North Queensferry Church

17th. October. 2021. Service.

Service of Worship  17th October 2021

21st Sunday after Pentecost

Prelude: Worthy is the Lamb

Bible Introit 772 “Jesus, Name above all names”

Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Hymn 160 “Praise, my soul, the King of heaven”

Call to Prayer

Bless the Lord, O my soul, for the Lord our God is very great.
God is clothed with honour and majesty, wrapped in light like a garment.
God stretches out the heavens like a tent, and rides on the wings of the wind.
O Lord, in wisdom you have made each unique creature. With all of them, we come to praise you.
Let us praise the Lord together!

Prayers of Adoration and Confession

Praise be to you, O Lord our God for the wonders of your creation.
You spin the shining stars through the heavens and stretch out the seas to the furthest horizon.
You lift the curtain of dawn and let the light chase away the night.
You give the earth its seasons and every creature its span of life,
You infuse the breath of life and love into each precious soul.
This morning we have come to praise you, knowing that human greatness and glory are merely shadows of your glory.
In our hour of worship inspire our thought and prayers by your Spirit and lead us to serve you with love, gratitude and commitment as well as with the honesty and humility we see in Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord.

Lord Jesus Christ,
you call us to walk your in your pilgrim way in this world,
to serve our neighbours and love our enemies.
We confess these are not easy choices for us.
We are tempted to turn a blind eye to a neighbour in need.
We prefer to follow the crowd rather than to challenge the ways of the world or to allow your teachings to direct and guide us
Forgive us, Lord Jesus, for seeking an easier way than your way.

Assurance of Pardon
In a moment we will pray that you will forgive our sins and we forgive those who sin against us. Remind us  that while it is true that we have sinned, it is a greater truth that we are forgiven
through God’s love in Jesus Christ. To all who humbly seek the mercy of God inn Jesus Christ, our sin is forgiven.  Let us be at peace with God, with ourselves and with one another.

Prayer for Understanding

Holy One, you are the Source of Wisdom for the ages. Prepare us to listen and learn from your Word. May we grow wiser as we absorb all you reveal to us today that we may serve you with greater willingness and deeper joy each day of our lives, through Jesus Christ our Lord in whom we pray.

The Lord’s Prayer in the version most familiar to you.

North Queensferry

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.

Intimations

Next Sunday October 23rd we will celebrate the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in the course of our worship. Given that we still have some restriction of numbers, please let Joan More or Chris Duguid know if you intend to be present.

Our National Giving Day will be held on Sunday 31st October during our morning worship.  Congregations are being encouraged to participate in this venture which will provide people of all ages an opportunity to reflect on God’s presence with us through these challenging times and to offer gifts of thanksgiving back to God.

Money received through this initiative will remain with participating congregations who will choose how to use these gifts. This money may be used to fund specific work, to launch a new project or simply to offset deficits, taking into account the challenging financial circumstances faced by many of our churches over the last year. Congregations can use the money locally or direct it towards projects at home or overseas, provided that it will be used in line with the charitable objectives of the Church.

Here is a message from the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Right Honourable Lord Wallace of Tankerness.

Invitation to the Offering
The scriptures remind us how much we depend on God’s goodness. Jesus invites us to put others’ needs before our own, to serve in the world as he did. Our offering is one way we offer God our thanks for all we have received, and one way we can serve those who depend on our kindness as well as God’s.

Prayer of Dedication

Great and gracious God, we offer you these gifts, small tokens of our love for you. Bless them with the power of your Holy Spirit so they may accomplish more than we can even imagine, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Saviour and our Friend. Amen.

All Age Talk

Everyone For some people, the best thing about having chicken for dinner is the “wishbone.” After you finish eating, two people each hold one side of the wishbone, close your eyes and make a wish. Then you pull on the wishbone until it breaks apart. The one who gets the biggest piece is supposed to have his or her wish come true..)

Have you ever wished for something? On the count of three, say out loud what you wish for: 1, 2, 3.

Sometimes we make a wish without thinking about what would happen if our wish really came true.

Have you ever planned to have a picnic and it rained? Perhaps you sat and watched the rain and grumbled to yourself, “I wish it would stop raining.” What if that wish came true and it really stopped raining FOREVER? There would be no grass, no trees, no flowers. Rivers, lakes, and streams would dry up, and all life would begin to disappear. This world would be a miserable place if it stopped raining, wouldn’t it?

