in this place that I understand, but it is not where I need you to be.

This is the point in the story when I think it’s easy to get ourselves in trouble. When we think we’ve figured it out and we’re comfortable and then we see a change coming…we can either listen and follow the God who called Abraham out to a further journey, or we can dig in and insist that the way we like it is the way it will be…even if it isn’t where God needs us to be. At our own family or church level that can mean we’re choosing decline or frustration or pain for ourselves or others around us, though we think of it as choosing our own comfort. Imagine how that works at a big picture level, though. The shift, for example, from empire to commonwealth had a pretty rocky start because imagining the future journey was too difficult compared to just maintaining the status quo. Only when the highest levels of society allowed that change was possible did things begin to unfold peacefully rather than violently. Learning that new way of being, and then pioneering a brand new form of global community, was part of the Queen’s calling. She had to hear God’s call to leave behind the ways her ancestors had reigned, and set out into uncharted territory, trusting that the way would become clearer with each step, even as people wondered if any of it was sensible or possible. She was committed to following the new vision, and her commitment made the rest of the community feel secure enough to join in.

We may not be asked to undertake quite such a mammoth task, but the call to the next stage of the journey is there nonetheless. Again, Abraham offers us an example: at every place they stopped, he built an altar to the Lord. He built something tangible to help remember the encounter with God, his experience of being led by God through this unfamiliar terrain.

We know how to do this — we are good at monuments and memorials and buildings that mark special moments and places. We love the places that remind us of important moments in our lives, and the experiences we’ve had here, and that soak up the prayers and joys and sorrows and witness down the generations.

But then Abraham did something very strange. He moved on to another place, and built another altar, and then moved on to another place, and another…in every place, he called on God’s name and he built an altar to mark the experience of being close to God…and then he just left it there and went to the next.

As I have thought about this aspect of Abraham’s journey, his ability to mark the moment without being attached to the one place it happened, I’ve been drawn back to the beginning of his story. In English it isn’t very obvious, but in Hebrew it doesn’t simply say “go”…it says something like “go yourself” or “get yourself going” or some scholars think it might be “go to yourself.” And I wonder if that’s exactly what Abraham did — he went on a journey to reclaim his Self and his relationship with God, both of which had gotten a bit lost during the time his family was in Haran and stuck. It happens, we sometimes find ourselves get covered up or set aside, or like Abraham’s family we start a journey and then get pulled off track. God calls us, just as God called Abraham, to go to ourselves, to get up and go out to be the person God created us to be.

And the person God created us to be is a blessing. Not just to receive a blessing for ourselves, but to be a blessing to others. The land God led Abraham through was populated by other people, and Abraham and Sarah were supposed to be among those people as a blessing. So they went, and in each place they stopped they recognised and celebrated and shared the blessing of God’s presence and guidance…and then they moved on, to continue sharing the blessing, carrying that blessing to another place, another people, another patch of land that needed a blessing too. The only way to receive the blessing was to be a blessing to the world, and that required leaving behind the things and places that served only themselves.

Abraham’s story is not always a story of being a blessing, of course. Sometimes he gets it wrong, and sometimes he and Sarah get wrapped up in themselves and they hurt other people, and sometimes they get confused and end up going the wrong way, and sometimes they find their way back to themselves and God’s way becomes clear again. And isn’t that true of all our lives? Whether our example is Abraham or the Queen or anywhere in between, we see that following the call to be who we are meant to be is a journey of ups and downs. What matters is that we do our best to pursue the path of blessing — not to get stuck in our own nostalgia or grief or reminiscence; not to get attached to our favourite place where we experienced God; but to carry on sharing the blessing in the next place and the next. Not to seek to be blessed, but to bless others.

It’s an act of faith to follow that call, to leave behind the old ways and step out into the further journey God has in mind. And maybe we wonder “why me” — why would God choose Abraham to go…why would God choose the Queen to serve for so long and through such change…why would God choose us? Ultimately the answer to all those questions is because it’s in God’s nature to bless, and God has created us in his own image, so it’s also in our nature to bless others. So of course God would call us, because that’s how God’s blessing extends to the world, as we go forth from this place to the many places God will show us.

May it be so. Amen.

Online hymn: Blessed Be Your Name (Matt Redman)
Sanctuary Hymn 237: Look Forward in Faith

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
Counting our Blessings…and how we ARE a blessing

Loving God,
we are grateful for all you have done, for the ways you work in and among and through us.
All at the same time you pour out your blessing and invite us to join you on a journey,
to turn our eyes forward and to risk following where you lead.

