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 Madelyn, Kerri, Dave, and Heather!
PRELUDE: “When the Pain of the World” (Strathdee)
OPENING PRAYER:
God of all,
May your strength pilot us.
May your power preserve us.
May your wisdom instruct us.
May your hand protect us.
May your way direct us.
May your shield defend us.
May your host guard us against the snares of evil
and the temptations of the world.
May Christ be with us, Christ before us,
Christ in us, Christ over us.
And may our salvation, O God,
be always ours, this day and forevermore. Amen.
HYMN OF PRAISE: “This is the day”
This is the day, this is the day
that our God has made, that our God has made;
we will rejoice, we will rejoice,
and be glad in it, and be glad in it.
This is the day that our God has made,
we will rejoice and be glad in it.
This is the day, this is the day
that our God has made.
Open to us, open to us
your gates, O God, your gates, O God;
we will go in, we will go in,
to your holy place, to your holy place.
Open to us your gates, O God,
we will go in to your holy place.
Open to us, open to us
your gates, O God.
You are our God, you are our God,
we will praise your name, we will praise your name;
we will give thanks, we will give thanks,
for your faithfulness, for your faithfulness.
You are our God, we will praise your name,
we will give thanks for your faithfulness.
You are our God, you are our God,
we will praise your name.
This is the day, this is the day
that our God has made, that our God has made;
we will rejoice, we will rejoice,
and be glad in it, and be glad in it.
This is the day that our God has made,
we will rejoice and be glad in it.
This is the day, this is the day
that our God has made.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
We have been called the salt of the earth:
guide us Lord, lest we lose our saltiness.
We have been called the light of the world,
challenge us Lord, lest we hide our light.
We have been called a city set on a hill,
remind us Lord, a city built on a hill cannot be hidden.
Encourage us to bring flavour to life,
to bring light to the shadows,
and to bring our sense of your glory, Lord,
to a place where everyone can see. 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: “Pass It On” (Kaiser)
FIRST READING: Psalm 51
Have mercy on me, O God, in your great kindness,
in the fullness of your mercy blot out my offences.
Wash away all my guilt, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my faults,
and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned,
and done evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence,
and blameless in your judgement.
Guilty I have been from my birth,
a sinner from the time of my conception.
But you desire truth in our inward being,
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean,
wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
Let me hear the sounds of joy and gladness,
let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
Turn away your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.
Put a new heart in me, O God,
and give me again a constant spirit.
Do not cast me away from your presence,
do not take your holy spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and strengthen me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
O God, open my lips,
and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
You desire no sacrifice, or I would give it;
you take no delight in burnt offerings.
The sacrifice you accept, O God, is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God,
you will not despise.
SECOND READING: John 12.20-33
20 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
23 Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
27 “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
30 Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
HYMN: “O Jesus, I have promised”
O Jesus, I have promised to serve you to the end;
remain for ever near me, my Saviour and my friend:
I shall not fear the journey if you are by my side,
nor wander from the pathway if you will be my guide.
O let me feel you near me: the world is ever near;
I see the sights that dazzle, the tempting sounds I hear;
my foes are ever near me, around me and within;
but, Jesus, then draw nearer and shield my soul from sin.
O let me hear you speaking in accents clear and still,
above the storms of passion, the murmurs of self-will;
O speak to reassure me, to hasten or control;
now speak, and make me listen, O guardian of my soul.
O Jesus, you have promised to all who follow you,
that where you are in glory your servant shall be too.
And Jesus, I have promised to serve you to the end;
O give me grace to follow, my Saviour and my friend.
REFLECTION
I can confess a certain passion for borrow-words.
If I told you that the melee we call the Norman invasion caused some malaise in our milieu, you might say ‘yes, but at least we gained some dandy borrow-words from the French.’ And we did. And even before the Normans, the Vikings who “visited” the land of our language left behind some helpful words: ransack and berserk, for obvious reasons; heathen and troll (the bridge kind, not the internet kind), and the more earthly words dirt, mire, and muck. All fine words, but none as evocative or enjoyable as schadenfreude, which means ‘taking pleasure in the misfortune of others.’
To be clear, I enjoy the word, not the sentiment (unless we’re talking about crossing the line ahead of the rest of the fleet). But it got me thinking about the last few weeks and whether our German friends have a word for the opposite, ‘feeling displeasure at the good fortune of others.’ More research is required. Maybe we could simply default to another borrow-word, actually a double borrow-word, (envy) that began as Latin, then French, then English.
O envy, you are so much more than one of the seven deadly sins. You appear every time someone gets something we want, and can lead to upset, frustration, and often anger. Some have learned the hard way that sharing the news of your recent vaccination can generate a variety of responses, and not all positive. Rather than a sense of relief that one more person is edging toward immunity, and therefore making all of us safer, we have witnessed upset, frustration, and even anger.
We’re simple creatures, we humans, and we frequently default to assessing worth, or value, or deservedness, rather than taking pleasure in the good fortune of others. As some medical person said this week, it’s Team Human versus Team COVID, and we should be cheering on our side rather than second-guessing who gets to score first. So the next time you’re offered the opportunity to share someone’s outrage, remind them that epidemiologically speaking, we’re all in this together. End of sermon.
