GATHERING THE PEOPLE
Welcome and Announcements
My fellow worshippers, we are not clones. There are many differences among us, including different ways and degrees of experiencing God.
Some feel God as always very close, some feel God as occasionally close, and others feel God as more distant. But our feelings are not the measuring stick of our faith, or the essential ingredient in our worship. The crucial factor is God’s faithfulness. God promises to be with us whether we sense it or not.
Engadine Uniting Church is intentionally an open, diverse and caring community of Jesus’ disciples. In following Christ’s commandment to love one another, we welcome all who wish to share in the fellowship of our faith community. As we affirm that every person is a child of God, no one is excluded, regardless of race, ethnic or socio-economic background, marital status, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental ability, nationality, or faith background. We also warmly welcome everyone who is joining us on zoom or by phone. All are welcome here!
The inclusive love of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. And also with you.
Acknowledgement of country
We pay our respects to elders past and present as they hold the knowledge, language and spiritual connections to this country.
We Acknowledge:
Our gratitude for this land we share today,
Our sorrow for the cost of that sharing,
Our hope that together in the spirit of Reconciliation,
we move to a place of justice and partnership,
As together we walk gently on this land.
All: In doing so, we recommit to the path of reconciliation and justice that God lays before us.
We light the Christ Candle and hear the call to worship.
Call to worship
Come, gather here at the level place!
Home for the hurting and hoping.
A meeting place for all those aching for freedom
and longing for God-alive community.
Jesus, the Jubilee-in-person,
meets us here at the level place saying,
‘Another world is on the way!’
Come! Let us sing our songs of jubilee!
Prayer Of Welcome
Come Holy Spirit,
Open our hearts,
Widen our imagination.
Let us become flourishing trees,
rooted in love and wisdom,
strong in the presence of divine care.
Song: We Limit Not The Truth Of God (TiS 453; tune Ellacombe)
We limit not the truth of God to our poor reach of mind
To notions of our day and place: crude partial and confined
No, let a new and better hope within our hearts be stirred
The Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth from God’s word
Who dares to bind to one’s own sense the oracles of heaven?
For all the nations tongues and climes, and all the ages given
That universe how much unknown? the ocean unexplored
The Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth from God’ word
O Parent Son and Spirit send us increase from above
Enlarge expand all living souls to comprehend Your love
And makes us all go on to know with nobler powers conferred
The Lord has yet more light and truth to break forth from God’s word
CCLI Song # 1157621 George Rawson | Richard Wayne Dirksen © Words: Public Domain; Music: 1992 Hope Publishing Company For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com CCLI License # 31951
Prayer of adoration and confession
O God, we want the world to change, but if we’re honest, we do not want to change. We want lives untouched, wherever possible, from the raw and brutal realities of life.
That is until we are on the wrong end of things. And then we want someone to stand with us, to rail against all that is not right and just.
We’re sorry, God.
We’re sorry for the resistance, the inertia, the indifference we often feel.
Words of Assurance and Affirmation
There are always fresh chances in the reign of God, always new opportunities to move towards love, to open up. And it always starts with receiving love, with God’s forgiving embrace of our lives.
Friends, you are forgiven. Thanks be to God.
HEARING THE WORD
Readings Let us pray: God, please open our ears and minds and hearts so that as we hear the words of the Bible, you will speak to us and bring us new life.
Today’s Old Testament reading of Jeremiah 17:5-10 is taken from the 2002 paraphrase of the Bible entitled The Message:
5-6 God’s Message: “Cursed is the strong one who depends on mere humans,
Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone and sets God aside as dead weight.
He’s like a tumbleweed on the prairie, out of touch with the good earth.
He lives rootless and aimless in a land where nothing grows.
7-8 “But blessed is the man who trusts me, God, the woman who sticks with God.
They’re like trees replanted in Eden, putting down roots near the rivers—
Never a worry through the hottest of summers, never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts, bearing fresh fruit every season.
9-10 “The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human. I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are, not as they pretend to be.”
The Gospel reading of Luke 6:17-26 is taken from the New Revised Standard Version.
