Marsden Road Uniting Church Carlingford
Through the Aisles…,
Pentecost 11 Sunday year of Mark 9.30am
Gathering God’s People
Acknowledgement of
First Peoples
We
acknowledge the first people who have cared for this Land, where we worship,
the Wallumedgal.
May our worship join with the voices of the First Peoples of this Land.
Call to Worship
Whoever comes to Christ will never hunger. Whoever believes in him
will never thirst. Blessed be the bread of life and the living water.
Come, children of God.
Come and find refuge and strength. Our souls wait for the Lord, more than
those who watch for the morning.
Come, heirs with Christ.
Come and find forgiveness and joy. Our souls wait for the Lord, more than
those who watch for the morning.
Come, people of faith.
Come to the one who is
attentive to our pleas.
Our souls wait for the Lord, more than those who watch for the morning.
Hymn TIS 100: All creatures of our God and King
verses 1,2,4,5,7
(tune – Lasst Uns
Erfreuen)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdfTekZcgGM
Opening prayer
Source of faithful love, you redeem us from our wrongs. We come before you today, eager to be refreshed in body and to be made whole in spirit. Feed us from the living bread that comes down from heaven, for we are drawn to your Son as steel is drawn to a magnet. Build up our community of faith through the power of your Holy Spirit, that we may live as those who are worthy of our calling. Amen.
A Prayer of Confession
Out of the depths we cry to you, O God, with eyes
streaked with tears.
For we cannot always save the
ones we love and are left alone to taste the bitter dregs of our sorrow.
In the lonely watches of the
night, we yearn to set aside our anger and resentment, and embrace the paths of
healing and wholeness.
In the dark night of the
soul, we long to forsake our anguish, and embrace your mercy and compassion.
Open our hearts anew to your kindness and love, your mercy and compassion, that
we may know in our bones how much we are your beloved children. Amen.
Declaration of Forgiveness
Beloved, sorrow may last the night, but joy
comes with the morning. Even in the midst of fear and loss, be imitators of God
as beloved children, and live as cherished heirs with Christ.
Thanks, be to God!
The
Peace
The words we say matter. Words can tear down
as easily as they can build up. Let us offer words of love and joy, as we
exchange signs of Christ’s peace with one another.
Peace be with you!
And also, with you!
(You may like to exchange a sign of peace with
those around you.)
Offering Prayer
Bountiful God, in praise and thanksgiving for your many blessings, receive our tithes and offerings, that they may be for the world signs of the bread of heaven and the fullness of your grace. For we came here hungry for your Spirit, and you fed us with food that satisfies. We came here thirsting for your grace, and you revived us in our need. In humble thanks, we thank you. Amen.
Hymn TIS 686: Lord Jesus we belong to you.
(tune –
Cooke Plains)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGCoJy5fwFQ
No You Tube version available with Lyrics on screen to sing to.
First Reading: Ephesians 4:25–5:2
The Gospel Reading: John
6:35,41-51
After the final reading the reader will say
For the
Word of the Lord
Please respond by saying Thanks be to God.
Readings: NRSV Translation
Ephesians 4:25–5:2
4 25 So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another. 26 Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not make room for the devil. 28 Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labour and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. 29 Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. 31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, 32 and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. 5 1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2 and live, in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
John
6:35,41-51
35 Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 41 Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, ‘I am the bread that came down from heaven.’ 42 They were saying, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, “I have come down from heaven”?’ 43 Jesus answered them, ‘Do not complain among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, “And they shall all be taught by God.” Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’
Preaching of the Word – Through
the Aisles…,
A husband and wife walk through the aisles of
a modern Pharmacy, accompanied by their 4-year-old son. The man stops to
examine a new model electric razor that claims to provide the closest shave
ever. He holds it in his hand and says to his wife, “I need this.” To which she
replies, “Not now, we can’t afford it.”
Their young son sights a display of plastic
action figures made to represent popular cartoon characters. He reaches out to
touch one and his mother says, “Not now. Wait until your birthday.” And the
child protests loudly, “But I need it!”
There is often a big difference between what
we want and what we really need. For example, it has often been said that there
exists in each of us a “God-shaped hole” that can be filled only by a stirring
and nurturing relationship with Christ. However, our problem is that we attempt
to fill that deeper, spiritual longing with things that do not ultimately
satisfy. Since they cannot ever make us permanently happy, these lesser things
become our addictions as we seek more and more and more of them in an
increasingly frantic attempt to find satisfaction. Money, materialistic
acquisition, food, sex, power, fame, thrill-seeking, the consumption of alcohol
and drugs-all call for more and more, as they gradually give back less and less
for the amount consumed. And we still feel empty.
Jesus alludes to this in a passage similar to
today’s Gospel. In John, chapter four, he tells the woman at the well that the
water she draws from the well will eventually leave her thirsty again, but the
water that he offers will continue to rise up and flow into eternal life. The
point is that there is a hunger we have that cannot be satisfied except by our
relationship with the Holy.
In our Western world, bread is the metaphor
for food. If we lived in Asia, the symbol of rice would provide that metaphor. In
fact, some modern Asian translations of the Christian scriptures often have
Jesus saying, “I am the rice of life.” Certainly, we need our daily bread or
our daily rice. But we need more than daily food to find any lasting
satisfaction and to live fully. As followers of Jesus, we say that we shall
never be content until we host Jesus in our lives. Jesus, the “Bread of Life.”
