Welcome to our service - 6 September
This service sheet can be used individually or with households.
We would encourage you to say (or even sing) hymns and songs out loud.
Prayers, other liturgy or readings can be said out loud or silently, corporately or individually.
If you are able, we would also like invite you to join us for our main Sunday service, 10am, live on Zoom. Even if you have never been to St Gabriel’s before we would love you to join you. Please get in touch with the vicar Alistair (vicar@saintgs.co.uk) and he will send you the Zoom details.
From September we will be starting a socially distanced and COVID-19 compliant unsung Holy Communion service at 11:30am each Sunday. We ask you to come with a face mask. Please do join us if you can.
Please join us, this Sunday, 6th September for a socially distanced and COVID-19 compliant unsung Holy Communion service at 11:30am.
We ask you to come with a face mask.
SERVICE
Opening Prayer:
Faithful one, whose word is life: come with saving power
to free our praise, inspire our prayer
and shape our lives for the kingdom of your Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
SING:
Crown Him with many crowns,
the Lamb upon His throne;
Hark! how the heavenly anthem
drowns
all music but its own:
awake my soul, and sing
of Him who died for thee,
and hail Him as thy chosen King
through all eternity.
2 Crown Him the Son of God
before the worlds began;
and ye who tread where He hath trod,
crown Him the Son of Man,
who every grief hath known
that wrings the human breast,
and takes and bears them for His own
that all in Him may rest.
3 Crown Him the Lord of life,
who triumphed o'er the grave,
and rose victorious in the strife,
for those He came to save:
His glories now we sing,
who died and rose on high,
who died eternal life to bring,
and lives that death may die.
4 Crown Him the Lord of heaven,
enthroned in worlds above;
crown Him the King to whom is given
the wondrous name of love:
all hail, Redeemer, hail!
for Thou hast died for me;
Thy praise shall never, never fail
throughout eternity.
Matthew Bridges (1800-94) Godfrey Thring (1823-1903)
CONFESSION
The gospel calls us to turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ. As we offer ourselves to him in penitence and faith, we renew our confidence and trust in his mercy.
Most merciful God,
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
we confess that we have sinned
in thought, word and deed.
We have not loved you with our whole heart.
We have not loved our neighbours as ourselves.
In your mercy
forgive what we have been,
help us to amend what we are,
and direct what we shall be;
that we may do justly,
love mercy,
and walk humbly with you, our God.
Amen.
ASOLUTION
May the God of love and power
forgive us and free us from our sins,
heal and strengthen us by his Spirit,
and raise us to new life in Christ our Lord.
Amen.
COLLECT
Almighty God,
you search us and know us:
may we rely on you in strength
and rest on you in weakness,
now and in all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
SING:
The King is among us,
His Spirit is here:
let's draw near and worship,
let songs fill the air!
2. He looks down upon us,
delight in his face,
enjoying his children's love,
enthralled by our praise.
3. For each child is special,
accepted and loved -
a love gift from Jesus
to His Father above.
4. And now He is giving
his gifts to us all;
for no one is worthless
and each one is called.
5. The Spirit's anointing
on all flesh comes down,
and we shall be channels
For works like His own:
6. We come now believing
Your promise of power,
for we are Your people
and this is Your hour.
Graham Kendrick
(c) 1981 Make Way Music/Thankyou Music
READINGS
Romans 13:8-14 New International Version - UK
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.
And do this, understanding the present time: the hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armour of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh..
Matthew 18:15-20 New International Version - UK
‘If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that “every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
‘Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
‘Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.
TALK written by Alistair Stevenson
In July and August, we have been following the Church of England’s set Sunday readings, proceeding through key passages in the middle of Matthew’s gospel. Next week we shall start a new series based on The Blessings Course as we explore our role in the mission of God to be a blessing to others. I am really excited to start that series and the accompanying study group on Thursday evenings on Zoom.
Today, however, as we finish following the Church of England’s lectionary, we come to this challenging passage in Matthew 18.
The NIV subheading for this section is ‘dealing with sin in the church’. You, like me, might immediately recoil inside as you read this and even more so as you start to consider what the implications might be for our church family at St Gabriel’s.
Let’s acknowledge that this is uncomfortable reading. You may have experienced how this passage has been abused in a church situation where people have been left hurt - maybe walked away from the church and even faith entirely.
However, that does not mean we should avoid it and in fact, we need to recognise that this is a critical component of being a healthy, flourishing Christian family.
In his book, Caring Enough to Confront, David Augsburger, describes a life-style for Christians who care enough to risk confronting others when differences become important. It is a significant book particularly for people like me who try to avoid conflict. But, he suggests, confrontation can be a catalyst for deeper care that has love at the very centre.
In his chapter entitled ‘Inviting change’ he writes:
“When unchallenged, humans beings often become self-centered, individualistic, self-absorbed. When unchallenged, human groups tend to drift, wander or stagnate. When unchallenged, relationships tend to repeat, become routine, become stale or stuck. Life without challenge and confrontation is directionless, aimless, passive; or selfish, self-serving, empty.
Confrontation, uncomfortable as it can be, is a gift.
