Canvey Methodist Church Worship Services 21st June 2020

Canvey Island Methodist Church Service on 21st June 2020

 

1)Introit: STF441. Only By Grace Can We Enter-(Gustafson).CCI Licence No: 425086

 

https://youtu.be/F21gQwATaac

 

2).Only By Grace Can We Enter

Only By Grace Can We Stand

Not By Our Human Endeavor

But By The Blood Of The Lamb

Into Your Presence You Call Us

You Call Us To Come

Into Your Presence You Draw Us

And Now By Your Grace We Come

Now By Your Grace We Come

 

Lord If You Mark Our Transgressions

Who Will Stand

Thanks To Your Grace

We Are Cleansed By The Blood Of The Lamb, Precious Lamb

Lord If You Mark Our Transgressions

Who Will Stand

Father Thanks To Your Grace

We Are Cleansed By The Blood Of The Lamb

 

Only By Grace Can We Enter

Only By Grace Can We Stand

Not By Our Human Endeavor

But By The Blood Of The Lamb

Into Your Presence You Call Us

You Call Us To Come

Into Your Presence You Draw Us

And Now By Your Grace We Come

Now By Your Grace We Come

Gerit Gustafson

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3). Good Morning. Welcome to this service from Canvey Island Methodist Church on Sunday 21st June 2020. It is my great pleasure to welcome and hand over to our own Rev Peter Perowne, who has kindly prepared and presented today’s service. We begin with the first hymn that Peter has chosen.

https://youtu.be/Hl4XtIjZtDw

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4).Hymn STF 1 (all from Singing the Faith) All people that on earth do dwell.CCI Licence No: 425086.

https://youtu.be/JmGwHdNtpEw

 

1.All people that on earth do dwell,

Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice,

Him serve with fear, His praise forthtell;

Come ye before Him and rejoice.

 

2.The Lord, ye know, is God indeed;

Without our aid He did us make.

We are His folk, He doth us feed,

And for His sheep He doth us take.

 

3.O, enter, then, His gates with praise,

Approach with joy His courts unto;

Praise, laud, and bless His name always.

For it is seemly so to do.

 

4.For why? The Lord, our God, is good;

His mercy is forever sure.

His truth at all times firmly stood

And shall from age to age endure.

 

5. To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,

To God whom heaven and earth adore,

From men and from the angel host

Be praise and glory evermore.

William Kethe, late 16th century

 

Here is another version- Performed by The Martins.

https://youtu.be/J8mJzFoRw3A

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5). Call to Worship and Prayers of Praise.

 

Part I https://youtu.be/8Pz6C478xiU

 

-Welcome all who are joining us this morning.

We begin with some words from today’s psalm:

 

You are forgiving and good, O Lord

Abounding in love to all who call to you

Hear my prayer, O Lord;

Listen to my cry for mercy

Grant your strength to your servant

And save the son of your maidservant.   Psalm 86;5,6,16

 

6).Prayer: Father, with so many more we are glad to give you our worship and praise

You have given us life in a world so full of wonderful possibilities and boundless hope.

But we feel for the many who at this time are living in fear of illness and worry about

Loved ones and families they cannot feed and so much more.

Remind us, and them, that you have promised that nothing shall separate us from your love and care. Yours is a love that gives us the strength to keep going through all that life brings and we know that through the centuries millions have proved your faithfulness and goodness.

We ask your forgiveness for the ways we fall short in reflecting your love to those in need around us.

We put our trust in you for the strength to grow more like you and to know the joy of your word of grace: daughter/son your sins are forgiven. Thank you, Lord. Amen.

 

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7).Genesis 21:8-21 New International Version (NIV)

https://youtu.be/0QC9fsbqtvE

 

Hagar and Ishmael Sent Away

8 The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. 9 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, 10 and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”

 

11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. 12 But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring[a] will be reckoned. 13 I will make the son of the slave into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”

 

14 Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba.

 

15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she[b] began to sob.

 

17 God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. 18 Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

 

19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

 

20 God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. 21 While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.

 

Footnotes:

 

a.Genesis 21:12 Or seed

b.Genesis 21:16 Hebrew; Septuagint the child

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8).Matthew 8:5-13 New International Version (NIV)

https://youtu.be/ZfzldocRJZQ

 

The Faith of the Centurion

5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”

 

7 Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”

 

8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

 

10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

 

13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

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9).Romans 6:1-11 New International Version (NIV)

https://youtu.be/w_OeOf0SL3A

Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ

6 What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

 

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

 

8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

 

11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

 

Footnotes:

a.Romans 6:6 Or be rendered powerless

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10).Hymn STF501 Help us O Lord to learn.CCI Licence No: 425086

https://youtu.be/8Shaq7nRVus

 

Help us, O Lord, to learn 

the truths thy word imparts: 

to study that thy laws may be 

inscribed upon our hearts.

 

Help us, O Lord, to live 

the faith which we proclaim, 

that all our thoughts and words and deeds 

may glorify thy name.

 

Help us, O Lord, to teach 

the beauty of thy ways, 

that yearning souls may find the Christ, 

and sing aloud his praise.

William Watkins Reid.

 

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11).Sermon:

Part II https://youtu.be/x28Y_V2R8MU

Many people saw the death of George Floyd  on their screen and felt a righteous anger and indignation  to see a person treated in such a way. So how do we feel today when we read the story of how Abraham treated their Egyptian maidservant Hagar and her son Ishmael? It makes sad and uncomfortable reading,

Abraham’s wife Sarah has born him a son in their old age. One day she sees him playing with his half-brother, Ishmael fathered also by Abraham with Hagar. In a fit of jealousy she sees him as a threat to the inheritance that she covets for her son, Isaac, alone. He must go. She demands that Abraham gets rid of Ishmael and his mother. Abraham is sad at the thought that Ishmael, also his son, should have to go but, at 100 years of age, he seems unable to stand up to his wife. His excuse: God told him to let Sarah have her way! So, with a jar of water and some food, off they go out into the burning heat of the desert. When their few supplies give out, Hagar lays her son in the shade of a bush and goes off far enough not to have to listen to his dying cries. She cannot help but sob her heart out, finished under the merciless heat of the sun. But suddenly, in her extremity, she remembers the God of her master and mistress. Does she hold Him responsible for their cruelty? I don’t think so. She seems to feel Him speaking kindly to her. He doesn’t want them to die. She takes heart. She gets up. She picks up her child – and her eye falls on a source of hope. A well in the desert. She gives the boy some water. He revives. They live and in the course of time Ishmael becomes the father of many desert tribes.

There are many aspects to the story. For one thing it’s a wonderful example of God’s love and care reaching out to those who were not planned to belong to the chosen race. His love was so much wider than Abraham’s. But the other aspect to the story that we can’t avoid is to question the way Abraham  justified his act by saying God had told him to give way to Sarah’s cruel demand. It seems that to him too Black lives, Egyptian lives, did not matter.

I think we learn some important things about ourselves from this story. We see in Abraham a mixture of good and bad at a time when that same mixture has been exposed in our own communities by the Corona virus: wonderful nurses and doctors while unthinking government incompetence and the evil of racism infects us all. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews holds up Abraham as a shining example of faith, hospitality and obedience to God. He says nothing about Hagar and Ishmael and how he treated them. Of course, he’s like the rest of us. We all play up the brighter side or the darker side as it suits us. To some we raise up statues for others we have prisons. Yet as human beings we are all made up of both good and bad. Some of our deeds might indeed deserve a statue, others a taste of the prison.

In the same vein we have this way of hearing God say what it suits us to hear. Abraham heard God say it is all right to do this cruel thing to a foreign girl who has served your family faithfully through the years. Did He really? Through the years we have accepted too many injustices by blaming them on God. Today’s Israeli government feels free to treat Palestinians as they do by divine right to the land. The Church of the 16th century condemned Copernicus’  model of the solar system saying that God made planet earth the centre of the universe! Slave traders argued that God said in the Bible that it was all right to own slaves. The arguments of the abolitionists from humanity and compassion and justice fell on deaf ears for far too long. Those who through the years have argued for and accepted an inferior position for the female half of the human race have also quoted Scripture and still do. What if we deny the blessing and commitment of marriage to same sex couples today? It is so easy to justify the exclusion or marginalisation of those who are different by appealing to a particular understanding of the Bible, forgetting that God made us all in His own image. Nowhere do we read that God made some to be first class citizens and others second class. Abraham did not do right. We can appreciate and aspire to his faith, his hospitality and his obedience, but do not follow him in this.