We pause today to lift up those among us who feel stuck where they are —
ourselves, our friends and neighbours,
people we have not met but whose lives are entwined with ours in your great human family —
all who cannot imagine another way,
who are trapped in grief or despair or illness or violence or cycles of poverty,
who both long for newness and are afraid to try again.
May they know themselves guided by your strong and supportive hand.

As we seek to follow you, we carry with us
the hopes and fears of those who have lost themselves along the way;
who have tried to change themselves for the approval of another,
who have forgotten their own stories underneath all the labels that define them,
who have borne so many burdens they no longer recognise themselves.
May they know your grace that gifts us with truth,
and may they experience your love for them for who they are.

As we respond to your blessing, we commit ourselves, in your name,
to put out a hand to help those for whom the risks feel bigger than the possibilities,
those who have been held back rather than helped along,
those who no longer have the confidence or ability to trust themselves, let alone you or others.
May they experience your presence through our love as their neighbours.

And as we give thanks for all those who have gone before us in faith, we bless you again for our late Queen Elizabeth II, for her courage in the face of overwhelming expectation, for her sense of duty, for her hospitality and kindness offered to so many, and for her daily trust in the example and grace of Jesus Christ.
Commending again her family to your care and trusting that she lives now in your presence, we pray for Anne, Edward, and Andrew, and for their children and grandchildren, as they grieve so publicly. Encourage and uphold them, that they may not grow weary, and may know your comfort and peace. And we pray for our King as he assumes his many responsibilities. May he find support and strength for the way ahead. Direct his steps and guide his paths in the days and years to come.

God save our gracious King,
long live our noble King,
God save the King!
Send him victorious,
happy and glorious,
long to reign over us: God save the King!

Not on this land alone,
but be God’s mercies known
from shore to shore.
Lord, make the nations see
that all should kindred be,
and form one family
the wide world o’er.

We pray these and all things through the power of the Holy Spirit and in the name of Christ Jesus 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.

Sanctuary Hymn 683: Go To The World (tune: Sine Nomine)

Benediction
Go forth! Go as yourself, the one God calls. Go to yourself, to know the love the Holy Spirit pours into your heart, just as you are. Go be yourself, blessed to be a blessing to others in Christ’s name.
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.

Postlude Music

Announcements

* Teri is off from Monday – Friday this coming week. If you have a pastoral need, please contact Cameron or your elder and they will put you in touch with the minister on call.

* The Contact Group autumn session begins this coming Tuesday the 20th of September at 2pm: Afternoon Tea with entertainment by Kenny Wilson of the Wherries! All are welcome, tickets are available from Anne Armour, Anne Love, or Fiona Webster. The group will meet on alternate Tuesday afternoons going forward.

* Young Adult Bible Study meets in the manse on the 2nd and 4th Sundays at 7pm for a meal and a study of the gospel according to John. If you’d like more information, for yourself, a family member, a friend, or neighbour who is in their 20s, please contact Teri for the dates/times and other information.

* NO BIBLE-IN-A-YEAR STUDY THIS WEDNESDAY — we will be back next week the 28th of September. You are invited to join in reading the Bible in a year for 2022 — immersing ourselves in God’s word throughout the year. We get together to discuss each week on Wednesday at 7:30pm in the manse at 6 Barrhill Road. All are welcome, no experience necessary! Feel free to invite a friend, too! Anyone who has ever wondered just what the Bible actually says and what it has to do with us is welcome.

* Philip is organising a choir for any interested singer to come and have fun, learn some of the new hymns, and sing sometimes in worship. Please contact Philip for more information: philipnor617 (at) gmail.com

Sunday service for 11 September 2022

Sunday 11 September 2022, NL1-1
Gourock St. John’s Church of Scotland
Service prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson
Manse: 632143
Email: tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

Prelude Music

Welcome/Announcements

Call to Worship
1: When everything is going exactly according to plan,
All: God is with us.
2: When nothing is going to plan and we no longer know how to adapt,
All: God is with us.
3: When we walk humbly and when we have lost sight of the truth about ourselves,
All: God is committed to the covenant with the earth and all its creatures.
4: When we hold too tightly to wrong things
and when we learn to move where the Spirit leads,
All: God is committed to the covenant with the earth and all its creatures.
All: In success and failure, and all the messy in between,
we turn our attention to the One who will never let us go.

