Ordinary Sunday 18A (02-08-2020)

WELCOME TO WORSHIP WITH THE BARWON HEADS & OCEAN GROVE CONGREGATIONS

This service was streamed live via Zoom on August 2nd at 10am

Below is the entire text for a service of worship for home use while public worship is not available in the church buildings Even though the service is streamed live, those who are unable to participate online may use this material at any time for their private devotions. If ‘two or three’ are gathered with you, you may choose a ‘leader’ in order to use the responsive prayers and readings as you would in church.

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-oOo-

Grow something else besides Old!

What you can become you already are.

CALL TO CELEBRATION

Life is meant to be an adventure; change is a gift that we have to learn to use aright. Let us celebrate the richness and diversity of this life in the presentness of God.

HYMN 59 – “All People that on Earth do Dwell (”click here to listen)

OPENING SENTENCES

L: In the beginning, God made the world:

Women: Made it and mothered it,

Men: Shaped it and fathered it,

Women: Filled it with seed and signs of fertility,

Men: Filled it with love and its folk with ability.

L: All that is tender, firm, fragrant and curious,

All: God’s is the hand that created you.

L: All that speaks, sings, cries, laughs or keeps silent,

All: God’s is the hand that created you.

L: The world belongs to Creativity God

All: The earth and all its people.

GATHERING PRAYER

Spirit of life and love, we have gathered in this sacred space again. May we create here a circle of love, ever expanding, ever growing. A place of wisdom. A place of connection. A place of hope. Amen.

JOURNEY INTO SILENCE

May the silence of this time which now engulfs us, be for us a period of reflection, prayer and meditation. Great possibilities do await us. The grandeur of life, of which we are a part, fills us with hope, if we seek to choose it.

(Keep at least 30 seconds of silence)

WE REFLECT UPON OUR RELATIONSHIPS

L: Most lovely God, and most loving God, we place the transcript of our daily lives before you, written surely in our being, and we pray that you will edit our story with the radical grace of Christ Jesus. We are not as others think we are, we are not even what we imagine ourselves to be. Our insight is defective and we are not able to read ourselves accurately. You alone see the full text, the lines of glory, the pages of shame, the many grey paragraphs, and the unfinished sentences.

R: Look upon us with your saving mercy. Please forgive and delete every single thing that is unlovely and unloving. Correct and restructure all that is misshapen. Highlight the things worth repeating or enlarging. Rephrase the unfinished sentences so that they may continue on to declare your glory.

L: You alone are capable, you alone can be trusted to deal with all the secret pages of mind and heart. Make us more yours than we have ever been before, and in being more yours, become more truly ourselves. Through Christ Jesus our Saviour.

THE ASSURANCE

L: Listen to the Good News: “Here is love. Not our love of God but God’s love for us in giving us the true Son to be the remedy for the pollution of our sins.” In the name of the Son of God, light of the world, friend of sinners, rescuer of the lost, healer of the broken, joy of the redeemed, I declare to you: the pages of your life have been made new, and the door to life has been opened to us.

R: Thanks be to God.

FROM THE GOSPELS – Matthew 14:13-21 (The Message version)

Supper for Five Thousand

13-14 When Jesus got the news, he slipped away by boat to an out-of-the-way place by himself. But unsuccessfully—someone saw him and the word got around. Soon a lot of people from the nearby villages walked around the lake to where he was. When he saw them coming, he was overcome with pity and healed their sick.

15 Toward evening the disciples approached him. “We’re out in the country and it’s getting late. Dismiss the people so they can go to the villages and get some supper.”

16 But Jesus said, “There is no need to dismiss them. You give them supper.”

17 “All we have are five loaves of bread and two fish,” they said.

18-21 Jesus said, “Bring them here.” Then he had the people sit on the grass. He took the five loaves and two fish, lifted his face to heaven in prayer, blessed, broke, and gave the bread to the disciples. The disciples then gave the food to the congregation. They all ate their fill. They gathered twelve baskets of leftovers. About five thousand were fed.

FROM THE WORLD AROUND US

“Just a Housewife” by Cordelia Baker-Pearce.
(From Celebrating Women)

I packed five cakes of bread and two small fishes,
Sent him off, my youngest lad,
To take his father’s dinner to the field.
Came back alone he did, all goggle-eyed.
My fresh-baked bread that varmint gave away
To some young travelling preacher out of Galilee.
It fed five thousand people.
What a tale!
It can’t be true… but if it is.
What kind of dough did these hands knead
This morning?

SONG – “Come to the Feast” (click here to listen)

A CONTEMPORARY WITNESS “You’ve Got the Goods”

Part 1

“You give them something to eat.” (Mt.14:16b)

The familiar story of the feeding of the crowds comes to us as Jesus is attempting to withdraw to a deserted place, i.e. to get away from it all for a while, perhaps to pray, to reflect on his ministry, or recharge his batteries. But his attempt to withdraw is frustrated by huge crowds, crowds which press in upon him from everywhere.

The allegedly lonely place to get away from the demands of ministry is anything but lonely. It is teeming with people in need. In response to this vast array of need, Jesus has compassion and begins to heal them. In fact, so intent was he in his healing that, like many preachers in their pulpits, he lost track of time. His disciples remind him that it is quite late and it is past time to eat. Just as one begins to think that the disciples are, themselves, being compassionate toward the physical needs of the people, we read, “Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.”

