Welcome & Intimations
Welcome Craigmillar Park and Reid Memorial Churches, and to our service of worship for the 27^th February. This week we consider a rather dramatic event in the life of Jesus and the disciples, and reflect upon what it may mean for his followers today.

Call to Worship (Psalm 99: 1-2)
The Lord is king;
let the peoples tremble!
     He sits enthroned upon the cherubim;
let the earth quake!
The Lord is great in Zion;
     he is exalted over all the peoples.

HYMN 124 Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

Prayer:

Let us pray:

For what is beyond, not invented or made up
let us offer God our thanks and praise.
For thoughts and ways that are not ours,
let us offer God our prayers and reflections.
For the love that loves first and shows us what love is,
let us offer God our fellowship and service.
For the light that shines from the face of Jesus Christ,
and enlightens every human life,
let us offer God our joy and worship.

Holy, holy, holy, God,
to You we come
rejoicing in who You are.
You are light and in You there is no darkness at all,
You are faithful and true and there is nothing false about You,
You have shown us how much You love us in Jesus Christ,
who became one of us for our salvation.

Freely, gladly, we bring ourselves to You.
Holy Spirit help us,
that with all that is within us,
we may bless Your holy name.

Gracious God we ask:
for eyes open to see Your glory in the world around,
for ears to hear Jesus speak today,
for minds ready to engage with Your thoughts,
for hearts to love You more and our neighbours as ourselves.

Help us to see that all You have commanded us to be is found in Jesus.
Good Shepherd may You show us the paths of right living that lead to refreshing streams and green pastures for all the earth.

Saviour God, whose well-meaning disciples sometimes missed the point,
help us to keep our focus on You.
Forgive us, we humbly ask, when we have been overtaken by our own projects
rather than nurture the life of Your Kingdom.
We have looked other ways, and not been mindful of You.
We have hurt others and ourselves.
Draw us close we pray; may You speak words of forgiveness within us.
Re-ignite the fire of faith and inspire us with the breath of Your Spirit.
With the glory of Jesus Christ reflected upon our faces may we shine for You each day.

In the words Jesus taught His disciples let us pray together, saying the Lord’s prayer:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen.

Scriptures:

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practise cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.


Luke 9:28-36
Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah’—not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.

HYMN 459 Crown him with many crowns

Reflection:

Martin Luther King famously said: ‘I have been to the mountain top, and I have seen the Promised Land. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.’

The disciples have been to the mountain top. To borrow from Dr. King, they had seen the ‘promised land’. They had seen a supra-natural vision – Jesus shining, glowing, whiter than anyone could bleach. A beatific vision, no less, and something they wanted to hold on to. That is understandable. Perhaps they felt that they were in some promised land. Here was their master, transformed by the near presence of God. Here, too, were great heroes of their faith. Here was Moses, the bringer of the Torah. Here was Elijah, representative of all that was good about the Prophets. Here, in one moment, their faith had taken on flesh. Here, their hopes had been made real. Here, their hope had been made tangible. Of course they wanted to hold on to the moment!

This whole episode, though, raises questions. What is going on? What does it mean? Also, what does it mean for the disciples of Jesus today? So, what does this episode in the life of Jesus and his disciples have to say to our lives today?

We want to know what is going on. Jesus is described as transformed, yet he remains recognisable. The text tells us that this was something beyond human doing. It is supra-natural, divine in origin. Jesus is described in words that lead us in one direction. He is described as radiating light, purity, in a way that belongs only to God. True, there is an echo here of the occasion when Moses returns form the mountain top with the second set of stone tablets. Yet this tale is qualitatively different. Moses had to veil only his face; here Jesus is transformed in whole.

We see two heroes of the faith, Moses and Elijah. Individually they represent Law and Prophets, what were regarded as the most important parts of Scripture. Together, they represent the unity of those elements. They represent completeness. Jesus stated that he had come to fulfil, complete, the Law and the Prophets.

This story is meant to make us sit up and take notice. Something new is happening here. Something significant has changed. God is doing a new thing!

For the disciples, change would come all too soon. The vision would end, and normality would be restored. The moment of beatific vision would pass. Jesus would appear once more as he always had. Yet the process of transformation, transfiguration, would change not only Jesus but the disciples too. They never understood it yet they spoke of it. It mattered so much that it was written down and conveyed to generations of believers right down through to today. Something had happened, and their eyes had been opened that they might see something of the wonder of God.

