Sunday 20th February 2022

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

(First Plymouth church, Lincoln Nebraska)

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!

(Halifax, Minster)

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 20th February 2022.

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Sunday 13th February 2022

Welcome

The Faith Nurture Forum of the Church of Scotland has encouraged all churches to set aside this Sunday as Racial Justice Sunday. We are all encouraged to firstly remember the importance of racial justice, to reflect on human diversity and lastly to respond by working to end this grave injustice that continues to plague our planet. I pray we will all be challenged by the question: What’s it got to do with me?

Call to Worship (based on Psalm 133)
It is truly wonderful when relatives live together in peace.
It is like the dew falling on mountains, where the LORD has promised to bless his people with life forevermore.
How good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity!
It is as if the dew were falling on God's mountain.
For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.
How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!
It is like the dew of which falls on the mountains, for there the LORD ordained his blessing, life forevermore.

HYMN 132: Immortal, invisible, God only wise

(First Plymouth church, Lincoln Nebraska)

Prayer:

Let us pray
God of all, You alone are worthy of praise,
from every mouth in every nation and time.
You created the world in Your infinite grace,
and by Your everlasting love redeemed it.

Merciful God, You made us in Your image,
We are all Your children, bearing Your divine image,
shaped by Your imagination and breath.
You have gifted us with the beauty of difference
the blessing of diversity, the pleasure of individuality
and the bond of love and peace.
You have created us with minds to know You,
with hearts to love you, with wills to serve and obey You.
But our knowledge of You and your ways are so imperfect and,
our love mostly inconstant, immature and self -seeking.
Our obedience is incomplete and often self-serving, You know
all this and yet You love us and continue to work in our lives.
Help us day by day to grow in Your likeness,
which is so widely displayed in the diversity of creation.
Help us to understand our own prejudices and narrow mindedness.
Help us to love our neighbour as we are loved by You.
Help us to serve others with humility and gratitude.
Do not hold our sin against us,
but help us to repent of outdated and inappropriate world views
which continue to direct our attitudes and actions.
Help us to mature in our thinking, loving and serving.
Hold us to the shared task of loving one another
as You have loved us.

May what we proclaim and confess about you be truly
reflected in the way we treat one another.
We ask all these things to your glory and praise alone.
Amen

Scriptures:

Isaiah 11:1-9
11 A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse,
    and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
    the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the spirit of counsel and might,
    the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3 His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide by what his ears hear;
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
6 The wolf shall live with the lamb,
    the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
    and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze,
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
    and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
9 They will not hurt or destroy
    on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

Acts 10:9-20
9 About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11 He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. 12 In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. 13 Then he heard a voice saying, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ 14 But Peter said, ‘By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.’ 15 The voice said to him again, a second time, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ 16 This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.

17 Now while Peter was greatly puzzled about what to make of the vision that he had seen, suddenly the men sent by Cornelius appeared. They were asking for Simon’s house and were standing by the gate. 18 They called out to ask whether Simon, who was called Peter, was staying there. 19 While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, ‘Look, three[a] men are searching for you. 20 Now get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them.’

HYMN 123: God is Love: let heaven adore him

(Sung by the choir of St Michael and All Angels, Bassett)

Reflection:

I was born in the sixties, and raised in the seventies and eighties in South Africa, not Australia. I do not tell you this so that you can try and figure out how old I am. I tell this so that you may consider not judging me or my parents for what I am about to confess. When I grew-up we had a domestic worker every day of the week and a gardener on a Saturday both native to Africa, Xhosa speaking. They did not use the toilet inside they used the one in the outbuildings and yes, they were given meals but they had their own plate, cup, knife and fork. No one said they were inferior but they were treated as different. This was South Africa under the National Party, where “Apartheid”, separation, discrimination and racial injustice was legal. The strangest of things after 1990, the release of Nelson Mandela and 1994, the first democratic election where everyone got to vote is you cannot find anyone who voted for the National Party.

