St Clement Church Community Sunday Service
Good morning
This week’s service is really a continuation of last week’s celebration of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day in that we are looking at resurrection and the after-life. It is an interesting one to ponder, isn’t it? After all, none of us have experienced it, so it really is – ‘how do you think it will be?’
God Bless.
With love
Liz
Let us pray
Faithful Father, we begin today by giving you thanks. Your love endures for ever, it never fails. Though there are many ways in which we have failed, we have not exceeded the supply of your mercy and grace. We thank you for revealing yourself to us through your Word. As we open the Bible today, we pray that we will hear your voice. We ask that your Holy Spirit will be at work, opening our ears to hear and our hearts to receive your word. May we be transformed into your likeness. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen
Hymn: 339 Be thou my vision
Our prayers of Penitence
The Lord is full of compassion and mercy slow to anger and of great kindness.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.
For as the heavens are high above the earth so great is his mercy upon those who fear him.
Holy God, holy and strong, holy and immortal, have mercy upon us.
As far as the east is from the west so far has he set our sins from us.
As a father has compassion on his children so is the Lord merciful towards those who fear him.
Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul and forget not all his benefits.
Amen.
The Collect for the third Sunday before Advent
Almighty Father, whose will is to restore all things in your beloved Son, the king of all: govern the hearts and minds of those in authority, and bring the families of the nations, divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin, to be subject to his just and gentle rule; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen
Readings
Job 19. 23 – 27a
2 Thessalonians 2. 1 -5, 13 – 17
Hymn: 408 Love divine, all loves excelling
Gospel of Luke 20. 27 - 38 (Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke. Response: ‘Glory to you O Lord.’)
Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus, and asked him a question, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally, the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.’
Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed, they cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’
(This is the Gospel of the Lord. Response: ‘Praise to you, O Christ’)
Reflection
As I read today’s Gospel reading, I thought, ‘Oh dear – yet another challenging passage for me to try to untangle!’ Di always seems to have an interesting story to start her sermons with, but either I’m useless at stories or there are some passages that just don’t seem to fit with a story and I seem to get them!
Then, thinking back over my life, I suddenly remembered a lady who was manageress in a dress shop in Truro. I first remember meeting her when I was about eight years old as my mother enjoyed going into the shop. As the years went by, we became friends and I learnt something of her life. Her first husband had been killed, in the early days of the war, not knowing that she was expecting a baby. She married a second time a man much older than herself who looked after her and her son. Widowed a second time, she married a third time, looking after her husband until he too died. It was after the loss of her third husband, and now in her eighties, that I remember her saying to me that she wondered which husband she would be with in the after-life, or would she be with all three and what if they didn’t get on! So, even as a ‘good’ Catholic, whilst firmly believing in the resurrection, she was concerned about how her life here on earth might affect her time in the after-life.
Now, we know all about the Pharisees but who are these Sadducees? Well, apparently, they are the upper-class folk who only accept the first five books of the Old Testament, those parts supposedly written by Moses. Nowhere in those books is resurrection ever mentioned. They figure that if God had intended people to be resurrected, he would have told Moses about it and Moses would have told them. But, Moses didn’t, and that’s why they believe that the resurrection is not scriptural but just a fantasy.
In fact, those in this elite class probably think that the notion of resurrection is just ‘sour grapes’ for groups and individuals who haven’t ‘made it’ like they have.
Why do resurrection believers believe in a resurrection, even though Moses never mentioned it? According to the Sadducees, it is because they are still trying to make something of themselves unlike ‘us Sadducees who have done that already!’…
The Sadducees, not believing in God-empowered resurrection, believe that the only way a man (yes, a man – no one cares if women achieve anything) could ensure his continued existence was through having children – and if a woman failed to produce the needed children before he died, the brother of the man should help him by marrying the widow and having children for him. This rule had been put in the Book of Exodus – it was a way of achieving a lasting existence by the generations that followed. Let’s be honest, the whole thing was really driven by the fear of death, the fear of going out of existence.
The Sadducees are out to ‘trap’ Jesus – their question is the same question that they repeatedly use to silence their resurrection believing opponents like the Pharisees. It’s an exaggerated question – is it likely that seven brothers would die leaving the same woman as a widow? But, when you want to make a point, who cares about exaggeration!
Jesus doesn’t hesitate. He explains that marriage, life etc as we know it here on earth is nothing like it will be in the resurrected life. God is a God of the living. In God everyone is alive – so, when he mentions Moses at the burning bush and that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He means that God is the God of the living and so they are still alive. He tries to get his questioners to see that while we are in one world-order now, where many of us craft our whole lives around the ‘fear of death’ – some think of it as a dark void of nothingness; others as a ‘court date’ … where black, white, right, wrong, good, bad, heaven, hell - based on our current lives will be judged accordingly. So, we spend our lives working to amass points for ourselves, comparing our lives with others, are we good enough, are we doing enough, how can we look better in God’s eyes?
What Jesus is trying to point out is that though people here craft their whole lives around the ‘fear of death,’ in the ‘age to come’ meaning after death, all are as important as our wives, husbands, children etc are now.
It's hard, isn’t it? Of course, we all want to be reunited with loved ones in the afterlife, don’t we? And I’m sure that we will. But, I think that when we die and open our eyes for the first time we will be in a new understanding of what ‘loved one’ means. Love is love so we won’t feel that need to claim just one or two, or ten souls as ‘our family’ – we will not have that feeling of fear or caution but will have all the knowledge needed to understand perfectly; all the emotions that we have here, that guide us, right or wrong, will give way to only love.