The stories of Scripture do not exist in a vacuum; they never did. They were born into a world of flesh and blood. They were shaped in a world of pain and suffering. They were shared in a world of hope and fear. We live in that same world. Just as scripture spoke to the world of Peter, James, and John so, too, is it meant to speak to us. For these disciples Scripture was made flesh that day. It touched and transformed them; will we let it do the same to us? Will we let down our guard and let ourselves be transformed, transfigured? Will we let go of our sensibilities and let God shock us with the new? Will we open our eyes, look, and see, as did those disciples? We do not have to understand, we do not have to be perfect, we just have to follow Jesus to the mountain top. If we will, if we can, then we will be transformed from the fallen to the resurrected. We, too, will become a part of the new things of God.

So what are the new things of God? Martin Luther King had a beatific vision of the mountain top, the same as did the disciples. He saw the glory of God made real in the Promised Land; a land of peace and justice. To paraphrase Saint Paul, a land where there is no slave nor free, no black nor white, no male nor female, no rich nor poor. It is a Promised Land, a just land, where all are one in God. We may be able, in principle, to say ‘Amen’ to that. Yet there are elements of our society, our community, that continue to be excluded from the community of faith. In the context of Martin Luther King it was people who were of colour. In our worship, where are the people of colour? In our worship, where are the people who are gay? In our worship, where are the people whose gender is not defined in ways we consider as straightforward or ‘normal’? Until they are as welcome as those who are different but whom we do accept then we have not seen the Promised Land. Until then we have not had the beatific vision.

Perhaps more than any other disciple, Peter had to be reminded of this time and again. This should tell us that even for the greatest of disciples there needs to be constant reminder and effort to hold up to the demands of the vision of God.

Jesus went to the mountain top and was transfigured. The disciples, Peter, James, and John went with him and they, too, were changed. If we, too, would travel to the top of the mountain then we also must be prepared to be changed. We will be required to leave behind our cultural baggage and personal preferences because the vision is greater than us. We will be required to take risks and cross lines, welcoming in those who we believe are not like us. It is then, only then, that we may catch a glimpse of the vision. It is then, only then, that we may be able to say that we have been to the mountain top, that we have seen the Promised Land.
Amen.

HYMN 356 Meekness and Majesty

Prayer:

Let us pray:

We give thanks for every good and holy joy,
for gifts of eye and ear, for the varied arts that we enjoy:
music, song, art, sculpture, video, poetry and prose
and all that points us to You.

Transfigured Jesus – Crucified, Risen and Ascended Lord –
who gives gifts to humankind, we thank You for all that You have done for us
and for the love with which You reach out to every human being.

For the presence of Your life-giving Spirit in the Church,
in our world and in our lives,
we give You thanks.

For the liberty the Spirit brings to be whose we truly are
and to work out together what it means to be church in these days,
we give You thanks.

Holy Spirit move and prompt us,
show us how to reflect Christ’s glory
that many may know the light of Christ is with them.

Receive our gifts and prayers, we humbly ask.
We offer them in faith and love.

Living God, joyfully we find in Jesus what it means to be fully human.
You give us hope that one day we shall be like Him.
May all His sisters and brothers know fullness of life and God’s glory be seen.

We pray for people who are hungry or thirsty, in need of food and drink,
for strangers hoping for a welcome,
for people without proper clothing,
for those who are ill at home or in hospital,
and for people in prison and all affected by crime.
Lord, these are our sisters and brothers too,
help us to do what we can to care and to ensure adequate support.

We look to the day when all of creation will be set free from decay
to enter into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We pray for the climate crisis
that the world’s governments may not falter in their commitment to reduce global temperatures.
We pray for the work of NGOs, charities and faith groups
raising awareness, lobbying governments and garnering support.

Lord God, who has made it known that You love justice and equity,
we pray for a better sharing of the world’s resources,
for an end to poverty and inequality.
We remember the work of Christian Aid
working with some of the world’s poorest communities
and we pray for the work of Covax,
tasked with the equitable sharing of vaccines.
We pray for those who are cast aside because they are different from us.
We pray for those side-lined because of their colour or ethnicity;
we pray for those treated as belongings because of their gender or biology;
we pray for those cast outside because they do not conform to our ideas or normal.
You invite us to collaborate with You and our sisters and brothers
towards the day when Your kingdom is complete
and poverty and injustice will be no more.