 

Here is where I want to cry “Thank God for JESUS”. He is the one who gives us the definitive picture in word and in action as to how God really intends us to treat one another. To Him were brought some of the most hated and despised specimens of the human society of his day with a full expectation of his rejection. He treated each, whoever they were and whatever they had done, with dignity, respect, welcome and compassion – and amazed them all. Whether it was the leper, the woman caught in adultery, the tax collector, even the woman who created a scene in the middle of a dinner party when she poured a whole jar of perfume on his feet and wiped them lovingly with her hair. All these and more Jesus welcomed in love, understanding their need and doing all he could to help. I chose the gospel reading to sum up His attitude. This man was a foreigner, worse, he was an officer of the hated Roman occupation force. They had been guilty of some terrible atrocities against the Jewish people over a long period of harsh tyrannical rule. He had the gall to approach Jesus for help for his sick servant! Surely a prime candidate for a cutting rejection from Jesus, with a lecture on the evil of Roman oppression! What he got was a commendation of his faith. It was greater, said Jesus, than any He had found among his own people. Far from rejecting this foreigner, Jesus welcomed and praised the positive, the goodness and faith He had found where none would have expected it. So He made this man an example of all those outsiders who will come at the last to share the heavenly banquet with all the saints of God. Can we not hear God saying here, “Despise none because you imagine them inferior”. Call none that God has made inferior or unclean. Jesus could always see through the unpromising exterior to the goodness and sweetness within. Rejection can only stifle the rich human potential that lies buried underneath. Jesus gives it a chance; He draws it out by His acceptance and encouragement. So much so we sometimes need to remember how that goes for us too. Jesus’ word to me and to you is “You are loved, you are welcome, whoever you are and whatever you have done”. Even if there are things about yourself you don’t like; even if you feel that you have made a mess of your life, Jesus says “When I look deeper than people see on the outside, I see qualities and abilities of which I, as your Maker, am proud and of which you too can be proud. I saw beauty in the leper; I saw it in the fallen woman; I saw it in the Roman officer and in so many more. I see it in you and I long for the day when you will see it too, both in yourself and in your neighbour”.

 

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12)Prayer:  Lord, we caught a glimpse of a dark scene in Abraham’s family life; it brings to our minds

The family life that we have shared -

Its rivalries, its untidiness,

Its mixture of hope and struggle

And we pray for wisdom to navigate the years that still remain

With love that lives through the troubles and testing

And the faith that rises above difficulty and division.

 

Then we remember there are other families

Who have no place to call home,

Who look out at the world through a curtain of tears,

Who are wounded by the sharp edges of quarrel,

Who are anxious for their children’s future –

 

And we give thanks to God

Who sees possibility beyond tragedy

Who speaks into places of distress

And -offers life from a cross. 

Amen.

 (Adapted from the URC Prayer Handbook)

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13).Hymn STF495:  Dear Lord and Father of mankind.CCI Licence No: 425086

https://youtu.be/WqOnjmr9Ah0

1 Dear Lord and Father of mankind,

forgive our foolish ways;

reclothe us in our rightful mind,

in purer lives thy service find,

in deeper reverence, praise.

 

2 In simple trust like theirs who heard

beside the Syrian sea

the gracious calling of the Lord,

let us, like them, without a word

rise up and follow thee.

 

3 O Sabbath rest by Galilee,

O calm of hills above,

where Jesus knelt to share with thee

the silence of eternity,

interpreted by love!

John Greenleaf Whittier 

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14).Prayers of intercession: 

https://youtu.be/v3gEp9CA70A

 

Dear God, we come before you to bring our prayers for others.

Thank you that your word tells us - “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.  It enters the inner sanctuary, behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf”.  Hebrews 6 v19

Thank you Lord, for this comforting message.   And in that hope and promise, we bring our prayer requests before you.

We rejoice and thank you for everything you have blessed us with this week and for all answered prayer.  

We pray for our church family and thank you for each one and for the fellowship and love we share. 

