Canvey Methodist Church Worship Services 11th July 2021

Sunday 11th July 2021. Order of Service 

1)Notices and Welcome

2)Call to worship

3)Hymn STF17: With gladness we worship 

https://youtu.be/705eMUhoGs8

4)Prayers of Praise

5)Introduction to reading- Reprise of story so far.

 

Today we are going to hear the next installment of the Story of Ruth whose experiences are recorded in the Old Testament in the book named after her. For any who may have missed chapter one, this is a quick resume of what we heard last week.

 

With a famine raging around their home town of Bethlehem a man called Elimelek, his wife Naomi and their two sons Mahlon and Kilion travelled to nearby Moab to live.Now with sufficient food to eat, life should have become easier for them but sadly Elimelek, Naomi’s husband, became ill and died, and so Naomi was left as a single parent bringing up two maturing sons. Eventually Mahlon and Kilion married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi, Orpah and Ruth were left alone without any means of support.

Hearing that the famine was over back in Bethlehem Naomi, Orpah and Ruth started off on the journey to Naomi's home. Realising that life for Moabite women would be difficult in Bethlehem for both Ruth and Orpah, Naomi encouraged them to “Go back to their mother’s home in Moab. Of the two, Orpah decided to do this but Ruth insisted on accompanying her mother in law Naomi to a life in Bethlehem. She said these now famous words of love and commitment, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” 

And it is whilst living back in Bethlehem that we now join Naomi and Ruth in today’s reading from the book of Ruth.

 

6)OT Reading.    Ruth 2:1-23.    New International Version (NIV)


Ruth Meets Boaz in the Grain Field - Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favour.” Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.” So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek. Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The Lord be with you!”
“The Lord bless you!” they answered.
Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, “Who does that young woman belong to?” The overseer replied, “She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.”
So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.”
At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favour in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?”
Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge. “May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.” At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.”
When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Let her gather among the sheaves and don’t reprimand her. Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.” So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah. She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough. Her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!”
Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. “The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,” she said.
“The Lord bless him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers.” Then Ruth the Moabite said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.’” Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with the women who work for him, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.” So Ruth stayed close to the women of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
 

7) Hymn.  STF518 - Father hear the prayer we offer

https://youtu.be/r1-9wam-2Rk

 

8)Prayers for others.

 

9)Gospel: Romans 12:1-21.  A Living Sacrifice

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Humble Service in the Body of Christ

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

Love in Action

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need.

Practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay” says the Lord. On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

 

10.Sermon

If last week's reading from the book of Ruth were about how the people of God deal with the challenges of hardship, of need and survival, of becoming refugees and of experiencing family bereavement, this weeks reading from chapter 2 of Ruth teaches about how to Live Boldly, the importance of offering welcome to newcomers in our midst, and how God providentially weaves and directs an overarching pattern of care and purpose over and in each of our lives..

 

Living Boldly

Ruth found herself as an alien in a foreign land, a moabitess living in Bethlehem. 

She could have sat back and let the cultural expectations of those around her crush her into defeated apathy. But she did not. Instead Ruth took advantage of the culture of her adopted country that directed for corn to be left at the side of the fields (Lev 19:9; 23:22) at harvest time for those who were in need, and so she set off to gather enough corn to feed not only herself but also her Mother in Law, Naomi.

 

Welcoming the stranger in our midst 

 

Boaz, the landowner where Ruth was working, saw her and asked his foreman overseeing the workers, who she was, as he did not recognise her as being from the local families. 

Immediately the overseer identified Ruth as a foreigner, the alien from Moab who had returned to Bethlehem with Naomi. He could have just said,”Oh, that is Naomi’s daughter in law Ruth, but he did not. What he saw was a stranger who was “not one of us”.

But Boaz, a godly and devout man, had already heard the story about Ruth’s devotion to her mother in law and he welcomed Ruth, allowing her a prime spot to glean, and even arranging for his harvesters to leave a sheaf or two along the way. Her story had deeply touched him. He told her, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people that you didn't know before. 12 May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”
 

God’s Providence

 

When Ruth returned back to Naomi, she brought with her 30 pounds or 13 kilograms  in weight of corn. Think 15 bags of sugar and you’ll have an idea of how much corn she had gleaned. Naomi was astonished. Where has all of this come from? Where did you glean? And so Ruth told her about Boaz and then Naomi understood. We might say, “The penny dropped”, “That man”, she said, “is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers”.

Here is evidence of the providence of God over the lives of Ruth, Naomi and Boaz.

In the iconic 1942 film Casablanca', described as a timeless story of love, loss and redemption, Rick Blaine (played by Humphrey Bogart) in speaking about his devastating romance with Ilsa Lund's (played Ingrid Bergman) spoke of the coincidence of their first meeting with the famous line, “Of All The Gin Joints In All The Towns, In All The World, She Walks Into Mine."

Perhaps Naomi here might be forgiven for observing “Of All The Cornfields, In All of Bethlehem, In All The World, Ruth only went and Walked into and Gleaned from the field belonging to Boaz, one of our guardian-redeemers.

A Coincidence?! 

I tend to think of such events as “God Incidences”, His providential way. 

 

I think that we in the 21st Century might be forgiven for not knowing much about “guardian redeemers”. Today in the UK we have our social services, NHS health care and justice system to help us when we need help but in ancient Israel they didn’t have any of these. Instead they had guardian redeemers who amongst other things could help poorer relatives out by paying back debts or in this instance, ensurIng that a relative did not go hungry. As might now be clear, we are going to hear much more about Boaz in this special role of guardian redeemer.

 

So let us pause to draw together what God might be saying to us through our readings from the book of Ruth and the Epistle to the Romans.

Here is what spoke to me.

 

1). God’s love is for everyone whether they are close neighbours to us or strangers from another culture. So do our attitudes towards welcoming other and showing hospitality to all need a facelift?

 

2). Nothing happens along the Rocky road of life without God knowing all about it. God holds our lives in His hands. He is with you and I both when we are down

in the dumps as well as when we are on the mountain tops.

 

3). Jesus is our redeemer. On the cross Jesus paid the price for our sin . Our lives have been rescued and purchased at a great cost.

 

4) As individuals and as a church you and I are part of God’s continuing work of redemption. We are charged with offering his love to all. 


Teresa of Avila wrote in the sixteenth century, “Christ has no body now, but yours, No hands, no feet, but yours…..Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body on earth but yours.

 

So how are we to do this?

 

Firstly to know that we all belong. No one who comes to God through Jesus Christ is excluded. Ephesians 2:19-22 tells us, “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household”.

 

2) Romans12: 9-16 We are to put Love into Action- Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

 

3) John 13:34-35. Jesus said to his disciples, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another

 

May God lead and guide each one of us to those who are to be loved by him, through our deeds of loving kindness this week. Amen.


 

11.   Hymn.  STF303. I know that my redeemer lives

https://youtu.be/SkLuZxqPPzE

 

12. Communion

13. Hymn STF338. There is a redeemer

https://youtu.be/ldRcFz7rK7w

 

14. Benediction

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