Lord of all,
as war seems to be looming on our continent
we pray for peace.
May the hurts and fears that some feel
be healed by your Spirit.
May all sides come together
seeking peace for all humanity.
We pray for the leaders of Nato,
Ukraine, and Russia;
may each see in the other their common humanity.

Gracious God, as Lent approaches and we journey with Jesus towards the cross,
may we ever be aware of His glory,
in whose name we pray.
Amen.

HYMN 465 Be thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart

Benediction:

As you leave this time apart and return to the needs of the world,
may you know Christ goes before you,
that there is nowhere you will be without Him.
May you find joy and hope as you discover Christ is by your side.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
be with us all now and always.
Amen.

Sung Amen:

Acknowledgements:
Bible Quotations taken from: New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

English translations of The Lord’s Prayer, © 1998, English Language Liturgical Consultation (ELLC), and used by permission. www.englishtexts.org

Prayers and final blessing adapted from Church of Scotland Weekly Worship for 27th February 2022.

Embedded content from YouTube does not infringe copyright:
https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms

Welcome
Our focus this week is a topic, Bono, The Beatles, The Bee Gees and every other band you can mention have sung about. Yes, you guessed it, Love. Not a valentine type love but a counter-cultural kind of love, a God Love.

Call to Worship (based on Psalm 36:5-7)
Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, 
Your faithfulness to the skies. 
Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, 
Your justice like the great deep. 
You, Lord, preserve both people and animals. 
How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! 
People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. 
We celebrate your incredible love today. 

HYMN 160 Praise my soul, the King of heaven

Prayer:

God of all creation,
You have given us so much and we are truly blessed.
We thank You for Your constant guidance throughout our lives,
for Your wisdom in all things
for the way Your word encourages, inspires, feeds us and sustains us.
We praise and thank you for your wisdom is beyond comparison.

You, Lord, speak to us through Your church and the fellowship of others.
You Lord, speak to us in the seasons, through circumstances and the cycle of life.
You speak to us through the stories of old and new testaments of your grace and mercy.
You still speak to us today by your guiding and inspiring Spirit.

For all the ways You have guided us, supported us
and for all the ways You continue to lead in our lives,
we give You our thanks and praise.
When we are foolish, You hear us and respond in love.
We acknowledge and give thanks for all that enables our spiritual growth.
You Lord are our rock and refuge in times of trouble,
and for that we give thanks and praise.
When the storms of life come,
we are assured we can lean on and trust in You.

Gracious God,
We come celebrating the awesomeness of Your love
And the wonder of Your grace.
Even though we fail You time and time again,
You never walk away and You never fail us.
Undeserving though we are, You show us endless mercy.
You do not turn away in the moments our faith is feeble
in the moments when we doubt, or when we are hesitant disciples,
reluctant to share Your word and witness with others
for fear of what that might mean for us.

God of never-ending patience,
even in the times we fail You,
You understand our weaknesses and help us to put our faults behind us.
You dust us off when we have fallen and help us to start again.
We offer so little, yet You give us so much,
our love is so weak, yet You respond richly,
Your grace defies expression
too wonderful for us to fully comprehend,
and though we fail You, You never fail us.
Lord, continue to grant us, unworthy as we are, Your grace.
We ask this to your glory and honour alone.
Amen

Scriptures:

Genesis 45:3-11,15
³ Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?’ But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence. ⁴ Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come closer to me.’ And they came closer. He said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. ⁵ And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. ⁶ For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest. ⁷ God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. ⁸ So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. ⁹ Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, “Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. ¹⁰ You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. ¹¹ I will provide for you there—since there are five more years of famine to come—so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.”
¹⁵ And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

Luke 6:27-38
“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹ If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. ³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you. ³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. ³⁵ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. ³⁷ “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. ³⁸ Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
Amen.

