ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF COUNTRY
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and all living creatures. Australia’s First Nations peoples have lived on and been good stewards of this part of God’s creation for over 40,000 years. We marvel at their identity with & their very sense of being that resonates with God’s Creation. We acknowledge that on this Dharawal land we too gather in the Name of God our Creator.
CHRIST CANDLE
Darkness is strong but Light is stronger. Death is strong but resurrection is stronger.
Christ Jesus is the Light of the world. He is our light, Hope and Peace. Christ candle is lit.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Jesus, catch master, we come to worship today ready to hear your call. Open our ears & minds to the possibilities you place before us. Inspire us to think of what might be & encourage us to use our skills & creativity in ways that bring us joy and best serve you and all who live on the earth. Let us pray…
HYMN
Where wide sky rolls down and touches red sand
Where sun turns to gold the grass of the land
Let spinifex, mulga and waterhole tell
Their joy in the One who made everything well.
Where rain forest calm meets reef, tide and storm
Where green things grow lush and oceans are warm
Let every sea-creature and tropical bird
Exult in the light of the life-giving Word.
Where red gum and creek cross hillside and plain
Where cool tree-ferns rise to welcome the rain
Let bushland, farm, mountain-top, all of their days
Delight in the Spirit whom formed them for praise.
Now, people of faith, come gather around
With songs to be shared, for blessings abound!
Australians, whatever your culture or race
Come, lift up your hearts to the Giver of grace.
WELCOME & ANNOUNCEMENTS
BIBLE READINGS Jan & Gordon
LUKE 5: 1 – 11 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.
But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signalled their partners in the other boat to come and help them & they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees & said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man! For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything & followed him.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION Jan & Gordon
This prayer could be said by alternate voices
‘Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.’
We hear Peter’s weariness in these words, do they echo our own?
When working constantly, throwing our best efforts and ideas out again and again, come to nothing.
When we’re bone tired from the effort it takes to get through a day.
When it looks as if there is no more to be done to salvage a difficult situation.
When what we provide has been not considered to be enough and is rejected.
When what we say is considered not to be true.
When people we thought we could rely on prove to be disingenuous.
When we are constantly overlooked.
When we know we have failed.
When such weariness sets in, we want to put up our nets and go home, we have no desire to let down the nets one more time, why God would you ask us to? Words for Worship – Mediacom, Adelaide
WORDS OF ASSURANCE Jan & Gordon
It’s okay to be weary, to have aching arms and tired feet, God doesn’t need perfect people with unfailing energy, God needs ordinary people who do all they can with all they have. When we need respite, God offers us rest and shelter, a place to rebuild and recover our strength, and then rejoices when we are on our way again.
OT READING Jan & Gordon
ISAIAH 6: 1 – 8 In the year that King Uzziah died (~740BCE), I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
GOD’S HARSH MESSAGE FOR ISAIAH TO AN UNBELIEVING PEOPLE Isaiah 6 vs 9 – 13 He said, “Go and tell this people: “‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving. Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Then I said, “For how long, Lord?” And he answered: “Until the cities lie ruined and without inhabitant, until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged, until the LORD has sent everyone far away and the land is utterly forsaken. And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste. But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land.” In this we hear God’s word. Thanks be to God.
Sung and recorded by Judy & Jennie
Just as a lost and thirsty deer
Longs for a cool and running stream
I thirst for you, the living God
Anxious to know that you are near.
Both day and night I cry aloud
Tears have become my only food
While all around cruel voices ask
‘Where is your God? Where is your God?
Broken and hurt, I call to mind
How in the past I served the Lord
Worshipped and walked with happy crowds
Singing and shouting praise to God.
Why am I now so lost and low?
Why am I troubled and confused?
Given no answer, still I hope
And trust my Saviour and my God.
Words and music by permission Wild Goose Publications. Paraphrase by John L Bell & Graham Maule
MESSAGE A miraculous catch (Video 26min)
Have you ever been with someone who says ‘I know this place or the way to it like the back of my hand, we’ll be right’; maybe they do and you are grateful for their knowledge and experience.
While sometimes what’s shared has a good dose of bravado added to their claim! Maybe it was a favourite fishing spot or how to find a parking spot near that special restaurant on the other side of town. Knowledge and experience gives us confidence and if not then there is always Google Maps!
For over 40 years I’ve led Services of Worship, thousands of them, from small groups of half a dozen to the funeral of Burnam Burnam with well over 1,000 in attendance, so I do have lots of experience.
But nothing prepared me for having to put together at short notice on Saturday 3 April 2021 a combined Service for Good Friday & Easter Sunday. Just as we know that nothing can really prepare us for the grief we experience following the death of a loved one or how a family lives with dementia.
Yet the reality is that for 95% of us for 95% of the time, it is our experience and knowledge, whether helpful or not, that we use each day and each week to filter how we live and respond to life.
So each one of us can identify with Simon the fisherman who has spent a fruitless night trying to catch fish on a Sea that he knows like the back of his hand. An exhausted groan perhaps, some choice words to Jesus, who is no fisherman, perhaps these can be read between the lines of today’s Gospel reading. For none of us take kindly, to someone without experience telling us how to do our job!
But then comes the first key words of Hope in this passage “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”
Because it’s Jesus, Simon agrees, however reluctantly, however exhausted he is and their boat is pushed out into the deep. A true story? There is no reason to assume not. The fact that this story is included in the Gospels is not just another ‘do you remember the day when…’ but is included because it reminds God’s people long after Simon and Jesus went fishing, that we need His guiding presence, especially when we think there are no other possibilities when compared with our experience of life.
But even then the story doesn’t stop giving. For this amazing catch of fish so overwhelms Simon that it brings him to his knees in fear and trembling for he senses he is in the presence of God and with that sense an awareness of his own frailty; for he like Isaiah in the Temple similarly cries out “go away from me Lord, I am a sinful man”.
If you have been watching the cricket or the tennis, commentators will occasionally say ‘that was a miraculous catch or shot’ underlying the degree of skill and human endeavour required. But such comments take the word miraculous out of its original context and meaning by focusing on the individual who made that particular catch or tennis shot.
However in today’s story the catch of fish was miraculous because human wisdom and experience said the task was hopeless. That I think is one insight into what constitutes ‘a miracle’ – when what Christ Jesus hopes and prays and believes in, is discovered afresh in our lives. Miracles always bring us to life transforming adoration and service, if they don’t then it isn’t a ‘miracle’.
And Jesus is always the One who believes in and seeks out what the world might think are ‘hopeless or fruitless cases and causes’. This is often where we will find the Holy Spirit at work if we too are prepared to push the little boat that is our life out into the deep.
Whether these ‘hopeless causes’ involve our own less than perfect personal relationships or the overwhelming needs of Project Youth, UnitingWorld, Common Grace and responsible sustainable need to radically and urgently change our daily living in a world that is rapidly warming.
In that extravagant haul of fish, like with the extravagantly sized 6 stone water jars now filled with wine, Simon calls Jesus LORD and a new direction in his life is suddenly and unexpectedly possible.
He has a new Master. A new focus. He now has a choice to make, where none previously existed.
Simon could just say in response to this catch of fish ‘well this is my lucky pay-day, or aren’t I top dog in this Sea, or I’ll remember to look out for Jesus the next time the week’s catch is low’ and then just gets on with his daily life. Simon has a real choice, we too always have choices as to how we live life.
Will Simon remain a fisherman in Galilee or push the little boat that is now his life out into the deep again, wherever Jesus leads him? We are not told of Simon’s response. We’re left in suspense.
Though all who heard this story from this side of the resurrection know who Simon is to become!!
It is a choice we all have moment by moment. It may not always be as dramatic as Simon’s but because the Holy Spirit is faithful, we too can say the words ‘Master, because you say so…’.
Traditionally this story has been called the miraculous catch of fish but it can also be called the miraculous catch of a fisherman named Simon who would become Simon Peter, the rock of Christ.
May the miracle of God’s presence and power be discovered by you too, especially if you are exhausted, overwhelmed or have given up trying as you wait by waters-edge, without even realising; for the One who says ‘come, push your little boat out into the deep, trust me one more time, or for the 1st time. For what is past or what is your experience of life today does not have to be the last word for all of your tomorrows. ‘Come (says Jesus) fish with me!’ In His name, we pray. Amen
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE Leanne
OFFERING
HOLY COMMUNION
The Lord be with you
And also with you
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them to the Lord
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God
It is right to give our thanks and praise
With all that we are, we give you glory, Trinity of love, the one and Holy God, sovereign of all time and space. We bless you for this wide, red land, for its rugged beauty, its changing seasons, for its diverse peoples and for all who live upon this fragile earth. You have called us to be the Church in this place, to give voice to every creature under heaven. To Adam and Eve, children of dust, you gave the world and its wonders, but we misused your gift of freedom: we reached out with rebel hands to be like you.
We bless you for your mercy, for you never cease to call our restless hearts until they find their rest in you. Again and again you raised up men and women to speak your word, to guide, to challenge and convert. At last Lord, you sent your Son Jesus Christ, child of your love, God with us.
Born as one of us, he lived our life and died our death, offering us, both now and forever, eternal life with you. Through him, in him and because of him we share in the prayer he gave us:
A CONTEMPORARY LORD’S PRAYER
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 forever. Amen
WORDS OF INSTITUTION
BREAKING OF THE BREAD & THE POURING OF WINE
DISTRIBUTION & CLOSING PRAYER
HYMN
Lord Jesus, we belong to you
You live in us, we live in you
We live and work for you –
Because we bear your name.
Help us receive each other, Lord
For you receive the least of us
And come to us in them –
Because we bear your name.
Bless those who give us any gift
Because they know that we are yours
Reward them with your grace –
Because we bear your name.
Let us acknowledge those as friends
Who use your name to right a wrong
But have not joined us yet –
Because we bear your name.
Let nothing that we do or say
Offend the weak so that they fall
And lose their faith in you –
Because we bear your name.
Keep us from missing out on life
Give hands that help, and single sight
And feet that walk your way –
Because we bear your name.
You are the salt that cleanses us
So clean us out, and make us fit
For common life with you –
Because we bear your name.
Words: Copyright © 1985 John Kleinig & Music Copyright © 1985 Robin Mann
BLESSING & BENEDICTION TIS 778
Shalom to you now, shalom, my friends.
May God’s full mercies bless you, my friends.
In all your living and through your loving
Christ be your shalom, Christ be your shalom.
CCLI Song # 114122 Elise S. Eslinger © 1983 The United Methodist Publishing House (Admin. by Music Services, Inc.) For use solely with the SongSelect® Terms of Use. All rights reserved. www.ccli.com CCLI Licence # 31951
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