You can watch some parts of the service in this video here (mostly bible readings and the message) or scroll down and read the prayers and songs in the order they happened.
GATHERING THE PEOPLE
Welcome and Announcements
Friends, you are welcome in this place. Our time together is God’s gift to each of us. God loves and accepts us just as we are. Engadine Uniting seeks to be a safe place for all people to gather regardless of age, ability, sexuality, or culture. We gather today accepting each other in our diversity to seek love and joy in the presence of God. Know that you are loved and that your presence here this morning both enriches each one of us and our worship time together. A special welcome to our friends on zoom and to anyone visiting us this morning. Together let us seek to be Christ’s light and salt in the world. So welcome!
Elements of our service today have been provided by Act for Peace, the international humanitarian agency of the National Council of Churches in Australia, who work to confront injustice and support communities displaced by conflict, disaster, and climate change. Other parts were written by the NZ equivalent, Christian World Service Operation Refugee, for Refugee Sunday services.
Acknowledgement of country
We pay our respects to the Traditional Custodians of the lands we now call home. We recognise the resilience and strength of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and we honour their connection to the lands, waters and sky.
Some of us have come from afar, seeking shelter, safety or new beginnings. For others, it was our ancestors who made the challenging journey to Australia. We carry our birthplaces and homelands in our hearts and find comfort in being welcomed by those who have inhabited these lands for thousands of years. As we walk on these lands, we promise to care for Country.
Ours is the age of the refugee, the displaced person and mass immigration. We recognise that Aboriginal people and refugees share the experience of displacement and dispossession of their lands. Aboriginal people have often been as internally displaced – forced to leave their homes, their land, and move to somewhere else in the country – as many others around the world.
As we work towards a more inclusive future with fair and humane policies for those seeking refuge and sanctuary in this land now called Australia, we remain committed to learning from and standing alongside First Nations people and working with them for the achievement of a fully reconciled society.
All: In doing so, we recommit to the path of reconciliation and justice that God lays before us.
Every day thousands of desperate people take to the road or the sea, seeking safety from harm. Some stay within their home country as displaced people while others often make the dangerous journey to other mostly poorer countries. Turkey, Colombia, Pakistan and Uganda host over 9 million refugees between them. On World Refugee Day (June 20 each year), we celebrate the contribution refugees make to our world and our responsibility to always welcome the stranger.
Prayer of Welcome and Call to worship
Come, let us worship the God who calls us to justice, compassion, and peace. We light the Christ Candle.
Let us pray: God of all nations, you gather people from every land and language. When the world is divided by fear and borders,
Your love calls us to welcome the stranger.
When families are forced from their homes,
You walk beside them on the road.
Open our hearts this day to hear the cries of the displaced
and to recognise Christ among them.
Amen.
Hymn/Song: God, May Our Church Reflect Your Grace
God, may our church reflect your grace to all who enter here
May we extend a wide embrace a welcome that’s sincere
May our inclusion be as broad as your compassion’s scope
For we would be your people, God, a home, a help, a hope!
Here is this place each one is free to move, explore and speak,
There’s room to question or agree, to grieve, to laugh, to seek.
That we by grace may share your love across each deep divide with hearts as gentle as a dove,
O Spirit, be our guide!
Like Christ, with arms outstretched to all help us to live each day
to build a bridge and not a wall at church, at work, at play.
May justice lead us as we go embracing what is right,
reflecting grace, that we may show your glory burning bright!
Ruth Duck ©2005 GIA Publications
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
O God, you invite us to find you in surprising places—among the poor and hungry, in prisons and in hospitals.
You ask us to face our vulnerable humanity.
You invite us into the risk of caring, to witness oppression and injustice in our world. Often, this is too much for us. We look away.
We do not want to be unsettled.
Forgive us, God.
On this Refugee Sunday, we acknowledge with sorrow the way that other languages, cultures and religious practices are too often denigrated.
We acknowledge with sorrow the injustice and abuse that has so often marked the treatment of those who desire refuge in this land.
We acknowledge with sorrow that in our own time injustice and abuse has continued.
