14th June. 2020 Service.

Third Sunday in Pentecost
Call to Worship

Holy and generous is God,
the author of all things.

Loving and gracious is Christ,
the bringer of our salvation.

Gentle and wise is the Holy Spirit,
the breath of our new life.

Come, let us worship God,
Creator, Saviour and Breath of New Life,
with joyful praise and hopeful hearts!

The Collect for today

Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Prayer of Adoration and Confession
You, O God, overflow with love,
infinite kindness,
and incomparable glory.
You are the source of all that is good and holy
There is none like you in all our imagining.
You bring new life forth from death and offer us hope.
In you, all things work together for good.
Your presence breaks into our lives in many ways
and you touch us with wonder.
In this time of worship, we offer you thanks with our prayers,
praise with our hearts and honor with our lives,
this day and every day, now and always.

Wise and patient God,
We confess that we often stray from your presence.
You have offered us peace
yet our lives feel frustrating and unsettled in these times.
You offer us compassion
yet we feel neglected and resentful amid life’s challenges.
You offer us a mission with meaning and purpose
but we become preoccupied with our own plans and desires.
Forgive us, O God, and draw our attention back to you
so that we follow your guidance and trust you as our Shepherd.

Assurance of Pardon

The Lord our God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Know that you are forgiven and be at peace with God, with yourself and with one another.

Prayer for Understanding

During all the distractions of these days, give us undivided hearts and attentive minds, O Lord, that we may listen for your truth and hear your guiding voice through Christ, your living Word.

The Lord’s Prayer (in the words most familiar to you)

The Readings

Genesis 18:1–15; 21:1-7

18 The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. 2 Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

3 He said, ‘If I have found favour in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. 4 Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. 5 Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way – now that you have come to your servant.’

‘Very well,’ they answered, ‘do as you say.’

6 So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. ‘Quick,’ he said, ‘get three seahs of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread.’

7 Then he ran to the herd and selected a choice, tender calf and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare it. 8 He then brought some curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared and set these before them. While they ate, he stood near them under a tree.

9 ‘Where is your wife Sarah?’ they asked him.

‘There, in the tent,’ he said.
10 Then one of them said, ‘I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.’

Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, ‘After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?’

13 Then the Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh and say, “Will I really have a child, now that I am old?” 14 Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.’

15 Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, ‘I did not laugh.’
But he said, ‘Yes, you did laugh.’

21 Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. 2 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. 3 Abraham gave the name Isaac[a] to the son Sarah bore him. 4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

6 Sarah said, ‘God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.’ 7 And she added, ‘Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.’

Matthew 9:35-10:8

35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and illness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.’

10 Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and illness.

2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. 7 As you go, proclaim this message: “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” 8 Heal those who are ill, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.

Romans 5:1-8

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Amen.

This is the Word of the Lord, to Him be all praise and glory.

Sermon

I have recently been listening to a book called the Compassionate Mind by Paul Gilbert, a professor of Psychology. In a recent chapter he speaks about the difference between sympathy and empathy, a distinction which many people struggle with. Simply explained, sympathy is active participation in another person’s feelings, sharing them fully, whereas empathy is the ability and willingness to understand another’s feelings without necessarily experiencing them. Empathy implies a willingness to work towards sympathy.

In our Gospel today we are told that Jesus had sympathy or compassion for the suffering crowds to whom he ministered. Compassion is like sympathy, but it is usually expressed by doing something about suffering rather than just feeling it. Jesus would not have understood empathy as we do because it is a word which only came into use in the 19th Century. Modern psychology has changed how we view these things.

The main thrust of today’s sermon is about what qualifies us to be disciples of Jesus Christ today and it embraces both the Old and New Testament stories. We tend to think of the disciples and the saints of the Bible as extraordinary people to whom we might not feel able to compare ourselves as examples of holy service.

In a novel called Christ Recrucified by Nikos Kazanzakis, who also wrote Zorba the Greek, he stated “God is a potter. He works with mud.” This is borne out by the history of most of the “saints” They were ordinary people who were moulded by God who does the unlikely, not just with people of outstanding gifts (like Isaiah who was a learned adviser at the court of the King, or later, Paul who was extremely well educated with a brilliant intellect) but mainly with ordinary people. God works with common clay; mud like us.

The first qualification needed to become a saint, or a disciple is to be an ordinary human being.