Crowds, so many people, so many hungry people. And the hour is late and this is a lonely place. Send them away. Send them back to a town where they can buy something to eat. Suddenly the picture of the contemporary church grows clearer. Send them to their local mental health clinic where they can get professional help. Send them to Centrelink and let the government help them. Send them anywhere but here – to anybody other than us. Master, send them away.

And Jesus answers, “YOU give them something to eat!” And despite the disciples protests that their meagre resources are not enough, Jesus takes what they have, blesses it, offers it, and it is enough. As it says in Matthew, “And they all ate and were filled.”

If you hear in this story – Jesus’ taking the bread, blessing the bread, breaking the bread and then giving the bread – an experience you have had before, you are right. Every time we celebrate the Lord’s supper, we repeat this four-fold action. The move from weary disciples to recognition of human need, to sharp demand, and then to a gift of more than enough, is repeated every time the church gathers to break bread. Here is the primary model for the church. In Acts 2:42 we read, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

It is in the recognition that Jesus is speaking to us that the ritual of communion hits home. “YOU give them something to eat.” It is one thing to come to church and worship together, to share the broken bread that is given to us. It is one thing to be the receiver, the one in need that is healed. It is quite another to hear Jesus say to us, “You give them something to eat.”

And we with those first disciples, protest: “We have nothing here…, we can’t.” We look in our baskets at our meagre resources and find that we have no where near enough to fill the hungry bellies of the starving millions, no way of finding jobs for the unemployed. Heck we can’t even help our children deal with their marriage break-ups, or ease our spouses arthritis. But listen again to the movement in this story. It is a movement from the recognition of vast human hurt through the weary, empty disciples, to Jesus’ sharp command, and then a gift of more than enough.

Jesus says, “Bring what you have to me.” Then he blesses what we have, and offers it to the crowd, and wonder of wonders, it is enough. People are filled. And not just the people are filled, but the disciples too were filled; filled with a new confidence that Jesus had not called them to serve in ways he would not equip them to serve.

“YOU give them something to eat,” is not a harsh demand so much as a vote of confidence in you and me. YOU give them something. It will be enough. I promise.

I read the story of a young theological student who had, a few years previous, a very powerful religious experience in an evangelical young peoples’ group which left him fired up to witness for Jesus. The leader of that group was a master of working the group into a frenzy of emotion, and one day when the emotion was really running, he asked them, “You all wanna witness for Jesus?” There was a thunderous yell from the kids. “You all wanna tell everybody about Jesus?” “Yea!” shouted the kids. So the gang of young people got on a bus and were driven into the poorest, most run down slum area of Philadelphia. Run-down apartment buildings, windows out, rusting hulks of stripped cars. The kids had started the trip singing about Jesus, but as they got deeper into the slums, they all got very quiet – and very scared. The bus stopped in front of one of the worst blocks of flats. The kids were ushered off the bus and the leader said, “Ok gang, get out there and witness for Jesus! I’ll be back in six hours.” And off he went.

Part 2

The kids were terrified. The boy who was to become the theological student walked to a terrible looking building, went up a flight of stairs and into a dark, smelly hallway. He heard a baby crying, so he walked toward the sound and knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” said a loud voice from behind the door. The door cracked open. A woman, smoking and holding a naked baby, peered out. “What do you want?” she asked coldly.

“Hello,” said the boy, “Er, I want to tell you about Jesus.” The young man recounted, “With that she started cursing me. She cursed me out of that door, all the way down the hall, down a flight of stairs and out on to the street. I was stunned. I just sat down there on the curb in front of the building and wept. Some disciple I was. Some evangelist.”

“Then I asked God for help. I looked up and noticed on the corner a rundown, boarded up grocery store. I walked into the store and looked around. My eyes fell upon a box of disposable diapers (nappies to you), and I remembered the baby which the woman held in her arms. I bought the diapers and a pack of cigarettes. I went back to the building, back up the dark stairs, back to the woman’s door where I knocked again.”

“Who is it? What do you want” said the voice as the door was opening. Shaking all over, the boy held out the cigarettes and the box of diapers.

“Come in,” she said. The boy put one of the diapers on the baby. She smoked one of the cigarettes, and offered one to the boy. He had never smoked in his life, and never did again, but he did then.

He spent the rest of the day in the woman’s flat, playing with the baby, listening, talking. When it was almost time for the bus to return, she asked, “What’s a boy like you doing in a place like this?” He told her everything he knew about Jesus, which took all of ten minutes, and then she said, “Pray for me.” Which he did.

Faced with all sorts of human need, we look in our little baskets and find not all that much: a few loaves, a couple of fish. But then Jesus takes what we have, blesses it, and by the miracle of God’s grace, it is enough.

Rabbi Hiyya Rabbah inquired into the real meaning of the verse, “And God said: ‘Let there be light.'” The patriarchs answered, “This is God’s challenge to humanity to help in establishing the messianic age. That is what is meant by Isaiah in calling us to, ‘Arise, shine, for thy light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.’”

A LITANY “Word Made Flesh”

L: God speaks! with excitement! with enthusiasm! with new life!

R: God is present! God is with us! Nothing can separate us!

L: Even when we feel unsure, unclear, confused; even when we feel broken to the core of our being –

R: We hold fast to God’s love, God’s acceptance, we are always welcome in God’s household.

L: We will each, once again, feel like a well-watered garden. Full of life! Radiant in the sun!

R: It will be good. It is good.

WE OFFER OUR CONCERNS

L: For the thin skinned who wear every comment as a thorn, and the tough-hided who are insensitive to the needs around them, we ask for your truth and grace.