Morning Service for the Sixth Sunday of Easter 2024
HYMN – Be thou my vision – NEH 339- Slane
1 Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,
Be all else but naught to me,
save that thou art,
Be thou my best thought in the day
and the night,
Both waking and sleeping,
thy presence my light.
2 Be thou my wisdom, be thou my true word
Be thou ever with me, and I with thee, Lord,
Be thou my great Father, and I thy true son,
Be thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.
3 Be thou my breastplate,
my sword for the fight,
Be thou my whole armour,
be thou my true might,
Be thou my soul’s shelter,
be thou my strong tower,
O raise thou me heavenward,
great Power of my power.
4 Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Be thou my inheritance now and always,
Be thou and thou only the first in my heart,
O Sovereign of heaven, my treasure thou art.
5 High King of heaven, thou heaven’s bright Sun,
O grant me its joys after victory is won,
Great Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be thou my vision, O Ruler of all.
PRAYER OF PREPARATION
Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open,
all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden:
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
PRAYERS OF PENITENCE
Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith,
firmly resolved to keep God’s commandments and to live in love and peace with all.
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we have sinned against you
and against our neighbour in thought and word and deed,
through negligence, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault.
We are truly sorry and repent of all our sins.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, who died for us,
forgive us all that is past and grant that we may serve you
in newness of life to the glory of your name. Amen.
May the God of love and power
forgive you and free you from your sins,
heal and strengthen you by his Spirit,
and raise you to new life in Christ our Lord. Amen.
THE COLLECT
God our redeemer,
you have delivered us from the power of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of your Son:
grant, that as by his death he has recalled us to life,
so by his continual presence in us he may raise us to eternal joy;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.
FIRST READING – Acts 10.44-48
While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.
HYMN Lord of our life – NEH 404 Iste Confessor
1 Lord of our life, and God of our salvation,
Star of our night, and hope of every nation,
Hear and receive thy Church’s supplication,
Lord God Almighty.
3 Lord, thou canst help when earthly
armour faileth,
Lord, thou canst save
when deadly sin assaileth;
Christ, o’er thy rock
nor death nor hell prevaileth;
Grant us thy peace, Lord.
4 Peace in our hearts,
our evil thoughts assuaging;
Peace in thy Church,
where brothers are engaging;
Peace, when the world its busy war is waging:
Calm thy foes’ raging.
5 Grant us thy help till backward they are driven,
Grant them thy truth, that they may be forgiven;
Grant peace on earth, and,
after we have striven,
Peace in thy heaven
GOSPEL – John 15.9-17
As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
SERMON
We celebrate the Ascension on Thursday, so it is logical that we hear some more of Jesus’s parting words to his disciples as written by John in the context of the last Supper. These words are very personal, they are words from a teacher to his pupils, from a master to his disciples, from a Lord to his people. At least that is how they begin.
Within the passage, within the act of saying farewell, a transition occurs, something changes and these men are no longer disciples but friends. Their relationship has matured. In listening to the words of Jesus, in witnessing the signs he has done, the disciples have heard things and seen things that have brought them into a fellowship with Jesus that has transformed them and they have become his friends. In the experience of being with him they have come to know him.
If you think this sounds very different from the story in St Mark’s gospel you would be right, it couldn’t be more different. There is no point worrying over who was right let us draw our lessons from each as we may.
For Jesus the essence of this new relationship, the demands of friendship, are contained in the simple word “agape”, love – not the love of lovers, or the love of parent for child, or the love of country, rather the love of brother for brother, friend for friend. The love that leads to sacrifice and gift without reward. And the love that Jesus defined as one where you lay down your life for your friends. This is the relationship that Jesus has for the disciples, this is the relationship he calls his disciples to have for one another.
John in his first epistle develops this idea of love and its centrality to Jesus’s life and teaching. He says that God is love, and those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. This love becomes the medium, the substance of the communication, between mankind and God. What do we mean then by this love? Is it just a feeling, an emotion, a warm glow – or is it an attitude or direction of mind? Is it a way of behaving, a matter of conduct and deed, or is it nothing more than just a profound wishing well?
The mystics would teach us that you can only share the love of God if you have first fully become aware of it; and you can only become aware of it by being with God, if in the stillness of your heart you have felt the love from God which calls us to love in return. So it would follow that when we find loving difficult we must return and find again an awareness of the love God has for us; from that awareness we may respond both to the God and also to our fellow human beings.
So to know what love is we must first experience it. I wonder if that is why it was only at the point of crucifixion that Jesus’s disciples understood what he was about. Only from that place of grim suffering could they begin to comprehend that this divine love is not just emotion and feeling, not just good deeds and fine words, not even a profound wishing well, but an extraordinary sharing of the very nature of God.
