13th. February. 2022. Service.

 Bible Introit 791 “Open your eyes, see the glory of the King”

 Opening Prayer
O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers; and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen..

 Hymn 175 “Praise, I will praise you Lord”

 Call to Prayer

Rejoice, for the power of God has come—

The transforming power of the risen Christ:

Promising to the poor the realm of heaven.

Promising satisfaction to the hungry.

Promising happiness to those who weep.

Promising the gift of acceptance to the rejected.

People of God, rejoice in the transforming power of Christ!

Prayer
Prayer of Adoration and Confession

God our Father in heaven you are worthy of praise from every mouth, of confession from every tongue,of worship from every creature
Your is the glorious Name, high above all names Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Who  created the world in your grace
and by your  compassion saved the world.
To your majesty, O God, ten thousand times ten
thousand bow down and adore, singing and praising without ceasing, and saying,
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts;
Heaven and earth are full of Thy praises;
Hosanna in the highest. This morning we add our voices to that paean of praise in wonder and with humility.

Your creation thrills and astonishes us with the detail and design, the intricacy and beauty with which you brought it into being. You have made it self-sustaining and self-healing and you touch our lives with truth and tenderness as we live and grow and age in this earthly life. You meet our needs and satisfy our lives with you providence. Your Spirit gives us purpose and moves us to use every gift and talent to live for you and each other in your kingdom. You call us to respond with grace to your grace. Receive our praise and prayer this morning and prepare us to receive your Word with its wisdom and warning, for we come to you through Christ our Lord, trusting Him for all things.

God of life and love, today we are grateful for all the love which touches our lives. Still, we confess that we are not always shining examples of the love we long for. Forgive us for all the times when we have failed to keep our word and disappointed those who love us or who depend upon us..

Forgive us when we have into our tempers and frustrations, when we have not resisted temptations or when we have disappointed your hope in us.

Through the grace of your Son, Jesus,

your love made flesh renew and reform us in his likeness. Hear in the silence our specific confession.

Assurance of Pardon

The apostle John records that God is love, and that God’s perfect love casts out fear. We are promised that those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. We claim your hope in this Good News: God’s perfect love lives in us through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Prayer for Understanding

Father, you are the source of our wisdom and understanding.   Remove every distraction and help us to listen in the silence of your presence for the still small voice that we may we hear your Word for our lives and our times.  By your Spirit, reveal your will for our lives.

Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, The power, and the glory, For ever. Amen.

The Intimations

Coffee mornings

Coffee mornings will be held in Inverkeithing Tuesdays and in North Queensferry on Wednesday.

The World Day of Prayer will be held in North Queensferry Church on Friday 4^th March 2022. All are welcome.

 Invitation to the Offering
Our faith does not rely on human wisdom, but on the power of God work in us and among us.  We bring our offering, trusting that each gift has a power beyond itself, the power that God gives. Trust in the miracle of God at work in the world through the gifts we bring.

 Prayer of Dedication

God, you are the Source of our lives. From you, all loving kindness, justice, and mercy flow.  May our gifts cause acts of kindness, justice and mercy that flow to others in need. And bless our lives that our words and actions may show your Spirit at work in us and through us, in the name of Jesus Christ, our friend and Saviour. Amen.

All Age Talk

I am sure that everyone has experienced the joy of blowing bubbles. (Blow bubbles at the kids.) Isn’t it funny how something so simple can make so many people happy? It isn’t just for kids either! I have even seen teenagers and adults laughing and having fun blowing bubbles and trying to catch them.

There is just one problem with the happiness that comes from blowing bubbles — it doesn’t last! The minute you reach out and touch one of the bubbles, it will burst. (Many times we chase the bubble, but it is always just out of reach and as soon as it touches the ground, the bubble is gone.

Isn’t this true for so many people today? A lot of people are chasing after happiness, but like the bubbles, happiness is always just out of reach. Or, just when we think we have it, our bubble may burst. What are some of the things that people believe will make them happy but may fall flat? (Pause for responses.)

Money: Many people think that money will bring them happiness, but it doesn’t. Once you spend it, it is gone, and you still don’t have happiness.

Food: Some people seek happiness in food. They eat because they are sad or depressed and they think that food will make them feel better. It doesn’t. After they eat, they are still unhappy.

Entertainment: Many people think that doing fun things is the same thing as being happy, but it isn’t. Oftentimes, people who are laughing on the outside are crying on the inside.

