St Clement Sunday Morning Service 18.9.22
Good morning to you as we commemorate our Sunday morning service the day before our beloved Queen’s funeral.
There is a special Holy Communion being held in Church, this service is for you to read at home if you’re unable to be with us in person.
Much love and prayers and may Christ’s love sustain you always.
Rev Di and family xx
Let us pray;
Almighty God, you judge us with infinite mercy and justice
and love everything you have made.
In your mercy turn the darkness of death into the dawn of new life,
and the sorrow of parting into the joy of heaven;
through our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Hymn: ‘All my hope on God is founded’
Our prayers of Penitence
God has shone in our hearts
to give the light of the knowledge of his glory in the face of Christ.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.
As we acknowledge our human frailty, we call to mind our sins of word, deed and omission, and confess them before God our Father.
You raise the dead to life in the Spirit:
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
You bring pardon and peace to the broken in heart:
Christ, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
You make one by your Spirit the torn and divided:
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
May God our Father forgive us our sins
and bring us to the eternal joy of his kingdom,
where dust and ashes have no dominion. Amen.
Let us pray our Collect for today
Merciful Father and Lord of all life, we praise you that we are made in your image and reflect your truth and light. We thank you for the life of our late Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth, for the love she received from you and showed among us. Above all, we rejoice at your gracious promise to all your servants, living and departed, that we shall rise again at the coming of Christ. And we ask that in due time we may share with your servant Elizabeth that clearer vision promised to us in the same Christ our Lord; who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
Readings:
Lamentations 3.22-26, 31-33
Psalm 121
2 Corinthians 4.16-5.4
Hymn: ‘Lord of all hopefulness’
Gospel: John. 6.35-40
(Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John
Response: ‘Glory to you O Lord.’)
Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away; for I have come down from heaven,
not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal
life; and I will raise them up on the last day.’
(This is the Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, O Christ.)
Our Reflection is written by Liz Davies
On 6th February 1952 the people of the United Kingdom, and the world, learned, by radio, that King George V1 had died. While he was greatly respected and held in affection by his people, for most of them he was a rather remote figure, heard on the radio occasionally and seen in black and white photographs in daily newspapers often days after the event. With that announcement came ‘God save the Queen.’
I don’t know if you can remember what you did on Coronation Day, just over a year later – I can! I was sent to bed at 4:00pm – the indignity! - with the promise that I would be allowed up later to go down and see the fireworks which were let off at Newham. I was and we did!
Due to the, then, unimaginable changes in technology over the last seventy years, Her Majesty the Queen has not been a remote figure, rather, she has almost been a member of each of our families as we have been able to see her and hear her wherever she has been in the world at the time she was there. I suspect we’ve known more about what she’s ‘been up to’ than we have members of our own families!
While the King meant not a lot to me, children, the age I was when Elizabeth came to the throne, will, at least, remember her as the person who had tea with Paddington Bear – now what can be more special than that?
So, what does all this have to do with today’s Gospel reading?
I wonder what is the present that we have received that we treasure the most? What is it that would most break our hearts if we lost it or it was stolen from us? Or, is our treasure something else? A relationship perhaps, our eyesight, mobility or independence? Something or someone that makes us want to get up each morning and encounter the world afresh.
Perhaps, sadly we feel like we’ve already lost what we treasure most.
I wonder, are we regarded as a gift to someone else?
Do we give the encouragement, strength and motivation to do things that they might not otherwise consider themselves able to achieve? Who do we bring joy when we spend time with them?
Well, for Jesus, each of us who have approached Him in faith, and recognise Him as the bread of life, our daily source of nourishment, is a gift. Yes, by God’s grace He is a gift to us in His birth, death and resurrection and that is something we’re quite used to considering, I suspect. BUT, how often do we remember that our recognition of and faith in Jesus are a gift to Him?
I wonder if being given by God as a gift to Jesus changes the way that we perceive ourselves?
Does that idea make us feel special? We have been especially given into Jesus’ care and as such it may make us feel our existence is more worthwhile as a spiritual gift to Jesus than our mundane earthly existence would suggest. It can give us a closeness to Jesus that makes our conversation in prayer one of the key-points of our lives.
Or, does the idea make us feel unworthy? Many of us will have times when we feel, there is surely no way we are good enough to be a gift worthy of Jesus’ attention let alone His tone of celebration in today’s Gospel reading. Yet, here He is saying that we are a treasured gift from God that He will raise up as a new creation at the culmination of God’s Kingdom.
If each of us is God’s gift to Jesus, I wonder what God will have fashioned us into, from the raw materials of our lives now, when we reach our fulfilment in his presence. Our faith, our belief in the risen Lord Jesus as the bread of life, at whatever stage it is and however we manage to live it out within the constrictions placed on us in this earthly life, is merely the embryo of what it will become when God brings us to completion in Christ, on the last day.
