9th May 2021. Service.
Sixth Sunday after Easter
Service For Children
Prelude: Let us sing to the Lord
Canticle of the turning
Collect for today
O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Joyful, joyful we adore thee
Let us sing a new song to the Lord,
for God has done marvellous things.
Let us make known the Lord’s victory,
All: for God’s steadfast love covers the whole earth.<
Let us sing joyful praises,
and join all creation to worship God’s holy name.
Prayer of Adoration and Confession
Holy God,
The power of your love is beyond our comprehension,
the breadth of your compassion without measure.
In Jesus Christ, you have come to us as we face life’s joys and challenges
and in Him you have shown us what it means to love and be loved.
You have entrusted us with the greatest commandment that we should
love you and love one another as Christ has loved us.
In this time of worship, we bring to hearts of gratitude offering you our love and loyalty. We also come to learn more of what love and loyalty mean for us as we live day by day and relate to one another.
Receive our prayers and praise,
and by the power of your Spirit, draw us closer to you
and closer to each other as friends and followers of Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord.
Merciful God,
We confess we often find it difficult to love others as you commanded. Our moods and feelings intrude and overcome our best intentions.
Though we intend to do your will, we find that we are pulled in other directions and we find ourselves thinking and saying things we know to be unworthy of you.
We look out for ourselves before we think of the well-being of others.
We act on our own desires rather than working for the common good.
We are quick to justify our own decisions and interests
and fail to understand the cost they impose on people or our environment.
Forgive us and reform us as we renew our commitment to live in your love
especially when it demands more of us than we expect. Give us grace as we need it.
Assurance of Pardon
We take comfort in that on Christ Jesus has the power to condemn us.
And Christ died for us; Christ rose for us; Christ reigns in power for us; Christ prays for us. We accept and believe the good news of the gospel. In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven and made new by God’s generous grace.
Prayer for Understanding
Lord, we need your wisdom and truth. Send your Holy Spirit to guide us as we listen that we may take away with us new understanding and insight into our calling to be your special people. For the sake of Jesus, Our Lord in Whom we pray,
The Lord’s Prayer (in the words most familiar to you)
Our Offering
On May 13, the church worldwide marks Jesus’ Ascension, which assures us that he will be present with his followers throughout every generation and in every culture. As we offer our gifts in thanksgiving, remember that they continue to honour Christ Jesus as Lord of all times and all places.
Prayer of Dedication
Generous God, we bless you for your gift of life renewed in Christ’s love. Bless us and the gifts we bring so that our lives may reflect the hope and renewal we have found in Christ throughout our community and in the world, you love, in his holy name. Amen.
As the deer pants for the water
The Readings
Psalm 98
A psalm.
1 Sing to the Lord a new song,
for he has done marvellous things.
His right hand and his holy arm
have worked salvation for him.
2 The Lord has made his salvation known
and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
3 He has remembered his love
and his faithfulness to Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation of our God.
4 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth,
burst into jubilant song with music.
5 make music to the Lord with the harp,
with the harp and the sound of singing,
6 with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn –
shout for joy before the Lord, the King.
7 Let the sea resound, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it.
8 Let the rivers clap their hands,
let the mountains sing together for joy.
9 Let them sing before the Lord,
for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world in righteousness
and the peoples with equity.’ Amen.
You shall go out with joy
1 John 5:1-6
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.
2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.
3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,
4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
6 This is the one who came by water and blood – Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies because the Spirit is the truth. Amen
John 15:9-17
9 ‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
12 My command is this: love each other as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
14 You are my friends if you do what I command.
15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.
17 This is my command: love each other. Amen
Now thank we all our God
Sermon
I knocked over a little bottle in the kitchen pantry the other day. Actually, I knocked over a larger container of something else, and it toppled the smaller bottle which spilled because its cap was not on securely. It was essence of vanilla, a sticky brown mess which had to be mopped up and rinsed away. I found myself thinking about the word essence. The word ‘essence’ has a fancy dictionary definition. The intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something which determines its character. You’ve got to have a good vocabulary to understand that definition, but the OED was helpful when it added: an extract or concentrate obtained from a plant or other matter and used for flavouring or scent. And cited vanilla essence, of course.
Essence, the one thing that is essential about something the sine qua non of being.
The source of all being is of course God. So, what is the essence of God, what is God made of?
Answer: Loving and loving and yet more loving, that’s what God is made of.
Please notice that I am using the word “loving” rather than love. It may sound clumsy. But I have deliberately chosen this clumsiness. I do so, not to be awkward but to try and express a truth that’s important.
To say “God is love” sounds static. That is, not quite enough. God is loving us right now. The God we know through Jesus is always active. God is the untiring Lover who is there for us, active all the time. Love is only known through action. It is not a substance like water or an abstract idea like perfection. The love of God is an all-embracing activity, the love of Christ is saving activity, the love of the Spirit is enabling activity.
This is something which John wrestled with in his first letter. The whole letter and whole chapters of it define God as love and insists on the centrality of God’s love and our calling to reveal it. John is essentially saying that nothing matters more.
Jesus said categorically, “This is my commandment: That you love one another as I have loved you.”
When Jesus asks us to love one another, he is inviting us to participate in God’s essential activity; to align ourselves with that Joy which is the ultimate activity in the universe. The whole purpose of life on this planet is to produce loving creatures.
The complex, painstaking process of creating humanity, is driven by God’s loving. The immense time scale involved, is for the creation of lovers.
The painfully slow growth in human understanding, all the long travail of humanity in its noble moments, is for the purpose of loving.
The triumph of the human spirit over set back, calamity, suffering, and evil in multiple forms, is to produce loving persons.
Nothing matters more. Nothing is more fundamental. Nothing else that exists in time also transcends time with such power. The whole purpose is for us to become loving beings, like God. It is as simple as that and as profound as that.
Jesus asks us to participate in the fundamental actions of God, and in so doing we will find our fulfilment.
Is that asking too much? Is it too much to ask of little earth creatures, whose lives last only a fragment of time, to attempt to be like God? Some would say an emphatic “Yes! it is asking too much. Maybe it is both arrogant and ridiculous.
The scriptures tell us otherwise. The Bible insists that we have a special nature and a special destiny. We have a remarkable likeness to God. Not physical likeness of course, but a personal one. Indeed, sometimes I reckon that what is harder to believe is not what the Bible tells us about God but what it tells us about humanity. The Bible has such a high vision of humanity that it stretches our credulity, to the extent that most of the time we don’t even think about it, rarely of ourselves and often not at all about other people.
One of the two Genesis stories of creation says that we are made in the image of God. The second says that God’s own breath, or Spirit is in us and constitutes our very being.
Psalm 8 says we are created only a little less than the gods. Psalm 82 dares to present God speaking to us and saying: “I tell you, you are gods, children of the most high.” Jesus himself reminded the Pharisees of this when they said his claim to be of God was blasphemous.
Paul revels in the fact that the Holy Spirit witnesses in our mind and heart that “we are children of God, joint-heirs with Christ.”
Humanity and God are compatible. As astounding as it is, it is true. We and that hidden, vast creative mind that brought time and a space into being, share a similarity.
That Jesus invites us to participate in the characteristic activity of God is one of the most staggering claims of the gospel. It is not a futile thing to ask humans to be loving; In us there is a little god, a divine spirit, a God-like potential which longs to be fulfilled.
We are made for the purpose of loving one another and loving our Creator. And as the first letter of John insists, we cannot say we love God unless we are loving to one another. These are inseparable. Loving is indigenous to us. More so than we would ever deduce from looking at the selfishness of much of humanity. We are called to be loving because it is the very food of our souls and the purest expression of our spirits. This is my commandment: That you love one another as I have loved you.
This loving cannot be understood by only looking up a dictionary or seeking synonyms. Those sources will contain no more love than a match box. Nor can a true understanding of loving be fully grasped by recourse to a scholarly analysis of the Greek or Hebrew words used for love. Such an analysis may point us in the right direction and make us realise how deprived the English language is when it comes to expressing love. Yet it cannot teach us loving.
To get to the crux of the meaning of loving, we must spend time with Jesus of Nazareth. He alone makes explicit the hidden loving of God for this world. His life is our only definition of what the Gospel means by love. John records the words Jesus uses to his followers as: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
If we follow this request, we must embrace the whole of Jesus as our definition of loving. We cannot edit out, or conveniently forget, the tough titanium in the loving of Jesus. Too often the scope of Christian love is reduced to the level of sentimentality. A candyfloss Jesus proclaiming a God whose love is about as strong as a soufflé, will not do.
Our souls know love, they come from love, but in this dualistic world where evil is the shadow against which love is projected, it is too easy to lose love and react with fear and hate and it takes courage and strength to love. We have to prize it and fight for it.
The love Jesus reveals includes –
challenging corruption and deceits,
caring for the welfare of our enemies,
lending without expecting to be repaid,
forgiving seventy time seven those who hurt us, turning the other cheek,
giving without wanting gratitude or praise,
confronting with naked honesty the hypocrisies of religion,
expressing anger when one’s fellows are being exploited,
cleansing the temple,
embracing outcasts and welcoming sinners, accepting that in some circumstances misunderstanding will be our lot;
that rejection and suffering may be the only apparent result of our holiest efforts.
With Jesus we get to the crux of loving. I chose that word “crux” deliberately, for it is the sacrifice of Jesus that has given us, even two millennia later, that word crux. The whole of the life of Jesus displays love for us; but this reaches its climax on a cross. There he is crucified, forgiving his enemies and full of compassion for those around him. This is ultimate loving. This is what it means to be Divine. It is also what it means to be fully human. This is my commandment: That you love one another as I have loved you. Love that is forged in the fires of struggle and suffering is the only love worth having. Love is prepared to suffer to express itself even at the cost of rejection, of wasting itself.
Make no mistake about this: Jesus shows that human beings are compatible with God. He demonstrates that it is possible to share God’s characteristic, loving activity. He demonstrates the glory that flames forth from humanity when loving is our passion, the “great love of our life”.
Back to vanilla essence. It can be real or artificial. The artificial variety is a concoction of chemical esters dissolved in alcohol. Real is made by soaking Madagascar or Tahitian vanilla beans in alcohol for three months minimum to release its flavonoids. There is nothing artificial about loving. It’s not like making a dog walk on its hind legs or a lion to eat grass. Loving does not always come easily, but it is the most natural of all disciplines of to learn. It fits us like nothing else.
Did you notice that up to this point I have not mentioned the word “feeling”?
That’s because love is not a feeling, not a mere emotion, but a commitment, not a gush of kindness but an act of will. Once we start loving one another as Christ has loved us, warm feelings may follow. That is very pleasant, but it is not the crux of loving. Loving is the result of a decision to be a loving person; just as Christ made that decision and reaffirmed it in the last days that led to the cross. That is why it is perfectly valid for us to use the phrase Greater love has no man than this, that he gives up his life for his fellows. Every natural system has a defence force, our immune system; each plant and animal has its defence mechanisms. Cells or units which voluntarily work to ensure the survival of the whole. To do their job they must be prepared to sacrifice their being for the whole. It is an expression of love, the love that undergirds all of life. Those who volunteer do so ultimately out of love for country, kin and loved ones. Such love is not a feeling, but a choice, and in many ways unless we make that conscious choice to love, we have only bitterness left. Do you know how to detect artificial vanilla in baked goods. It leaves a bitter aftertaste; you don’t get with the real thing. Check it the next time you buy something at the baker’s shop!
If we only love others when we feel like it, God help them! And God help us! Because we would then urgently need Divine rescue, in case we end up with a synthetic love.
We are made to be loving beings. Loving is the goal of the human psyche and the food of the soul.
What is the essence of God? Loving and loving and then more loving, that’s what we are also called to be.
“This is my commandment: That you love one another as I have loved you.” Amen.
Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession
God of our lives and our loving,
We thank you for the signs of resurrection that are all around us as the new growth of Spring strengthens around us showing that life is stronger than death.
Give us grace that we may recognize and embrace the gifts of the new life that your love makes possible for us all, as we pray that your resurrecting power may renew the world that suffers from so much human depredation.
God of home and family, today we thank you for our families now that we are able to meet again in person. We are grateful for their love and attention, and for the ties that bind. We pray that as we continue to be cautious, you will preserve and keep our lives. We honour all who have died during this difficult year and we pray for all those who mourn or who continue to feel isolated from their families and friends. Reunite us in your love.
We pray for the success of the vaccination programmes here and around the world. We continue to pray for the people of India and Brazil and every place where new variants are taking hold. Have mercy upon
God of connections and compassion,
Today we thank you for our friends and relations,
for the neighbours and fellow citizens who help to make our lives complete.
We thank you for smiles shared, helping hands offered, commitments honoured. And we pray for all those around us who are facing challenges today
(Keep a brief silence)
Restore our hope with your love.
God of courage and new possibility,
Today we pray for all those who have felt life or love slipping through their fingers in the times of distancing we have had to endure,
and for those who have struggled with their physical or mental health,
whatever the reason.
We pray for communities trying to sort out how to recover from the pandemic
and for all those worried about their personal future.
Encourage us with your love.
God of forgiveness and renewal:
Today we pray for those whose relationships are need of repair
and for all who work for peace and reconciliation in the face of deep divisions.
We pray for families, churches, communities, and countries facing conflict,
and ask that your Spirit open hearts and minds to deeper understanding.
Reconcile us through your love in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Christian Aid Week Prayer
Great God,
Who makes the sun to rise, and opens the heavens,
Hear the cry of the people
Who sow in hope for rain, but reap only despair,
Hear the cry of the people
Seeking shelter from the storm, their hopes and homes submerged
Hear the cry of the people.
When creation is hitting back, with rage and resistance
Give us hope, grant us salvation,
Give us a new relationship with creation
With reverence to tend this gift from You
And say once again of the earth and all you created
It is GOOD.
(Rev. Bob Kikuyu, Christian Aid Global Theology Advisor, Nairobi, Kenya)
Glorious things of thee are spoken
<22>Sending out and Benediction
Jesus speaks again today:
“This is my commandment,
that you love one another
as I have loved you.”
Go in joy and faithfulness, knowing that you,
the chosen friends of Jesus Christ, abide in Jesus’ love
and bear the gift of this love to the world. Amen.
Postlude: How can I keep from singing
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:
Canticle of the turning
Let us sing to the Lord
Now thank we all our God
Amigos de Cristo
Glorious things of thee are sp0ken
You shall go out with joy
Joyful, joyful we adore thee
How can I keep from singing
As the deer pants for the water
For Children
When you are offered a sweet from a selection, are there flavours which you like better than others? I’m not fond of banana flavoured sweets or butterscotch. In my experience, kids can be particular about the flavour they choose, which means I almost always end up ones I don’t enjoy with when all the other flavours are gone. Maybe fewer children like butterscotch so that they are the only ones left
Sometimes we treat people like those last to be chosen, butterscotch sweets. In outdoor games, certain children are always the last to be chosen. Other times, children can leave others out from gatherings, parties, or other activities. Maybe sometimes there are reasons, like the child left out isn’t a great athlete, or maybe he or she is interested in different things than your friends. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t feel good to be left out.
Was there ever a time you felt left out or were chosen last?
How did that make you feel?
Did you know you weren’t alone in that sad time? Jesus was with you! He doesn’t want anyone to be left out. In the Bible, He reminded His friends that He loves ALL the children, no matter what they look like or what their interests and talents are. And He wants us to love others like that, too. He said, “Love each other as I have loved you.” Today we’re going to think more about how to love everyone and not leave anyone out–butterscotch or not.
Dear Father, help us to remember that Jesus taught us to love one another just as You loved Him and as He loved us. In Jesus’ name, amen
Here is a song about being friends in Jesus:
Amigos de Cristo