Popularity: Some people think that being popular with other people will bring them happiness. They will do anything or say anything to make other people like them, but popularity doesn’t last. It is here today and gone tomorrow. There is no lasting happiness in popularity.

Jesus knew that people often look for happiness in the wrong places. He even said we might be happier if we were poor, hungry, crying, and disliked by others. Why would Jesus suggest such a thing?

When we are poor, we can trust in God to supply everything we need instead of depending on our own wealth.

When we are hungry for God and His righteousness, we realize that only He can satisfy our hunger.

When we are crying, we can trust in God to comfort us and ease our pain.

When we think we have no friends, we have a friend in Jesus. Jesus is the friend who will never leave us.

We all want to be happy, don’t we? Don’t spend your time chasing bubbles. Look to your Heavenly Father. He is the source of true happiness.

Dear Father, help us to remember that we can never find happiness by seeking the things this world has to offer. True happiness can only be ours by following Jesus. Amen.

 Hymn 804 “You shall go out with joy”

 Jeremiah 17: 5-10

5 This is what the Lord says:
‘Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.6 That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives.

7 ‘But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.8 They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought   and never fails to bear fruit.’

9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? 10 ‘I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct according to what their deeds deserve.’ Amen.

Hymn 198 “Lord of all hopefulness”

 Luke 6:17-26

17 He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.

20 Looking at his disciples, he said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now,

for you will laugh. 22 Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you, insult you, and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

23 ‘Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

24 ‘But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. 25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets. Amen, this is the Word of the Lord, to Him be all glory and praise.

Hymn 259 “Beauty for brokenness”

 Sermon

Every minister at some point comes across people who are intractably poor. The poverty is not always financial. Sometimes it is a combination of factors. I think of Ruby, who made ice-cream to make ends meet, and then could not afford the ingredients. I think of the man who lay in the gutter every day in a different part of Port of Spain, the only way he could cope with the physical effects of AIDS. The telephone calls nearly every week from Helen in Redfern in Sydney threatening to jump from her balcony because the torment of her mental distress was getting too much. Poverty takes many forms.

Another minister writes, “She had called before.  In fact, following her plea for help with rent we had paid half in early December.  Two months later, her situation hasn’t changed, and she finds herself in much the same place she did then. Unable to make rent and keep her family fed at the same time.

So it is, I lay that one phone call, that one weeping, frightened voice alongside the words of Jesus now and I recognize what a powerful yet seemingly fantastical word he teaches today. Indeed, as we listen, we realize he is not even speaking in the future tense when it comes to ‘the poor.’ For Jesus says today that the kingdom of heaven is already theirs. That, in fact, it already belongs to the one who called me in desperation a few days back. And yet, I don’t see it.  I really, really don’t.”

What does Jesus mean when he says, “Blessed are you poor for yours is the kingdom of God”?

You have probably noticed that this saying seems to be a shortened version of the words that Matthew records, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” which seems to reinterpret and soften those which Luke records.

Luke records the Sermon on the Plain, a collection of aphorisms which Jesus preached to a company of people from Jerusalem and the coastal towns of Tyre and Sidon, many of whom were seeking relief from various afflictions. Many of these people would be Gentiles, so Jesus adapts his teaching to take into account their different cultural perspective, which in this case is influenced by Greek thinking. In Greek society, the rich were the so-called “blessed.” As usual, Jesus says the opposite. Why are they blessed?  The simple answer her is that the poor realize their lack and are ready to hear God. In this instance this was true Luke says, “Those troubled by impure spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.” I often ask myself why it was that Helen, who did kill herself one Saturday, was not healed despite her seeking help from many agencies including the church.

This whole sermon on the plain is contrary in many ways. In it, Jesus completely overturns the received wisdom, not only of the world, but also of the spiritual thinking of his day. God’s blessings on the hungry, the sorrowful and the persecuted were not part of the ancient Jewish way of thinking. The blessing of prosperity was viewed as favour from God. If you were right with God, then these things would flow to you. There was an attempt to address this in the story of Job, whose woes were considered by his friends to be evidence of secret sin. The story indicates this was not so but loses a little of its force when Job has even more after his trials, as a reward, it seems, for his faithfulness to God.

So, as well as poverty, Jesus declares that hunger and grief, not just mourning, but weeping for whatever reason, unpopularity, and persecution particularly for what you believe to the list of blessedness. This is a much more primitive and rawer declaration of wellbeing than Matthew’s spiritualised version of the beatitudes. The conclusion of one thoughtful sermon on this text is:

I want you to picture two scenes:

Standing around outside the doors of a lofty sandstone church, is a group of well off, well fed, well respected, comfortable church members who are able to joke and laugh light heartedly together about sport or their recent overseas trip. They are joined by their pastor who 15 minutes before had preached the kind of uncontentious sermon they enjoy.

