 We welcome all visitors to our services this Sunday at Yetholm (10am) and Morebattle (11.15). Please take sign the visitors’ book.
Call to Worship With all our hearts, let us praise the Lord. With all that we are, we will praise God’s holy name! The Lord forgives our sins, heals our weakness, and gives us life everlasting. Let us worship God who is merciful and patient, God’s love never fails. Hymn 210 – Awake my soul, and with the sun.. Prayers of adoration and confession O God, our strength and refuge, We come together to worship you and praise your loving kindness. In your presence, we rest from what distracts us, to focus on your truth and goodness. You call us to live in relationship with you. Through the love of Jesus Christ, you repair our lives. Through the power of your Spirit, you engage us to serve you in the world. Receive our prayers and our praise this day, Creator, Christ, and Spirit, revive our hope and our energy and make us ready to answer your call. O God, our judge and our hope, we confess we often turn away from your truth, and ignore your call to do justice. Forgive us when we say one thing in worship but do another in the ways we live. Forgive us when we ignore how others are treated and think only of ourselves. Let your judgment awaken us and your mercy refresh us. Merciful Creator, remind us that we are loved, and transformed by love. Help us to let go of the hurt we have caused others, and enable us to forgive those who have hurt us, so that we can flourish. Jesus delighted in setting people free, May we know forgiveness for the hurt we have caused, and be able to forgive the hurt we have experienced. Lord’s Prayer Readings – Jeremiah 1: 1-10 Luke 13: 10-17 Hymn 251 – I, the Lord of sea and sky Weekly Prayer: Everlasting God, forgive us for overlooking your power and trying to live in our own strength. Help us to understand that we can’t do it on our own, and thank you that even before our birth your gracious hand was upon on our life providing everything that we need. Amen Sermon Every Friday I receive a message on WhatsApp from a friend in Israel, saying ‘Shabbat Shalom’. It is the traditional greeting in Israel to welcome in the Sabbath. At dusk on the Friday night, buses stop running for 24 hours, and families come together for a special evening meal. The Saturday morning is quiet, and peace reigns where usually there would be the hubbub of traffic and horns. The Sabbath is still important; some might even go to synagogue, but most secular Israelis still see it as a day to keep different from all the others, to rest or to meet up with family and friends. Some people work on the sabbath, because they have to, but are paid extra. Though for the Orthodox Jew, Sabbath is a day to keep holy, and the more extreme even have a Gentile, maybe a Filipino or Indian worker, to fetch water or even turn on light switches, because that would be deemed work. But for all, the Sabbath is a special day – because in Pharaoh’s Egypt the Hebrew slaves had no day off; it was work 24/7. So the enshrinement in the Law of a day of rest was so important. I am sure many of us grew up with Sunday being a distinctly special day. No shops would be open, apart from the newsagent to sell the Sunday papers in the morning. It was a day for church. How things have changed over a relatively short time, and not always for the best. In our Gospel reading, Jesus is at the synagogue on the Sabbath and has been invited to preach. But he stops his sermon half way through when he notices a woman bent over. He speaks with her and heals her, and it causes a furore. Some people praise God, because they have witnessed something wonderful; a woman who had been disabled in this way for 18 years has been healed. But the leader of the synagogue takes exception. The service has been disrupted, but also he feels the law of the Sabbath has been violated and he remonstrates with Jesus and breaking the law. Could you not have come back tomorrow, you almost hear him say – she has waited 18 years; one more day wouldn’t make a difference. For the Leader of the synagogue, the law mattered and he was upset over what he saw as an infringement of the law in his synagogue. The law does matter – it is there to keep order. But Jesus challenged this, by quoting from the Law, and by healing the woman, showed how grace and mercy brings life. The woman was restored to life and for the first time in 18 years could look people in the eye. Love trumped legalism; The broken spirit was put before the broken command. We don’t know the woman’s name. Maybe she had attended worship at that synagogue for 18 years or more, always looking down. How was she treated? Maybe people just grew used to her and her condition. But it does raise the issue of how we treat those who are disabled in one way or another. In Zambia I was in touch with a group of disabled young people who made rugs out of rags; they were very colourful. But they told stories of other people who were blind or crippled who were kept at home; their families somehow ashamed of their condition. Thankfully in Britain great strides have been taken for the disabled to feel more accepted in society. There are disabled presenters on TV, while at the recent Commonwealth Games races for the disabled were not kept separate from the other races but rather integrated. As the Church we also have to be conscious of those who are disabled and make such there is accessibility and that all are included. The wonderful thing about this passage is that Jesus noticed the woman and saw her need and was able to include her in God’s love. She was restored to the community and had her part to play. All of us have our part to play. That comes out in our Old Testament reading, when Jeremiah is called. Like Moses, he recites the reasons why he can’t possibly take up the role God has in mind for him. Moses wasn’t comfortable speaking, remember, but Jeremiah complained that he was too young. But God had other ideas, and Jeremiah is duly commissioned. All of us have our part to play in the life of the church. In Christ’s service all of us can walk tall, for all are included and all of us loved. Hymn 718 – We cannot measure how you heal Prayers of Dedication and Intercession O God, We offer our gifts as symbols of our lives. Help us to use these and all of your gifts wisely, Bless our offering of money and of ourselves and use all to build your Kingdom and share your love God, Creator, Healer, Sustainer, we bring to you our prayers. We pray for the world in all its beauty and pain: the land stripped bare of resources by human greed, the animals and plants driven to extinction the oceans overfished and exploited. We pray for those who call us to account for our misuse of the planet Give them courage to speak and give us courage to act to protect the globe. We pray for the healing of the world. We pray for your people, each one made in your image: those caught up in war, living in fear, fleeing in terror, those dying in places of famine, where enough is a distant dream, those burdened by poverty in lands filled with wealth. We pray for the people of Afghanistan, especially those who live in fear and in poverty. We pray for all who speak for justice and equity among peoples and nations: those who broker peace in the face of hunger for power. Give them courage to speak and give us courage to act with and for those in need. We pray for the healing of the nations. We pray for your Church in every place sent out by the flame and wind of Pentecost to tell your story and be your love. We pray for the unity that comes through Christ. We pray that your Church may rejoice in diversity of worship and style and that all may be pleasing to you. We pray that your Church may serve you in Spirit and in truth. We pray for ourselves: carrying the burdens we bring and cannot let go of, the unspoken and unhealed hurts, grief in its fresh rawness or the dull ache of time. We pray for those we know in need of your presence today and in the days to come. Silence. Amen. Hymn 459 – Crown him with many crowns Benediction
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