Well, not really—more end of rant. But my rant does relate to the Gospel lesson for today, when Jesus says “we’re all in this together,” or rather, we should be. The heart of the passage is right in the middle: “Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. And my Father will honor the one who serves me.” But before we examine the heart, let’s zoom out (no pun intended) and see where these words are set.
Chapter after chapter in John, Jesus says, “my hour has not come.” His mother needs more wine, but his hour has not come. Twice they tried to arrest him, and twice he said his hour had not come. But here in chapter twelve, finally, he says his hour has come. In Luke, we famously get the phrase “he turned his face to Jerusalem,” but for John, his hour has come.
So Jesus is headed to Jerusalem, and he says “Whoever serves me must follow me.” Think about these words. Whoever serves me must follow me. We tend to conflate them—service and following him—but Jesus wants to keep these two ideas separate. We serve Jesus whenever we seek the lost, or slake the thirsty, or visit the sick—but can we also follow him? For you see, following is another thing altogether.
And it’s something Jesus tries to explain again and again. In Matthew (20) he’s confronted by the sons of Zebedee (and their mom!) about this question of who gets to sit at the right and left of Jesus in eternity. Again, Jesus famously asks “can you drink the cup I’m going to drink?” and the sons say “oh yeah!” This was not the answer the Master was looking for. But he doesn’t give up on these two (or their mom), choosing instead to restate the lesson they struggle to understand: “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Again, the difference here is between service and giving his life. Whoever serves me must follow me. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. These are hard words, words we struggle to understand, so maybe it’s time for an example.
Remember back in January, the Vancouver couple who chartered a plane to some remote part of the Yukon, got in the queue pretending to be workers at the local hotel, got the shot, then made the mistake of asking for a ride to back to the airport, proving that clever and stupid often live on the same street? They clearly love their life, and love it enough to break the law, to put an entire northern community at risk, and risk the infamy that comes when every half-baked plan fails. This is what happens when you love your life, to the exclusion of others.
Jesus would have us do the opposite, obviously. ‘Hate your life’ is meant to get your attention, but it just means doing the opposite of the excessive life-lovers, or those who are willing to risk the lives of others in order to preserve their own lives. Yes, we need to avoid doing foolish things; yes, we need to love and serve others; but we also need to follow in his way. And following in his way means loving our own lives a little less.
Back to our example, knowing that remote and northern communities are ahead in the queue should be gratifying— these places where there is no 9-1-1, or a big hospital, or an ambulance on the way. It should be gratifying to know that we are part of a society that works, giving priority to the most vulnerable, and not the people who can afford to charter a plane. It should be gratifying to set aside our own sense of urgency, knowing that we can love our own lives a little less for the safety and well-being of others.
As we get ready for our annual meeting, we can take pride in the fact that the building is filled with food, and boxes, and clean needles, and packaged meals, and clothing (sometimes on the street too). We can take pride knowing that we set aside our own comfort, we set aside the urge to find the building exactly the way we left it, and we set aside the need to control the space—for the sake of others. It’s not a small thing, even if you don’t feel directly involved.
In other words, we serve, but we also follow in his way. Amen.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
People of God:
we gather, in worship,
to prepare ourselves to experience the passion of Christ,
to go in heart and in mind to Jerusalem,
to see the mystery of our God,
alone on the cross we erected.
In this season,
in the spirit of the God
who so loves the world as to send us Jesus,
let us pray for the needs of the whole world.
We remember especially
those whose lives are disrupted, dislocated,
or even destroyed by the pandemic…
We pray for peace and goodwill among the nations…
Let us pray for the earth,
as it longs for the promise of God’s new creation…
Let us remember before God
all who are poor, hungry or cold…
all who are oppressed by circumstance or by other people…
all who experience violence, especially women…
all who face hatred for their race or sexuality…
all who are sick or dying…
all who are lonely or frightened,
and all wait for their life to resume.
Lastly, let us remember before God
those who have gone before us,
whose company and voices we miss,
but who, in the grace and goodness of God,
are still in fellowship with us.
With them, and with the multitude of hosts
and God’s faithful of every time and place,
we prepare for the mystery of death and resurrection,
an end to death, and new life in Christ. Amen.
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: “We are pilgrims on a journey”
We are pilgrims on a journey,
fellow travellers on the road;
we are here to help each other
walk the mile and bear the load.
Sister, let me be your servant,
let me be as Christ to you;
pray that I may have the grace to
let you be my servant too.
I will hold the Christ-light for you
in the night-time of your fear;
I will hold my hand out to you,
speak the peace you long to hear.
I will weep when you are weeping,
when you laugh I’ll laugh with you;
I will share your joy and sorrow,
till we’ve seen this journey through.
When we sing to God in heaven,
we shall find such harmony,
born of all we’ve known together
of Christ’s love and agony.
Brother, let me be your servant,
let me be as Christ to you;
pray that I may have the grace to
let you be my servant too.
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.
Good morning.
I am looking forward to zoom in later.