Take Abraham, the father of three faiths. He was no genius or saint. As case in point, to save his own skin, more than once he treated his wife Sarah despicably by offering her to other men. She was no saint either in that she treated her servant, Hagar with contempt after enlisting her as a surrogate mother and later turned her out to die in the desert with her son. Their son Isaac is not recorded as having any great qualities, being rather a boring man in fact. In the next generation Isaac’s son Jacob seems to have been a persistent lover as he waited 14 years to marry Rachel, but he was also a rather devious character. And that is how the story of the family tree of Abraham, the Jewish tribe and later nation, continues. God uses ordinary people with faults that could have come from our next-door neighbour, or maybe faults that emanate from the person we see when we look in a mirror. There was not always a lot of sympathy or compassion in Abraham’s family

This is very encouraging in that we don’t have to be a genius or a “good” person to be used by God to bless other people. The God who achieves the unlikely often uses flawed material. For all their faults they became people of faith

Together with their extended family and servants and flocks, they left the security of their land of birth and by faith journeyed in search of a new land and a new future. The first recorded pioneer, Abraham moved slowly by foot, camping, and grazing his flocks as they went into an unknown land and future. And Abraham did it because he believed in a God who promised that his descendants would become a great nation, even though Sarah was barren, and Abraham was elderly when he began the long journey to the south.

More than twenty years later, Abraham was an incredibly old man and Sarah long past the age of conceiving and carrying a child. Yet God renewed the promise and sent three messengers to speak with Abraham: Sarah would soon give birth. The message was overheard by Sarah. She laughed at the very idea. That laughter became the name that Abraham and Sarah were told to give to their son: Isaac, which means ‘he laughs” or “laugher”.

In today’s reading the story continues with the word of God being fulfilled:

And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, just as at that time God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son whom Sarah gave to him Isaac.

Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said: “God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh with me.”

So, the family tree of Sarah and Abraham was planted and the path to the coming of the Christ was opened. The God who does unlikely things was providentially at work.

The God we worship then is One who achieves the unlikely through unlikely people.

Too many of the stories we preachers sometimes extol as role models for the Christian life, are about people of outstanding gifts and mighty faith. They are the names the world hears about. The whole world remembers those who achieve great things. But we must remember that they live and work in a place, a time and a set of circumstances which makes what they achieve possible. I am sure many others, given the same circumstances, could do the same. But this does not mean that great or greater things are not happening unnoticed by the wider world and the pages of recorded history.

There is a great company of ordinary lay people who maintain parishes through good times and hard, and who are also usually found to be key workers in community welfare and social justice agencies. They never make a headline, or even rate a mention in the local paper. But they are God’s genuine children! Every minister has met them, worked beside them, and been humbled and inspired by what they manage to do for the glory of God.

Also, what about the host of ordinary ministers and priests who are never elevated to high office in the church, and never serve in one of the so-called “top parishes.” A lot of what is accomplished by all sorts of disciples goes unacknowledged.

Many such people overcome acute emotional ‘hang ups’, idiosyncrasies, glaring inadequacies, or limited intellectual ability, yet they can still be a blessing to others.

It is paradoxical that the God who calls some to be a chosen people does not seem to be very “choosey” about the type of people he calls. Such is the God of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, and Rachel.

This quirky way in which God appears to work, reaches its zenith in the Gospel stories. Today we read from Matthew how Jesus selected twelve key disciples:

First Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.

There does not appear to be one university graduate, or scholar, or priest, or town councillor, or village rabbi, or upper-class dignitary among them. They are a collection of nobodies. Four were fishermen, we don’t know what others were but before long there was the greedy thug who collected taxes for the Roman occupying authority whom we know as Matthew.

It was people like this to whom Jesus entrusted his Gospel. It was these nobodies of the world to whom he gave “authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity.”

So, the most unlikely people are called to discipleship. A Christian woman was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 19 years and received radical surgery. When she was 21, she had more surgery and her doctors told her that she only had a few months to live. They got it wrong. She was in her 87th year when she died. In between she bore children, buried her husband while he was relatively young, raised her family, threw herself into numerous philanthropic activities, and ran a boarding house for social misfits until she was 85. She died of the same cancer that she first contracted when aged 19. Her life was full of challenge as she lived for God and in the end, she accomplished more than she could have hoped for when she was young.

The second qualification is to learn compassion. The hallmark of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee was compassion, sympathy in action.

Jesus went around all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and curing every infirmity. When he looked at the crowds, he had compassion for them. They were harassed and dejected like sheep without a shepherd.

