You can watch the bible readings and sermon here, or scroll down to read the rest of the Sunday prayers and content, and watch this video at the point it occurs during worship.
LIGHTING OF THE CHRIST CANDLE
Light, when it is your Light Lord, scatters ignorance, pride, darkness and shame.
Light, your Light Lord, helps us to see each other us as you see us. Praise be to God! Light candle.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF COUNTRY
Unlike the blind Pharisees, we know Lord where you come from as we also know on whose land we gather, the Dharawal People who have been good stewards of your creation since time immemorial. We acknowledge their elders past and present and pledge to continue to work with them for justice, reconciliation & peace building.
INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT & WELCOME
The 15th Assembly of the Uniting Church in 2018, affirmed that: Christ is most fully present when all people in the Body are unconditionally accepted as people of worth. That all people are created in the image of God, including people with disability; along with all members, the faith, gifts, hopes and dreams of people with disability are to be valued and honoured; and God is a God of justice and peace, who seeks reconciliation amongst all people. In seeking to be a community of reconciliation, the Uniting Church acknowledges that for many people with disability, its life and faith has not always borne witness to this vision. The Uniting Church seeks: to embody a community life that in its theology and practice is accessible to all people; to ensure that within its own life people with disability are treated justly and have their hopes and rights realised; and to advocate for justice and equality for people with disability in the wider community.
OPENING PRAYER
God be with you . And also with you
God of steadfast love, like the parent waiting, with arms outstretched
ready to embrace the wandering child
God like the shepherd searching for the lost sheep
God like the mother hen gathering her family
You have called us here no one is lost
No one is left behind all are welcomed.
Let us join with you in your fierce joy
Which finds grace in every child of earth and makes a community open to all.
We ask this in the name of Jesus the Christ. Amen
HYMN
Here in this place, new light is streaming
now is the darkness vanished away.
See, in this space, our fears and our dreamings
brought here to you in the light of this day.
Gather us in – the lost and forsaken
gather us in – the blind and the lame.
Call to us now, and we shall awaken
we shall arise at the sound of our name.
We are the young – our lives are a mystery
we are the old – who yearn for your face.
We have been sung throughout all of history
called to be light to the whole human race.
Gather us in – the rich and the haughty
gather us in – the proud and the strong.
Give us a heart so meek and so lowly
give us the courage to enter the song.
Here we will take the wine and the water
here we will take the bread of new birth.
Here you shall call your sons and your daughters
call us anew to be salt for the earth.
Give us to drink the wine of compassion
give us to eat the bread that is you.
Nourish us well, and teach us to fashion
lives that are holy and hearts that are true.
Not in the dark of buildings confining
not in some heaven, light years away
but here in this place, the new light is shining;
now is the Kingdom, now is the day.
Gather us in – and hold us forever
gather us in – and make us your own.
Gather us in – all peoples together
fire of love in our flesh and our bone.
Marty Haugen. Words & music by permission GIA Publications. CCLI Licence # 31951
INTRODUCING SHANE CLIFTON by John
PRAYER OF CONFESSION & FORGIVENESS
God who made home within us and amongst us.
Who came to us incarnate as the Word made flesh.
Who knows the pain and joy of being in a body.
You are tireless in seeking out the lost amongst us.
As a church we have not welcomed many of your people.
We have institutionalised and isolated. We have been blind to their search for dignity.
We have ignored and we have betrayed. We are sorry.
Forgive us when our faith has been small, and when our welcome has been thin.
Generous God share mercy with us.
Generous God, You do not give up on a single one.
We give up even on ourselves.
Share grace with us generous God.
For we gather here in all our brokenness – body, soul and mind.
We admit that by our lack of welcome we have wounded others.
We confess, especially that by our actions of exclusion we have wounded ourselves and wounded our world. Hear Christ’s word of love to us all! Your sins are forgiven, Thanks be to God!
With God’s help we will seek to end exclusion and we commit to work for healing in this place.
With the inspiration of the Holy Spirit we will renew our church.
So let us share a sign of God’s peace as a symbol of our commitment to healing and justice.
The Peace of the Lord be with you and also with you!
BIBLE READINGS Genelle & David
ISAIAH 61: 1 – 5 The Sovereign Lord has filled me with his Spirit. God has chosen me and sent me to bring good news to the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to announce release to captives and freedom to those in prison. God has sent me to proclaim that the time has come
when the Lord will save his people and defeat their enemies. God has sent me to comfort all who mourn, to give to those who mourn in Zion, Joy and gladness instead of grief, a song of praise instead of sorrow. They will be like trees that God has planted. They will all do what is right.
And God will be praised for what God has done. They will rebuild cities that have long been in ruins. My people, foreigners will serve you. They will take care of your flocks and farm your land and tend your vineyards.
JOHN 9:1 – 3 As Jesus went 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?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus. Lord open our eyes to see and our ears to hear your word.
HYMN
We cannot measure how You heal
Or answer every sufferer’s prayer
Yet we believe Your grace responds
Where faith and doubt unite to care
Your hands though bloodied on the cross
Survive to hold and heal and warn
To carry all through death to life
And cradle children yet unborn.
The pain that will not go away
The guilt that clings from things long past
The fear of what the future holds
Are present as if meant to last
But present too is love which tends
The hurt we never hoped to find
The private agonies inside
The memories that haunt the mind.
So some have come who need Your help
And some have come to make amends
As hands which shaped and saved the world
Are present in the touch of friends
Lord let Your Spirit meet us here
To mend the body mind and soul
To disentangle peace from pain
And make Your broken people whole.
© 1989 WGRG, c/o Iona Community, Glasgow, Scotland. Used with permission CCLI Licence # 31951
MESSAGE – Shane Clifton
ANNOUNCEMENTS
OFFERING PRAYER
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE & LORD’S PRAYER Kathy S
LORDS PRAYER
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven: The hallowing of your name echo through the universe! The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth. With the bread we need for today, feed us. In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. In times of temptation and test, strengthen us. From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us. For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever. Amen
HYMN
O you who camest from above, The pure celestial fire to impart, Kindle a flame of sacred love, On the mean altar of my heart.
There let it for Your glory burn, With inextinguishable blaze, And trembling to its source return, In humble prayer and fervent praise.
Jesus, confirm our heart’s desire, To work and speak and think for you, Still let me guard the holy fire, And still stir up Your gift in me.
Ready for all Your perfect will, Our acts of faith and love repeat, Till death Your endless mercies seal, And make our sacrifice complete.
Charles Wesley 1707 – 1788 Public Domain. Used with permission. CCLI Licence # 31951
CLOSING PRAYER
We thank you, Holy God.
For being a fool in the eyes of the world.
We thank you for abandoning control
For creating a universe, new and strange.
We thank you for nurturing life
Surprising, evolving, diverse and divine.
We thank you for calling a people who did not walk straight or know their limits.
We thank you for different bodies and desires
For different ways of thinking and speaking
For different ways of belonging and believing.
We gather on this day and say: We will not retreat from the world, but will act within it to bring to be the commonwealth of justice, for all of Earth’s peoples, and for the Earth itself.
BLESSING & BENEDICTION Shane Clifton
This Service of Worship is based on that prepared by the UCA Assembly Working Group on Disabilities.
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