James and John were two brothers who were disciples of Jesus. One day, the two of them came to Jesus and said to Him, “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask.”

“What do you want Me to do for you?” Jesus replied.

“In Your glorious Kingdom, we want to sit in places of honour next to You, one at Your right and the other at Your left.” You see, they thought Jesus was going to set up an earthly kingdom, and they wanted to sit beside Him on the throne. They wanted to share in His glory and greatness.

Jesus answered, “You don’t know what you are asking.” Then He explained that whoever wants to be great must be a servant of all. He said, “For even I, the Son of Man, came here not to be served but to serve others, and to give My life as a ransom for many.”

I don’t think that being a servant was exactly what James and John were wishing for!

Sometimes you and I may say, “I wish I could be more like Jesus.” But is that really our wish? If we really want that wish to come true, we must live as servants the way Jesus did. Only then can we be truly great and show God’s love to the world.

Dear God, help us to mean it when we say, “I wish I could be more like Jesus.” Please show us each day how to become a greater servant to those around us. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Hymn 155 “Think of a world without any flowers”

Reading Job 38: 1-7; 34-41

38 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:
2 ‘Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
3 Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
4 ‘Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone –
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?

34 ‘Can you raise your voice to the clouds
and cover yourself with a flood of water?
35 Do you send the lightning bolts on their way?
Do they report to you, “Here we are”?
36 Who gives the ibis wisdom
or gives the cockerel understanding?
37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds?
Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens
38 when the dust becomes hard
and the clods of earth stick together?

39 ‘Do you hunt the prey for the lioness
and satisfy the hunger of the lions
40 when they crouch in their dens
or lie in wait in a thicket?
41 Who provides food for the raven
when its young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food? Amen.

Hymn 336 “Christ is our light

Reading Mark 10:35-45

35 Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘we want you to do for us whatever we ask.’
36 ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ he asked.
37 They replied, ‘Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.’
38 ‘You don’t know what you are asking,’ Jesus said. ‘Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with?’
39 ‘We can,’ they answered.
Jesus said to them, ‘You will drink the cup I drink and be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with, 40 but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.’
41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’
Amen, this is the Word of the Lord, to him be all glory and praise.

 Hymn 601 “Look upon us blessèd Lord”

“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God (Online only)

Sermon
Mark 10

Have you ever heard of the Beat-attitudes, a worldly counter to Jesus’ blessings in the Sermon on the Mount? Here they are:

Blessed are those of a proud spirit, the sky’s no limit to them.

Blessed are those who never say sorry, they won’t need comforters.

Blessed are those who put self-first, they shall own the earth.

Blessed are those who are hungry for money, they shall make it big time.

Blessed are those who have no pity for wimps, they shall never be treated like one.

Blessed are those who can compromise, they shall see their reward.

Blessed are those who have super weapons, they shall not be attacked.

Blessed are those who buy their way out of trouble, the world is their oyster.

Blessed are you when others flatter you, you will enjoy seeing them eat crow.

Blessed are you when you use up your kindly neighbours, they deserve to be suckers.

Blessed are you when you stick it to your enemies, you will relish their pain.

These are examples of the mores and morals of the world, and they are diametrically opposed to the teachings of the Saviour. I found them in an amusing sermon in which Jesus is portrayed as a man who lives upside down in this life and who proclaims that the world’s values are upside down. Why? Because they are not the Creator’s values. Of course, the author was Australian.

During Mark’s description of an extended period of wandering ministry across the Jordan river in the country of Judea, Jesus’ gradual revelation of the true meaning of the Kingdom of God is revealed to his twelve disciples. What occurs to me is that He seems to be drip feeding new and radical ways of thinking about the kingdom of God to them as opportunity arises. I think we all need to be drip fed the truths of the Kingdom of God.

In the previous section, Jesus affirms the sanctity of human relationships when he speaks about the Jewish attitude to divorce.  “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife] 8 and the two will become one flesh.] So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’ This was at odds with the thinking of most of the ancient world.

He then reveals the importance of simplicity when it comes to the Kingdom of God when he said:, “Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ This is not about cleverness, sophistication, wisdom or power. It is about trust and submission to instruction.

Then he is approached by the epitome of worldly success, a wealthy man, who though he is fundamentally faithful to the Law of God, nonetheless clings to his worldly success and security and this Jesus says threatens his eternal spiritual well-being.

