{"id":20449,"date":"2023-01-29T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-29T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/urc\/sunday-worship-29-january-2023"},"modified":"2023-01-29T09:30:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-29T09:30:00","slug":"sunday-worship-29-january-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trinitywimbledon.org\/index.php\/sunday-worship-29-january-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday Worship 29 January 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Sunday Worship from the United Reformed Church<\/strong>
for Sunday 29 January 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

 
Today\u2019s service is led by The Revd Cara Heafey<\/em><\/p>\n

Call to Worship<\/strong>
 <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

How shall we come to worship God? What gift can we bring to our maker? What rite or ritual should we perform? What sacrifice would be worthy?
       
The desires of God\u2019s heart are no secret.<\/strong>
We know what is required of us:<\/strong>
       that we do justice, and love kindness,<\/strong>
       and walk humbly with our God.<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

(Based on Micah 6:6-8)<\/em><\/p>\n

 
Hymn   <\/strong> In An Age of Twisted Values<\/em>
Martin E. Leckebusch \u00a9 1999 Kevin Mayhew Ltd CCLI Licence No. 1064776 sung by Becky Messer for the United Japanese Christian Church and used with her kind permission.
 
In an age of twisted values, we have lost the truth we need;
in sophisticated language, we have justified our greed
By our struggle for possessions, 
we have robbed the poor and weak
Hear our cry and heal our nation; 
Your forgiveness, Lord, we seek<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

When our families are broken, 
when our homes are full of strife;
when our children are bewildered, 
when they lose their way in life;
when we fail to give the aged 
all the care we know they need – 
hear our cry and heal our nation; 
help us show more love, we plead
 
We who hear Your word so often 
choose so rarely to obey.
Turn us from our willful wandering;  
give us truth to light our way.
In the power of Your Spirit  <\/em>
come to cleanse us, make us new.<\/em>
Hear our cry and heal our nation  <\/em>
till our nation honours You<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 
Prayers of Approach, Confession and Grace<\/strong>
 
Loving God, our souls sing out in worship
and all of creation bursts forth with praise!
 
For you look with compassion on all who suffer.
You shed tears of sorrow with those in grief.
You kneel in the dust to lift up the humble
and shoulder the burdens of those who are bowed down.
 
Great and mighty is our God, who meets us in weakness.
Sure and strong is our God, who meets us in our fear.
Glory be to Jesus,
who stands shoulder to shoulder with those who are in pain,
who opened his arms wide on the cross
to hold all the hurts of the world.  
Amen.<\/strong>
 
Holy One:
You invite us to come to you just as we are.
Your arms are open wide to welcome us.
And so we approach you with trust and honesty,
asking for your forgiveness.
 
If our words and actions have done harm\u2026
God of mercy, forgive us.<\/strong>
If our silence and apathy have done harm\u2026
God of mercy, forgive us.<\/strong>
If we have failed to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with you\u2026
God of mercy, forgive us.<\/strong>
 
Repair our relationships.
Redeem our brokenness.   
May our fault-lines be the cracks
through which your light can flood in:
liquid gold to fill the gaps
and transform our jagged edges into something beautiful,
our fragments into something whole. Amen.<\/strong>
 
Hear the good news and rejoice!
there\u2019s nowhere we can go, and nothing we can do
that would put us beyond the reach of God\u2019s forgiveness and love.
 
And so, liberated by grace,
Let\u2019s say together the words that Jesus taught us to pray: 
 
Our Father\u2026<\/em>
 
A Prayer for Illumination:<\/strong>
       
God who speaks through scripture:
breathe life into these ancient words.
Infuse them with your Holy Spirit,
let us hear them afresh today.
Open our ears, our minds, our hearts, and our lives
to receive your truth and allow it to change us. Amen.<\/strong>
 
Reading     <\/strong>1 Corinthians 1:18-31 <\/em>
 
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written, \u2018I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.\u2019
 
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God\u2019s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God\u2019s weakness is stronger than human strength.
 
Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.  But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;  God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are,  so that no one might boast in the presence of God.  He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,  in order that, as it is written, \u2018Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.\u2019 
 
Reading<\/strong>        St Matthew 5:1-12<\/em>
 
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.  Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
\u2018Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
\u2018Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
\u2018Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
\u2018Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, 
for they will be filled.
\u2018Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
\u2018Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
\u2018Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
\u2018Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness\u2019 sake, 
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
\u2018Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you 
and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great
 
Hymn:   <\/strong>God of Justice, Saviour To All<\/em>
Tim Hughes \u00a9 2004 Thankyou Music (Admin. by Integrity Music Ltd)  CCLI Licence No. 1064776; unknown singer from St Saviour\u2019s Bournemouth, used with their kind permission.
 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

God of justice, saviour to all,
came to rescue the weak & the poor.
Chose to serve and not be served.
 
