20th. March. 2022. Service.
Inverkeithing Parish Church linked with North Queensferry Church
Worship 20th March 2o22
Third Sunday in Lent
Prelude ““How lovely are thy dwellings”
Bible Introït 176 “Let’s sing unto the Lord!”
Opening Prayer
Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Hymn 18 “The earth belongs unto the Lord”
Call to Prayer
Seek the Lord while God may be found. Call upon God while He is near.
We will return to the Lord our God.
God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. God’s ways are not our ways.
We come, seeking new paths to follow.
As the heavens are higher than the earth so are God’s ways higher than ours.
We come as pilgrims on the journey, praising God on the way.
Prayer of Adoration and Confession
God, our Creator and Sustainer,
in you we live and move and have our being.
In your depths we find meaning; in your heights we find light and joy.
You are the source of peace and hope for all who turn to you.
You alone have been our help and our guide.
You give us strength and courage when we face challenges.
In you we find rest and welcome along the way.
We praise you, O God, for your steadfast love.
Draw near to us once more in this time of worship.
Reveal your purposes for us
and prepare us for the days ahead
so that our lives may witness to your mercy and grace
as we follow Jesus.
God of grace and mercy,
We confess that our thoughts are so often not your thoughts.
Our way are rarely your ways.
Our tempers are short, and we fail to act with kindness.
Our confidence is weak, and we treat others without respect.
Our faith falters and we lose track of you.
Forgive the many ways we fail you,
and inspire us to follow you more faithfully.
Your love feels pain
and wipes away our tears.
Your love knows grief,
and comforts the sorrowful.
Your love sees sin
and still loves the sinner.
Forgive us when we fail to live
lives that reflect your love.
Forgive us the many times
when we take for granted
all that you have done for us.
Transform us, through your Spirit,
and empower us to serve you
this day and all days
Amen Praise the Lord for all the many blessings You have poured out onto all those that love You.
Praise the Lord forever and ever. In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
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.
It is with sadness that we intimate the death on Friday of our member, Mr Jim Cook of 32 Boreland Road Inverkeithing. Please remember Alasdair and Margaret and their families in your prayers.
Communion Sunday
Next Sunday we will celebrate the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper during our worship. Please remember to put your clocks forward at the start of BST on Saturday night.
Ukraine
The Very Reverend Susan Brown, former Moderator of the Church of Scotland and Convenor of the Faith Impact forum, has made contact with the Reformed Church in Hungary and in Ukraine to find the best way to help those fleeing to find sanctuary and safety. The Churches in Ukraine are using their buildings to offer support as the people move from east to west. There is an opportunity to give through donations, help for those who don’t have access to their money when the banks run out and who will need food /help, and those who cross the borders into Hungary, Slovakia or Romania.
Donations can be directed to the following account:
Royal Bank of Scotland
Church of Scotland No 1 Account
Account Number 00134859
Sort Code 83 06 08
Ref. RCHA donation.
Coffee mornings will be held in Inverkeithing Tuesdays and in North Queensferry every other Wednesday.
Invitation to the Offering
God has given us life and breath and created a world of beauty and order. In Christ we know God’s generous mercy.
Our gifts are tokens of gratitude for all that we have received in Christ and in creation. Let our gifts speak for our thankful hearts today.
Prayer of Dedication
Loving God, accept these our gifts, we pray.
Bless them and use them to inspire peace in places of unrest,
love in places of resentment, joy in places of fear, and hope in places of loss, all for the sake of Jesus Christ, our friend and Saviour
All Age Talk
Today we’re going to talk about fruit. In the Bible, Jesus said He wants us to bear fruit like a tree bears fruit. So go ahead. Let’s see you bear some fruit.
Okay, okay. Jesus didn’t mean it quite that way. But before we talk about the fruit Jesus was talking about, let’s think about how a tree bears fruit. Tape the orange piece of paper to it.Is this bearing fruit?
It’s just paper, so the plant didn’t really grow fruit, did it? How about this? Is the plant bearing fruit now?
- What must happen for a tree to grow fruit?
The tree needs to be a fruit tree, first. And then it needs sun, water, and maybe some fertilizer. In the Bible, Jesus told a story about a man who planted a fruit tree, and the tree didn’t grow fruit for three years. The gardener told the man, “That tree isn’t growing any fruit. Cut it down. It’s taking up space in the garden.”
- Why do you think the gardener would want to get rid of this tree?
The gardener wanted space for trees that would grow fruit. So, he gave the man one more year to water it and take care of it, hoping it would grow fruit.
