Ian and Julie's Zoom Service for Sunday 21st March 2021

For those able to join us by Zoom at 11.00 am the joining details are as follows
Join Zoom Meeting
Zoom Service
Meeting ID: 354 035 1038
Passcode: 717837
Ian will also be taking the service at Maesyronnen at 2pm - which will use much of the same material. The 11.00 service will be recorded and the recording will be up later on Sunday or Monday morning.
We are going to offer worship on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday - more details as to timings in the next few days.
Just a reminder also that the final session of our Lent Bible Study meets on Monday at 7.30pm - same joining details.
Sunday 21st March 2021
Call to worship
Let us meet with the Lord, let us follow the Christ, let us be filled with the Spirit,
Today and everyday. Amen.
HYMN: God is love
1 God is Love: let heav'n adore him;
God is Love: let earth rejoice;
let creation sing before him,
and exalt him with one voice.
He who laid the earth's foundation,
he who spread the heav'ns above,
he who breathes through all creation,
he is Love, eternal Love.
2 God is Love: and he enfoldeth
all the world in one embrace;
with unfailing grasp he holdeth
every child of every race.
And when human hearts are breaking
under sorrow's iron rod,
then they find that selfsame aching
deep within the heart of God.
2 God is Love: and is enfolding
all the world in one embrace;
his unfailing grasp is holding
every child of every race.
And when human hearts are breaking
under sorrow's iron rod,
that same sorrow, that same aching
wrings with pain the heart of God.
3 God is Love, and though with blindness
sin afflicts and clouds the will,
God's eternal loving-kindness
holds us fast and guides us still.
Sin and death and hell shall never
o'er us final triumph gain;
God is Love, so Love for ever
o'er the universe must reign.
Timothy Rees (1874-1939)
Opening Prayers
Everlasting God, we come before you today, just as we are. We come with the things that weigh us down. We come with the parts of ourselves we would prefer to hide.
Our regrets, our fears, our shame.
You know every part of us and yet you call us by name, just as we are. You welcome us in as part of your family. So, we come.
We come to seek your light, your peace, your wholeness, your hope.
You call us to share your love with the world. To sow hope and build bridges, especially at this time of physical separation and distance.
We pray that you will strengthen us to be your people of light.
In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
Let us now say the Lord’s Prayer
Readings:
Jeremiah 31 v 31-34
31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband,[g] says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
John 12 v 20-33
20 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘we would like to see Jesus.’ 22 Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
23 Jesus replied, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.24 Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me.
27 ‘Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? “Father, save me from this hour”? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!’
Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.’ 29 The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
30 Jesus said, ‘This voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.32 And I, when I am lifted up[f] from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
I have not met many famous people. The only notable person I have ever queued up to see is the American theologian and pastor Brian Maclaren and that was to get his new book signed. The idea of going up to some of the support team and asking to see and speak to the keynote speaker off my own bat would not be something that I would ordinarily consider doing.
Here we have some people, almost certainly men, who are described by John as Greeks, who want to see Jesus. I suspect that they are almost certainly people sympathetic to the Jewish faith (God fearers) if not actually converts as Jerusalem in Passover week was no place for tourists who had no religious business there.
We are not told whether they actually got their wish. They may be used by John as a means of moving the story on or to make a distinction between the faith of these foreigners compared to the religious authorities in Jerusalem. The scene is set for one of Jesus’s discourses which are such a feature of John, especially in the last week. We’ve already noted that John has a tendency to use material based on the life of Jesus but not necessarily in the right order.
John does not have a passion scene in the garden, moving from the entry to the arrest seamlessly. This is Jesus’s moment of crisis, where he humanly contemplates the horror of what is to come and ponders whether he might escape it momentarily. In keeping with the picture that John’s Gospel paints of Jesus, this is only fleeting, followed by a firm restatement of his purpose and mission – the salvation of the world.
That’s not really my main focus for today, though. Ever since I began thinking about the readings for today’s service, the phrase ‘We want to see Jesus’ has been running through my head. If someone wants to see Jesus today, how do we show them? (inviting them to go and have a chat with the minister, is not a valid answer for the purposes of this sermon!).
One obvious answer is to point them to the Scriptures. After all, this is how the stories of Jesus have been handed down. I think it’s fair to say that the Gospels are not always easy to understand and while the Holy Spirit can help, there’s a nagging thought in my mind that something more is needed. In any case, the early church managed quite well without the written gospels and I suspect that if we were really trying to show someone Jesus, we’d want to show something of Jesus alive in the world today through the Holy Spirit. This is where it becomes tricky because it means that we have to get involved.
Most of us are familiar with the image of the body of Christ. We use it frequently especially during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. I do wonder, though, whether we spend more time applying it to relationships within and between churches and denominations. There’s nothing wrong with that but I wonder, especially during the self-examination of Lent whether it would be equally helpful to imagine how we as the body of Christ might look at, relate to and act towards the world that God made and which God loves.
Reading the Gospel accounts, there was an attractiveness about Jesus which drew people to him. He showed his love to the world, even when he was holding up its shortcomings and failures. Ultimately that love for the world took him to the cross, in the hope that this love would continue to draw people to follow him.
Over the last few weeks in our Lenten Bible Study, we have been considering climate change and global heating and what our response to this should be. The question is, as the Body of Christ, how should we consider this and act accordingly? We may not agree on the answer, and any consensus may mean people making concessions, but I do not think, as the body of Christ that we can avoid having this discussion. There are many other concerns happening in the world that we cannot close our eyes to if we are serious about our role as co-creators with God shaping a renewed, transformed and better world. The state is empire and will always put its energies into preserving its own interests and power. it suited its purposes to enlist the assistance of the church in times past, but those days are no more.