HYMN 187 There’s a wideness in God’s mercy

Reflection:

Have you ever heard the words: “He hit me first” or “He hit me harder”? I am sure if you have heard those words, you’re either a parent or grandparent or you are or have been a teacher of some kind. You know the scenario, you trying to write a sermon and all of a sudden you hear voices raised and a slap or three, tears and so you go to investigate. Trying to remain calm and Christ-like as always. If you have had two boys in the house you can relate. What is one of the first statements when you investigate, “He hit me first” and you generally not going to get that response after a bar fight because we know it’s not any kind of defence for violent behaviour. It seems however to be our innate default rule to retaliate. It is even more advanced than that. When you enquire why then did, I hear at least three hits/slaps/kicks the response will be “He hit me harder”, in other words no matter how many times I have been told violence is not a way to resolve things, there is this law of reciprocity/retaliation deep within us. I need you to feel just as much pain as I felt. You have to suffer just as much as I have or did.

Some are thinking particularly the ladies I have never slapped, kicked or hit anyone, ever. Maybe even some of the guys are thinking I haven’t hit anyone for a long, long time. This is not relevant to me. The Luke text this week most probably includes, some of the most difficult teachings of Jesus because they go not only against our human inclination, they go against society at large. Revenge is a primary theme in most forms of entertaining media, even in the tabloids. We have to agree we live in a world where we are taught; you have to defend yourself and fight for what you want. In Luke 6:27, Luke records Jesus as telling the crowd who are listening, it always starts with listening, “Love Your enemies”. This seems so counterintuitive, could Jesus possibly mean that you should “Love your enemies”? We could argue Luke got it wrong. These aren’t really the words of Jesus, but he does seem to repeat it again in Luke 6:35, “But Love your enemies”. We could just ignore this part of the text, remove the page from our bibles, but if you have read the gospels lately, you would see that Jesus lived this out. As I said last week, he crossed many boundaries of prejudice and hate that had been established for generations. The Greek word “enemies” can literally be translated “hated”. Maybe that is how we argue our way around this one; we convince ourselves we don’t hate anyone so we don’t really have any enemies to love.

Luke 6:27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” The imperative to love our enemies is followed by three other imperatives which some commentators explain by saying Jesus was giving practical examples of how this could be lived out. You love those you hate by doing good for them, blessing them or praying for them. This is not passive. In other words, not hitting back or not cursing back. No this is positive action towards the one who has harmed us verbally, financially, physically or emotionally. I am sure if you have been hurt badly by someone emotionally or physical, you’re thinking, yes, I will pray for them, that God kill them or make their life a living hell. If you have had a thought like that don’t feel too bad remember some of Jesus’ disciples, James and John, asked if they should call down fire from heaven to consume those who had not received them (Luke 9). As you listen to this, you could be thinking I cannot believe God expects me to be kind and do good to those who have hurt me, how can that be fair? You may even feel that I should not be raising this topic because I don’t know what you have been through. After a few other real practical examples of someone slapping and someone taking a coat, and how we are to respond counterintuitively by turning the other cheek and giving our shirt as well, we have the Golden Rule “Do to others as you would have them do to you” Luke 6:31. We agree with this in principle right, I hope we agree. Most of us have been taught it in some form from birth in words, but then we have seen our father, mother, aunties and cousins, even our grandparents respond in a retaliatory way when they were mistreated, cursed or abused. It is natural to fight or flight when we feel anxious or threatened. We go into survival mode, the rational, creative, problem-solving part of our brain is overrun by the auto-pilot survival and emotional parts. No wonder we struggle to live Jesus’s words even though we know that strained relationships drain us and that a world with no enemies would be heaven.

Life experience has taught us that the civilised do not fight fire with fire because then we only get a bigger fire. Maturity means, we count to ten, we bite our tongues but all this has done to many is create internal conflict and repressed negative feelings from our hurt that leads to further hate. We have defaulted to the reciprocity rule, we love those who love us, we loan to those who will repay us and we try not to fight fire with fire. Jesus’s teachings are next level, Jesus calls us not to respond negatively, not to be neutral even but to respond actively in a positive way. Jesus challenges the reciprocity rule in verses 32 to 34 with a repeated question “What credit is that to you?” If you love those who love you, do good to those who do good to you and lend expecting to get back. I am paraphrasing now but basically Jesus says everybody does that and then the punch line Luke6:35,36 ^“ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” The implication is that we are to be like our heavenly Father. God has not treated us as we deserve. He lavished his love on us that we could become children of God. God continues to be kind to those that reject him and his ways. In our faith community we call that grace, getting what we don’t deserve, it is not fair, it’s counterintuitive and costly but oh, so liberating. When we reflect on how God’s love was expressed in him giving for us and forgiving us, we can only respond in love.