17 He came down with them and stood on a level place with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. 18 They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases, and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.
20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven, for that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
24 “But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
25 “Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
“Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.
Reader: Through these readings we hear God speak.
All: Thank you, God, for your words of life.
Item: Sue has a presentation about Sydney Alliance (the upcoming Assembly, and the renewal of the local group), and the Sutherland Council workshop to review their draft Climate Strategy (to which we are invited, representing the Uniting Climate Action Network).
Hymn/Song: Blessed are You, the poor ones
Blessed are you, the poor ones; God calls the last and least.
Blessed are you, the hungry, for God prepares your feast.
Blessed are those who weep now, for mourning turns into praise.
Blessed are you who suffer, for God will guard your ways.
Refrain: The doors of heav’n are open and glory is shining through –
rejoice, rejoice, God is with us, and blessed, blessed are you.
Ruin awaits the wealthy, who live to serve their greed.
Ruin awaits the gluttons, who take more than they need.
Ruin awaits the laughers, and tears will fill their eyes.
Ruin awaits the haughty, who mock their neighbours’ cries. Refrain.
Blessed are you, the poor ones, for God is poor with you.
Blessed are you, the hungry, for God knows hunger too.
Blessed are you who weep now, for God has shared your grief.
Blessed are you who suffer, for God will bring relief. Refrain.
Text: Adam M L Tice, 2013; © 2013, GIA Publications Inc
Sermon: John McKinnon
RESPONDING TO THE WORD
Prayer
As part of our response to John’s words, let us pray with inspiration from the Psalm for today:
Source of Life, Flame of Love, we are trees planted in the stream of your care. We look to our branches, and we see fruit; our leaves are green. We are flourishing!
You hand over a map of right-living and watch over us all the days of our lives. Happy are we, wonderful God. Happy are we, life-bringing God.
Offertory prayer
Thank you to everyone as you bring your gifts of loving service and financial support through online giving. If you prefer to use cash, it can be placed in the wooden box at the back, and you can also make one-off donations via the QR code on the box. Let us pray:
God of grace, let your blessings ripple out. Let our giving be part of these movements.
In your name, we pray, amen.
Prayers of the people (Bruce)
Gather around Jesus, he is with us here, standing on level ground, and all who are struggling and unwell may come to him, for healing, for connection, for community, for a word that uplifts. We pray at this time for all those on our hearts whose spirits are troubled – troubled by illness, troubled by conflict, troubled by uncertainty troubled by hunger or some other need.
We lift up in prayer those we know who long for your care, loving Jesus. May your healing power go forth, dear Jesus.
We pray for those around the world whose lives are endangered or displaced by war. Keep people safe, somehow. Bring peace, God. Bring hope God. Turn weapons of war into instruments for connection, for healing and hope, for feeding those who are hungry. Teach all of us the things that make for peace.
Let your jubilee dream come, let your will be done, in all of these desperate places, as it is in heaven. May your healing power go forth, dear Jesus.
Amen.
Today’s version of the Lord’s Prayer was written by Parker Palmer, an American author and educator who is the founder of the Center for Courage and Renewal.
Heavenly Father, heavenly Mother, Holy and blessed is your true name.
We pray for your reign of peace to come, We pray that your good will be done, Let heaven and earth become one.
Give us this day the bread we need, Give it to those who have none.
Let forgiveness flow like a river between us, From each one to each one.
Lead us to holy innocence Beyond the evil of our days. Come swiftly Mother, Father, come.
For yours is the power and the glory and the mercy: Forever your name is All in One, Amen.
Hymn/Song: Not the powerful not the privileged (TiS 288)
Benediction
The singing here, in this place, will come to an end. We will pack up the instruments. We will clean up. We will shut the doors behind us and ready ourselves to go from this place.
But this is not the end of our worship.
The jubilee parade simply streams forth, into our neighbourhoods, into our homes, into our workplaces, and into our relationships.
God goes before. God is with you. The joy and courage of God live within you.
So go forth. Go in peace to serve and love with freedom. Amen!
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