Compassion is an essential element of Jesus’ ministry.

Something which we need to understand is that pity and compassion, like humility, were classed as serious faults in a person’s character in the Greek and Roman world. The intellectual Greek spurned it as a crude regression into unenlightened human weakness, the Romans derided it as a flaw that would ruin a man’s precious dignitas. Have you noticed how even Paul frequently boasts about his accomplishments in his letters? This was expected of every teacher. Teachers and philosophers and leaders all trumpeted their skills themselves. It was part of the culture and people who wanted followers had to advertise their great accomplishments. Humility was not a virtue. Thus, Jesus was unusual in that he was humble, he did not advertise his greatness, or his connections, and he practised compassion. He had compassion on the crowds that gathered around him, desperate for help and guidance…

Try to look at the crowds through the eyes of Jesus, picture the common, downtrodden people of the land huddled together like a flock under attack. Nowhere to turn, no one to protect them in their extreme vulnerability.

It was a part of his way of doing for Jesus to have compassion on them. His heart went out to them. He travelled around the Galilean region meeting the people in open spaces or in towns and synagogues, teaching them the love of God, preaching the presence of God’s kingdom in their midst (a kingdom where each were precious citizens) and healing their diseases and curing their handicaps. This was the true expression of Jesus’ compassion.

But genuine compassion comes at a cost. Often, after dealing with the crowds, Jesus felt drained and utterly exhausted. And finally, his compassion for the common people cost him his life.

There is no true Christianity which does not share Jesus’ compassion. This is a very apt lesson for us this week as we witness the change in attitude towards black people here and in America. One of the most powerful and moving experiences of my life was listening to the black congregation of St Andrew’s Church in Georgetown, Guyana (South America) singing spirituals. This massive church stands on the site of the original slave market. I was in the balcony which has a high barrier originally intended to prevent the slaves from looking down upon their masters during worship. That morning I had preached to a congregation of people, who segregated themselves according to the darkness of their skin, from a dizzyingly high pulpit designed so that the slaves could see only the preacher. Empathy turned to sympathy when I was in the gallery that evening.

Thus, the compassion of Christ is our second qualification. What makes the story of the slave trade so appalling, both then and now, is the complete lack of compassion. Slaves were commodities; those who died on the journey to the Americas were considered “wastage.” Though many traders saw themselves as upright Christian citizens, they clearly lacked true compassion. They could not have made the effort to try to put themselves in the slaves’ situation to find empathy at least.

This is the thing about Christian love, it requires empathy, the ability to imagine the feelings and hurts of others, or indeed their joys and pleasures and to allow that empathy to flow into sympathy and compassion. Empathy, as Paul Gilbert says, requires effort to understand others when sympathy for them does not come of its own accord.

You and I are called to be God’s emissaries. For the first time in today’s gospel the disciples are called apostles from the Greek word for an emissary, a person sent out on a mission with the authority of the sender behind them. The disciples could not stay at the point of being learners in the school of Christ. The times had come when they had to become practitioners of love, grace, and compassion.

It is not always easy to be compassionate, but Jesus commands us to love even our enemies which means: accepting who they are, trying to understand them, empathising with them by imagining the challenge of their lives, forgiving their offences, and perhaps discovering sympathy with them and ultimately compassion. Don’t forget that compassion was Jesus’ deepest expression of the love of God for us. The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made. Psalm 145:9 Amen.

Invitation to the Offering

God’s goodness inspires us even in times of suffering so that we endure in faithfulness and find hope in difficult times. We present our gifts to God with gratitude for God’s love which never lets us go.

Prayer of Dedication

God, our Good Shepherd, we are grateful that you guide us through even the most difficult times. Bless our gifts and make them signs of your presence at work in the world for those who need to be embraced by your love and your strength through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayers of thanksgiving and intercession

God ever creating,
God ever loving,
God ever leading:
We turn to you in uncertain times, trusting in your steadfast love.
Wherever people are anxious about the future,
overwhelmed by their responsibilities,
or worried because of the upheavals the pandemic has caused,
Bring peace and hope, we pray,

And let your kingdom come.

God of all compassion:
Where people are lonely or isolated, longing for love,
where people are trapped in unhealthy relationships or facing violence each day,
where people are grieving the loss of routine or purpose in their lives, or the loss of someone beloved:
Bring courage and hope, we pray,

And let your kingdom come.

