Welcome and Announcements
Friends, you are welcome in this place. Our time together is God’s gift to each of us. We come with what we know of and have experienced in life, we come seeking to discover what we don’t yet know about God and God’s hopes and dreams for our lives.
Together, we seek to make this a safe environment for all who search for meaning and purpose in life. Together let us seek to be Christ’s light and salt in the world. So welcome. Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, you are welcome here.
Today we begin the season of Lent, traditionally a time set aside for preparing ourselves for Easter.
This week, our readings draw us into the wilderness, a place of struggle and honest encounter with our limitations. As we consider Jesus time in the wilderness we will reflect and consider how wilderness strips away illusions, and God’s grace becomes our true bread, our guiding word, and our path to freedom/restoration.
Acknowledgement of country
As we gather together in this time and place, we acknowledge the Dharawal people who have walked, lived, and told stories on this land for thousands of years. We honour their Elders, past and present, and their deep listening to Country.
As Lent invites us to bring our whole selves before God— with our loss, longing, and fragile hope— may we commit to truthful listening and renewed relationship with First Peoples.
Lighting of the Christ Candle
We gather to worship God.
We gather so we can turn to Christ.
Whose life gives Life to all.
We will journey with him to Calvary and beyond.
This is our prayer and our hope.
Praise be to God
Call to worship
Come away into a quiet place, into presence with Holy One.
Come away into an honest place, as you are, mortal, human one.
Come away into a healing place, made of holy dust, infused with holy breath.
Come away into a sacred place, kneel, bow, pray with honour for Holy One.
Hymn: Christ be our Light
Longing for light, we wait in darkness. Longing for truth, we turn to you.
Make us your own, your holy people, light for the world to see.
Christ be our light! Shine in our hearts. Shine through the darkness. Christ, be our light! Shine in your church gathered today.
Longing for peace, our world is troubled. Longing for hope, many despair.
Your word alone has power to save us. Make us your living voice.
Christ be our light! Shine in our hearts. Shine through the darkness. Christ, be our light! Shine in your church gathered today.
Longing for food, many are hungry. Longing for water, many still thirst.
Make us your bread, broken for others, shared until all are fed.
Christ be our light! Shine in our hearts. Shine through the darkness. Christ, be our light! Shine in your church gathered today.
Longing for shelter, many are homeless. Longing for warmth, many are cold.
Make us your building, sheltering others, walls made of living stone.
Christ be our light! Shine in our hearts. Shine through the darkness. Christ, be our light! Shine in your church gathered today.
Many the gifts, many the people, many the hearts that yearn to belong.
Let us be servants to one another, making your kingdom come.
Christ be our light! Shine in our hearts. Shine through the darkness. Christ, be our light! Shine in your church gathered today.
Bernadette Farrell
A bit about Lent
The Uniting Church in Australia views Lent as a 40-day journey of preparation, reflection, and discipline, following Jesus toward his suffering, death, and resurrection. It is a time for repentance, examining one’s life, and embracing the “unsettling” call to justice and solidarity with the suffering, rather than just personal piety. ( Note the call to justice in addition to individual spiritual growth)
Opening Prayer
God of wilderness and water, you are the breath that gives us life
and the Spirit that leads us into truth. When we wander, you call us home.
When we hunger, you feed us with living bread. When we thirst, you open streams in the desert. When we stumble, you lift us with mercy.
As we enter this Season of Lent, strip away our illusions and false securities.
Teach us to let go of what cannot give life, and to cling to your word that endures.
In the face of temptation, give us courage. In the loneliness of wilderness, give us companionship. In the silence, give us wisdom to listen. In the struggle, give us strength to follow Christ’s way.
Gather us as your people:
from the first steps of faith to the long journey walked, those who are joyful and weary, searching and certain. Bind us together in love,
that our worship may be more than words,
a living sacrifice of trust and praise.
Through Jesus, who walked the desert with faith,
and in the Spirit, who sustains us still. Amen.
Prayer of adoration and confession
Merciful God, we confess that we often prefer easy answers to faithful living. We hide from the truth of our actions, we cling to possessions and power, we turn away from those who hunger and thirst.
Forgive us.
Meet us again in the wilderness, where your grace is enough, your love is abundant, and your Spirit leads us home.
Hear the good news:
The wilderness is not abandonment.
God’s love is steadfast,
Christ’s mercy is wide,
and the Spirit’s power restores us to life.
In Christ we are forgiven and free. Thanks be to God!
Hymn: Love will be our Lenten calling (Elizabeth J Smith)
Love will be our Lenten calling, love to shake and shatter sin,
waking every closed, cold spirit, stirring new life deep within,
till the quickened heart remembers what our Easter birth can mean.
Peace will be our Lenten living as we turn for home again,
longing for the words of pardon, stripping off old grief and pain,
till we stand, restored and joyful, with the Church on Easter day.
Truth will be our Lenten learning: hear the Crucified One call!
Shadowed by the Saviour’s passion, images and idols fall,
and, in Easter’s holy splendour, God alone is all in all
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.
Reading: Romans 5: 12-19
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— 13 sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. 14 Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.
15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. 16And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. 17 If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18 Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. 19 For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
Reading 2. Matthew 4 1-11
4 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was famished. 3The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4But he answered, “It is written,
‘One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”
5Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’
and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
7Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”
8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, 9and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.’ ”
11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
Reader: Through these readings we hear God speak.
All: Thank you, God, for your words of life.
Sermon: This week’s reflection on Matt 4:1-11 is by David Lose, Senior Pastor of Mount Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, presented on the “Sermon for Every Sunday” website from 2023.
Lose says that the authors of Matthew and Luke believe that “in the story of Jesus’ temptation we see the history of the world encapsulated in the experiences Jesus ], and that in the account of his refusal to give into temptation, we hear the good news that in God’s only Son there is hope for all humanity.”
Jesus resists temptation and trusts in the words he heard from God at his baptism. Lose says, “He can endure the wilderness and withstand the temptations hurled at him because he knows he is God’s beloved child.” We, too, are God’s beloved children, and Lose reminds us to let this fact guide us through our temptations.
RESPONDING TO THE WORD
Hymn: Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God (Karen Lafferty)
Seek ye first the kingdom of God
and His righteousness,
and all these things shall be added unto you.
Allelu, alleluía.
Ask and it shall be given unto you,
seek and you shall find,
knock and it shall be opened unto you.
Allelu, alleluia.
We shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word
that proceeds
from the mouth of the Lord.
Allelu, alleluia.
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:
Generous God, we bring our diverse gifts.
Let your Holy Spirit breathe life into our serving,
so that all that we do may bring glory to your name. Amen
Lent Video from Uniting World – Clare
Prayers of the people – Sue
Celtic version of the Lord’s Prayer
Holy One beyond all names Eternal Wellspring
May love rise again in us today With food for every table
Shelter for every family And reverence for every life.
Forgive us our failings in love And free us from all falseness
That the light of our souls may shine And the strength of our spirits endure
For Earth and all its people This day, tonight, and forever. Amen
J Phillip Newell
Hymn: You are my Hiding Place, Michael Ledner
You are my hiding place
You always fill my heart
With songs, of deliverance
Whenever I am afraid
I will trust in you
I will trust in you
Let the weak say
I am strong
In the strength of the Lord
You are my hiding place
You always fill my heart
With songs, of deliverance
Whenever I am afraid
I will trust in you
Benediction
Be honest, be open, be real.
God desires our trust,
and is faithful with love and grace.
As you go, know you are loved,
restored and renewed
in the love and grace of our faithful God. Amen.
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