Jesus, the one who, St. John says, “came from God and would return to God”
(13:3). Jesus, who brings the Creator of the unimaginably vast universe down to
dwell in the concrete flesh and blood world of sinful humanity.
What, specifically, is this “bread” that
Jesus offers us? We call it love. It is the love of the invisible God made
visible and accessible to our human experience. He offers us an opportunity for
a relationship with God through him. When we appropriate that love into our
lives and the spirit of Jesus fills our deepest hunger (the God-shaped hole),
that love begins to overflow to others.
No one in our time has so caught the meaning
of this two-dimensional love than Mother Teresa of Calcutta. She and her
Sisters of Charity rummaged around the streets of Calcutta seeking the poor who
were left to die on the sidewalks and in the alleyways of the city. These dying
persons then were brought to a mission where they were bathed and cared for. In
Mother Teresa’s words, “Every person at least one time before they die needs to
know that he or she is loved.” Jesus is the bread of life because he came to
show the world of human beings that we are loved-loved by God and loved by
God’s people who, as the church, live to extend that love to others.
D. T. Niles, leader of the Church of South
India a half century ago, defined evangelism in light of Jesus’ claim to be the
bread of life. “Evangelism,” he explained, “is one hungry person telling
another hungry person where to find bread.” Indeed, that is the mission of the
church - it is to tell the world where love is to be found. It is found in Jesus-as well as in peace,
joy, hope, and all of the fruits of the Spirit. Well it seems especially in these troubled
times, that our Lord shows the world the path to brotherhood and sisterhood.
Finally, we cannot ignore the obvious allusion to the sacramental bread of the Eucharist. There is no doubt that in the time St. John was writing his Gospel the first century Christians had already begun to connect Jesus’ words claiming to be the Bread of Life to their growing sacramental understanding of the mystery of Holy Communion. Just as they had experienced Jesus as a man but more than a man, so they saw in the Eucharistic bread more than bread alone. It was a sign of the presence of Jesus. The bread became for them a representation of the mystery of Christ in their midst. To receive the sacrament was to realize the love of God in Christ, gracing, forgiving, accepting and filling their lives in a very profound way.
To prepare us to receive this filling love, and to help our understanding let us turn to Thomas Cranmer, whose words find their place in various prayer books throughout the world. One of these is the Anglican Book of Common Prayer which has words which go something like the following:
And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and
bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee; humbly
beseeching thee that we, and all who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion,
may worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son Jesus Christ,
be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction, and made one body with him,
that he may dwell in us, and we in him.
As we celebrated in our Holy Communion Service last week, the bread that our Lord offers to the world is himself. We who come to the altar with hands outstretched, come desiring to be so filled with Christ that our restless seeking shall come to an end. We come believing that here is the place where the “God-shaped hole” shall be filled. Yes, we are filled when Christ dwells in us and we in him. It is at this moment that he becomes for us the living bread that comes down from heaven.
Hymn TIS 584: Just as I am, without one
plea.
(tune – Saffron Walden)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enJ8JzW_A48
Intercessory Prayers
After
the words: In your mercy,
please
respond with hear our prayer.
Pentecost 11 –
Year B
Most merciful and loving
God, in you is steadfast love and hope; hear us when we pray for all people and
for your church throughout the world.
We pray for all the nations
of the world, their leaders and people. In every age you have fed and sustained
your people: hear today the cries of those who suffer starvation, oppression,
imprisonment or war and teach us how to live together in harmony and peace.
Loving God, broken for us,
in your mercy, hear our prayer.
We pray for your holy,
catholic/universal church, its clergy and people.
You feed us with your body
and blood and sustain us with your living word: meet us today in the breaking
of the bread, make us one in the meal we share and send us out to feed your
hungry people.
Loving God, broken for us,
in your mercy, hear our prayer.
We pray for all with whom we
share our lives, for our families, our friends and the people of this
community.
You lived on earth in a
human family and gathered around you a group of friends be present in all our
relationships, that we may live together in love and sustain one another with
our kindness and care.
Loving God, broken for us,
in your mercy, hear our prayer.
We pray for all in need, for
the friendless and the bereaved, the sick and the dying, for those in anxiety
and distress.
You have pity on all who
call on you and you offer wholeness and hope to your people: bring comfort and
relief to all who suffer anguish, pain or grief, and to those who care for them
give tenderness and skill.
Loving God, broken for us,
in your mercy, hear our prayer.
We pray for all who have
died in the faith, for your holy people of every age, for those from this
parish who have gone before us to eternal life.
Long ago you fed your chosen
people in the wilderness and brought them safely to the Promised Land: feed us
too with the bread of heaven and, with all your saints, bring us home
to the place you prepare for all who love you.
Loving God, broken for us,
in your mercy, hear our prayer.
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.
Hymn TIS 585: I heard the voice of Jesus say.
(tune – Kingsfold)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUVCpF8-VuE
Benediction
Go forth from this place and imitate the Holy
One in all you do.
We
will live with love, speak with kindness, touch with gentleness, walk with
humbleness, and build up the kingdom of God.
Go forth into the world and live-in love, as Christ has lived in and through you.
Hymn TIS 778: Shalom to you now.
(tune – Somos del Senor)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiH_HdkWs74
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