To act justly every day,
loving mercy in every way
walking humbly before You God.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus You have called us,<\/em>
freely we’ve received, now freely we will give.<\/em>
We must go, live to feed the hungry, stand beside the broken.<\/em>
We must go; stepping forward, keep us from just singing,<\/em>
move us into action \u2013 we must go.<\/em>
 
Fill us up and send us out
Fill us up and send us out
Fill us up and send us out Lord
 
Sermon<\/strong>
 
When I was about 11 years old, I started a new school term with a shiny new keyring fastened to my backpack. It was a colourful enamel tag with rainbow stripes and the words \u2018I *heart* Jesus\u2019 in gold letters.  A boy in my class laughed at it. He held it up for everyone to see and pronounced \u201cJesus is for losers!\u201d
 
It’s a mildly painful memory\u2026 but you know what?  Now, I think that maybe that annoying kid was onto something.  In fact, if I were to give this sermon a title, I might even call it \u201cJesus is for losers.\u201d
 
Please bear with me\u2026 and I will try to explain what I mean\u2026
 
The beatitudes, those words of Jesus\u2019 that we heard from Matthew 5, are so familiar they risk losing some of their subversive impact.  Even so there is a jarring disconnect, isn\u2019t there, between the reality Jesus describes and the way things appear to be.  Just now, when we thought about who we might consider \u2018blessed\u2019, we listed categories of people who seem to be \u2018winning\u2019 at life.  Next to this, Jesus\u2019 words sound ridiculous.  What does he mean, \u201cblessed are the poor in spirit?\u201d  What does he mean, \u201cblessed are those who mourn?\u201d  He might as well be saying \u201cthe sky is green\u201d and \u201cthe sea is dry\u201d as \u201cthe poor are blessed\u201d right?
 
In the passage we heard read from 1 Corinthians, Paul agrees. He admits that the Good News of the Gospel seems laughable, like \u201cfoolishness\u201d, back-to-front and upside-down, a \u201cstumbling block\u201d, an impossible dream.
 
Jesus\u2019 words might be in discord with the status quo, but they are in harmony with the prophetic tradition in which he stands. Prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures like Micah, Amos and Jeremiah also spoke of God\u2019s solidarity with the oppressed, poor and marginalised.  Jesus\u2019 mother Mary, in the words we call the Magnificat, spoke of God inaugurating a reversal of fortunes, the wealthy and powerful being brought low and the poor lifted up (Luke 1:52-53).
These are a reminder to us that yes, God does have favourites.  But they are not the ones we might think, the ones who appear to be winning at life. Jesus is for losers.
 
When we try to understand Jesus\u2019 words in Matthew 5, it\u2019s worth noticing who<\/em> it was Jesus was speaking to. To find this out we need to go back a few verses, to the end of chapter 4. Verses 23-25 read:
 
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in\u2026 synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. And great crowds followed him\u2026<\/em>
 
This is important. Out of context we might misunderstand Jesus\u2019 words. We might think he\u2019s somehow glorifying suffering. But the end of chapter 4 reveals that Jesus is pronouncing God\u2019s blessing on the very people he was speaking to.<\/em> He was looking out at a crowd of people who were broken in body and spirit, who were colonised and oppressed, who had experienced persecution, who were exploited by those in power, and his heart was breaking with compassion for them. He was telling them, \u201cBlessed are you\u2026 You <\/em>will inherit the earth\u2026 You <\/em>will receive mercy\u2026 You <\/em>will be called children of God.\u201d Jesus was saying, \u201cyou who are desperate for change\u2026 you who long for justice\u2026 you who are sick\u2026 you who are suffering\u2026 God sees you. God hears you. God is on your side. You<\/em> are God\u2019s beloved.\u201d
 
Maybe you\u2019re listening to this and thinking, \u201cbut that\u2019s not enough.\u201d Are the poor and the suffering supposed to be content with being told they are blessed? In my role as a hospital chaplain, I meet lots of people who have been dealt a really rubbish hand. People whose lives are going to be cut short by disease. People who are living with unthinkable amounts of pain and loss. People whose hopes and plans for their lives, or the lives of their loved ones, have been stolen from them.
Many of them, understandably, do not feel blessed. They feel cursed. They wonder aloud where God is, how God could have allowed this, what they have done to deserve it.
 
How do we reconcile the discrepancy between the reality Jesus proclaims and the realities people are living through? How do we live within this tension, and what is Jesus asking of us?
 
There are no easy answers to these big, hard questions. But I offer you three imperfect and tentative suggestions:
 
The first is to name, hold and acknowledge this tension. Jesus\u2019 words expose injustice. They are a reminder to us that the way things are is not the way God desires them to be. In following Jesus we reject a \u201cprosperity gospel\u201d and the misuse of God\u2019s name to sanctify the status quo. We pledge our allegiance to a different dream for the earth and its people, one that liberates and lifts up.
 
The second is to hear Jesus\u2019 words as a call to action. In the wider context of Matthew\u2019s gospel, this passage comes at the very start of Jesus\u2019 ministry. He has just called his first disciples (4:18-22). Now, in the beatitudes, he lays out what it is he has called them to. These \u201cblessed are\u2026\u201d statements can be read as a mission statement, a vision, a manifesto for the new community. 
 
I have read that the verb translated \u201ccomfort\u201d in verse 4 is more forceful and active in the Greek. The verse could be translated, \u201cblessed are those who mourn, for they will receive advocacy<\/em>.\u201d[1]<\/a> This suggests more than just soothing a hurt. It calls for justice. We might think of comfort as a soft thing, like wrapping a blanket around someone\u2019s shoulders, but perhaps what Jesus is talking about here is comfort that empowers, restoring agency. As followers of Jesus we are called into solidarity with the suffering. To grieve alongside. To listen and learn. To be allies and advocates.
My third suggestion is to hear Jesus\u2019 words as a call to hope. We are in the season of Epiphany, a season that is all about noticing where God is present\u2026 about glimpses of what was hidden being revealed.
 
I wonder if there have been moments when you have caught a glimpse of the alternate reality Jesus describes in Matthew 5?
 
Here are two examples I can think of, from Oxford, where I live:<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n