Like that fruit tree, Jesus says He wants us to grow fruit. Fruit for us is like characteristics or qualities that show we’re really His followers. But like a tree must be a fruit tree to bear fruit, we have to be Jesus’ followers before we can bear fruit. In the Bible, Jesus tells us to turn away from our wrong choices and believe in Him. Then, like a tree that has the right water and sun to grow fruit, we too, can grow “fruit.” We’ll learn more about that today.
Dear God, we admit we make wrong choices. We want to follow You. Help us to bear good fruit. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Hymn 292 “It’s rounded like an orange”- ve
Isaiah 55:1-9
‘Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labour on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me;
listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful love promised to David.
4 See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
a ruler and commander of the peoples.
5 Surely you will summon nations you know not,
and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel,
for he has endowed you with splendour.’
6 Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
8 ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,’
declares the Lord.
9 ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. Amen
Hymn 52 “How lovely is thy dwelling place”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUGKSgJepJw
Luke 13:1-9
13 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.’
6 Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig-tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, “For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig-tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?”
8 ‘“Sir,” the man replied, “leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig round it and fertilise it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.”’ Amen. This is the Word of the Lord, to him be all glory and praise.
Hymn 724 “Christ’s is the world”
Sermon
Do you think that those Galileans whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices were worse sinners than other Galileans? I tell you, No! But unless you repent you will all likewise perish.
Or those eighteen men who were crushed when that tower in Siloam fell, do you think they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem. I tell you, No! But unless you repent you will likewise perish.
In all of us, hidden away in the murkier parts of our psyche, are irrational fears and superstitions. These are a hangover from the not-so-ancient, primitive past of homo sapiens. One of these superstitions is that accidents and disease are our fault, punishment for our sinful lives. Hence the familiar cry: “What have I done to deserve this!”
It may be a parent who loses a child and blames herself for not having enough faith or offended God. Others may have grown up with the idea of a punitive God who threatens to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third or fourth generation of those that hate (i.e., reject) God. In all of us, such primitive lies semi-hidden. It’s like the ghosts of old gods that refuse to go away.
There are still some religious people who are still committed to that concept of God. Their God is one of anger and retribution for the unrighteous and is the giver of good health and prosperity for the righteous.
Many of Jesus’ contemporaries believed in a punitive God who punished bad people and rewarded good. If you live in poverty or have a bad accident or disease, you are condemned by God as a sinner. On the other hand, if you are healthy and prosperous you are approved by God as a righteous person.
We find numerous traces of this way of thinking in the Old Testament. There are many snippets in the Psalms and Proverbs, but the Book of Job is dedicated to the debunking of this false dogma. Jesus agreed with Job. Happiness or misery cannot be simply equated with goodness and badness.
In today’s Gospel lesson, we see Jesus taking up two tragic events: the news headlines of his day. As usual with headlines, it was bad news.
Pilate, an intemperate and arrogant ruler, ordered his soldiers to massacre some Galilean men who were suspected of espionage while they were making sacrifices in the temple. Did that mean that those Galileans were worse sinners than other Galileans who stayed at home and minded their own business? Were they were being punished by God?
You can easily picture this construction site. Builders’ labourers toiling on the erection of a stone tower near the pool of Siloam. Something goes wrong; the tower collapses and eighteen men die. Were these builders and labourers really sinners who deserved to die? Worse people than the other residents of Jerusalem? Jesus gives an emphatic verdict: I tell you, No!
The old superstition is a lie. The old gods of retribution and reward who lurk in the dark corners of our minds, are false deities to be dismissed as superstition.
But of course, we have not completed the statement Jesus made, have we? We have left something out. After describing each incident and giving a resounding No! Jesus continued: But unless you repent you will likewise perish.
What was he on about? Jesus does not pretend that the good or evil that we do does not matter. No, accidents, massacres and disease are not God’s specific punishments, although they may be the consequences of human action. If we live selfishly as individuals or nations as we have been doing, in many ways others can suffer. This is true in families, communities, nations, and the whole world.
Goodness and evil are critical issues. Jesus is quite clearly saying that without repentance, meaning a change in how we live, we will be on a disaster course. It can be as local as a neighbour gossiping, an abusive spouse, a loveless word, or as vast as a multinational company exploiting resources and employees for profit. We must face up the fact that as a species we have all fallen short of God’s intentions and are all headed for trouble unless we change.
Perish is a powerful word. Decay, disintegration. It expresses the complete loss of all that the best that we might become, and this applies on the personal national and international level at which Christ warning still has a powerful relevance:
Corporately or nationally unless you repent you will likewise perish. Individually, unless you repent you will likewise perish.
Nowadays are in danger of mass suicide. This is an era of terrible nuclear and biological weapons, and an awesome array of options are available to terrorists and tyrants No city, no passenger plane, nor major sporting or cultural event, is safe from would be destroyers and these very things and also expose us to natural disaster like disease. The same applies to the way we are polluting the planet. Ecologically, we are also on a disaster course towards more flood, drought, famine, and disease.