Confrontation is a necessary stimulation to jog one out of mediocrity or to prod one back from extremes. Life without the balance provided by constructive tensions is flat, finally boring, undesirable’.
Do we care enough that we would be willing to confront?
In our passage today from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus speaks into the need for caring, constructive and ultimately loving confrontation.
Confronting is a difficult word. Caring is a lot easier. If I rang you up and said I needed to confront you about something I imagine that your initial reaction would not be positive - maybe even more so because I’m the vicar. You might, however, be much more open if I said that I wanted to care for you in some way. Confronting, for many leads to confrontations and surely they are not a good thing?
Both confronting and caring are highly important relational words. When put together they offer a unique combination of love and truth, critical for building effective humans relationships.
God is a God of love. But God is also a God of truth and justice. Jesus demonstrates this again and again. He loved unconditionally but he also spoke the truth and confronted where needed and when necessary.
The world is not good at this at all and so when the church gets it right - when it follows the model of Jesus - it is therefore highly subversive, radical and counter-cultural.
Just think for a moment: I wonder when was the last time you confronted someone because of sin in their life? I’m guessing not that recently - maybe never.
But don’t get me wrong, I am the first to say that it is something that we can find so hard to do. I am terrible at confrontation. I feel it so strongly. When there is conflict in the room my stomach immediately tightens and I find the quickest way for it to be over. But let me say - that might not be positive or healthy.
However, not to confront, in one sense, is not to care. If it is from a place of care for the other - a place of love - then conflict starts to become possible and in fact critical to a healthy community.
And so we do it first and foremost because our caring for the other is deeply important to us and to the life of the church family.
So then, what are some of the pointers that Jesus gives us in this passage for how we can ‘care enough to confront’ others within the Christian community?
Let me offer four:
1. Family not unfamiliar
The context for this is family. Notice how Jesus says: brothers and sisters. The context for this is within a supportive, loving, Christian community with relationships that are, as Jesus implies in other places in the Gospels, stronger even than the bonds of blood family. That is critical, particularly as being a brother or sister means there is no sense of hierarchy or a one side being more powerful than the other. It means we have to be really careful that when confronting someone to make sure that we are able, on both sides, to call each other a sister or brother in Christ.
2. Confrontation not condemnation
Jesus confronted people, but he did not condemn them. In fact, Jesus came not to condemn but to save us from condemnation. Jesus says verse 12 - when you do confront the reason to is ‘win them over’. This is restoration, not punishment. This is drawing them back into the heart of the church family and back into the heart of a gospel community that loves and cares for one another. The Greek word translated here as ‘win them over’ is more often translated as ‘gained’. For example, Paul uses the word 4 times in 1 Corinthians 9 all with the sense of gaining people for the Gospel. The idea is that we want to gain, to gather, to bring into or bring back others, into the body of Christ. We confront people out of care and love - in a hope that they might be, in once sense, pulled out of danger, liberated, to unlock the shackles that might be holding them back, to heal, to make whole.
3. Loving not lording.
Ask yourself again and again. Am I doing this out of care and love for the other? Again we need to be careful not to abuse a position of power. What are our motives? We don’t want to lord over someone and so going to someone privately or with one or two others makes this more likely. Pope Francis said: ‘No one listens willingly to someone who speaks to them from a position of self-righteousness and judgment. Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus reserves his harshest words for those who ignore their own weakness in order to lord it over others.’ We need to be loving not lording. We need to ask: is what I am about to say to this person from a place of love and compassion for them and their spiritual well-being?
4. Growth, not gossip
When our indention is to help the other person grow in their discipleship we will, as verse 15 and 16 says, go first to them privately and then with one or two others. On the one hand gossip is so much easier. Telling others about the wrong of another person is definitely the easy road and it is a road well travelled by the world especially when it is so easy to publicly rebuke someone through social media. But disciples of Jesus are called to tread a narrow path.
Discipleship thrives in accountable relationships that have trust at the centre. Growing up in my faith I was often encouraged to have an accountability partner. Someone in my life who I trusted and who I gave permission to challenge and confront things in my life. I still think it is a very healthy thing for any disciple and is demonstrated by Jesus here. We need to have supportive, loving relationship where we are willing to hear the caring rebuke of another.
So, if they are four key ways of making confrontation possible, as we continue to read in the passage we see that all of it needs to be surrounded in prayer. Verses 18 and 19” ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. ‘Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
Prayer must be at the heart of any discipleship and Jesus makes it clear that in the context of confrontation - it must start and end with prayer and in fact make sure prayer is at every step along the way. In this way, we can be, as verse 20 assures us, confident that Jesus will be in the very midst of the whole process.
What is the fruit of confrontation? The fruit is restoration and forgiveness - again and again, and again. Forgiveness must be outworked to make any of this possible. We must be willing to forgive. 77 times in fact. In the proceeding passage, Peter asks Jesus ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?’Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.’ Jesus then goes on the tell a parable of the implications when we don’t forgive.
Confrontation and forgiveness go hand in hand. Often yes, when we have been hurt by another but also when we need to speak forgiveness and restoration over people when they open up to us in repentance. In one sense, God’s task each one of us to confirm absolution over each other when we share our sin and failings with another sister or brother in Christ.
