St Clement Church Community Sunday Service
Good morning
I am so thankful that I can now be back in church today having missed both Christmas and New Year. It has certainly made me very aware of just how much I take for granted. I plan events for the future with little thought that something might occur to prevent them happening. Martin and I spent much time talking about how we would celebrate our Ruby Wedding Anniversary in February 2022 – it did not occur to either of us that maybe one of us would not still be here. Certainly, after days in bed and sitting in a reclining chair, I realise that I need to make the most of each day because I have no certainty of what tomorrow will bring. So, may 2023 be a positive, peaceful, and certainly healthy 2023 for us all. God Bless Love to you all.
Liz xx
Let us pray
Lord God Almighty, we praise you for who you are and what you have done. You are the healer, bringing healing in this place. You are our righteousness, bring transformation in this place. You are the provider, increase our trust in you. You are the God who is with us, let us enter your presence. You are the Lord of Hosts, bring victory in our struggles. You are the God of Peace, bring comfort in our chaos. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
Hymn: 393 Lead us heavenly Father, lead us
Our Prayers of Penitence
The Gospel calls us to turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ. As we offer ourselves to him in penitence and faith, we renew our confidence and trust in his mercy.
Father eternal, giver of light and grace, we have sinned against you and against our neighbour, in what we have thought, in what we have said and done, through ignorance, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault. We have wounded your love, and marred your image in us. We are sorry and ashamed, and repent of all our sins. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, who died for us, forgive us all that is past; and lead us out from darkness to walk as children of light.
Amen
Collect for Epiphany 2
Almighty God, in Christ you make all things new: transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace, and in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory; 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 forever.
Readings
Isaiah 49. 1 – 7
1 Corinthians 1. 1 - 9
Hymn: 476 Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim
Gospel reading – John 1. 29 - 42
(Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John Response: Glory to you O Lord)
John the Baptist saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’ The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).
(This is the Gospel of the Lord Response: Praise to you, O Christ)
Reflection
Today’s Gospel reading is quite a long one and there is much one could focus on, but the words that really struck me are Jesus’ question, ‘What are you looking for?’ Jesus is asking a profound and difficult question. It’s one that exists in every life and community. It is also a question that we often avoid or deny. For most of us, it’s not the subject of every day social conversation. To face our deepest longings, to acknowledge the emptiness within, to enquire about what is of ultimate importance, that which shapes and forms our lives, just is not polite dinner conversation. It is too risky. It means we would have to get real, be honest, vulnerable, and open. So, we talk mostly about what doesn’t matter until something happens that does matter – a tragedy, a failure, the loss of a loved one, a challenge that seems insurmountable. That’s when the question arises, ‘What are you looking for?’
Ultimately, the question lies at the core of our discipleship, our relationship with God. How we answer it determines how we live, how we navigate the tragedies and pain of life, and how we relate to God and our neighbour. Even if we never directly ask that question of ourselves, we are always answering it. We answer it every minute of every day. We answer Jesus’ question by our choices, the decisions we make, the priorities we establish, the relationships we create. We answer His question by the things we have done and the things we have left undone. The words we speak point to what we are looking for. Our life, as a nation, as a church, as an individual, is the history book that answers Jesus’ question. We are not, however, bound by that history. In Christ we are not destined to repeat history. Jesus is always asking us the question and giving us the chance to answer anew.
So, when Jesus turns and asks His question, He is really asking us to be introspective, to be self-reflective, to choose the course for our life. His question is for us not Him. Jesus is not asking for our wish list. He is taking us deep into our own heart to discover the reality of our longings, the desires, the emptiness. If we are honest, we find that far too often we have lived as homeless people. Too much of our life has been spent making our home in places that are far too temporary, fleeting, and passing. That is what Andrew discovers.
‘Where are you staying?’ Andrew asks. That is about Andrew’s own sense of homelessness. He doesn’t want Jesus’ address. He wants to go home and believes that Jesus knows the way. He trusts that Jesus is the home that he longs for, that Jesus is the one that can fill his emptiness and satisfy his deepest desire. Andrew names the longing, the desire, the emptiness that we all feel. Sometimes, however, we are too quick to fill the emptiness, satisfy the desire, and quench the longing. So, we seek solutions to problems instead of ways to transform lives. We settle for quick, easy answers rather than living with hard questions. We look for approval from others rather than finding our identity in the Father. Every time we do this, we cut off the longing, the desire, and the emptiness that point the way home.
