Anniversary Sunday

Gathered through the power of the Holy Spirit, we worship God with gladness. We encourage you to pray over the words that follow, and follow the links within the liturgy. Prayers in this service are adapted from Celebrate God’s Presence (UCPH). Thanks this week to Jenny, Cor, and Heather!

PRELUDE: “Jesus Has Time” (Roebuck/Fettke)

OPENING PRAYER

Greetings to our brothers and sisters in the faith.
We come to celebrate God’s presence,
and God’s love expressed through Jesus Christ.
We come remembering Christ’s life and ministry,
and the life we are called to live.
We come as a pilgrim people
searching for ways to live out our faith.
We come seeking the strength to carry on our journey.
Let us rejoice in God’s gift to us! Amen.

HYMN OF PRAISE: “Sing praises to God!”

Sing praises to God! Sing praise in the height;
rejoice in God’s word, blest angels of light;
high heavens, recalling by whom you were made,
come, offer your worship in brightness arrayed.

Sing praises to God! Sing praise upon earth,
in tuneful accord, you saints of new birth;
praise God, who has brought you rich grace from above,
and showered your life with abundance of love.

Sing praises to God, all things that give sound;
each jubilant chord re-echo around;
loud organs, your glory tell out in deep tone,
and trumpets, the story of what God has done.

Sing praises to God! Thanksgiving and song
be ever outpoured, all ages along:
for love in creation, for hope spread abroad,
for grace of salvation, sing praises to God.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Almighty God,
to whom all hearts are open,
all desires, known,
and from whom no secrets are hid:
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love you,
and worthily magnify your holy name;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

God will give us what we need:
strength for today,
hope for tomorrow,
and forgiveness
for all that is past.
Amen.

SPECIAL MUSIC: “Retell what Christ’s great love has done” (Rowthorn/Holmes)

FIRST READING: Psalm 90

God, you have been our refuge in every generation.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
before earth and world were formed,
from age to age everlasting, you are God.
You turn frail humans back to dust, saying:
‘Return, you mortals.’
For a thousand years in your sight are as yesterday,
a day that is past, a watch in the night.
You sweep them away like a dream,
like grass that is fresh in the morning,
like grass which in the morning is green,
but in the evening is dried up and withered.

Turn back, O God! How long?
Have compassion on your servants.
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us,
as many years as we have suffered adversity.
Show your servants your work,
and let their children see your glory.
Let the favour of our God be upon us,
and prosper the work of our hands.
Prosper the work of our hands.

SECOND READING: Deuteronomy 34.1-12

Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, 2 all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, 3 the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. 4 Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”

5 And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. 6 He buried him[a] in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. 7 Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. 8 The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.

9 Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit[b] of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses.

10 Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, 11 who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. 12 For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

HYMN: “O God, our help in ages past”

O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast,
and our eternal home:

under the shadow of thy throne
thy saints have dwelt secure,
sufficient is thine arm alone,
and our defence is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
or earth received its frame,
from everlasting thou art God,
to endless years the same.

A thousand ages in thy sight
are like an evening gone,
short as the watch that ends the night
before the rising sun.

Time like an ever-rolling stream
soon bears us all away;
we fly forgotten, as a dream
dies at the opening day.

O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
be thou our guard while troubles last,
and our eternal home.

REFLECTION

He’s the internet pioneer you’ve likely never heard of.

His name is Jacques Gaillot, and his route from rural south-eastern France, to the Algerian desert, and the early days of the World Wide Web begins with a sermon. But that’s the middle of the story.

The story begins as young Jacques completes compulsory military service, enters the seminary, becomes a professor and a priest, and later a bishop. At this point, his story reads like so many of the countless bishops within the Roman Catholic Church. But everything changes with his first Easter service as Bishop of Évreux, when he shares these words: “Christ died outside the walls as he was born outside the walls. If we are to see the light, the sun, of Easter, we ourselves must go outside the walls…Does a bishop remain in his cathedral or does he go into the street?”