So you see how everything Jesus has said turns earthly values upside down. We are used to these teachings, we have read or heard them repeatedly to the point where their original impact has faded. We should not imagine that they were all part of one sermon. In the gospels they are a collection of sayings born out of Jesus daily interactions with his disciples and other people and they were radical and very challenging to those who heard them first.

It takes time for people to change their thinking, to get used to a new way of looking at life. Sadly, after two thousand years of the Gospel, there are still many people for whom the Beat-attitudes are greater wisdom than the Beatitudes.

Despite all that Jesus had already taught them, when Jesus broached the subject of his impending death for the third time, his disciples were still thinking in terms of a political conflict and the Kingdom of God as a massive coup d’état for the Jewish nation.

The brothers, John and James, the sons of Zebedee, seem to have missed what Jesus had said about childlike simplicity and the dangers of power and wealth.  They could not logically link his worldly defeat by the chief priests and Pharisees with the establishment of His kingdom. It seems that they ignored this conundrum and reverted to their own perception of the Kingdom of God, in which, since they were among the primary disciples, they believed they were destined for greatness and glory. How human it is when someone is powerful, that those closest to them expect to share the kudos.

Their request for pre-eminence angered the other disciples who didn’t really ‘get it’ either, of course.  If they did, they wouldn’t have been angry with these two brothers. Indeed, if they had any deep sense of what mattered most, it seems they should instead have been puzzled by the request to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand ‘in glory.’ Or saddened by it. Rather, we could conclude that they were angry because they didn’t think to ask first.

For this is so. James and John and all the rest and too much, I expect, you and I, still measure much in life in the old ways:

Where, in the limited imagination of two brothers speaking to Jesus now, there are only two places which matter: on the right and on the left, and that is their goal in following Jesus.

And where if you don’t advocate for yourself, you’re not likely to get what you believe you deserve.

It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It is something that pervades all of human life. People vying to be better, greater, more powerful, always first, superior, more intelligent, richer. This is found in every sphere of life, from Pre and Primary School classrooms to the top of every institution trade and profession, the desire to be first, the best, preeminent.

I recall once having dinner with a South African opera singer in Sydney. One of the other guests was a well-known good and successful singer. During the evening she said with bitterness, “If it hadn’t been for Joan Sutherland, I would have been Australia’s greatest singer.” This lady was not in the same league as Sutherland, and also had a reputation for being a difficult “prima donna.”  What struck me was that she spoiled her own achievements with that jealous remark.

At another level there are those who measure themselves by association, who only have the best, the top lawyer, advocate, doctor, specialist, teacher architect as if lesser ones may be more than they might ever need.

For whom among us hasn’t been measuring and measuring our whole lives long?

Oh, we may not always do so as obviously as James and John did, but it’s always there, too much, isn’t it?

It seems that to be human, at least in the culture you and we call home, is too often to measure ourselves over and against each other as James and John were doing that day when they demanded this favour of Jesus.

This also affects people in ministry and the church. One minister, commenting on this fact found it echoed in the lament of someone whose life’s work as a minister seemed pointless when he talked about his current struggle in the world we find ourselves in that ‘he doesn’t even know how to measure success anymore!’  It seems that we have an ego-need to measure ourselves against each other, because without the ‘measure,’ we feel we cannot really gauge our own worth.

This minister goes on:

And yes, at least where I stand today, that is where things seem to be.

We can still look down the road and see another person who seems to be doing better or worse than we are, but overall, all the old measures have been thrown up in the air.

And yet even now we try, don’t we… comparing the numbers of those showing up in person at a church service, counting the ‘views’ on a livestream video or pre-recorded worship offering, keeping track of what people are still giving to the ministry…but because nothing is as it was, we don’t know whether to be glad or sad about it.

Because the old measures don’t work. They just don’t. And I, for one, expect that Jesus is not all that unhappy about that.

Because Jesus always knew that those things never really measured what mattered at all.

There is a deep wisdom in what this minister says. At the end of the day the struggle to live by the “Beat-attitudes” will not matter at all. Time and tide will wash away every success, every bit of wealth, every great achievement.

Now of course, this does not mean that we should not strive to be the best that we can be, to use the talents we have in this ego body. There will always be progress, there will always be more to learn, more to give. But achieving our best is different for everyone and there is no real merit in being the best for its own sake. What do we have that has not been given to us? We are to make the best of our talents, but our talents do not make us better than anyone else.