Dear Lord, we are greatly in need of your help and guidance regarding considerations for the re-opening of our church building.  We ask you to be in all the planning and decision making,  and ask that you will lead and guide us all.  

We bring Colin and Cathy before you and ask you to continue to lead them and protect them and we pray for a special blessing on them and their family.

We pray for peace in our world and for all the Governments in their decision making. 

We pray for The Lebanon.  Anna has asked for prayers for the Political leaders there, and that solutions will be found to improve their poor economy. We bring these people before you and pray especially for the poorest who are finding it hard to get food.  

Please keep Anna safe as she does your work in Beirut.  May she feel your special blessing right now as we pray. 

 We thank you for the news we received from Apolina, Romania. Thank you for your protection and for answering our prayers  as we hear that nobody has the virus  there. We pray for the new believers there who are struggling as they cannot have regular church meetings. Please keep them close to you. We also pray for more workers as they tell us that the work is big but dedicated people are a few.  

 We pray for our country and for our leaders, that you will lead and guide them in their decision making. 

We remember before you all the Doctors and nurses, health workers and key workers and the Medical researchers who are working to bring a stop to the virus. Please give them your protection, help and blessing.

We pray for everyone named in our church prayer book.  Dear Lord, You know all about these people.  May your peace surround them and your loving arms heal them. 

We pray for all those known to us who have caught COVID-19 or are suffering from the symptoms.  We ask you to have them in your care and to heal them. We ask you to bring an end to this virus and pray that there will not be a 2nd peak because of the restrictions that  have been eased. 

We pray for all hospital chaplains that they will be protected and will be able to give your strength and support to the patients and staff. 

We pray for all who are mourning.  Please have these dear people in your care and surround them with the comfort and strength that only you can give.  

Thank you for hearing all our prayers -  and we rejoice and are thankful for your great love and care.  

We bring all these prayers to you in the great and powerful name of Jesus Christ and all that His name stands for.

AMEN

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,

Till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace.

                                          John Greenleafe Whittier.

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15).Poem: Enduring Love- Anna

https://youtu.be/xO7AbfQ7o10

 

His love is enduring 

Stronger than diamonds

Fiercer than a mother protecting cub tigers

His love is enduring

Poured out in wine

Broken in bread

Spilled out in blood

Spoken in death

His love is enduring

Present in whispers and

Barely held back tears

There in the waiting 

Moments of fear

His love is enduring

Shouted by angels

Breathed out by resurrected lungs

Proclaimed by the women

declaring the risen one

His love is enduring

Offered to doubters

Thieves and betrayers

Forgiving deserters

And three times naysayers

His love is enduring

Stronger than fearing

Stronger than trial and test

Stronger than betrayal

Stronger than death

His love is enduring

It endures forever

It gives us life now

And has opened up heaven

His love endures forever

Poured out in wine

Broken in bread

Spilled out in blood

Risen from death

His love endures forever. Amen.

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16).Meditation-As we have missed meeting at the Lord’s Table, I wonder if this short meditation from Sanctuary First – This is the Time – will help us?

 

https://www.sanctuaryfirst.org.uk/video/watch/this-is-the-time

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17).Hymn STF707 - Make me a channel of your peace.    CCI Licence No: 425086

https://youtu.be/ihhvm6eLWZI

Make me a channel of your peace

Where there is hatred, let me bring love

Where there is injury, Your pardon Lord

And where there's doubt, true faith in You

 

Make me a channel of your peace

Where there's despair in life, let me bring hope

Where there is darkness, only light

And where there's sadness ever joy

 

Oh, Master grant that I may never seek

So much to be consoled as to console

To be understood as to understand

Or to be loved as to love with all my soul

 

Make me a channel of your peace

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned

It is in giving to all men that we receive

And in dying that we are born to eternal life

Prayer of St Francis. ar Betty Jane Pulkingham.

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18).Benediction

-Part III

https://youtu.be/xDeuGpT-xX8

Thankyou to all who have taken part in today’s service and to Rev Peter Perowne for leading our thoughts.  

 

 Blessing: May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers,

May God bless you with anger at injustice …. 

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer pain

And may God bless you with enough foolishness

To believe that you can make a difference in this world

So that you can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen. (from a Methodist Prayer Handbook version of a Franciscan Blessing)

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