6th. September. 2020 Service

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Call to Worship

When two or three gather, Christ lives in every moment,

where two or three gather, Christ is present with them.

Where two or three gather to worship God,

glad songs of praise are lifted, hearts are filled with hope.

When two or three gather to serve God’s creation,

Christ is feeding the hungry, Christ is building shelters of peace.

 

 
The Collect for today

Help us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who trust their own strength, so you never forsake those who rely upon your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Prayer of Adoration and Confession

Holy One, God of grace and glory, our finite minds can scarcely imagine the extent of
Your creative power which brought all that exists into being through your Word.
We have only a dim awareness of your love that is wider than the whole universe.
Or of your mercy, which is greater than the heights of heaven, and your wisdom, deeper than the sea.
Maker of all things, you became one of us in Jesus Christ, and by your Spirit you are present with us wherever we may be and whenever we meet in Jesus’ name.
We worship you, Creator, Christ, and Spirit, one God, now and always,

In humility and honesty trusting in the love of God, let us confess our sins to Him  and to one another:

Although Christ is among us as our peace, we confess we are a people divided,
within ourselves and against each other. We hold too easily to the values and habits of a broken world. The profit and pleasures we pursue can harm your creation and the lives of others. The fears and jealousies we harbour set neighbour against neighbour, and nation against nation. The freedom and wealth we enjoy belong mostly to a few when they are your gift to everyone. Help us to see how we may change in accordance with the ways of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Have mercy upon us, O God. Heal us, forgive us, and set us free to serve you in the world bearing your reconciling love in Jesus Christ. Amen.

 
Assurance of Pardon
St. Paul declared that the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. May we know that we are forgiven by God’s grace and be at peace with God, with ourselves and with each other.

 

Prayer for Understanding

Eternal and ever-present God, guide us by your Word and Spirit,
that in the light of your living Word, we may see clearly what you are calling us to do.
In your truth, may we know how best to follow you,
and in doing so, find true peace through Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer (in the words most familiar to you)

 The Readings

Exodus 12: 1-14    

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, ² ‘This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. ³ Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household. ⁴ If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbour, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. ⁵ The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. ⁶ Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. ⁷ Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. ⁸ That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. ⁹ Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water but roast it over a fire – with the head, legs and internal organs. ¹⁰ Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. ¹¹ This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.

¹² ‘On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. ¹³ The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

¹⁴ ‘This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord – a lasting ordinance.

Matthew 18: 15-20

¹⁵ ‘If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. ¹⁶ But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that “every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” ¹⁷ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.

¹⁸ ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

¹⁹ ‘Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. ²⁰ For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.’ Amen.

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

Sermon  

Matthew 3:20  

I came across this childhood memory of an Australian minister:

Where two or three people gather together in my name, I am there in the middle of them.  Childhood memories.

 This text was among the first that I learned. Nobody set out to teach this one to me. I just knew it from hearing it so frequently.

The tiny weatherboard church our family attended was at rural Swan Bay, on the Tamar River in Tasmania. I loved the setting. In those days, hundreds of black swans used to frequent the shallow bay, honking, tails up feeding on weed, or flying at low altitude across the water with their majestic, sweeping wings. After church, while adults chatted, we kids could play on the gravelly beach near the swans.

That congregation was not very large. It seemed thinly scattered, even in that small building.  Once a month the service was taken by an ordained minister. On the other Sundays, a variety of lay preachers (from the city of Launceston) would lead our worship.

There was one whimsical thing that often happened. I would watch the preacher’s eyes roving over the meagre congregation. Sometimes there would be an audible sigh, as he stood up to commence. I could see him coming to grips with the fact that this was going to be hard work. In the opening prayer the familiar words would tumble out, more as a reassurance for him than for the congregation:

 “Lord Jesus, thou hast promised that where two or three are gathered together in thy name, thou wilt be in our midst. We claim that promise to day.

  Come we beseech thee, Lord, and fill our hearts……… etc.”