In a hall nearby are some unemployed factory workers, single parents, grubby looking aborigines, street kids, some boat people from the SE Asia, and an old couple whose house has been acquired by the government for the widening of a freeway. They are not a very hopeful looking bunch. They are gathered from their misery by an old priest with a crew cut; a bloke whom some Christians label a troublemaker and whose photo is in ASIO files.

Who is Jesus speaking to? Is it just one group, or is it both? And where will the blessings and the woes fall? And by the way, which group do you think are most aware of the need of the grace of God?

 One outstanding New Testament scholar (Eduard Schweizer) referred to “God’s shocking partnership on the side of those who suffer.”

Get that? “God’s shocking partnership on the side of those who suffer.”

That is the essential message of the Sermon on the Plain and it is reinforced by the fact that Luke adds “woes” to balance the blessing:

 24 ‘But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. 25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, or that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

This is very unsettling. Elsewhere Jesus adds to the discomfiture of the disciples and the religious proud: 9 People will come from east and west and north and south and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. 30 Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.’  If we were Hindus, we might say Jesus is describing karma. Karma is not necessarily punishment, but rather balancing. Thus, Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham whilst Dives, the rich man is in torment. He has had comfort in his life Lazarus has his with God.

There is no doubt that in our society and in the church, we prefer the more comfortable approach which Matthew outlines in the Sermon on the Mount

The church in our era has been, and this is a dangerous generalisation, more comfortable with Matthew’s spiritualising of the beatitudes than in Luke’s rugged earthiness.

We live in a society which often eulogises the prosperous and rich. We tend to trust successful people, people who make it, people who are “together” who know how to get things d0ne. We are reluctant to admit it, but our beatitudes would suggest: Blessed are the rich for theirs is the kingdom of happiness.”

The same applies to other of the beatitudes. Our society gives adulation to the popular heroes of film, TV and sport and fashion super-models. “Blessed are the popular, when everyone speaks well of you.” We look at what they achieve, not at who they are, and we tend to give them power and forgive them much.

Yesterday I read an article about Elon Musk, who claims to use his brilliant mind for the benefit of humanity. Mark Rylance sees him as dangerous because his every word has the power to affect many aspects of our life today. Many are wary of Musk because of how much influence he has as an individual. Just one of his tweets can manipulate entire markets and his latest venture, Starlink, could provide the entire globe with internet access.

It is true. The very wealthy are and always have been dangerous for the rest of the planet. Jesus’s verdict on the rich, the content, the popular is “ouai,” a plaintive, mournful cry at their fate.

Blessedness is given to those who are sensible of their poverty, hunger, grief and persecution in that God favours them. On the plain, the ordinary people took the sermon on the mount as a message of joy.

Try looking at it this way the blessed people are the poor for whom God is looking out –  unlike the rich who are never satisfied; always wanting more or anxious about losing what they have in the next financial downturn Those who  can grieve over either sin or death  are blessed because grief heals -unlike people  whose feelings are suppressed, or are uptight with self-righteousness, or who, when they are feeling down, can rush out and buy a new jewel or yacht.

Blessed people are liable to get into trouble for sticking to their values and beliefs – unlike “pliable” people, who make so many compromises that they end up being empty cynics.  In each case it is about spiritual integrity

Jesus pushed his message even further. He went on to speak about turning the other cheek and going the second mile. He said that we should love our enemies and bless those who curse us. He asks us to be cheerful givers, and lenders who don’t expect reward. He turned the idea of ‘the good life’ upside down.

However, we do need some caveats. There are poor people who are embittered and angered by their poverty or hunger and resistant to the gospel. We can hardly call that blessed. There are rich people who are generous and kind. And we can add many exceptions. People who refuse to work through grief and hold on to it as their security are far from blessed. In our welfare society there are abusers and people who compound their difficulties with their attitudes and so reject the blessing.

The point Jesus is making is that God is compassionate over all that he has made and is particularly concerned, we may say, for the disadvantaged. I doubt that Jesus despised the rich. Matthew’s gospel balances this, they may be spiritually impoverished, so they are not excluded either. Their poverty is not as evident and needs a different approach. Jesus said “Ouai” to them. He wailed for them and that ouai is a plea as eloquent as the word blessed because wealth, earthly happiness and popularity make a person less aware of the need for God and thereby in greater danger. Remember Jesus’ sorrow when the rich young man walked away from salvation.