His activism was boundless. From the “street” in Évreux he spoke out on disarmament, apartheid, gay rights, French nuclear testing, contraception, clerical celibacy—to name a few. A dozen years after Pope John Paul II appointed him bishop, he removed him, or rather, he relocated him to the Diocese of Parthenia—many times larger than Évreux, but almost completely covered in sand.

You see, Parthenia is a titular see, meaning it was once a thriving part of the church, but no longer exists (except on paper). Within the Catholic Church these former regions are retained as placeholders, or honorifics, or in the case of Jacques Gaillot, as punishment. Along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa there were nearly fifty dioceses with nearly fifty bishops, all of which were gone by the early middle ages.

Having been given a diocese buried under metres of sand, the good bishop moved online, creating the first “virtual” diocese and reaching a worldwide audience. What began as punishment became an opportunity and an early example of the power of the internet to inform and mobilize. 25 years later his work continues.

I share this unlikely story with you because I love stories of people who managed to “make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” but also because of the story of Parthenia. We celebrate 199 years of Central today, but we also celebrate all the history that led to this moment. We mark this place, but we also remember the parts of the church that led to the creation of this place: from the recent and well-loved places like Mount Dennis, Westminster, and Elverston-Trethewey—to the places that led to their creation. In the same way that each church was formed by people coming from other churches, each person was (and is) formed by others, all of them with a unique background in the faith. This web of believers, existing over time and space, makes us who we are today, as we mark this moment.

It also reminds us that we exist in the middle of the story—always the middle of the story—and what follows is always unknown. We recall the history of this place, and we celebrate the present of this place, and we anticipate with hope the future. Yet, it remains unwritten. We don’t get to see the promised land, the future church that is the fulfillment of all our hopes, because we belong to the middle of the story. And we’re in good company, of course, with no less a figure than Moses himself.

The remarkable passage from Deuteronomy 34 describes the end of Moses’ life, the middle of the story where God shows him the vastness of the promised land—a land he cannot enter. It is the culmination of the most important story in the Old Testament—along with creation itself. From the baby in the basket, to the Incident at Meribah, to this view of the promised land, the story of Moses is foundational to our understanding of the God Who Saves. And as I share this claim, and as you call to mind the arc of the Exodus, I hope you (like me) wonder at the Incident at Meribah.

It’s hinted at in our passage: God says to Moses “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.” Walter Bruegemann argues that by the time God reminds Moses, it’s all ancient history—the Incident at Meribah—but our passage turns on this story nonetheless.

It happens like this: The people are complaining once more. Despite the water and the manna and the awkward quail, the people are complaining once more. And in their thirst and frustration they begin to complain to Moses and Aaron and it all sounds rather familiar: ‘Why did you bring us this evil place? At least in Egypt we had places to grow our grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and here, there isn’t even water to drink.’

So Moses and Aaron retreat to the tent of meeting and seek God’s help. God says (in essence) ‘do what you did before. Take the staff, tell the rock to bring forth water, give to the people.’ So they gather the people once more, and Moses speaks. He forgets his homily about the God Who Saves and the gifts God has given them to sustain them so far. And instead he says “Look you idiots, you want me to get some water from this rock?” (look it up—Numbers 20.10) He struck the rock (twice) and everyone drank.

But God was angry. ‘You didn’t speak to the rock, you struck the rock. You didn’t uphold me by saying ‘look at what God is giving you’—you said ‘look at what I’m giving you’ instead. For this reason, you will get to see the promised land, but you cannot enter it. Again, this may be ancient history for Moses, tired after leading these unruly people for forty years, but it defines his end. Stuck in the middle of the story, never entering the promised land, he must settle for hope.