 No wonder I knew that text by heart before I was five years old! It was even more familiar than “God is love” and “For God so loved the world.” It was a great text to have imprinted on my mind at such an early age. BP

This story reminded me of the first congregation which I looked after in rural Québec in a village called Valcartier. Then it was just a collection of turkey farms around a crossroads where the church sat on a hillock to which the few local Presbyterians came from the surrounding country. Nowadays it is a vast holiday resort which boasts the largest “snow park” on earth.  The congregation was tiny, and one memory is of the organist, who was prone to seeing ghosts in the cemetery below the church, repeating these words of Jesus in a small prayer group which we shared with the United Church during the week.

Through the centuries, these words “Where two or three are gathered together in my name” have usually been used to describe the remarkable secret of public worship and fellowship: That the eternal Christ is present in the assemblies of God’s people, convening the assembly, and blessing those who gather in his name.

But the meaning of “gathered in my name” is, I believe, much broader than that of only worship and fellowship. It includes any gathering of Christians, drawn together, for whatever humble reason, in response to the love of God in Christ Jesus.

It includes a Christian medical team, planning a visit to deprived people in Africa or Latin America. It includes the members of a parish “Stewardship Committee” as they organise a review of the financial giving within a particular congregation. It includes a few women organising a lunch or a coffee morning a fete or a rota for flowers or cleaning.

The two or three gathered in the Lord’s name applies to a music group or choir, as they do the hard work of planning and practising for worship on the coming Sunday. It applies to Board of Managers planning to keep the church in repair or organising funds to send to a twinned congregation. Or in a city overseeing a half-way house for the rehabilitation of street kids. It applies to a tired minister and his wife trying to timetable a few days away together.

Gathered in the Lord’s name is a promise that embraces a church work-party of builders, bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, and their supporting band of handy men and women, as they build a new hall  as happened in Canada  or volunteering to work in Nepal or somewhere in Africa.

It embraces two or three Sunday school teachers as they gather to discuss how to help one child with serious personality disorder. It may be just a casual gathering of young, harried mothers over a morning coffee, there to support one another, with not one specific religious word spoken.

It applies to Bible study leaders during their planning over an evening meal, or a property committee consulting with an architect about the problem maintaining a tower or dealing with damp in church walls. It applies to a working bee busy tidying up the church garden and grounds, or a small group singing to the frail and elderly in nursing homes.

One could go on and on. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name” We must not allow ourselves to fall into the trap of limiting these words to the context of worship and prayer. It is much, much more.

This raises the question, ‘What makes it genuinely “in his name?”’ When is a gathering truly in the name of Christ Jesus and when not?

The name “Jesus” does not have to be even spoken for a happening to be in his name. A prayer does not have to be uttered aloud, nor a passage of the Bible read to make an event fit the category of “in Christ’s name”

It is the goal, the purpose, and the spirit of an event which matters. Whenever we come together in any situation in order to serve and glorify God, then it is in the name of Jesus

In a sad contrast to this, there can be discussions at church meetings, opened by prayer and Bible reading, which are not conducted in the spirit of Christ. There can religious gatherings, outwardly convened in the name of the Lord that can be self-righteous and judgmental, foreign to everything Jesus taught as the core of faith and love. I once heard the foulest language spoken at a meeting in a church by disgruntled former members of a congregation in Sydney.

Spirit and truth are what count most. It is the goal and the spirit of a coming together that matters. The very soul of the gathering. Forget the externals, whether it happens on church property or in a pub, with hymns and prayers or with no overt religious comment. If we are truly present to do the will of God in the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ, then we have well met in his name. As Christians we carry the person of Jesus with us and every meeting is potentially a gathering in his name.

No amount of outward piety will constitute a holy gathering. And no absence of external religion in words or action, will debar it from the possibility of being in the name of the Son of God. It is the purpose for which we gather, and the attitude with which we deal with the business, the spirit in which we deal with each other, which makes the difference.

