St Clement Church Community 3rd Sunday of Lent Service

St Clement Church

Third Sunday in Lent Community Service

Good morning to you all

As we journey through Lent, travelling with our Lord on His way to His certain death in Jerusalem, we should also think about our Jerusalem journey, and how we face it.

My love to you all

Liz

Almighty God, as we make our way on our Lenten journey, we humbly ask for your guidance and grace. Help us to embrace this time of spiritual renewal with open hearts and minds.

May we find strength to resist temptation, deepen our faith, and grow closer to you through prayer, fasting and acts of service.

Grant us the wisdom to discern your will and the courage to follow it, so that we may joyfully celebrate the resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ, at Easter.

Amen

We say together:

I pray that God guides my steps, strengthens my resolve, and helps me to deepen my faith and grow closer to Him through prayer, fasting and acts of service. Amen

Hymn: 70 Lord Jesus, think on me

We say together our Prayer of Penitence:

God of mercy, you sent Jesus Christ to seek and to save the lost.

We confess that we have strayed from you and turned aside from your way.

We are misled by pride, for we see ourselves pure when we are stained, and great when we are small.

We have failed in love, neglected justice, and ignored your truth.

Have mercy on us, O God, and forgive our sin.

Return us to paths of righteousness through Jesus Christ, our Saviour.

Amen

The Collect for the Third Sunday in Lent

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; 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. Amen

Readings:

Isaiah 55. 1 - 9

1 Corinthians 10. 1 - 13

Hymn: 64 Be thou my guardian and my guide

Gospel: Luke 13. 1 - 9 (Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke. Response: ‘Glory to you O Lord.’)

There were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?

No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will perish as they did.

Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them – do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?

No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’

Then he told this parable:

‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.

So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and still I find none.

Cut it down!

Why should I be wasting the soil?”

He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”

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

Reflection

Is it just me? I find the choice of readings for some Sundays quite bizarre. Last Sunday we could have had the same reading as we had two weeks before, or, as we did have, a reading that comes 21 verses after today’s reading … maybe it’s just me!

Yet again, today’s gospel reading is a challenge – well the first part is. As I thought about this reading, I thought about the Russian war on Ukraine, the war in Israel and Gaza, the millions that died during Covid, the 59+ deaths in the night club fire in North Macedonia (I have no idea how to pronounce the actual small town – sorry,) the deaths of people close to me and other tragedies in my life.

Let’s be honest, not much has changed since Jesus’ time. Tyrants are still throwing their weight around; towers are still falling and tragedies are still happening.

It’s these kinds of events that make me question about God, fairness and mortality.

They challenge my beliefs, hopes and illusions that there is some all-knowing, all-powerful, all mighty Other, out there, who, if I just believe, pray, behave rightly, will make sure none of that happens to me or those I care about.

They contradict my ideas of fairness and that you get what you deserve, the good will be rewarded and the bad will be punished.

They remind me of my mortality and that life is fragile, short, and uncertain.

I don’t want to hear that ‘God is in control,’ ‘Everything happens for a reason,’ ‘Just have faith,’ or any other shallow, trite and tired platitude that so often gets spoken in these situations.

I want to know why these things happen, don’t you? I want some explanation, a way to make sense of it all. I want my fantasy that if I can just understand it, then I can control it. Maybe you do too. But today, Jesus isn’t helping with any of that.

He doesn’t give any solution to our struggle. He doesn’t offer an explanation or a way of understanding why Pilate mingled the blood of Galileans with their sacrifices, or why the Tower of Siloam fell.

What if these things are not the point of today’s gospel but the intensifiers of today’s gospel? And what if they are in our lives as well.

We shouldn’t diminish the losses in our life and time, or in the life of Jesus, but perhaps we should feel them more acutely and let them call us into a better way of being.

Tyrants, fallen towers and tragedies intensify the preciousness of life and bring greater awareness to what we are doing with our lives. They intensify the value of relationships and invite us to consider how we are treating creation and one another. They intensify the meaning of this moment and remind us that nothing should be wasted or taken for granted. They intensify the urgency and need to redeem the past and open our eyes and hearts to a new and better way, to the possibility of the impossible.