We have been indifferent when we should have been outraged, have been apathetic when we should have been active, we have been silent when we should have spoken out.
Hear these words of assurance: our God is merciful and quick to forgive and will keep coming to us with grace and invitation.
Our sins are forgiven.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
HEARING THE WORD
Readings (Robyn & John)
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.
The readings today are not from this week’s lectionary but focus specifically on loving the stranger. The Old Testament reading is from Deuteronomy 10:17–19
17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, 18 who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. 19 You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.– “Love the stranger, for you were strangers in Egypt.”
We add in some of Psalm 146:
1 Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God all my life long…
5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God,
6 who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;
7 who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets the prisoners free;
8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
9 The Lord watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphan and the widow,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
The gospel reading is from Matthew 25:31–40
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’
Reader: Through these readings we hear God speak.
All: Thank you, God, for your words of life.
Item Story reading: Room on the Rock (Introduction by Sue) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXHymkbaTIc
Prayer for Refugee Week
God of hope,
You are present with those who journey, with those who seek refuge, and with those longing for home.
Give courage to those who have been displaced.
Strength to those rebuilding their lives.
And compassion to your church that we may welcome the stranger and walk together toward peace.
Through Jesus Christ, the one who journeyed among us.
Amen.
Hymn/Song: Build A Longer Table (Tune: Noel Nouvelet TiS 382 or 665)
Build a longer table not a higher wall, Feeding those who hunger, making room for all
Feasting together, stranger turns to friend, Christ breaks walls to pieces, false divisions end.
Build a safer refuge not a larger jail, Where the weak find shelter, mercy will not fail
For any place where justice is denied, Christ will breach the jail wall, freeing all inside
Build a broader doorway not a longer fence, Love protects all people, sparing no expense
When we embrace compassion more than fear, Christ tears down our fences: all are welcome here
When we lived as exiles, refugees abroad, Christ became our doorway to the reign of God
So must our tables welcome those who roam, None can be excluded, all must find a home
CCLI Song # 7193460, Dave Bjorlin | Greg Scheer © 2020 Scheer, Greg; Remaining portion is unaffiliated For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com CCLI License # 31951
Message (Sue)
RESPONDING TO THE WORD
Prayer:
Creator God, in Jesus we see you: born with no place to call home, making friends amongst the poor and rejected, living your life with no place to lay your head, challenging unjust ways and teaching us to share.
Creator God, be among us as we offer you our worship.
Offertory prayer
Thank you to everyone as you bring your gifts of loving service and financial support.
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
Prayers of the people (Jan)
God of compassion, We pray for people around the world who have been forced to flee their homes. For families escaping conflict and persecution. For communities displaced by disaster and climate change. For children growing up far from the place they once called home.
Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.
We give thanks for organisations and churches working to support refugees and displaced people. Bless the work of Act for Peace and its local partners around the world. Strengthen those who offer shelter, dignity, and opportunity.
Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.
Guide governments and leaders to act with justice and compassion toward people seeking safety.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Let us join together in this version of the Lord’s Prayer:
God, who cares for us,
The wonder of whose presence fills us with awe.
Let kindness, justice and love shine in our world.
Let your secrets be known here as they are in heaven.
Give us the food and the hope we need for today.
Forgive us our wrongdoing as we forgive the wrongs done to us.
Protect us from pride and from despair and from the fear and hate which can swallow us up.
In you is truth, meaning, glory and power, while worlds come and go.
Amen. (MFurlong/nwi)
Benediction Song: When I needed a neighbour, were you there?
Sydney Bertram Carter © Words: 1965 Stainer & Bell Ltd; Music: Stainer & Bell Ltd For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com CCLI License # 31951
Benediction
From the Iona Community’s Wild Goose Worship Group:
Christ has no hands but our hands;
No hands but ours, to do God’s work in the world.
Christ has no lips but our lips
No lips but ours, to proclaim the good news.
Christ has no love but our love;
No love but ours, to share with the imprisoned, the silenced, the persecuted, the marginalised. We go in peace. Amen.
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