Hymn 160: Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven;
to his feet thy tribute bring;
ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
who like me his praise should sing?
Praise him! Praise him!
Praise the everlasting King.

Praise him for his grace and favour
to our fathers in distress;
praise him, still the same for ever,
slow to chide, and swift to bless:
Praise him! Praise him!
glorious in his faithfulness.

Father-like he tends and spares us;
well our feeble frame he knows;
in his hands he gently bears us,
rescues us from all our foes:
Praise him! Praise him!
widely as his mercy flows.

Frail as summer’s flower we flourish;
blows the wind and it is gone;
but, while mortals rise and perish,
God endures unchanging on.
Praise him! Praise him!
Praise the high eternal One.

Angels, help us to adore him;
ye behold him face to face;
sun and moon, bow down before him;
dwellers all in time and space.
Praise him! Praise him!
Praise with us the God of grace.

Prayer in thanksgiving for the life of Queen Elizabeth II
Moderator of the General Assembly

Sanctuary: Children’s Time— Song: Oh the earth is the Lord’s (chorus)

Prayer for the season

You long to be in relationship with us, O God.
You call us to walk with you,
and you choose and empower human beings to carry out your work in the world.
We do not understand why you would choose us,
what reason you might have for calling us to be your partners in love, grace, and justice.
And yet you do.
You call us to build when others tear down.
You call us to leave behind what we know while others get stuck in what might have been.
You call us to speak when others keep silent, and to listen carefully to meaning behind the noise.
Why us?
Only you know, Lord,
and we pray you would help us trust your judgment.
Open our spirits to receive your word this day,
and open our lives to walk with you, wherever you may lead.
Amen.

Reading and Reflection: Genesis 6:5-22; 8:6-14; 9:8-17  (Robert Alter translation)

And the Lord saw that the evil of the human creature was great on the earth and every scheme of his heart’s devising was only perpetually evil. And the Lord regretted having made the human on Earth and was grieved to the heart. And the Lord said, “I will wipe out the human race I created from the face of the earth, from human to cattle to crawling thing to the fowl of the heavens, for I regret that I have made them.” But Noah found favour in the eyes of the Lord. This is the lineage of Noah – Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time, Noah walked with God – and Noah begot three sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth. And the Earth was corrupt before God and the Earth was filled with outrage. And God saw the earth and, look, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its ways on the earth. And God said to Noah, “the end of all flesh is come before Me, for the Earth is filled with outrage by them, and I am now about to destroy them, with the earth. Make yourself an ark of cypress wood, with cells you shall make the ark, and caulk it inside and out with pitch. This is how you shall make it: three hundred cubits, the ark’s length; fifty cubits, its width; thirty cubits, its height. Make a skylight in the ark, within a cubit at the top you shall finish it, and put an entrance in the ark on one side. With lower and middle and upper decks you shall make it. As for Me, I am about to bring the flood, water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh that has within the breath of life from under the heavens, everything on the earth shall perish. And I will set up My covenant with you, and you shall enter the ark, you and your sons and your wife and the wives of your sons, with you. And from all that lives, from all flesh, two of each thing you shall bring to the ark to keep alive with you, male and female they shall be. From the fowl of each kind and from the cattle of each kind and from all that crawls on the Earth of each kind, two of each thing shall come to you to be kept alive. As for you, take you from every food that is eaten and store it by you, to serve for you and for them as food.” And this Noah did; as all that God commanded him, so he did.

And it happened, at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark he had made. And he sent out the raven and it went forth to and fro until the water should dry up from the earth. And he sent out the dove to see whether the waters had abated from the surface of the ground. But the dove found no resting place for its foot and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were over all the Earth. Then he waited another seven days and again sent the dove out from the ark. And the dove came back to him at eventide and, look, a plucked olive leaf was in its bill, and Noah knew that the waters had abated from the earth. Then he waited still another seven days and sent out the dove, and it did not return to him again. And it happened in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the waters dried up from the earth, and Noah took off the covering of the ark and he saw and, look, the surface of the ground was dry.

And God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “And I, I am about to establish My covenant with you and with your seed after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the fowl and the cattle and every beast of the earth with you, all that have come out of the ark, every beast of the earth. And I will establish My covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I set between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for everlasting generations: My bow I have set in the clouds to be a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth, and so, when I send clouds over the Earth, the bow will appear in the cloud. Then I will remember My covenant, between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters will no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud and I will see it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and all creatures of flesh that is on the Earth.” And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the Earth.”