They intensify the need to look at ourselves and our world with new eyes, to see each other in new ways, and to gain clarity about what really matters and how we want to live.

I wonder if that intensification is the reason Jesus doesn’t deal with the why question. He is moving the focus away from why these kinds of things happen, and placing it on how we live in a world where these kinds of things happen.

How is usually a better question than why. How opens the way, why narrows it. How tends towards the future, why tends towards the past. How is imaginative, why is definitive.

How do we find our place amid uncertainty and turmoil? How do we not lose ourselves to the pain and tragedies of our lives and world? How do we keep ourselves in the midst of conflict and violence? How do we sharpen our vision to see more clearly? How do we keep our hearts open, soft, and keep hope? How do we live amongst death?

“Repent.” That’s Jesus’ answer to the ‘how’ question, and He says it twice in today’s gospel. “Unless you repent, you will perish just as they did.”

He’s not offering a ‘cause and effect’ explanation. He’s offering a choice between life and death. That choice is always before us. Every moment is a moment of divine presence, hope, new life, and more life. The only question is whether we will “turn aside to see this great thing.”

Will we turn aside to find the courage, hope and perseverance needed in the moment?

Will we turn aside to address the needs and interests of another?

Will we turn aside and break our usual patterns of thinking and acting?

Will we turn aside to see the opportunity for love, compassion, forgiveness?

Will we turn aside and bring good news to the poor, bind up the broken-hearted, release the captive, and let the oppressed go free?

Will we turn aside to do justice, bring peace, welcome the stranger, and love the enemy?

Will you and I turn aside from the fear, busyness and distractions that keep us from living the life that wants to enter the world through us?

What if we take a moment and reimagine ourselves as more than our history. This isn’t about undoing or redoing our past. It’s about how we want to live this moment, the next, and the one after that. Reimagine your life. Reimagine your relationships. Reimagine how you might live beside and respond to the tyrants, fallen towers, and tragedies in your life and world. What do you see? What does all that look like? What is it asking of you? What do you need to do, change, reclaim, or let go of, so that you can start living your reimagined life today?

This is our work to do. No one else can do it for us, and neither will God or Jesus. If things are going to get turned around then it’s up to us, you and me.

Eliza, known for her gruffness and the reputation of her bread ‘as hard as a rock, had always been a loner, her only companion her shop and the flour dust that coated everything. Her life was a cycle of making bread, selling it, and then retreating, back into her solitude. She had a history of being quick to judge and slow to forgive, a pattern that had led to her isolation.

One morning, a young woman, her face alight with a gentle smile, entered the shop. She was a regular customer, but Eliza always dismissed her as ‘another one of those cheerful types.’ The young woman, however, remembered Eliza’s name, and she asked if she could help Eliza with something. Eliza, surprised by the kindness, mumbled a response. The young woman, however, did not leave, but instead, asked Eliza to tell her about the bread. Eliza, surprised by the genuine interest, started to talk about the bread, and the young woman listened patiently. As they talked, Eliza realised how much she had been holding onto her past mistakes, how much she had allowed her bitterness to control her life. As the young woman left, she handed Eliza a bunch of flowers.

That evening, Eliza found herself in her small room, a bare place, where she placed the flowers, the young woman had given her, into a mug. She looked at the flowers, and she thought about the young woman’s kindness. She realised that she had been so focused on her own problems that she had forgotten to be kind to others. She decided that she would start by making her bread more - soft. She started to bake the next day, and she remembered to smile at people who came into her shop. She also started to listen to them, and she found that she was able to find joy in the simple things. Her bread became known for its softness, and her shop became known for its warmth. Eliza, once known for her sour bread and sour disposition, was now known for her kindness and soft bread. She had found faith in the kindness of others, and she had found repentance in the forgiveness she had received.

Amen

Let us declare our faith in God

We believe in God the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.

We believe in God the Son, who lives in our hearts through faith, and fills us with his love.

We believe in God the Holy Spirit, who strengthens us with power from on high.

We believe in one God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Amen

Hymn: 360 Firmly I believe and truly

Our Intercessions by Daphne Hawkins

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

Merciful Father, as we gather together on this third Sunday of our journey to the cross, be with us Lord. We thank you for the time of quiet rest the night has brought and our hopes and prayers for this new day.