It is sometimes so foreign to us that it just doesn’t fit into our world of the survival of the fittest, those who practise it most completely are doomed – doomed to poverty, misunderstanding, prejudice, ridicule, and even perhaps doomed to inevitable death. But when they have been recognised, almost always post mortem, then we call them Saints and worship them.
Lest we underestimate the demands of love – try at every turn to think, “is this the most loving thing to do, to say or to think?” – and note just how hard it is to honestly say ‘yes’ all the time, or even some of the time.
But can love ever be an effort, or the fruit of the will? Can you force yourself to love? Jesus commands his friends to love – love is what brings the friendship into being – but love flows from being in the presence of someone who is loveable. If we are to have love enough for the unlovable (by our standards) then we must surely put ourselves into the presence of he who is all love and from that source draw the love that will flow from us. This then is surely the command – ‘abide in my love’ – for in that abiding we will learn what it is to love.
The starting point is always the knowledge that we are loved. Someone once said that the purpose of life was to discover how to love. And that seems quite reasonable to me, but I would add that the purpose of life is also to fully understand that we are loved for in that discovery we learn that we are a part of what is eternal and deathless – that we are a part of God, for we are loved by him – even if sometimes all the signs seems to say otherwise.
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH
Let us declare our faith in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ:
Christ died for our sins
in accordance with the scriptures;
he was buried;
he was raised to life on the third day
in accordance with the scriptures;
afterwards he appeared to his followers,
and to all the apostles:
this we have received,
and this we believe. Amen. 1 Corinthians 15.3-7
HYMN Jesus, good above all other NEH 387 – Quem Pastores
1 Jesus, good above all other,
Gentle Child of gentle Mother,
In a stable born our Brother,
Give us grace to persevere.
2 Jesus, cradled in a manger,
For us facing every danger,
Living as a homeless stranger,
Make we thee our King most dear.
3 Jesus, for thy people dying,
Risen Master, death defying,
Lord in heaven, thy grace supplying,
Keep us to thy presence near.
4 Jesus, who our sorrows bearest,
All our thoughts and hopes thou sharest,
Thou to men the truth declarest;
Help us all thy truth to hear.
5 Lord, in all our doings guide us;
Pride and hate shall ne’er divide us;
We’ll go on with thee beside us,
And with joy we’ll persevere!
PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION – Jenny Walmsley
God be in our heads and in our understanding as we pray today for our world. May you help us comprehend the realities of global warming, the conflicts raging throughout our world, the atrocities committed with no thought for the victims and those displaced from their homeland through no fault of their own. We pray for Gaza, Israel, Yemen, the Ukraine and for refugees everywhere.
Lord in your mercy hear our prayer
God be in our eyes and in our looking as we thank you for the signs of Spring and new life burgeoning all around us. Lord, help us to appreciate all that we have rather than concentrating on what we have not. Inspire our leaders to stifle greed and acquisitiveness and let us all try to help our families, our friends and our neighbours as you continually sought to help humanity. We think of the exhortation from you in today’s Gospel reading “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” and we ask you to help us live our lives with this purpose.
Lord in your mercy hear our prayer
God be in our mouths and in our speaking as we pray for our Christian Church and rejoice that in this country we are free to acknowledge our religion without any fear of persecution. Let us be brave enough to proclaim our faith and let it reflect in our everyday life and actions. We thank you for our church and our benefice, all those who work so hard to keep it thriving especially our rector, William.
Lord in your mercy hear our prayer
God be in our hearts and in our thinking as we remember all those known to us who are sick in body, mind or spirit or struggling to survive in today’s world. We hold them in our hearts and think of them in our prayers as we ask you to heal, comfort and protect them.
Lord in your mercy hear our prayer
God be at our end and at our departing. We remember all those who have died. We pray that they have found peace in your heavenly kingdom and we hope that their families and friends are comforted by this knowledge. Finally, in a moment of silence, we add any personal prayers and ask for your love to envelop and enfold us……………………..
Merciful Father,
accept these prayers, for the sake of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
As our Saviour taught us, so we pray:
As our Saviour taught us, so we pray:
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.
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours
now and for ever. Amen.
BLESSING
May Christ, who out of defeat
brings new hope and a new future,
fill you with his new life.
And the blessing of God Almighty,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
be among you and remain with you always. Amen
HYMN Love divine, all loves excelling NEH408 – Blaenwern
1 Love Divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven, to earth come down,
Fix in us thy humble dwelling,
All thy faithful mercies crown.
Jesus, thou art all compassion,
Pure unbounded love thou art;
Visit us with thy salvation,
Enter every trembling heart.
2 Come, almighty to deliver,
Let us all thy life receive;
Suddenly return, and never,
Never more thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing,
Serve thee as thy hosts above,
Pray, and praise thee, without ceasing,
Glory in thy perfect love.
3 Finish, then thy new creation,
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see thy great salvation,
Perfectly restored in thee,
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise!