St Clement Church Community First after Trinity Sunday Service

 

 

Good morning to those of you worshipping at home.

We are now in the month of June and at last, the rain has stopped and the sun has returned, not only to warm the earth but also to warm our hearts as we watch and wait to see if life is really getting back to normal.

Many of us have had difficult times to face during the Covid restrictions but, we must remember that we have never been alone – it is only we, ourselves, who put a barrier between us and God.

So, as we feel the warmth of the sun, let us let go of all barriers between us and God and feel the warmth of his everlasting love and forgiveness.

My love to you all

Liz

 

Let us pray;

 

Dear Father,

Quieten our minds

Still our hearts

For your living ways are all we seek

Strengthen our lives

Inspire our spirits

In your living waters flow endless grace       Amen

Our prayers of Penitence

 

God our Father, we come to you in sorrow for our sins; for turning away from you and ignoring your will for our lives;

Father, forgive us:

Save us and help us.

 

For behaving just as we wish, without thinking of you;

Father, forgive us:

Save us and help us.

 

For failing you by what we do, think and say;

Father, forgive us:

Save us and help us.

 

For letting ourselves be drawn away from you by temptations in the world about us;

Father, forgive us:

Save us and help us.

 

For living as if we were ashamed to belong to your Son;

Father, forgive us:

Save us and help us.

 

Amen.

 

 

Let us pray our Collect for the First Sunday after Trinity

 

O God, the strength of all those who put their trust in you, mercifully accept our prayers and, because through the weakness of our mortal nature, we can do no good thing without you, grant us the help of your grace, that in the keeping of your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

 Amen.  

                                                                                           

 

 

Readings:

 

Genesis 3. 8 – 15

2 Corinthians 4. 13 – 5. 1

 

Gospel: Mark 3. 20 - end

(Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John. 

Response: ‘Glory to you O Lord.’)

 

The crowd came together again, so that Jesus and his companions could not even eat.                                                                                                                                          When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’                                                                                                 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.’                                                                       And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, the kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.                                                                                                                                    And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come.                                                                                                                           But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’ – for they had said, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’

 

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him.                                                                                                                         A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.’

And he replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’

And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’

 

(This is the Gospel of the Lord.    Praise to you, O Christ.)

 

Reflection

 

I wonder – have you ever accused someone of ‘being out of their mind?’ Probably. It is not unheard of for us to make such an accusation about people we know.  We say it when someone does something that we can’t ‘get our head round’ or we don’t understand or we wouldn’t dare!                                                       I accused son number two of ‘being out of his mind!’ when I learnt that he had done the world’s highest bungee jump when he was in New Zealand. You notice – he told me afterwards, thankfully, and he admitted he had been!                                                                                                        I don’t think I was much less polite to his wife when she told me she had taken the world’s longest zip wire!

There are lots of situations in which we might ask the question ‘Have you gone out of your mind?’ to someone we know, but we don’t expect anyone to ask that question of Jesus.

The fact that people are saying, ‘He is insane,’ helps us to understand the ways some people view Jesus during His early ministry. Some people are really alarmed by His behaviour.

Even Jesus’ family is worried and friends come to seize Him because they too think he is insane. Perhaps, the family and friends are really concerned that Jesus is not taking sufficient physical care of himself and their intervention is out of loving concern and support for Him, or maybe, like us, they think ‘he is out of His mind’ because they just don’t understand what He is doing.

If we believe that Jesus grew up as a ‘normal’ boy, His brothers and sisters who live with him just think of Him as a brother – no different from them. So, for them, they can’t understand why He is preaching and when they hear what He has to say – they are convinced He must be ‘out of His mind’ and they want to take Him away and ‘knock some sense’ into Him. But, they can’t get near Him as there are so many people around Him. So, they send Him a message but He ignores it by saying, ‘Who are my mother and brothers?’ so acknowledging no special ties or connection to them. In so doing, He emphasises that we can all be members of His, God’s family.

Jesus also alarms the scribes and Pharisees – they make the considerable trip from Jerusalem to Galilee to look into this ‘Jesus sensation.’ They say that He has been taken over by Beelzebul, an unclean, satanic, demonic spirit and they warn the crowds about Him.

Jesus answers their accusations by talking about divided houses and kingdoms. He has cast out demons, healed Peter’s mother-in-law, cleansed a leper and caused a paralytic to walk. The houses and kingdoms of these people are divided. They live with inner conflict and turmoil – as so many of us do – because their condition separates them from their community and all that gives them security and identity.

 

Division and inner conflict is a reality of today’s world and our lives. A nation divided results in vitriolic politics and in the extreme, civil war. An economy divided yields poverty and injustice. A community divided becomes individualism, tribalism, prejudice and violence. Humanity divided is all these things on a global level. Faith divided is sin.

 

We all know what it’s like to live divided lives. We all know those times when our outsides and our insides don’t match up – that’s what it means to be a house divided. We’re one person at work, another at home. We act one way with certain people and a different way with others. Life gets divided into pieces. Behaviour, beliefs and ethics become situational. There is the work life, the family life, the prayer life, the personal life, the social life – so, pretty soon, we’re left with a collection of pieces. 

It seems as if we are constantly trying to put the pieces of our lives together. That’s why the crowd is gathered round Jesus. That’s why the religious authorities oppose Him. That’s why His family tries to restrain Him. In their own way each is trying to put the pieces of their own life together but it’s not working. They won’t fit. They have been found out. Their life and their world are neither what they think they are, nor what Jesus knows they could be. 

 

Jesus stands before us as the image of unity, wholeness, integration. He is the stronger one. He does for us, what we cannot do for ourselves. He puts our lives and our houses back in order. Jesus offers a different image of what life might look like. He does so by revealing the division in our lives, the houses that cannot stand, the crumbling of our kingdoms.  

Even when it’s for our own good, with the offer of new life and wholeness, that’s a hard place to be. It means change is coming and most of us don’t like that – it can be frightening.

When the people say ‘He has gone out of his mind,’ and the religious authorities accuse Him of allegiance to Beelzebul, the ruler of demons, they are projecting onto Jesus their own inner conflict and division. They are declaring that which is holy, sacred and beautiful to be unclean, dirty and bereft of God. Their accusations are more about themselves than Jesus.

It is very hard to look at division and inner conflict within our own lives. The beginning of wholeness is acknowledging our brokenness. Where is our own house divided? How and to what extent have we created conflict and division within our relationships? In what ways do we live fragmented lives, pushing out pieces here and there? What is it that shatters each of our lives – anger, resentment, greed, insecurity, perfectionism, sorrow, loss, fear, envy, guilt, loneliness?

There are all sorts of forces, things, events and sometimes even people by which our lives are broken and through which we are separated from God, others and ourselves. Christ is stronger than anything that fragments our lives. He binds the forces that divide, heals the wounds that separate and reshapes pieces into a new whole.

There is nothing about our lives that cannot be put back together by the love of God in Christ.

Amen

 

Spirit of Imperfection by Jeannie Kendall

 

Wholeness and brokenness can be strangely misleading.

We wear our ‘wholeness’ like a badge of honour

Seldom recognising that it is a shield;

Our prized invulnerability a mask deflecting gazes

Which we fear may linger too long and see what is within.

Yet, if we could but own our brokenness,

find it held by fellow-pilgrims as a sacrament;

we may yet discover that in our fragile, broken selves

we are more whole than ever we were

hiding behind our strength;

and where we see only fracture,

God sees instead a window through which

His light and life may flow.

 

Affirmation of our faith

 

Let us declare our faith in God.

 

With Christians everywhere, we believe in one God who made everything.

The Father sent his Son Jesus to die upon the cross.

Jesus rose again as Lord of all, that we might live for ever with him.

God sent his Holy Spirit to live in us that we might grow more like Jesus.

 

 Amen.

 

 

 

Our Intercessions this week are written by Daphne Hawkins

 

In the power of the Spirit and in union with Christ let us pray to the Father.

Almighty and merciful Father we come to you assured of your promise to hear us when we pray in faith.

We pray for the Church world-wide, Archbishop Justin, our own bishops

 Philip and Hugh and all church leaders who face the challenges of leading the Christian way of life in today’s modern world. We especially pray for Reverend Diane whose gift of care and compassion sustains not only our church but the whole of our community and the needs of her family. Please give her your strength and love to face each day.

 

Lord in your mercy; hear our prayer

 

We continue to pray for our own country with the global pandemic which still prevails. May we listen and heed the warnings and advice the medical experts and governments are giving us.

Our own country is still at risk with visitors and the G7 Conference which will bring so many people to such a small environment. We pray that you will guide us and all who will be here during the coming weeks; that we continue to be careful and vigilant in everything we do, protecting ourselves and our visitors at all times.

 

Lord in your mercy; hear our prayer

 

Lord, we thank you for all your gifts to us; for guiding and protecting us; for the beauty and tranquillity of our surroundings and all things that make our lives so good.

May we always be mindful of so many of our brothers and sisters whose lives are blighted by hunger, homelessness, poverty, war, racial and physical abuse, refugees despised and unwanted and all people who do not have freedom to go about their daily lives.

Please help them; be with them in their times of trouble; lay your hands on them all especially the little ones and give comfort and hope in the way ahead.

 

Lord in your mercy; hear our prayer

 

 To carry out her duties alone. We pray for our Queen as she faces life without her soulmate Prince Philip. Give her strength to carry out her duties alone. We pray for her family that they will be with her and support her always.

 

Lord in your mercy; hear our prayer

 

We bring to you all who are sick and suffering; those who are troubled in mind and spirit and we name those known to us – Sandra, Derrek, Ken and Diane, Rupert and Linda, Brian, Martin and Liz and Daniel.                                             We pray for those whose troubles are not known to us, those who have no one to love, care or pray for them.

Lord, please give them all the comfort of your presence, the knowledge that they are never alone, the light and hope that faith will bring for the way ahead.

 

We pray for all who have recently entered your kingdom, may they find mercy and peace at the gates of heaven. We remember those we loved but see no more and we are comforted knowing they are at eternal rest.

 

Lord in your mercy; hear our prayer.

 

Lord of light shine on us.

Lord of peace dwell in us.

Lord of might succour us.

Lord of love enfold us.

Lord of wisdom enlighten us.

 

Then Lord, let us go out as your witnesses in obedience to your command, to share the good news of your almighty love for us in the gift of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ.

 

Rejoicing in the fellowship of St Andrew, St Clement and the Blessed Virgin Mary, we commend ourselves and the whole creation to your unfailing love.

 

Merciful Father, accept these prayers for the sake of your Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. 

Amen.

 

Gathering our prayers and praises into one,

Let us pray with confidence as our risen Lord taught us;

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.   And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,

for ever and ever. Amen.

 

Let Go    by Charissa K. Cheuk

 

‘Let go,’ He says. ‘Let go.’

But my heart is stubborn, so I do not let go.

‘What if it hurts?’ I say.

‘I know it will hurt,’ He says.

‘What if I fall?’ I say louder.

‘I know you will fall,’ He says.

‘But what if I can’t get up?

What if I can’t go on?

What if my heart breaks into a thousand pieces?’

‘It’s all right; just let go.’

‘No. I can’t. I want to, but I can’t.’

‘Let go.’

‘How? My heart will break. I t is breaking already.’

‘So, it will break. Let go.’

I can’t. It hurts.’

‘Don’t you know, my child?

If you fall, I will pick you up.

If you can’t go on, I will carry you.

Don’t you know, my child? Don’t you know?

It is when it breaks that I can make you whole again.

It is when it breaks that I can pick out these broken pieces that are hurting you.

It is when it breaks that you can truly learn to love.

You can rise again.

You will rise again.

Let it go.’

 

 

 

The Peace

 

Jesus said, ‘Peace I leave with you,

A peace the world cannot give.’

Peace be with us always.

Amen.

 

Blessing

 

To God the Father who loved us and made us accepted in the Beloved: to God the Son who loved us and loosed us from our sins by his own blood:

To God the Holy Spirit who spreads the love of God abroad in our hearts:                               to the one true God be all love and glory for time and eternity.

Amen.