For the word of God in scripture
For the word of God all around us
For the word of God within us
Thanks be to God.

Sanctuary Hymn: Shades of Purple, Shades of Blue (Carolyn Winfrey Gillette 2012, tune: DIX)

Online Hymn 172: Sing for God’s Glory That Colours the Dawn of Creation

Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
God who creates life and promises abundant life,
we hear your commitment to relationship rather than destruction,
and we pray for the will to match your commitment with our own.
…
In the beginning, you looked at the world and called it good.
In the beginning, you looked at humanity and called us partners.
In the beginning, you had a vision.
We confess, O God, that we have our own vision, and we cling to it.
Even when our way is not good, when it does not work,
when it harms us, our neighbours, and creation,
still we admit that we persist in spite of your call
to turn toward the new thing you are doing in our midst.
Forgive us for insisting on our own way, refusing to let you take the lead in partnership.
Forgive us for despoiling your earth with our greed, believing we are the only ones who matter.
Forgive us for ignoring the impact our choices have on the rest of the created order.
Remember your covenant, O God of rainbow promises,
and remind us too.
As you re-made all things on the face of the earth, choosing a new way of relationship,
re-make us in your image, committed to the path of loving community.
…
We look at this world you called good and we hear it groaning, crying for help.
We see the oceans rage and the waters rise, the weather getting more extreme with each passing year.
In light of your promise, we pray for relief for your world,
and for the human community to take responsibility for the changing climate.
When we sing of the animals being saved,
we pray also for the animals of today, with habitats shrinking and food and water growing scarce.
When we hear of your creation living in harmony,
we pray also for communities where nature and humans struggle rather than cooperate.
The world is not the same as when you first called forth life from the shadows,
yet we trust that your Spirit still whispers over the waters,
your Word still re-creates,
your Love still makes all things possible.
In gratitude for your creative power, and in response to your faithfulness to the world,
we ask for your help in living up to your call to care.
…
Holy God, we proclaim you immortal and immutable…
In this world of constant change, we are grateful for your unchanging love and compassion.
Yet we also give you thanks for your flexibility —
for your willingness to do a new thing,
your insistence on doing anything possible to fulfil your promise of abundant life.
You made us in your image, so we pray to have the same mind —
minds set on unchanging love,
and lives dedicated to doing whatever it takes, even changing our ways, to demonstrate that love.
…
We pray these and all things in the name of Christ Jesus 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.

Sanctuary Hymn 172: Sing for God’s Glory That Colours the Dawn of Creation

Benediction
Trusting in the God who creates and re-creates, go out into the world with the courage to change or even to begin anew. Following the Christ whose love extends beyond our understanding, look for ways to deepen your own commitment to community. Empowered by the Spirit who is the very breath of life, let your heart be open to follow faithfully. May you walk with God, this day and every day.

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.

Postlude Music

Announcements
* Young Adult Bible Study meets in the manse TONIGHT… on the 2nd and 4th Sundays at 7pm for a meal and a study of the gospel according to John. If you’d like more information, for yourself, a family member, a friend, or neighbour who is in their 20s, please contact Teri for the dates/times and other information.

* You are invited to join in reading the Bible in a year for 2022 — immersing ourselves in God’s word throughout the year. We get together to discuss each week on Wednesday at 7:30pm in the manse at 6 Barrhill Road. All are welcome, no experience necessary! Feel free to invite a friend, too! Anyone who has ever wondered just what the Bible actually says and what it has to do with us is welcome. We are just beginning the gospel according to Matthew, so there’s no better time to join in!

* Youth Organisations are starting the new session. If you or anyone you know is interested in the Boys Brigade (P1 – S6), please contact Alan Aitken or 2ndgourock (at) inverclydebb.org.uk. If you or anyone you know is interested in the Brownies or Girl Guides, please visit the website to register. For the Smurfs, our youngest girls, please contact Teri and ask to be put in touch with the leader.

* Philip is organising a choir for any interested singer to come and have fun, learn some of the new hymns, and sing sometimes in worship. The choir will rehearse on some Thursday evenings at 7:30pm in the sanctuary — please contact Philip for more information: philipnor617 (at) gmail.com

Sunday Service for 25 September 2022

Sunday service for 18 September 2022

Sunday service for 11 September 2022

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