What then do we make of this? As Christians we share the Spirit of God and we are called to compassion upon the poor, the hungry, the grieving, the persecuted. We are also called to wail for the rich, the worldly contented, the popular and to be Christ’s agents of blessing to them all. Thus, we give, we comfort, we bless, we assist. Or we warn, we refuse to be caught up in the world’s adulation of the rich, the carefree, the popular who seem not to need God.  We need to adopt God’s attitude of love.

There were two articles this week which illustrate this for us. Michelle Dorney, in despair at problems in her area set up a food hub for hungry Londoners – many of them refused by food banks. It is the community food hub of her charity, Children with Voices. It is reckoned that she has fed 100,000 neighbours since 2020. She was a poor single mother who said, I’m experiencing the same situation everyone else is experiencing. I am still struggling myself. Surely, we can call her a blessed poor person.

The other was the story of Dillibe Onyeama, who exposed the racism he experienced at the hands of rich white boys at Eton college in the 1960s. He was persecuted simply because of who he was son of a Nigerian High Court judge, whose father wanted to give him the best education. he persevered and writing his story and received an apology in the end for how he was treated and perhaps has created a more compassionate environment in part of British education. Blessed are those who are persecuted.

We will not solve everyone’s problems. Jesus was realistic when he said that we will always have the poor. We do what we can.  For everyone we tried to help there were hundreds of beggars in Port of Spain. We, along with the psychiatrists, the Caritas Centre and other agencies could not supply the depth of comfort which Helen needed, it was not possible in this life, even though she had faith. Ruby survived with a little help from her friends.

Jesus’ preaching here keeps our focus on the only place it matters. Perhaps it keeps our hearts tuned to the possibility of a world where the poor have all that they need, where the hungry are filled, the grieving laugh again, those who live and work in the name of Jesus are leaping for joy despite the struggle we find ourselves in for the sake of a world Jesus calls us to shape today. Amen.

 Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession

Gracious God, Jesus’ words resonate with our souls and inspire a desire to engage in your work of salvation and blessing.

We come to you today carrying hopes and dreams, and the burdens and blessings of our lives. We are rich, but many are poor, and we know that your blessing was first pronounced upon the poor of this world. Our poverty may be of spirit, reflected in our fears and lack of faith, so that we are slow to share what we have or to meet the needs of others. Here everything that is on our hearts and minds to you as we come to claim your comfort and strength, as we listen for your guidance, grateful that you hear us when we pray.
Faithful God, hear our prayer.

God of life and love, when life is challenging, and times are uncertain we thank you that you We give you thanks that you engage with us whenever we need you. This makes us confident that you will respond to our prayers today. We begin with people who are fearful about their future, are struggling with changes and with challenges at work or at home.
Help them to face their fears with courage and become for themselves that you will never leave nor f0rsake them. As you have proved your love to us in the past, Faithful God, hear our prayer.

God of hope and healing, In Jesus Christ you confronted the demons that trouble our minds and the pains and illnesses which in the past have weighed on us. We pray today for people who are facing health concerns, suffering in body or mind. Give renewed health and vigour and support the people who are caring and ministering to their needs today. Keep a time of silence.
Surround them all with your constant protective love.
Faithful God, hear our prayer.

God of peace and promise, we thank you that your Spirit prays within us with sighs too deep for words and that you hear every utterance. Give us confidence as we struggle with our burdens and life challenges. Today we pray for people whose burdens seem too heavy and are struggling to keep going. We pray for the victims of violence, oppression, loss, or disaster, for their friends and families. Parents who have to choose between food and warmth, food for their children or themselves, who worry about paying bills and whose income is inadequate for all their needs.
Keep a brief silence.

For refugees at risk in so many places in the world,
and people making a new home in our community…
Keep a brief silence. For those caught in despair and poverty in our own neighbourhoods and in the forgotten corners of your world.
Keep a brief silence.:

Faithful God, hear our prayer and answer from highest heaven, for the sake of Jesus, Your Son, our loving Saviour. Amen.

Hymn 198 “Let us build a house”

 Benediction

In our worship, we have proclaimed the presence and power of the risen Christ with the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts. Now, as we go home, let us demonstrate the presence and power of the risen Christ with the deeds of our hands and the labours of our lives. Amen.

 “May God’s blessing surround you each day”

 Postlude: “Who would true valour see”