 The Lord be with you! Welcome, Cheviot churches and also those joining us from elsewhere. This is Come, people of God, let us worship together on this Fourth Sunday of Lent, Mothering Sunday.
Notices:
Call to Worship Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good God’s love endures forever God gathers the people from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south Let us thank the Lord for such all-embracing love. Hymn 118 – Womb of life Prayers of Adoration and Confession Gracious God,Great and wonderful are your works!Where there is darkness, you bring light.Where there is sadness, you speak words of hope.Where there is despair, you bring new possibilities.Stir us with your Spirit, O God, in this time of worship.Awaken a sense of joy and reverence within usas we offer you our songs and our silence, our prayers and praises, for you are our God. Mothering God, embrace us in your fierce love,Enfold us in your protective care, Calm our anxious worrying and quieten our teeming minds. Still us, body, mind and spirit, to rest in you. Merciful God,Even as we praise you, we are aware of our failures as your disciples.We take your love and acceptance of us for granted.We are often careless with our relationships,more focused on ourselves than on you or those around us.Forgive us.Awaken our spirit of commitment and compassion,so we may serve you more faithfully, day by day. Friends in Christ, by grace we have been saved through faith. Know that God forgives you, and forgive one another. So may the peace of Christ be with you Lord’s Prayer Readings – Numbers 21:4–9 John 3:14–21 Hymn 597 – Loving Spirit Weekly Prayer Father God, on this Mothering Sunday we remember that from the cross your only Son Jesus entrusted Mary his mother and John his disciple to each other’s care. As we look again at the cross help us to see Jesus lifted up encouraging us all to "Look and Live". Help us also to care for one another and fill our homes with the spirit of your love. Amen Reflection There is one thing everyone has been talking about this week – THE Interview. Oprah Winfrey interviewing Harry and Meghan. We will all have our different opinions about it, but I found it so tremendously sad, for it was about family tensions being exposed, a family being torn apart, and that is never nice to see. Today is Mothering Sunday, when we celebrate family life, and especially our mothers. We thank God for their nurture of us, as they fed and clothed us and left their mark on us, though we are also conscious that some may have lost their mothers too early. But Mothering Sunday also invites us to reflect upon the place of the Church as our mother, as the church nurtures us in the faith. It is life long journey, but my mind goes to my time in Zambia, when an important stage of the Church’s nurture was the ‘catechumen class’, the communicant class, when people joined the church. In Zambia these classes were big and long, often lasting 6 months, for there were 36 lessons to cover, and each lesson had a ‘memory verse’ to memorise for the following week. The ‘verse’ could be to learn the 66 books of the Bible in order or in most cases could be just a verse, but the favourite verse was John 3: 16 – ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not perish but have life everlasting’. Everyone in Zambia, whatever their denomination, could quote that verse. It is a wonderful verse and tells of a God who loves and cherishes the world so much and is willing to sacrifice that we might know God and have eternal life. It is talking of a God who is a parent, who is both Father and Mother to us In Hosea 11, the prophet speaks of God’s love for Israel. ‘When Israel was a child, I loved him. It was I who taught them to walk, who took them in my arms, who drew them with bands of love and raised them to my cheek’. It is God who is talking and we can hear the maternal and paternal imagery, like a mother embracing a child, a father raising them up on shoulders. But the child Israel goes their own way, makes their own choices. But God as parent is waiting and says in Hosea, ‘How can I give you up. My heart is overwhelmed’. Regardless of what Israel had done, God’s love was boundless. It speaks of our situation, for too often we rely on our own strength and think we know best. Like the prodigal son, we go our own way, but God as parent is waiting for us and still loves us – and is willing to sacrifice for us. As we continue through Lent and draw closer to Holy Week, we remember the sacrifice God made for us in Jesus and how he took up the cross and died out of love for us at Calvary, raised high on the cross and, like the bronze serpent in that strange story in Numbers, heals and saves us. We pray that all unhappy families may be healed and reconciled, but today celebrate a mother’s love and celebrate God’s love for us which embraces us. Let us respond in a life of service and care. Hymn 465 – Be thou my vision Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession Creator God, on this Mothering Sunday we give thanks for all mothers and for the gift of life. We pause for a moment and hold our own mothers or those who mothered us before you….. We thank you for the loving gift of mothers. All shall be well, all shall be well And all manner of thing shall be well We pray for all orphans or those who have lost their mothers or a parent too soon. We pray for all who are parenting children and who feel overwhelmed or who are struggling to cope: For those who find today a difficult day; For families which have separated; For adoptive or foster parents and step-parents and those seeking to build up new relationships; For those who have longed for a child. All shall be well, all shall be well And all manner of thing shall be well We pray for parents struggling to feed their families, for those who live with conflict, violence or fear and those who have had to flee their homes. We thank God for families where children are well and happy and full of life. On this Mothering Sunday, we give thanks for our Mother Church; for our experience of being loved by a family that is as wide and broad as the human race. Creator God we thank you for always holding us in the palm of your hand. Silence All shall be well, all shall be well And all manner of thing shall be well Amen Hymn 644 – O Jesus, I have promised Benediction May the Lord whose steadfast love is constant as a mother's care send us out to live and work for others and may the blessing of God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer, be with you and those whom you love and those we are called to love, for evermore. Amen.
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