On one occasion while talking through a very difficult situation with a lady in the congregation that had been repeatedly abused verbally by her husband especially when he came home drunk, she asked me what she must do. This text this morning, if about anything, is about doing. Luke ends the sermon on the plain with Jesus telling the parable about the man who built on sand and the man who built on the rock and the different outcomes when the storm comes and we know them well. The man however who built on the rock is the one who did what Jesus had taught; the other had the same information but did not have the application. So, I say to the lady, hug him. She responds I do; I say hug him when he comes home drunk and is verbally abusive, hug him and tell him that you love him. She responds like I would respond, you would respond, I can’t. So, I say, look out the window, do you see that metal pole holding up the gazebo, she says yes? I say, can you hug that? She responds: yes. Then you can hug your husband, I respond, it is an act of will.

What about you? You most probably have heard this scripture many times Luke 6:27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” How have you responded? As you have read this, is there someone that has come to mind who you need to love. Yes, you haven’t retaliated, you have been quite civilised but you know you have not actively Loved. To clarify this does not mean that what they have done is justified or denied rather it is dealt with in a Godly way. A really good place to start is prayer, pray for that person, that God would bless them. Even if it feels false or inauthentic, pray as an act of will for that person and ask God for guidance in what you can do for them and then pray for the power to do it.

It is amazing that as God in flesh goes to the cross in Christ, He is stripped of his cloak, He is cursed, spat on and beaten and yet though he could have called legions of angels to his rescue he turned the other cheek and gave his all, his life so that we may be forgiven and live a new life. I end with Ephesians 5:1-2 “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children ² and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Amen

HYMN 189 Be Still for the presence of the Lord

Prayers:

Loving God,
You have called us to be a living community.
A people bound together as the body of Christ,
and a family united in love.
Yet Lord, in our broken world so many are suffering, so many are hurting.
Hear our prayers Lord

For those whose lives are ruled by hate and vengeance, rather than love and justice.
For those whose homes are not places of love or safety, but places of fear and violence.
For those who have no home to speak of and have become invisible on our streets.
For those who are stigmatised because of status, ill-health, ethnicity, or religion.
Lord, You asked us to love our neighbours, all of them, not just the ones we choose.
Enable us and equip us to carry out Your command to Love.
Enable us Lord by the power of your love in us to take the active steps we need to take to love our enemies so that we may be an example to all of your mercy and grace.
Hear our prayers Lord

For all those in our congregations and communities who are ill at home or in hospital – bring Your healing hands, Your comfort and peace.
For all who are anxiously awaiting treatment, results, or appointments
due to the impact of COVID-19 and our overwhelmed health service.
For anxious relatives and carers who are exhausted and there is no rest, and no end in sight
while the much-needed care packages are few and far between.
Lord equip us, Your servants and disciples, to assist them in their time of need.
Enable us to be beacons of light in another dark day.
Hear our prayers Lord

Lord, You tasked us to do good to those who hate,
which can seem difficult and, in this world, so unfair.
It’s hard to love those who belittle, who shun, who exclude and who emotionally abuse.
When we feel we should get our own back, You ask us to turn the other cheek.
Inspire us to be willing advocates for truth and reconciliation.
Inspire us to love justice and to practically live out mercy.
Hate does not lay a healthy soil that enables love to grow and flourish,
but walking in faith and following Your example and teaching changes everything.
You call us all to make a positive difference and to heal Your broken world of its hurt and its divisions by a countercultural response to hurt and hate.
For we can all make a positive difference in Jesus’ name and for His sake.
We unite in prayer as we pray as our saviour Jesus, taught, saying

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen.

HYMN 561 Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

Benediction:

Go now and share God's love with all you meet.
Go now and share the joy of Jesus.
Go now and share the inspiring breeze of the Spirit.
Go in peace assured of God's love.
Amen

Sung Amen:

Acknowledgements:
Bible Quotations taken from: New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

English translations of The Lord’s Prayer, © 1998, English Language Liturgical Consultation (ELLC), and used by permission. www.englishtexts.org
Prayers and final blessing adapted from Church of Scotland Weekly Worship for 20^th February 2022.

Embedded content from YouTube does not infringe copyright:
https://www.youtube.com/static?template=terms