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.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF COUNTRY
In the beginning God began the creation of all things. Australia’s First Nations peoples have lived on and been good stewards of this part of that creating 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 Let us Pray…
Jesus, Peace maker, personal space invader, 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.
HYMN
Jesus calls us here to meet him
As, through word and song and prayer
We affirm God’s promised presence
Where his people live and care.
Praise the God who keeps her promise
Praise the Son who calls us friends
Praise the Spirit who, among us
To our hopes and fears attends.
Jesus calls us to confess him
Word of Life and Lord of All
Sharer of our flesh and frailness
Saving all who fail or fall.
Tell his holy human story
Tell his tales that all may hear
Tell the world that Christ in glory
Came to earth to meet us here.
Jesus calls to each other:
Found in him are no divides.
Race and class and sex and language
Such are barriers her derides.
Join the hand of friend and stranger
Join the hands of age and youth
Join the faithful and the doubter
In their common search for truth.
John L Bell & Graham Maule Words and music Wild Goose Songs. Used with permission CCLI # 31951
WELCOME & ANNOUNCEMENTS
INTRODUCTION: In the original context of the famous passage 1Cor 13, if we read the first 12 Chapters 1st then we realize that Paul’s letter is not aimed at starry-eyed lovers or couples who’ve just celebrated 50 years together! Paul isn’t writing to people who cherish and desire each other.
He’s writing to people who can’t stand the sight of each other. Paul is no priest at the top of an aisle, waiting to witness and consecrate young love. He’s a frustrated and bewildered spiritual leader, calling an errant and self-destructive church to get its act together before it destroys itself. For in those first 12 Chapters you get a fairly clear picture of what he’s responding to when he describes the Corinthians’ loveless piety as empty, futile, and discordant. Their church has split into factions. People are pitting their favourite religious teachers against each other. Everyone’s vying for power and prominence. Parishioners are taking each other to court. Those who speak in tongues believe they’re superior to those who don’t. People who shouldn’t be sleeping with each other, are. Worshippers are fighting over everything from food and circumcision to celibacy and head coverings. The Eucharist has devolved into drunkenness and gluttony, while the poor in the church are going hungry. Debie Thomas 2022
PRAYER OF CONFESSION (1 Corinthians 13: 1 – 3) If I speak in the tongues of humans or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. NIV Translation
PRAYER OF ABSOLUTION (1 Corinthians 13: 4 – 13) Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part & we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
Now these three remain: faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love. NIV Translation
HYMN
The great love of God
Is revealed in the Son
Who came to this earth
To redeem everyone.
That love, like a stream
Flowing clear to the sea
Makes clean every heart
That from sin would be free.
It binds the whole world
Every barrier it breaks
The hills it lays low
And the mountains it shakes.
It’s yours, it is ours
O how lavishly given
The pearl of great price
And the treasure of heaven.
Words DT Niles. Christian Conference of Asia. Used with permission CCLI 31951
GOSPEL READING
Luke 4: 21 – 30 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked. Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’” “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd & went on his way. Hear God’s word of transforming life. Thanks be to God.
MESSAGE You can’t go home again & you can’t go back either! Rev Paul
HYMN
God of grace and God of glory
On your people pour your power
Now fulfil your Church’s story
Bring the bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage
For the facing of this hour.
Cure your children’s warring madness
Bend our pride to your control
Shame our wanton selfish gladness
Rich in things and poor in soul.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage
Lest we miss your kingdom’s goal.
Save us from weak resignation
To the evils we deplore
Let the gift of your salvation
Be our glory evermore.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage
Serving you whom we adore.
Harry Emerson Fosdick 1878 – 1969 Public Domain.
OFFERTORY PRAYER
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
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
HYMN
Lord Jesus, joy of loving hearts
True fount of life, our lives sustain
From any bliss that earth imparts
We turn unfilled to you again.
We taste you, Lord, the living bread
And long to feast upon you still
We drink of you, the fountainhead
And thirst our souls from you to fill.
For you our restless spirits yearn
Whatever comes, until the last
Glad when your presence we discern
Blest when our faith can hold you fast.
Anon Latin 12th C Translated by Ray Palmer 1808 – 1867 Public Domain
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.
GREAT THANKSGIVING PRAYER
With all that we are, we give you glory, Trinity of love, the One, 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 & 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.
WORDS OF INSTITUTION
BREAKING OF THE BREAD & THE POURING OF WINE
DISTRIBUTION & CLOSING PRAYER
BLESSING & BENEDICTION
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 our shalom.
Shalom to those who, you will meet this week
May God’s full mercies be their gift to you
In all your living and through your loving
Christ be your shalom, Christ be their shalom.
Elise Shoemaker Eslinger. Used with permission United Methodist Hymnal CCLI # 31951
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