Monday 24 March 2014

Sunday Service Marsden Road Uniting Church 23 March 2014


 

Hugh welcomed us all to the Service and invited the people to greet each other briefly – he soon had to call a halt, saying with a smile; That’s good enough!”

Call to Worship (Responsive reading from Psalm 95)  Beginning: Come, let us praise the LORD!  Let us sing for joy to God, who protects us!  Let us come before him with thanksgiving and sing joyful songs of praise.  For the LORD is a mighty God, a mighty king over all the gods. He rules over the whole earth, from the deepest caves to the highest hills.

Hymn  TiS 52                                                 Let us sing to the God of Salvation!


This hymn of Praise written by Richard Bewes is a real celebration of Psalm 95 and Hugh encouraged us to sing with one side of the church holding and harmonizing the word P-R-A-I-S-E in each line of the chorus while the other side sang:   Praise our Maker, Praise our Saviour, Praise the Lord our everlasting King. Every throne must bow before him, God is Lord of everything!  We were all amazed by the beautiful sounds of Praise that we offered to our God and we could see that Hugh, with his imaginary baton; Malcolm on the piano and Andrew on the organ really enjoyed helping us to make such an harmonious and joyful “noise”.


Prayers of Adoration & Confession          

Our prayer focused on the Grace and Love of God who is with us each day with compassion and guidance and provides brightness for each moment.  We prayed that God’s Spirit will fill our hearts and minds with joy, thanksgiving and praise.

We confessed our personal sins in silence and asked forgiveness for our sins against God and our fellow people. 

Declaration of forgiveness:  “Christ died for us, the sinful. Christ lived again for us, the righteous.

Offering / Prayer  Hugh invited us to express our gratitude to God with our offering and Chris and Chrisanthi and a lovely group of children waited on us and were blessed - along with our gifts.

Children’s Address:  After reminding us we are indeed all God’s children and our Worship will go on to the end of the world, Hugh had us all singing again; this time in a round in four parts.  “Row, Row, Row your boat” never sounded like such fun before and the smallest of the children loved the feeling of community and cooperation.

Hymn TiS 229                                                Jesus loves me this I know

We nostalgically sang this hymn which reminds us all how easy it is to believe - if we don’t complicate and over-think things.  It somehow took us all back to simple child-like faith and belief in the Bible as God’s word.  The children went happily off to “Sunday Kids”.

Bible Reading:                                              John 4:5-26


Malcolm read the well known story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well.
 
Jesus said; “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I give him will never suffer thirst any more.  The water that I give him will be an inner spring always welling up for eternal life.” 



 
Reflection:                                                     “Jesus and the Samaritan Woman”

Hugh began the reflection with an explanation of the 40 days of Lent as a time of preparation for Easter by reflecting upon Jesus, his suffering and his ministry, his life, death, burial and resurrection.  He told us that the story about Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John’s Gospel is also part of the journey to his death on the cross.

Hugh shared his fascination about the history of the town of ‘Sychar’ in Israel, where around 300 people still calling themselves Samaritans live today and where Jacob’s Well still marks the place where Jesus stood and had this significant encounter.  There is no dispute about this spot and Samaritans, Muslims, Christians and Jews all agree that this is the place where the story took place.  I agree - it is fascinating to contemplate standing where Jesus stood and it helps me to focus on the significance of this encounter in which Hugh told us Jesus deliberately “crossed the line”.  The line he crossed in speaking to the Samaritan woman was both a racial and a gender line and it broke a very strict taboo to every Jew at that time.  This was a line drawn by the society of the time and it involved the breaking of common law and civil law. 

The most important thing in taking away the real message of this story is to ask ourselves “WHY” so we can grasp the mindset of Jesus and understand the lessons that he wanted to teach the people of his time.  The taboo had grown out of centuries of hostility and unfriendly and worsening attitudes from Jews, who resented the way Samaratins, who were also descendant of Israel, had opened themselves up to the wider world and were no longer of pure Jewish blood.  They were, Hugh told us, receptive and adaptive to different cultures.  Surely a trait that we try to follow today, but in many cultures progress has been depressingly slow as we have experienced, even in our own lifetimes.  Our 11 year old grandson was speechless recently when we talked about Rosa Parks who challenged American society in 1955 and refused to sit at the back of the bus.

No wonder the woman was surprised when Jesus approached her and said; “Hello woman, could you give me a drink?”  No wonder the disciples were “greatly surprised to see Jesus talking to her”, when they returned to the well.

“Authentic evangelism flows from a mindset that acknowledges the ultimate value of people - forgotten people, lost people, wandering people, up-and-outers, down-and outers - all people. The highest value is to love them, serve them, and reach them.” Hugh shared this quote from George G. Hunter, who one of the great modern scholars in evangelism and mission.  Hugh went on to say that he believes Jesus crossed the line to show the people of the time that; “Loving people, helping people and making others happy and acknowledging their value was his mission and his biggest law.”  As we approach Easter we should ponder on the willingness of Jesus to do this even at the expense of his own life.

“Are we able to take up this evangelical challenge at our church in Marsden Road, Carlingford”,  Hugh asked?  Will we take it as our mission to reach out to the people and love them, accept them, serve them and offer them our genuine Christian friendship, and do whatever it takes to help them to experience ‘God is love and He is real’.

Dear friends in Christ. Do you still remember what Jesus said to Peter in their first encounter? He said: “Peter. Follow me and I will teach you to catch people.”   Jesus is still calling you: “Follow me. And I will teach you to catch people”  Amen!

Hymn TiS 640                                                            Kneels at the feet of His friends

The gentle swing of the folk tune from Ghana in this Hymn written by Tomas Colvin, a Scottish Missionary, with its lesson about who are our neighbours and how we should serve them, certainly cemented in our minds Hugh’s call for us to reach out and “catch people” and learn to value all kinds of people.

Prayers of Intercession:  Noelene prayed for the people who have been lost in the plane that has vanished mysteriously and for their families and friends.  She prayed for those trapped in war torn countries, for people without enough food, for people without work or security and for all who are sick.  She brought the needs of the people mentioned by the congregation before God and prayed for our leaders in our church and in Australia.   We then said the Lord’s Prayer together.

Hymn TiS 650                                                            Brother Sister let me serve you

As I sang this hymn written by Richard Gillard, I was struck by thoughts of the blessings we sometimes deny others by being too independent and dismissive of their need to serve us.  This is probably a hard lesson for many of us to learn.  This hymn, also called “The Servant Song” is gentle and prayer-like.

Brother, sister, let me serve you, let me be as Christ to you; pray that I may have the grace to

let you be my servant too.

We are pilgrims on a journey, and companions on the road; we are here to help each other

walk the mile and bear the load.

 

 The Benediction & Blessing                                

The Benediction advised us to “Go out and share with others” - and with a renewed spirit of evangelism we sang the Blessing; May the feet of God walk with you.                                                                                     Amen.

No comments:

Post a Comment