It seems to me that the lesson of forever dwelling in the middle of the story has even wider application. Almost exactly four years ago I shared an article about St. Augustine, the North African saint that some were calling the “patron saint of the 2016 election.” It turns out it was a little too prescient. The author of the article argues that even as the barbarian hordes were overtaking the city, Augustine never lost hope. Even as the Western Roman empire was crumbling, and with it the certitude of the church in this period, Augustine was working for the well-being of the city, and the people he was trusted to lead. “Christians are not of the world, but we’re most definitely in it,” the Archbishop of Philadelphia said. “Augustine would say that our home is the City of God, but we get there by passing through the City of Man…and while we’re on the road, we have a duty to leave the world better than we found it.”*

Again, the middle of the story. And just because we need hope more than ever, I want to quote President Obama, who shared these words on Wednesday, more-or-less saying what all these others are saying:

And the fact that we don’t get 100% of what we want right away is not a good reason not to vote. It means we’ve got to vote and then get some change and then vote some more and then get some more change, and then keep on voting until we get it right.*

The past might be a mystery to us, or even covered in sand, and the present might look like one crisis after another, but we still have hope. The past might not feel like the past to us, and the present might seem like it never lives up to the past, but we still have hope. The past might seem like a trial in the desert, and the present merely a glimpse of the promised land, but we still have hope.

Our task is to keep wandering, keep moving, keep supporting one another, and keep the faith alive. Our task is to find Christ “outside the walls” of the church, and in the streets, the streets where God lives. And our task is to remember that God will save us from every kind of trial, and that God will always lead us home. Amen.

*http://religionnews.com/2016/11/03/is-augustine-the-patron-saint-of-the-2016-election/
**https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/22/politics/obama-speech-transcript/index.html

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

O God,
where the gift of life is given,
remind us to give thanks;
where your blessings rest upon us,
remind us to share them with others;
where the turning leaves leave us breathless,
remind us they reflect your glory;
where our needs are met each day,
remind us that you are the source;
where the gift of an anniversary is celebrated,
remind us to give thanks.

O God,
where hearts are fearful and confined,
grant freedom and daring;
where anxiety is infectious and widening,
grant peace and reassurance;
where impossibilities close every door and window,
grant imagination and resistance;
where distrust reshapes every understanding,
grant healing and transformation;
where spirits are daunted and dimmed,
grant soaring wings and strengthened dreams.

O God,
where nations descent in chaos,
grant understanding between people;
where communities are divided by station or race,
grant a sense of the sacredness of every life;
where leaders are unable or unwilling to lead,
grant wisdom and courage;
where systems conspire to keep people down,
grant vision and insight;
where people cry out for freedom,
grant them that which we all deserve.

O God,
where the pandemic rages,
grant healing and a common purpose;
where families grieve the loss of a loved one,
grant comfort in the face of loss.
where hopelessness appears, these months on,
grant us hope for the future;
where frontline workers feel overwhelmed,
grant us the means to help;
where the vulnerable suffer the most,
grant us a voice to speak for them.

In Christ, we pray.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: “God of life, in Christ you lead us”

God of life, in Christ you lead us,
guiding us along the way.
In our past, through joys and sorrows,
you have been our strength and stay.
Keep us faithful, true disciples,
in our learning and our praise,
celebrating past and present, consecrating future days.

God of words and Word Incarnate,
words that challenge and embrace,
grant us boldness in our speaking,
while we know your loving grace.
Give us words both clear and winsome,
loving hearts and listening ears,
celebrating past and present, consecrating future years.

God of music, psalms and anthems,
help us sing your faith anew:
melodies expanding worship,
harmonies enriching too.
May our lives be hymns in action,
tuned to Christ in note and rhyme,
celebrating past and present, consecrating future time.

God of days and years and eons,
still you call as in the past.
Work undone demands our labour;
justice yearns for peace at last.
Yours the vision and the challenge;
ours the mission and the praise,
celebrating past and present, consecrating future days.

BLESSING

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Amen.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23

God be with you till we meet again;
loving counsels guide, uphold you,
with a shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.