On 29th May 1926 the then Princess Elizabeth was baptised in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace – sadly no longer there as it was a victim of one of the nine raids during the Blitz in which the Palace itself was hit.
At that occasion the water of God’s life was poured over her head. She was immersed in the love of Christ that day. She was named as a beloved child. She was sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s forever. Forever. Nothing could or would ever undo that. Throughout her life, the Princess who became Queen was always swimming in and navigating the waters of her baptism. Those waters represent the raising up love of Christ.
When you hear Jesus say, ‘I will rise them up on the last day,’ don’t think that means it’s the end or that it’s all over. This raising up love of Christ is happening all the time – it was there at our birth, in our baptism, throughout our life, in our dying and in our raising. It’s on that last day, the one that looks like the end, that we discover it’s really just the beginning. The last day is also the first day.
From our perspective death looks like the last day. We can name the day and maybe even the time of someone’s death but they never know that moment because they simply pass from this life to the next life and the thread of God’s love remains unbroken. The waters of someone’s baptism have never dried. Those waters continue to wash a person in the love presence of Christ. Now that doesn’t take away the grief or stop our tears. It means however, that death doesn’t have the final word for us. That’s why on this day, the day before the funeral of our greatly loved Queen, as we come to what looks the end, we can make our song, ‘Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.’
For Christ, for our Queen, for you and for me, for all those we love but no longer see, ‘Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.’ Amen.
Hymn: ‘Now thank we all our God’
Affirmation of our faith
Let us declare our faith in God:
We believe and trust in God the Father, source of all being and life, the one for whom we exist. We believe and trust in God the Son, who took our human nature, died for us and rose again. We believe and trust in God the Holy Spirit, who gives life to the people of God and makes Christ known in the world. This is the faith of the Church. This is our faith.
We believe and trust in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Our Intercessions are written by Daphne Hawkins
In the power of the Spirit and in union with Christ let us pray to the Father.
As we gather as a family in this church and community, we pray for your presence with us this Autumn morning. We pray for our little church and the church world-wide and thank you for all the leaders who bring faith and hope into our lives.
We thank you for our Archbishop Justin, our bishops Philip and Hugh and Reverend Diane whose love and care extends far beyond St Clement Church. We ask your prayers for Liz who works both in church and in the work involved in our ‘On the Way’ venture.
Lord, in your mercy: Hear our prayer
We pray for all governments and world leaders especially our own new Prime Minister and cabinet. May all in power address the problems that we face in the days ahead. May they all concentrate on the plight of so many in our world today. We are experiencing such disasters, flooding, war, diseases, economic crisis all ending in poverty, hunger, homelessness, fear and distress to so many of our fellow men. Lord, may all in power and authority work to bring practical help and hope to all in despair at this time.
Lord, in your mercy: Hear our prayer
Dear Lord, we pray for the soul of our most loved Queen Elizabeth who has graciously served the nation and Commonwealth for so long. You have called her to be with you in your divine Kingdom. Lord, may she find rest and peace, a reward so deserved in your eternal home.
We pray for King Charles as he takes the throne and his Queen Consort and all the royal family as they share the grief in the loss of a beloved mother, grandmother and great grandmother. Give them strength and vision as they face the days ahead. May they be united in faith and love.
Lord, in your mercy: Hear our prayer
Lord, we pray at this time for all our families in their dark and difficult times. We pray for our community and our country, for a rich harvest and may the hard work in our summer businesses with visitors and events sustain us in the winter days ahead.
Lord, in your mercy: Hear our prayer
Dear Lord, we bring to you all those who suffer in body, mind or spirit, those we know and those known to you. We remember: Reverend Diane and dear Ken, Ollie, Rob and Alison, Margaret, Dot and Terry, Gavin, Paul and Jan, Stephen, Lyn, Maureen, Brian, Terry, Annie and Karen. May all who need you at this time find the healing comfort, hope and peace of your presence always with them.
May all whose earthly journey has ended find a welcome in your heavenly kingdom. We remember all whose anniversary falls at this time. Many of our loved ones we see no more but always remain in our hearts. May they be at rest and peace.
Lord, in your mercy: Hear our prayer
Dear Lord
When we walk in darkness You are there. When we kneel in weakness You are there. When we feel worthless You are there. When we need forgiveness You are there.
Dear Lord, you are always there. You are always there.
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 Jesus 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.
Hymn: ‘Guide me O Thou Great Redeemer’
The Peace
Jesus says: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give you.
Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
The peace of the risen Lord be always with you.
Blessing
God grant to the living, grace; to the departed, rest;
to the Church, the King, the Commonwealth, and all humankind,
peace and concord; and to us and all his servants, life everlasting; and may the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among us, those whom we love, and remain with us always. Amen.