These feelings are not about absence. They are about the presence of God in every human being. They are the divine presence calling us, loving us, guiding us home. Instead of eliminating the longings, the restlessness, the homelessness, we should follow them. ‘What are you looking for?’ is the question that takes us into the human heart. ‘Come and see’ is the invitation that takes us home, into the heart of God. There is only one thing to do with an invitation like ‘come and see.’ Get up and look.
Jesus knows that we are all looking for something. The question is, ‘What?’ What are we looking for? Where is it taking us? If it is not taking us home; if it is not offering us hope and a way through the tragedies of life; if it is not filling us with compassion for the world; if it is not opening our eyes to a new way of being, a new way of seeing, a new way of living; if it is not deepening our relationships; if it is not revealing love; if it is not growing us more and more into the likeness of Christ, we might want to look again. We might want to look for something else, for we have denied our ‘chosen-ness’ and settled for less than God is offering to us. Amen
Affirmation of faith
Do you believe and trust in God the Father, source of all being and life, the one for whom we exist? We believe and trust in him.
Do you believe and trust in God the Son, who took our human nature, died for us and rose again? We believe and trust in him.
Do you believe and trust in God the Holy Spirit, who gives life to the people of God and makes Christ known in the world? We believe and trust in him.
This is the faith of the Church. This is our faith. We believe and trust in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen
Hymn: 459 The Lord’s my shepherd
Intercessions
The Work of Christmas Begins by Howard Thurman
When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and the princes are home, when the shepherds are back with the flocks, then the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal those broken in spirit, to feed the hungry, to release the oppressed, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among all peoples, to make a little music with the heart … and to radiate the Light of Christ every day, in every way, in all that we do and in all that we say. Then the work of Christmas begins, and so we pray …..
‘find the lost’
Shepherd God, who protects the flock and searches tirelessly for those who wander from the fold, retrieve the lost and bring them home.
Lord, in your Mercy: Hear our prayer
‘heal those broken in spirit’
Loving God, wrap your loving arms around those who are broken hearted, depressed, or feeling that no one cares about them, and fill their hearts with your peace, joy, and love. We also pray for all those whose lives have been devastated by the pandemic. We especially remember at this time: Ken and Reverend Diane, Terry and Dot, Alison and Rob, Rupert and Linda, Sandra and Barrie, Lyn, Stephen, Carole, Paul and Jan, Carole, Maureen, Alison, Margaret, Brian, baby Willow, those known to each of us and those who have no one to pray for them.
Lord, in your Mercy: Hear our prayer
‘to feed the hungry’
Faithful God, we pray for everyone who is hungry today far away or in our local communities. We pray for those who share this earth with us, but for whom hunger is a crippling, life-threatening danger. We pray for those who have nothing and those who have too little to eat. We give thanks for the generosity of those giving to charity and foodbanks.
Lord, in your Mercy: Hear our prayer
‘to release the oppressed’
Almighty God, who has created us in your own image, give us grace to fearlessly fight against evil and never to accept oppression; help us to apply our freedom in the maintenance of justice in oyr communities and throughout the world.
Lord, in your Mercy: Hear our prayer
‘to make music with the heart’
Father God, we especially pray for our own role in doing the true work of Christmas. May we be the ones who radiate the Light of Christ every day, in every way, in all that we do and in all that we say.
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.
What are you looking for? By Theresa Ann Moore
Looking for something? What do you hope to find? Do you have a plan or a map to remind? How will you know when you find your treasure? Will your catch suddenly illuminate with pleasure?
The thing you are looking for seems to be evasive. The comfort of a satin pillow, soon becomes abrasive… An island of security begins to sink beneath your feet. The formula is full proof, but the equation is incomplete.
When you stop to remember, you think of yesterday. Traces remain between fingers, after it slipped away. Happiness is wrung dry because it is no longer present. It was love, be glad you had it for a moment, don’t lament.
The PEACE
Peace from Jesus Christ who is our Peace. Peace from the Holy Spirit who gives us life’ The peace of the triune God be with us always.
Hymn: 353 Lead us heavenly Father, lead us
The BLESSING
May the Father’s hand keep us from stumbling, the footprints of Jesus give us confidence to follow, and the fire of the Holy Spirit keep us warm and safe in our walk with God this day. Amen