Let’s attempt to put Jesus’ words into some more recent situations.
That suffering person in Ukraine standing in the rubble of the Mariupol Theatre who has lost home and loved ones and livelihood and any kind of recognizable future, though a sinner like all of us, is not responsible for what has happened to him and yet he carries the burden of the consequences of the monstrous sin of insane power or greed run amok or worse, like millions of others.
It may be also that the losses people that people have experienced may have been due to human frailty, looking away at the wrong moment and not seeing an oncoming vehicle, for example. Neither the person lost, nor the ones left behind deserve to be tagged with guilt for what had happened. At least no more than the rest of us.
Today it seems that Jesus is pushing us to ask different questions than those we first seem inclined to ask. Perhaps Jesus is telling us to get away from comparing, judging, and drawing conclusions about other people’s fates in order to excuse ourselves from their experience.
For instance, who at some time hasn’t wondered, sometimes even aloud, about the lifestyle choices of a person who is stricken with cancer, or heart disease, or most recently, Covid-19? Remember the blame game when AIDS was rife? Some people were paying for their sins, but then, in Africa the sinners were of a different sexual orientation, and they were adulterers instead. We want to pin responsibility on people for what happens to them as a way that we can distance ourselves from their fates, and thus excuse ourselves from what happened to them. And then we hear of someone else who ‘did everything right’ and still fell ill and that line of thinking crumbles and falls. For example, what about the lung cancer victim who never ever smoked.
Instead, shouldn’t we think that one of the ways we witness God at work in the tragedies we see on the news every day is that these tragedies should drive us to our knees, recognizing how small we are in the face of unending human suffering?
When we recognise that most of what happens is not a direct punishment for individual guilt, but the consequences of the good and evil actions of seven and a half billion sinful humans in the world. The only thing that will change this is change, in behaviour, on a personal, a national and an international level. Unfortunately, the people who most often pay the price are the most disadvantaged, whether the people who live in Kyiv, or in Yemen, or in the flood plains of Bangladesh or Central Africa, or the folks on the small islands of the Pacific.
If we treat this as a theological conundrum we will be wasting our energy in wondering why them and not us, or even, perhaps, at other times, why us and not them, instead of taking the next step forward in the certainty that the world is indeed, broken, by human sin and frailty, intentional and not, and then doing whatever small bit we can here and now to alleviate the suffering that is always all around us?
So, does what Jesus says about this mean that the opportunity for repentance, aka change of attitude, behaviour or direction gets closed off? Is the door of salvation closing?
This question is posed by the short parable of a vineyard owner who speaks with his vinedresser about an unproductive fig tree that has been planted near some of the vines.
The owner said to his gardener: “Look here, for the last three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, but I find none. Cut it down! It’s a waste of space, using up good soil.”
The gardener answered: “Sir, please let us leave it for one more year. I will dig around it and add more fertiliser. If it comes good and next year bears fruit, we’ll all be happy. If it doesn’t, you can then cut it down.”
This parable was originally a warning to the religious people in Jesus’ day of who were not bearing the fruit of being the people of God. Although some Pharisees heard Jesus with open minds, and a few were secret admirers, the majority rejected him outright. In doingso , they were missing out on the very thing, the Gospel, that would make their lives truly fruitful. Some of the most earnest, religious people of Israel were spiritually unproductive.
The owner of the vineyard represents God. His vinedresser or head gardener is Jesus. God’s time for Israel to be a light to the world is running out. If they do not change their ways and bear fruit, they will be redundant.
Jesus, the skilled vinedresser, knows what a disappointment this fig trees is. But he has a deep hope welling up in him for it which refuses to die down. “Give it one more chance” he says to the owner. If after that it still does not bear fruit, “you may cut it down.” Notice that the gardener is not advising it be cut down immediately; he puts the onus back on the owner to extend grace.
From the viewpoint of later Christian theology, this is typical paradox. Here we have God pleading with God to be patient with stubborn humanity. God speaking to God. Ridiculous? Well, don’t you sometimes talk to yourself when, in deep concern, you are trying to work your way through a difficult situation? Of course, parables should not be pushed too hard. The parable does not mean that God is the hard-hearted owner intent on destruction of the fruitless tree, while Jesus is the kind-hearted gardener, intent on saving the tree.
The compassion of Jesus is God’s compassion. The tough, realistic concern of God about what to do with fruitless lives is also the toughness of Jesus. The love, patience and hope of the gardener in this parable, are the love, patience and hope of the owner.