The question, as we close, is possibly not whether we are willing to confront another, but instead whether we would be willing to receive the loving and caring rebuke of a sister or brother in Christ. To make healthy confrontation possible we need to model good recept. Are we willing to allow others to speak into our lives? To identity the sin that we might be blind to and challenge us. It is no doubt a vulnerable thing to do and might hurt but the result is often liberation, healing and wholeness.
Amen
THE APOSTLES’ CREED
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth
I believe in Jesus Christ,
his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand
of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen
O LORD, HEAR MY PRAYER,
O Lord, hear my prayer:
When I call answer me.
O Lord, hear my prayer,
O Lord, hear my prayer:
Come and listen to me.
Jacques Berthier/Taizé.
Copyright © 1982 Ateliers et Presses de Taize (France).
PRAYERS - written by John Gough
Father we continue to pray for our world and the on-going battle against the Covid virus, we pray for all in science and medicine who are working diligently to develop a vaccine that is so desperately needed. We pray for the areas of the world where the virus is on the increase again with over 25 million confirmed cases in 188 countries. We pray for all who have lost loved ones from the virus and all who are struggling with their recovery. We give thanks for all who made good recoveries and are back to fitness and functioning normally again.
Father we pray for the terrible situation in Beirut where experts in search and rescue have been sent to help in the difficult task of trying to find people that may still be alive after the terrible explosion that took place nearly a month ago. We pray for all the work that needs to be done to try and get this city back on its feet again and the difficult task of developing a functioning sea port again. Help all the aid agencies that are providing support for the people of Beirut to be able to meet their needs.
Father we give thanks that children have been able to start school again this week, we pray for their safety and the teachers as well. We pray especially for younger children who are having their first days in school and hope that they can settle and enjoy the experience. We pray that children are able to catch up on work and projects that were interrupted because of the lock down and that this will not have an adverse effect on their development.
Father we pray for all in government and the difficult decisions that have had to be made through out this pandemic, grant them wisdom in all their deliberations and decision making. We also pray for the Brexit negotiations and hope that agreements can be made with our European neighbours and that we don`t reach a point where we end up with a no deal situation.
Heavenly Father we praise and thank you that we can meet together in worship. Thank you that we have been able to stay connected via zoom and also for the online service as well. We are especially grateful that we can once again meet in church and take part in a communion service. We look forward to day when we call all meet together again to sing our praises dear lord.
Father we pray for our church and all who serve on the PCC, grant them wisdom in all their deliberations and the decisions that will be made in the next few months as we look towards the Christmas period and the planning of the services that will hopefully take place.
Merciful Father …
LORD’S PRAYER
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
SING:
Come down, O Love divine,
seek Thou this soul of mine
and visit it with Thine own ardour glowing;
O Comforter, draw near,
within my heart appear,
and kindle it, Thy holy flame bestowing.
2. O let it freely burn,
till earthly passions turn
to dust and ashes,
in its heat consuming;
and let Thy glorious light
shine ever on my sight,
and clothe me round,
the while my path illuming.
3. Let holy charity
mine outward vesture be,
and lowliness become mine inner clothing;
true lowliness of heart,
which takes the humbler part,
and o’er its own shortcomings
weeps with loathing.
4. And so the yearning strong,
with which the soul will long,
shall far outpass the power of human telling;
for none can guess its grace,
till he become the place
wherein the Holy Spirit makes His dwelling
after Bianco da Sierna (d1434)
Richard E Littledale (1833-90)
OFFERTORY - Take a moment to consider how you are going to continue to give to the life of the church and support other aid agencies and mission organisations.
Yours, Lord, is the greatness, the power,
the glory, the splendour, and the majesty;
for everything in heaven and on earth is yours.
All things come from you, and of your own do we give you.
SING:
Lord, the light of your love is shining,
In the midst of the darkness shining,
Jesus Light of the world shine upon us,
Set us free by the truth You now bring us,
Shine on me, shine on me.
Shine, Jesus, shine
Fill this land with the Father's glory,
Blaze, Spirit, blaze
Set our hearts on fire,
Flow, river, flow
Flood the nations with grace and mercy
Send forth Your word Lord
And let there be light.
2 Lord, I come to Your awesome presence
From the shadows into Your radiance,
By the blood I may enter Your brightness,
Search me, try me, consume all my darkness
Shine on me, shine on me.
Shine, Jesus, shine...
3 As we gaze on Your kingly brightness
So our faces display Your likeness,
Ever changing from glory to glory
Mirrored here may our lives tell Your story,
Shine on me, shine on me.
Shine Jesus, shine...
Graham Kendrick (c) 1987 Make Way Music/Thankyou Music
BLESSINGS
May God the Father,
who loved the world so much that he sent his only Son
to come among us in great humility,
open your eyes to look for his coming again.
Amen.
May God the Son
give you grace to live in the light of his coming as redeemer and judge.
Amen.
May God the Holy Spirit free you from sin,
make you holy, and bring you to eternal life.
Amen.
And the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among us and remain with us always. Amen