Today, is Racial Justice Sunday, and we are encouraged to remember, reflect and respond to the injustice that is still happening all around the world based on ethnicity and race, the pigment in our skin. As we know there can be no peace without justice. Two weeks ago, we looked at Luke 4, Jesus declaring his mission statement, open eyes, freedom and the favour of God not for a select few but for all and the crowd responded by trying to kill him because they wanted it for themselves. Greed will always lead to hate and division, to keep and protect what we conceive as ours and ours alone.

In Isaiah 11, the prophet predicts, foretells of a time when peace and harmony will be the order of the day. “6 The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6). The picture painted is one that is beyond the natural, animals behaving contrary to their nature, contrary even to their own survival instincts. When I read a vision like this it seems impossible, not even probable, this must only exist in the realm of heaven. Surely, racial justice and equality is not possible, not something we need to remember, reflect on or respond to, yet we pray that prayer regularly “Your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven”. Is heaven for you a place of equality, a place of diversity, where all will live in harmony, in peace?

Both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu proposed that we’re not born “a racist” and if we have been taught something we can learn a different way. Something that has been mentioned in the reflections by Alex and I over the past few weeks is that our attitudes, our thoughts profoundly influence our actions. The next question we need to ask is:
what has influenced our beliefs and thoughts? We may have been taught in words, in our church context that God created us all uniquely in His image and therefore everyone is special. But what if our home environment, the school playground and the news report taught you something else – to fear those who are different and defend what you have, survival of the fittest, some deserve and others don’t. Desmond Tutu once said racism is blasphemy because we are created in the image of God. I could not find that quote but I found this one “One of the most blasphemous consequences of injustice, especially racist injustice, is that it can make a child of God doubt that he or she is a child of God.”

Last week Peter was taking small steps and as he did so he came to see Jesus for who He is and himself as he truly was. The New Testament text today is the longest narrative in the book of Acts as it includes chapters 10 and 11. I encourage you to go and read it. The story of Cornelius’s conversion and to a large extent Peter’s conversion to God’s bigger plan. Jesus had shown his disciples by example the new thing he had come to do. Jesus had crossed all the traditional prejudices, he had spoken to a Samaritan woman at the well (John 4), He touched a leper (Mark 1), He healed the servant of a Roman soldier (Luke 7). Yet Peter and the other disciples still did not get it, because they had been taught, they had experienced and lived something other. Jews lived by strict clean and unclean laws, many of those laws are still lived out today. A Jew cannot drink milk if the hands responsible for the milking were not Jewish; thank goodness for milking machines but that’s a different sermon. Jews did not associate at all with gentiles. Cornelius is a God-fearing gentile which means he was following the Jewish God and ways but he had not been circumcised; he was still on the outside. God speaks to him and asks him to send for Peter. And while his men are on the way God has to do a bigger work in Peter and he does it in the form of a vision/dream during his prayer time. I don’t know what your prayer time is like but when last have you reflected on racism, social injustice in your prayer time.

Acts 10:11,12 “He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. 12 In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air.” No matter how hungry Peter was this would have put him completely off any thought of eating. This would have been repulsive to him, an unclean animal even touching a clean animal would have made it defiled. Acts 10:13-14
“Then he heard a voice saying, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ 14 But Peter said, ‘By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.’” Peter would have heard get up and defile yourself, do what you have avoided doing your whole life, make yourself unclean. Can you imagine his identity was being challenged, all he has believed and lived? His faith, where his trust is placed is being challenged. And Peter says “Surely not, Lord” or basically: “No, God”. It begs the question, can we say: No, LORD? It would depend on our definition of Lord right. At this junction which Peter only got to because he perceived the vision and heard the instruction; there are a few options right? It is not the LORD or at least not the one I worship or I have heard wrong, there must be further explanation.