Of course, this will not be popular. Jesus was lifted up, executed as a blasphemer, a heretic and a threat to the power of the Roman Empire. If he had just existed as a loving and caring healer and teacher, he might have been dismissed as just another eccentric Rabbi, but he demanded transformation which required sacrifice and faced people who were doing quite well out of empire with the challenge of the Kingdom of God.
Like many organisations, the pandemic has spurred the United Reformed Church to take a long hard look at itself. Questions are now being asked about our structure, presence and purpose. Of course, there are many factors which are driving this, but I would hope that what comes out in the end is a renewed understanding of our part in the body of Christ, not just in organisational terms but also how we look at the world as part of the body of Christ. This process is just getting under way and we will have a part to play in due course, but I wonder whether this is an opportunity to re-evaluate the life we have together and how we might show our closeness to Christ to those around us, not in a narrow, moralistic way but in a wider way that embraces the communities and world around us,
The reality is that many of us are tired, wanting the security of what we knew before lockdown and dubious that we have the energy for this transformation. The good news is that we do not have to transform ourselves – that is the divine task through the Holy Spirit. All we need to do is to allow this to happen. Paul exhorted the church at Rome:
12 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Nonconformism to the pattern of this world is wider than just the normal things we associate with it but extends to the values of greed and power which we see exhibited so often in our society. In challenging these and demonstrating that there is another way, we allow people to see Jesus in a similar manner to how he was seen in 1st Century Palestine.
If we seek to imitate Jesus, we may well get the same reaction from those who see this as a threat. There is a narrative taking shape in this country that those in power and the media will seek to defend at all costs especially against all those who are seen as ‘not one of us’. At some stage, Christians may well come up against this and we should be aware of this possibility. We will not all engage in this renewed vision to the same extent but prayer is always important for those who are facing the consequences of following Christ most acutely.
This Lent, may we use the days we have left before Easter to continue examining our lives, allowing God to continue the transformation within us and enabling us to show people Jesus in our individual and communal lives. Amen.
HYMN: May the mind of Christ my saviour
1 May the mind of Christ my Saviour
live in me from day to day,
by his love and power controlling
all I do or say.
2 May the word of God dwell richly
in my heart from hour to hour,
so that all may see I triumph
only through his power.
3 May the peace of God my Father
rule my life in everything,
that I may be calm to comfort
sick and sorrowing.
4 May the love of Jesus fill me,
as the waters fill the sea;
him exalting, self abasing-
this is victory.
5 May I run the race before me,
strong and brave to face the foe,
looking only unto Jesus
as I onward go.
Kate Barclay Wilkinson (1859-1928)
Prayers for others
Lord God,
We are all part of your family. We are all bound together in a love that will never cease or grow tired. We offer you our prayers for your creation, for our siblings across the world in need of your hope and comfort.
We pray for those living in the midst of conflict, wondering if home will ever feel safe again. For those worried about loved ones who have gone to fight. For those sacrificing everything to protect their families and ensure their safety. We offer a prayer for peace, remembering that this must begin with us.
Leader: Lord of all hope
All: Shine your light in the darkness
We pray for victims of abuse of all kinds. For those who do not feel safe in the place they should call home. For victims of bullying in the workplace, who feel unable to speak up for fear of losing their job. For those trapped in toxic relationships and friendships. We give thanks for those who seek to provide freedom and a listening ear to victims of abuse, and we pray for the strength and compassion to provide the same in any way we can.
Leader: Lord of all hope
All: Shine your light in the darkness
We pray for those living in poverty, or without a safe place to call their own. For the families struggling to feed their children. For those forced to live on the streets, with even fewer places to go in this time of increased restrictions. For our siblings across the world whose countries are facing the worst of the climate crisis, and enduring the food and water shortages that often come with the extreme conditions.
Leader: Lord of all hope
All: Shine your light in the darkness
In a moment of silence, we bring before you those known to us, who are in need of your loving presence at this time:
[Silence]
Loving God, gather up the names spoken into the silence, and accept all of the prayers we offer today. It is easy to feel like our offerings are small, that the love we share doesn’t go far, but we know that, in you, our small acts can spread far and wide. May we be bearers of your light in this world.
In Jesus’ name, we pray
Amen.
HYMN: Lord, thy church on earth is seeking
1 Lord, thy church on earth is seeking
thy renewal from above;
teach us all the art of speaking
with the accent of thy love.
We would heed thy great commission:
go ye into every place?
preach, baptise, fulfil my mission,
serve with love and share my grace.
2 Freedom give to those in bondage,
lift the burdens caused by sin.
Give new hope, new strength and courage,
grant release from fears within:
light for darkness; joy for sorrow;
love for hatred; peace for strife.
These and countless blessings follow
as the Spirit gives new life.
3 In the streets of every city
where the bruised and lonely dwell,
let us show the Saviour's pity,
let us of his mercy tell.
In all lands and with all races
let us serve, and seek to bring
all the world to render praises,
Christ, to thee, Redeemer, King.
Hugh Sherlock (1905-1998)
© Successor to Hugh Sherlock/administered by The Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes
Blessing
May the fulness of Jesus fill us as we leave this act of worship so that we may be the body of Christ in God’s world. And the blessing of God, Creator, Saviour and Guide be with us and all God’s beloved people made in the divine image, now and evermore, Amen.

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