St Clement Church Community 3rd Sunday of Epiphany Service 2026

St Clement Church Community Sunday Service

Good morning to you all as we celebrate not only the Third Sunday of Epiphany, but also the Conversion of Paul. This Service of the Word is for you to read at home if you’re unable to attend our Eucharist at St Clement. I hope you are managing to keep warm during this rather wet and cold weather, take care when you go out and about, and may Christ’s love sustain you always.

Much love to you all,

Rev Di and family xx

Let us pray;

Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ himself as the cornerstone: so join us together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Hymn; ‘He who would Valiant be’

Our prayers of Penitence for the Conversion of Paul

Lord Jesus, in your love you invite us to be your friends:

Lord, have mercy.

Lord Jesus, in your joy you choose us to go out and bear fruit:

Christ, have mercy.

Lord Jesus, in your power you send us to be your faithful witnesses

Lord, have mercy.

May Almighty God, have mercy upon us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Let us pray our Collect for today

Almighty God, who caused the light of the gospel to shine throughout the world through the preaching of your servant Paul: grant that we who celebrate his wonderful conversion may follow him in bearing witness to your truth; 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:

Acts 9.1-22 Galatians 1. 11-16a

Hymn; ‘For all the Saints’

Gospel Matthew 19. 27-30

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

Response: ‘Glory to you O Lord.’)

Matthew 19.27-end

Peter said to Jesus, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.

(This is the Gospel of the Lord. Response: ‘Praise to you, O, Christ’)

Reflection

Is your glass of water half empty or half full?

Psychologists say that if we think our glass is half empty we are by nature a pessimistic person whereas if we think our glass is half full we are more inclined to take an optimistic view of life. We tried this experiment many years ago with my fellow ordinands at college, and found to our surprise that more of our fellow students were pessimistic than optimistic. A shame really, when we had all of our ministry stretching before us, that we should, as a group, have been so pessimistic.

I wonder if that has changed as we have all grown older?

We’re often told to always look on the bright side of life, and I like to think that I am a half full person!

It can be very frustrating to some of my colleagues, when I don’t share their gloomy outlook on some problem we’ve encountered. But then I was brought up to believe that there is always something good to find in every person and every situation, if we are prepared to look for it.

I wonder if St Paul was a half-full or a half-empty person?

Whatever he was like as Saul, before he met Jesus, I think that after his conversion Paul was definitely a half-full person. An optimistic person, how else could he have survived all the problems life threw at him?

Imprisonment, shipwreck, persecution. For we know that when he became a Christian, Paul began to suffer the same kind of persecution that he’d handed out to others beforehand.

It’s a while since Ken and I have been to Malta, which was the scene of one of Paul’s shipwreck experiences. The story is told in the book of Acts where, after the shipwreck, Paul sent to ask the local inhabitants the name of the country and the reply came back that it was called Melitta, which means the land of honey.

We now call it Malta and you can still buy honey there gathered from local bees by local Maltese people; almost certainly descendants of the bees and the people that Paul knew so long ago.

Indeed, when we go there, we stay at a place near St Paul’s Bay. It’s here, on the rocks that guard the bay, that the shipwreck is likely to have occurred. I remember in the window of one scuba diving school there was a sign advertising “St Paul’s Shipwreck Dives”. There’ve been many wrecks on the same rocks and these dives were to explore more recent ones. The wooden ship St Paul travelled in would be long gone!

The Bible tells us that St Paul stayed on Malta for only 3 months, yet in that short time Paul made an impression on the Maltese people that still influences their lives today. Everywhere we went on our holiday there was evidence of his visit.
“This is the place where Paul landed after the shipwreck.” “This is where Paul stayed outside the main city.” “This is where Paul lit the fire when the viper fastened onto his hand.” And so on.
But he’s remembered not only as a historical figure with amazing survival capabilities. Paul instilled in the people of Malta a love for Christ that has survived invasion and persecution by Saracens in the Middle Ages, near starvation in the Second World War, even much of the commercialism of the twentieth century.

Malta is certainly not a backward country, but underlying everything we saw there, is a faith in its people that is strong and firm, stemming from Paul’s 3 month visit so many centuries ago.

In the middle of the island is a church topped a large dome. There are a lot of domes on Malta. This one is the largest on the island, and indeed is the third largest in existence. The only two larger are St Peter’s in Rome and St Paul’s in London, both built by renowned architects and armies of master masons and craftsmen.

But the dome at the church in Mosta was built by the townspeople of Mosta, ordinary local families, who after their day’s work would go to the church and put in some precious time on the building project.

Everyone helped, men, women, children, everyone did what they could to help to create a beautiful place of worship. Together, in this small town, they built themselves a church that’s visited and honoured and used for worship by thousands of people every year. You can’t go to Malta without seeing this miraculous building.

And why did they do it? Not to create a tourist attraction, not to show off to their neighbours, no, they built the church to honour and worship Jesus Christ, because of the love they had learned from Paul, the only missionary Malta has ever needed.

All his life as a Christian, Paul just couldn’t help telling people about Jesus, and he passed on, by practical example, what it means to live as a Christian.

We know from his letters that he influenced whole communities all around the Mediterranean, and the power of his written word is at work in our lives today.

In Malta they have a saying, there’s a type of white marble rock on the island, with black marks imbedded in it, used for paving stones in the ancient city of Valetta. The Maltese say that the black marks are the teeth of St Paul, that even the very rocks around were affected by the power of his words that changed their lives.

Few Christians today would seem to be as influential in bringing people to the Lord, and yet it does happen.

God works in us today just as surely as he was at work in Paul, we may not have suffered a Damascus Road experience, we may not share his same remarkable gift of teaching. Yet we too can bring Jesus alive for the people we meet, by our everyday attitude to life, and by the way we speak to, and treat folk.

We shouldn’t be afraid to show that Christ lives in us, and if we allow others to see that Jesus make a difference in our lives, they will notice.

Some people have a special gift of evangelising, people who, like Paul, through God given speech, can open the hearts and minds of others to receive the Lord.

We may not all be Evangelists, but we are all called to share Christ’s’ love. It’s far too big a gift to keep to ourselves, besides it’s one of those rare gifts that the more you give away, the more you receive.

We can all learn from the people of Malta. I’m certain Paul would be amazed and delighted to see how dedicated they are to his memory and his example.

So much so, that the Pope shared with them precious relics of Paul‘s time in Rome, a wrist bone from his body and a stone from the pillar of his execution.

So, as the church in this place, do we have as much passion for Christ as the people of Mosta? Do we have as much dedication to our church life? Do we have as much concern as they to share the good news of Jesus Christ? Are we optimistic about the effect we can have?

For this is what’s lasting, precious and noticeable, about the people of Malta, who became followers of Christ through the example of Paul. Who himself became an extraordinary Christian during an ordinary journey one day, long, long ago. Amen.

Hymn; ‘Immortal, invisible’

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 Helen Dunbar

Dear Lord, we bring before you our prayers for the Church and the world, knowing that you are always there to hear us and help us. We pray that the light of God will shine in all the dark corners of the Church, and set us free from prejudice, small-mindedness and hypocrisy;

that as members of the Body of Christ we can move freely through the power of God wherever we are called to go, available and active in God’s service.