The text says this happens three times. Acts 10:15-16 15 “The voice said to him again, a second time, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ 16 This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.” This could portray a process of reflection. Three times “Kill and eat”, three times “No, Lord” and three times “do not call anything impure which God has made clean”. Do your worship times, corporately and individually allow for a wrestling, a challenge and reflection? Are we capable of hearing a message that would initially so challenge our core beliefs and are we willing to stay engaged to hear it again and again? We are asked today to Remember, Reflect and Respond on Racial Injustice.

God is so gracious with Peter, this same Peter, who had denied him three times is now still denying the new thing Jesus came to do. Acts 10:17 “Now, while Peter was greatly puzzled about what to make of the vision that he had seen, suddenly the men sent by Cornelius appeared. They were asking for Simon’s house and were standing by the gate.” The New Revised Standard version translates Peter’s state as “Greatly Puzzled”, it could be translated, perplexed in other words “in turmoil and hesitating greatly”. His mind is blown as he tries to keep in tension the request from God and his lived religious experience to this day. And just as God, in Christ took the initiative, to get into Peter’s boat he again takes the initiative as men from Cornelius arrive. How does Peter respond? He takes little steps, he invites them in, it’s actually a huge step for Peter, most probably the first time he has invited gentiles in. Peter then takes a lot of other little, huge steps, he goes with them to Cornelius’s house, he goes inside a house full of gentiles and then he experiences what God had proclaimed in the vision as the Holy Spirit fills those that he saw as unclean. Peter did not really understand but he took steps, he responded positively, even while he was still reflecting.

The world seems to be in a really worrying space as walls go up that were beginning to come down, as greed and fear raise their ugly heads in the controlling structures of society, will you be open to hear God’s message. Did God create us all, in His image, unique, different and yet perfectly divine? Did God come in Christ to redeem that image? The vision in Isaiah of all living in peace and harmony, is that not what we should be living out now?

I was perplexed when I left school and went to university, because in a moment I was faced with the horrendous possibility that I had been living in a skewed reality. How could I have not realised something was wrong? Why had I not questioned the status quo or wondered who had decided the worth of God’s creation based on a pigment? It is even harder to comprehend that in many ways the bible was used, religion was used to keep the status quo. I pray and I hope that you will pray with me that the church would become the redeemed community that celebrates difference and tirelessly works for equality for all. But I know this will only happen if we take time to remember, reflect and respond. Amen

HYMN 198: Let us build a house where love can dwell

(Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick)

Prayers:

Maker of all, You painted into being all of heaven and earth.
Creatures too and all living things with such depth of diversity –
shape, size, colour, uniqueness and giftedness.
Help us to recognise Your Divine Image in stranger and friend,
to see Christ in the displaced and dehumanised,
that we might recognise their dignity and act with Your passion and zeal
to see justice, equity and love abound.
We pray for all this morning who have and continue to
bear the brunt of our greed and fear, sometimes manifested in brutal ways.
Remind us, again and again Lord of your vision for all and empower
us to respond to your Love by loving all.

Lord Jesus Christ, who crossed boundaries and borders,
Help us to cross boundaries and borders too.
Help us not only to remember the past and all the hatred and hurt
that has been perpetuated through history but help us to reflect on your
desire and plan for all to live in harmony.
Help us not to stop our reflecting when we are deeply challenged
but may our wrestling lead to a definitive response of change in
our hearts and through our hands.
Help us to love our neighbours, both near and far no matter who
they are so barriers come down in our communities.
Wounded Healer, who made blind eyes see and deaf ears hear,
enable us to perceive the reality of racism,
bigotry and racial injustice in ourselves and our society.
Heal both the oppressed and the oppressor.
Prince of Peace, inspire us to celebrate difference and reconcile division
and help re-imagine this world as a place where justice and peace are
experienced by all and freedom is not just the dream of some.
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 528 Prayer of St Francis (Channel of Peace)

Benediction

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
  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 13th February 2022.

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