This is the thinking that Jesus turns upside down. To be first, you have to be last, to be greatest, you have to be least, because that is God’s way: For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’  And He did this because of love. Love gives, love serves, love puts others first.

And I can’t help but wonder if Jesus isn’t leaning in today, hoping we will finally see what he has always seen. That it is not about what we always thought it was about. Instead, it is the call to look and see what is right in front of us all the time: someone in need of the gifts we have been uniquely given to give.  And then to live simply as one who serves.  And while we are at it to resist the temptation to start measuring that as well.

In fact, when Jesus tells the brothers that what they are asking for is not his to give, it is not because he doesn’t have the authority to do so, but because in the ‘glory’ they are looking forward to, it is simply not going to look or be like anything we have known before.  Because the old measures won’t matter. Indeed, if we can really take in what this whole journey of following Jesus is about, in the end the only ‘measure’ that will matter is whether we have discovered the freedom of ‘not measuring at all.’ And don’t we get a taste of that even now in those moments when we find ourselves actually unable to measure ourselves, and we don’t measure those we encounter either.  As we simply do as Jesus did and seek to serve whoever is right in front of us.

This calls up something wholly new in many of us, it seems to me. At least it does for me. And I imagine the only place to begin is to quit looking at ourselves; or at the one against whom I am tempted to measure my success or my failure and to cast our gaze in the direction Jesus offers us instead, – to the cross itself. To the cup he would drink and the baptism which he would be baptized.

And then only through the lens of that astounding gift to see the world once more as a place where the old measures really don’t count, except as we seek to also serve. As Jesus did.

And through it all to hear this as a call to an offering of profound freedom. To a way of being where the old measures don’t count any more.  Where we are always only measured by the light of God’s great love.

Just think, how do you hear the request of James and John today? How might the world change if we just quit measuring? Are you able to see this particular time as an invitation to cast aside the old measures? What would that look like for you? Does that, in fact, sound like freedom?  Will we dare to reject the Beat-attitudes of the world and favour the Beatitudes instead? Amen.

Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession

God of all creation, your glory is reflected in all that you have created, every creature, great and small is an expression of your self-giving love. You open our eyes to see the world you love
to show us your presence and your purpose in a creation that is vast beyond our comprehension.
We thank you for the wonder of the seasons as they change,
and for gifts of love and compassion you bring us through friend and stranger.
We pray for this earth of which we are your stewards as it struggles to maintain its balance in the face of human depredation and desecration. Make us better carers of our planet and all life upon it and kinder neighbours to friend and stranger.
God, in your great mercy,
Hear our prayer.

God of justice,
You open our eyes on the world to show us struggle and conflict that is affecting every part of it. We see the burdens that many people are carrying, and the way that differences create division.
We pray for all who still struggling with the economic impact of the pandemic and for those feeling the stress of these days in deeply personal ways.
Show us how to support each other in difficult times
and heal relationships in our communities
God, in your great mercy,
Hear our prayer.

God of compassion,
You open our eyes on the world to show us suffering and despair.
We see challenges for health care all around us and know that many still face the effects of COVID-19 or other illnesses and complications that make life hard to cope with.
We pray for people who whose lives are ending and those who mourn for family members who have gone before them into eternity. Comfort and uphold them as they rebuild their lives without them.
(Keep silence for 15 seconds)

Give strength and compassion to all who offer treatment,
and courage and hope to all who wait for healing especially medical staff who are tired and overburdened by the enormity of the task.

God, in your deep mercy,
Hear our prayer.

God of wisdom,
You open our eyes on the world to show us how complex our society has become
We see countries locked in ancient animosities
and communities overwhelmed by fresh upheaval and conflict
We pray for the millions who are displaced in current conflicts and by natural disasters, and for leaders here and around the world. Give wisdom and guidance as they make decisions which affect the lives of their citizens and constituents. Curb greed, animosity, hostility, and violence and let your kingdom of love and grace be established on the earth. There are many
situations which break our hearts and challenge our love and compassion. Give us each the grace we need to pray for the wellbeing of this your earth in Jesus’ Name.

God, in your deep mercy,
Hear our prayer. Amen.

Hymn 644 “O Jesus I have promised to serve you”

Sending out and Benediction

You have been called to serve the Lord with gladness. Go from this place knowing that God’s blessings have been poured on you so that you may be a blessing to others. Be at peace and bring the good news of God’s love and peace to all whom you meet. AMEN.

“May God’s blessing surround you each day”

Postlude: “I am thine O Lord”