If we really take Jesus at His word, knowing that in God all are alive, shouldn’t it, wouldn’t it increase our joy of living here and remove all fear of death, now? Wouldn’t it take away any need to be angry, aggressive or negative to one another? What if we read Scripture, not as an obstacle to our lives or something to keep us on the straight and narrow, but as an opportunity to live the life God has desired for us? To have life and to have it more abundantly? What if we read it through the lens of love, like Jesus did? What if Jesus has been seeing God very differently from how we do and is trying to get us to see God as He does? The God Jesus sees is full of life and it is a life so contagious that it can’t be contained. It flows over into everything and, knowing this, changes the way we think and act and approach the earthly end of our lives. Resurrection isn’t a miracle that sometimes happens but rather the normal state of things of being full of life because that is who God is. The power and deathlessness of God is almost unimaginable to us. Since God is the God of the living, we don’t have to worry about dying; we don’t have to build our lives on fear of death; we can live fully every day, knowing that in God there is no darkness.
Jesus is the key to knowing the world and each other and death is a doorway to enlightenment and the greatest gift yet to come – eternal life. Jesus’ resurrection isn’t a one-time miracle that proves He is God but reveals the true nature of God – love.
Amen
Affirmation of our faith
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.
Believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated on the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy, catholic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen
Hymn: 383 Jesu lover of my soul
Intercessions
Everlasting God, open our eyes, that we may see you. Open our ears, that we may hear you. Open our mouths that we may speak your praise.
Lord, hear us. Lord, graciously hear us.
Holy God, we pray for your Church throughout the world, for sceptics and believers, for clergy high and low; for all those who seek God at home, at work, in the streets, and in the pews; for all who search for life. We pray for the stillness to listen to the voice of the Spirit and to recognise what you have done for us.
Lord, hear us. Lord, graciously hear us.
Creator God, you gave us the care of your planet and yet all we seem to do is spoil it. We pollute the atmosphere in our striving for worldly goods, we endanger the lives of your animal kingdom in our constant desire for farmland and cash crops and we bring death and destruction in senseless wars and acts of terrorism. We pray for a time when common sense rules and we all learn once again to be good stewards of your wonderful creation.
Lord, hear us. Lord, graciously hear us.
Loving God, may we see you as your Son, Jesus, sees you; may we hear you as He hears you; may we know you as He knows you as the living God of love. May this knowledge wipe away all fear of death and enable us to live our lives as you desire.
Lord, hear us. Lord, graciously hear us.
Dear Lord, we bring before you all those who are sick or suffering in body, mind or spirit. There are so many who face the challenges alone. May they know that you are always with them no matter how steep the hill or how deep the abyss. Enfold them in your loving arms and give them strength and courage to face whatever lies ahead.
We bring before you all those injured in the Hallowe’en celebrations in South Korea and the collapse of the bridge in Gujarat’s Morbi in India.
We remember: Reverend Diane and Ken, Alison and Rob, Dot and Terry, Margaret, Mary, Maureen, Carole, Paul and Jan, Brian, Rupert, Felicity and all those who have no one to pray for them.
Lord, hear us. Lord, graciously hear us.
Gracious God, you are the light and life for all who fear darkness and walk in the shadow of death. Be with your faithful servants and welcome them into the light and life of your eternal kingdom and unending fellowship with you.
We bring before you all those who died when the bridge collapsed in Gujarat’s Morbi in India and in the Hallowe’en celebrations in South Korea. We also remember Ted. Be with all the families of the departed as they come to terms with life without their loved ones.
Lord, hear us. Lord, graciously hear us.
Faithful God, you have promised to be with us and long ago sent your Spirit to live amongst us, to guide us to a future of goodness and hope. As we travel into the week ahead seeking your truth and justice, help us to feel your presence as we offer our prayers to you now and in the days ahead. We know you listen – may we be open to hear your response.
Merciful Father:
Accept these prayers for the sake of your Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen
Gathering our prayers and praises into one, let us pray with confidence as Jesus taught us;
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, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.
Amen.
A Gift from God by John P. Read
Love can’t be described.
It has no shape, it has no form.
Love is not an object.
Love does not conform.
Love enters our lives
The moment we are born.
From the cradle to the grave,
Love’s in everyone.
Love burns like a candle
That sometimes flickers but never dies.
Love may be invisible,
Although it’s right before your eyes.
Love can leave you empty,
Love can make you whole.
Love can make or break you,
Love is in your soul.
Love is in your heart,
Love is in your mind.
Love doesn’t discriminate,
Love is always blind.
Love is universal,
It encompasses the globe.
No matter where you are,
Love has a language all its own.
Love is all around you.
There’s plenty of love to spare.
You cannot see or touch it,
But love is everywhere.
Love’s the greatest power,
And yet it is so small.
Love’s a gift from God
To be shared amongst us all.
The Peace
God is love and those who live in love, live in God, and God lives in them.
The peace of the Lord be always with you.
Hymn: 377 Immortal, invisible, God only wise
Blessing
In darkness and in light, in trouble and in joy, help us, heavenly Father, to trust your love, to serve your purpose, and to praise your name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.