But this is still a stern warning. Opportunity does not always knock on our door. A time limit is set for the fruitless tree. If it is so set in its fruitlessness that it will no longer respond to digging and fertilising, then it has doomed itself. Nowadays we talk of tipping points when a situation runs to the point where it cannot be reversed. The tree has a year left before it is too late.
If we do not take the times of God’s grace when they present themselves, we can be left fruitless. There is a judgment factor built into life by which repeated refusals of God’s opportune time, leaves us fruitless and, let’s face it, a waste of space! In a profound way we judge and condemn ourselves. Doors do close and opportunities are lost.
Every minister encounters people who scoff at the gospel and faith. One minister tells of a woman like that. One day the woman changed tack: “Please don’t be hurt by my bitterness, young man. I had my chances to make something of my life but did not take them. I am a hopeless case. God can’t do anything with me now.”
He responded by speaking of God’s love for everyone; of Christ’s grace which was meant for the likes of her, and he asked her to give God a chance because God loved her no matter what.
She shook her head: “No, it’s too late. Something in me has dried up and hardened. I feel regret but have no passion for change. The soul has died in me. I’ve left it too late. I am locked in my own little hell.”
He said that the experience was scary. And it still is. There are seasons for flowering and bearing fruit. If we deny them, if we become set in fruitlessness, even the best heavenly fertiliser around our roots the saving grace of Christ Jesus might not be able to restore our hope. That minister did not know the ultimate outcome because he moved on, but perhaps he or another dug around the roots of her life and fertilised the soil.
In the same way, you may have noticed that the parable also leaves us up in the air. Nothing is decided. The gardener makes his plea for one more year, one more year for the fig tree to become fruitful. But there is no answer from the owner. Has the fig tree lost its opportunity or not? The question stays with us, down the centuries and hangs now over us all in this in this church today.
There is one powerful point from today’s parable as we move a step closer to the Easter season: The vinedresser, Jesus, knew he would shortly be arrested, tortured, tried, and executed. Yet he expects to be around next year. What faith and hope Jesus leaves us! Amen.
Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession
Loving God, you do not need our thanks, but we need to acknowledge your goodness and mercy
You are always good to us, and we rejoice in your love.
That we are alive, is a miracle. That we live in such a colourful, complex world is an extra bonus. That you have entrusted the care of this place to us, making us caretakers of the world and its creatures, is a mighty honour. You are always good to us, and we rejoice in your love.
That we have been encouraged by fine trail blazers, visionaries, prophets, poets, composers, and artists, gives us optimism
You are always good to us, and we rejoice in your love.
That you dared to be Immanuel coming to us in your Holy son Jesus, is more that we deserve and that you are personally with us always; that your Holy Spirit communes with our small spirits, fills us with joy. You are always good to us, and we rejoice in your love. We thank you, Holy God and most loving Friend through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
You are also our Healer and Liberator, to whom we bring people who are at this very moment suffering through accident, disease, or misfortune through their own folly, or the cruelty of others. Have mercy on our human race, O God. Forgive our iniquities and heal our many diseases.
At this moment many people are crying out against the cruelty of war or injustice. Hostages and abducted children, prisoners of war and political detainees, and many mistakenly convicted. Have mercy on our human race, O God. Forgive our iniquities and heal our many diseases.
At this moment many are suffering physical and mental abuse: battered wives and children, others beaten up by robbers, tortured for information, verbally abused or denigrated, left with untended wounds, threatened with the injury of loved ones, sexually molested or cruelly killed. Have mercy on our human race, O God. Forgive our iniquities and heal our many diseases.
At this moment there are people traumatised by sudden injury; victims of industry or highways, soldiers wounded in battle, civilians bombed or terrorised, people hurt and maimed by the carelessness of others, and some who for personal reasons have taken big risks and lost. Have mercy on our human race, O God. Forgive our iniquities and heal our many diseases.
At this moment there are many who are in terror or despair because of natural disasters: flood and fire, cyclone and earthquake, avalanche or bushfire, drought or lightning strike, storm waves or volcanic eruption. Have mercy on our human race, O God. Forgive our iniquities and heal our many diseases.
Holy God, help your church to do whatever we can to lessen the sufferings of humanity and to show the way by our example of repentance. Encourage each of us to rest our own pain and grief in your infinite mercy, and to not cease from righteous anger, prayer, and appropriate action while injustice and neglect exist anywhere on this planet. Have mercy on our human race, O God.
Forgive our iniquities and heal our many diseases through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Hymn 594 “Come Holy Ghost 0ur souls inspire”
Benediction
The God of love be with you all.
The Christ of grace be for you all.
The Spirit of truth be among you all today and evermore. Amen.
“May God’s blessing surround you each day”
Postlude: “Psalm 63”