When we get it right, the Lord is truly in our midst. Where two or three people gather together in my name, I am there in the middle of them.

This is not just a metaphor. It is for real.  It describes the mind-boggling truth of what actually happens. Jesus meant what he said this to his disciples. This is a promise of the highest order.

Our human promises can be a mixed bag. Some are fulfilled, many are not. Often, we are full of good intentions when we make our promises, but we do not always carry them through to the disappoint of others.

When some people say to us “I promise,” we often smirk or sigh within ourselves because we know that although at that moment the other person thinks he or she means it, the promise shallow or expedient.

The reason why so many promises are not kept is because we never really intended them. We did not promise with all our heart and soul, mind, and strength.

But with Jesus it is different. What comes out of his mouth is what he really is and does. Word and action are one. Intention and commitment are one.

When Jesus says, “Where two or three people gather together in my name, I am there in the midst of them” He means it! There is no equivocation, no proviso, and no footnote in small print. What the Lord promises is fulfilled. If we meet to glorify God, and do so in the spirit of Jesus, our Christ is present.

Here today, this is only one of his many meeting places. Now. In this place, as we have gathered. As we have greeted each another. As we have listened to the Word, as we pray and as we sing along with the hymns under our masks. Some will eat and drink from a humble table. We will all prepare to go out into the world in peace. The Lord is here.

You may not “feel” him. But your feelings don’t count. Every promise of God is real, faith treats it as eternally fulfilled, as a fact.  Our feelings don’t change the fact that it may be raining or sunny outside. So, it is with faith in the promises of God. Our feelings are a very insecure base for our faith in the living God. It is the promise that counts. Not our word of honour but his.

God has never revoked that promise in two thousand years. He is not about to opt out today.

Where two or three people gather together in my name, I am there in the midst of them.

Wherever these words are heard in the wilds of Tasmania or Canada or here in a church or hall in Scotland, we may marvel once more at the awesome humility of the Lord of life and glory, who keeps his word, even to the least and the last among his followers. Amen.

Invitation to the Offering

God has provided what we need to enjoy his creation, and to serve him and our neighbour with love and kindness Our offering will share the gifts God gives to our neighbours in need in the name of Christ, our Lord.

 

Prayer of Dedication

Lord God, receive these gifts, offered in a spirit of generosity and humility. Bless and use them for the work of the Gospel throughout the world, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession

Creator of heaven and earth, l over of every soul, we are filled with gratitude for the blessings of this life.

We thank you for making us in your image to love and care for one another,

We praise you for the gift of the Christ, who redeems and guides us, and who shows us by his example how we may live to the praise of your glory.

Your love and grace are sorely needed in this world, and we bring our prayers that many may be healed and blessed by them.

We pray for this beautiful planet, the fragile home we share with all living things, suffering from the depredation of so much human greed and selfishness…

(Take time to fill out these petitions in your own words.)

We pray for those who serve in our local  and national governments that they may find and receive the wisdom and courage to be  just and fair as well as responsible for the welfare of all  in the decisions they make.

For those who serve as teachers, healers, and caregivers as they face challenging situations this autumn, and for all students who return to school in very different circumstances…

For the homeless and the hungry, for the unemployed and the anxious, and for all who have become more vulnerable because of the pandemic we are enduring.

For those who mourn and those who are alone or feeling isolated…

For the powerless and oppressed, and those caught up in destructive relationships or unjust political systems…

 We pray for your church here, our friends and neighbours deprived of fellowship for so long in Scotland and around the world as we face so many new challenges and needs…

And for the concerns which are on our minds for ourselves and those whom we love today…

Eternal God, we thank you for those who have gone before us and who showed us their measure of your eternal love. Keep us always in communion with them and with all your people from every time and place in Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Benediction

May the Source of life hold you in the faith;
the Word of life speak clearly in truth around you;
and Breath of life, of grace, of wisdom,
sing in your inmost being this day and all your days. 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 and the ones marked “listen” do not have the lyrics on the screen:

It is well with my soul (listen)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7OFEdiGe1I

Jesus, Name above all names

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36-uu4TvOk4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndDh9yiRqag

 Father, we praise thee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFHTvgOZpjs

 Great is Thy faithfulness

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTKIqmdfHSk

Seek ye first the kingdom of God

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Y8Naj3RFk

We’re marching to Zion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcAfxUj1D_0

Hear the call of the Kingdom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRoX3LlcXQs

May God’s blessing surround you each day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_3O_N49GiU

Count your blessings (listen)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TJQxxEa9Os

For Children

I’m sure that most of you have played with a yo-yo. A yo-yo is a simple toy, but it is a lot of fun. Some people can make the yo-yo do amazing tricks, but the main thing a yo-yo does is go up and down, up and down. That is also a good picture of some people, too…even you and me. We all have our “ups and downs,” don’t we? Sometimes we are happy and sometimes we are sad. We may be hardworking one day and lazy the next. We may be honest one day and dishonest the next. Can you think of other ways that we have “ups and downs?”

In our Bible lesson today, we will see that Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, also had his “ups and downs,” and we will see how God punished Pharaoh for his wicked ways. When you think the people are having an “up,” stand up while I make the yo-yo go up. If you think they are having a “down,” sit down while I make the yo-yo go down.

God had spoken to Moses from a burning bush and told him to go to Pharaoh and tell him to set his people free. (Up) They had been slaves in Egypt for many years. (Down) So Moses and his brother, Aaron, went to see Pharaoh and asked him to set God’s people free, but Pharaoh said, “No, I will not let them go.” (Down)

Because Pharaoh refused to obey, God began to send terrible plagues on Egypt. (Down) One time, God sent frogs all over the land. There were so many frogs that Pharaoh thought he would croak. At other times, God sent gnats, flies, and locusts. That really bugged Pharaoh! Well, Pharaoh had more ups and downs than a yo-yo. When God would send one of the plagues, Pharaoh would tell Moses that if God would make it go away, he would let his people go. (Up) But after God made the plague go away, Pharaoh would change his mind and refuse to let the people go. (Down) Since Pharaoh was so hard-hearted and refused to let God’s people go, God continued to send plagues upon Egypt—there were ten in all. (Down)

The final plague was the worst of all. God told Moses to tell Pharaoh that the last plague would be so terrible that it would change his heart and he would let the people go. Every firstborn son and every firstborn male animal would die. How sad! It is always sad to see what happens to people when they refuse to obey God. Since Pharaoh and the people in Egypt refused to do what God told them to do, they suffered terribly! That may be hard to understand but remember—God had given them many opportunities to do what He told them to do, but they refused. (Down)

God gave Moses instructions on how his own people were to prepare for the last plague. He said that every family was to take a one-year-old lamb, one that was perfect in every way, and prepare a meal. They were to take some of the blood from the lamb and smear it on the sides and tops of the doorway of their houses.

God warned the people that there was going to be a lot of death in the land. God said to His people, “The blood will serve as a sign on the houses where you live. When I see the blood, I will pass over you—no harm will touch you when I strike the land of Egypt.” (Up)

After God sent that tenth plague, Pharaoh changed his mind and freed God’s children. (Up)

God cares for us just like He cared for His children in Egypt long ago. In fact, He made a way for us to get out of our messes too. (Up) Just like Pharaoh, we have our ups and downs, but Jesus died on the cross for all the wrong things we have done. If we believe in Him and ask Him to come into our hearts, He makes a way for us to go to heaven.

Here is a video about the Passover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh1N9sgj1V0

Intimations

Please remember to indicate to Joan More if you wish to attend worship in Inverkeithing. Owing to Government regulations, numbers will be restricted to fewer than fifty persons and places will be allocated on a first come first served basis each week. Please call Joan 01383 414515 on Friday between 10am and 4pm to indicate that you wish to attend. Please do not come without first ensuring your place each week as we do not wish to turn anyone away on the day.