God of tender strength:
Where people feel pain in their bodies, in their minds or spirits,
where people seek healing or help,
where illness has eroded hope and desperation fills each day:
Bring healing and hope, we pray, We lift our sister, Christine Foster to you today and ask you to bless her and her family with your peace today as we do for Rosemary Gray and her family here and in Australia.

And let your kingdom come.

God of trustworthy truth:
Where leaders work to guide the world and their communities to renewed life,
where professionals discern scientific, medical and economic insights to protect and restore the quality of life after the pandemic,
where individuals still strive to care for the earth and its vulnerable inhabitants:
Bring wisdom and hope, we pray,

And let your kingdom come.

God in whom we live and move and have our being:
By your Spirit, tend your promise of new life
amid the current struggles in the world you love.
Where hope flickers, reignite its power.
Shine the light of Christ’s love into each life and renew our trust in you in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Sending out and Benediction

Go now to follow the way of Jesus:
see others as he did;
dare to give freely as he did;
and to love unconditionally as he did.
Go, embraced by the Source of life, love and hope;
in the company of the Word of life;
encouraged by the Breath of life. Amen

Hymns

Here are some hymn suggestions to check on YouTube if you wish to sing along. Some may not be as familiar as their titles suggest:

Praise to the living God

As the deer pants for the water
As the deer pants for the water.

The sands of time are sinking

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen

“I have a dream,” a man once said
I have a dream a man once said.

For Children

Look up One of these things is not like the other.

Look at the first row of animals.

One of these animals is not like the other. Can you guess which one? (Why is the dolphin less like the dog and the horse?

Here are some foods and one of these things is not like the other. Can you guess which one? Why is the ice cream less like the hot dog and hamburger? Let’s try another one.

Here is a picture of some women, but one of these is not like the others. Can you guess which one?

Which of these women do you think is the mother? Which of these women is the grandmother? Why would you guess this way?

What if I told you that all these women are mothers? That might really surprise you because one of these is not like the others. One of these women is almost 100 years old! How could she be a mother?

In our Bible lesson today, we learn about a woman named Sarah. She wanted to have a baby all her life, but it did not happen. Then one day, God told her husband that Sarah would have a baby. When Sarah heard that, she laughed out loud because she was almost 100 years old!

Here is what the Bible says : Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

The next year, Sarah had a baby just as God had promised because God keeps His promises!

Dear God, thank You that You always keep Your promises to us. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Standing on the promises of God

A Prayer in a Time of Distress

Almighty and everlasting God, you are strength to those who suffer and comfort to those who grieve. Let the prayers of your children who are in trouble rise to you. Hear our prayer. We claim your promises of wholeness as we pray for those who are ill or are suffering loss and long for your healing touch. Hear our prayer. Make the weak strong, the sick healthy, the broken whole, and confirm those who serve them as agents of your love. Hear our prayer. To everyone in distress, grant mercy, grant relief, grant refreshment. Hear our prayer. When we begin to rebuild, we commend our neighbourhoods to your care. Give us strength of purpose and concern for others, that we may create a community where your will may be done. Hear our prayer. God of compassion, you watch our ways, and weave out of terrible happenings wonders of goodness and grace. Hear our prayer. Surround those who have been shaken by tragedy with a sense of your present love and hold them in faith. Though they are lost in grief, may they find you and be comforted; Through Jesus Christ who was dead, but lives and rules this world with you. Amen

St Andrew’s Kirk, Georgetown, Guyana. The pulpit is level with the lower part of the upper windows and has an open staircase up to it.

Presbyterian Church of Guyana

On September 23, 1815, Scotsmen in the new British Guyana resolved that it was desirable to establish a Presbyterian Church in the colony. An unfinished building, which was intended to become a church, was bought from the Dutch. The first minister Mr. Archibald Brown arrived on September 18, 1816, in Guyana. Many of the Scottish church members were slave owners; given the liberal stance of the Scots toward slaves, Africans were admitted into the congregation as soon as 1821.

Church planting proved successful, and the Presbyterian Church of Guyana was established on February 9, 1837, during a session in St. Andrew’s Kirk. By 1860 it had absorbed the remnant members of the NHK (Netherlands Reformed Church). The PCOG would be largely supported by government grants. Partial disestablishment began in 1899, but in 1945 a capital sum was paid to the PCOG and the state ceased its financial aid. On May 25, 1967, the Church of Scotland relinquished the Church, which then became an autonomous church.