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Poole Bay Methodist Circuit worship

Sunday 18th October 2020

Imitating the Lord (or Reflecting the Light) - Led by Brian Tucknott

Lectionary Readings

Isaiah 45.1-7; Psalm 96.1-9 (10-13); 1 Thessalonians 1.1-10; Matthew 22.15-22

Hello Everyone. This is Brian Tucknott leading our worship for this week, 18 October 2020.

Whenever and wherever you share in this recorded act of worship, welcome.

Our theme for today is ‘Imitating the Lord (or Reflecting the Light)’.

Call to worship

Sing to the Lord, and praise him,

proclaim his glory to all the world,

for the Lord is great and highly to be praised.

Sing to the Lord, sing a new song to the Lord.

In our current challenging situation some of what we knew and know is changing or has already changed.

How are we to stay true to all this in the turbulence that we are now living through?

As we begin, we make space to think about the shared journey we are all on and about the unchanging God who is with us and will calm the turbulence, as we share in Brian Hoare’s setting of The Peace.

Singing the Faith (StF) 768 © Brian Hoare

If you have downloaded the recording you can sing along. If not, read through the words.

The Peace of the Lord be always with you, I greet you in his name.

The Peace of the Lord be always with you, I greet you in his name.

I don’t know how many of you have, at some time in your life, been faced with an Ishihara Test for Colour Deficiency (or Colour Blindness). The test is a series of images that look like these, although there are many more than these six (but they do not include the answers here conveniently shown alongside),

[pic]

I was first faced with them sixty years ago when applying for an apprenticeship in the printing industry and to become a part-time student at Brighton College of Art and Crafts. If you are anything like me, then and now, some are obvious, others are more difficult to see – it depends on how well you see which colours. Most people have fairly true colour vision but some have red-green blindness (1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women), blue-yellow blindness (rare) or even total colour blindness (very rare). The application process also tested on English Language, Mathematics and IQ. Having spent over fifty years in the industry, I must have done OK!

Prayers

Adoration and Praise

Ever present God,

Although separate we are together in your love and we are surrounded by all that you are.

Together in this space we call yours, we lift our voices in adoration and praise.

All loving God, in Jesus we see how you care for each one of us.

As members of your family we lift our voices in adoration and praise.

All powerful God, you strengthen and enable us by your Spirit.

In all we seek to do in response to you we lift our voices in adoration and praise.

Confession

Acknowledging the inadequacies of our vision, in the silence, we each reflect on who we are,

how we have lived, and consider who we want to be and how we want to live.

Silence

And we share in the Collect for Purity

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.

The Lord’s Prayer (use whichever version you prefer)

Traditional form

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;

thy kingdom come; thy will be done;

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,

for ever and ever. Amen.

Modern form

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.

Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours,

now and forever. Amen.

Hymn StF 116

Sing for God’s glory © Kathy Galloway

If you have downloaded the recording you can sing along. If not, read through the words.

Sing for God’s glory that colours the dawn of creation,

racing across the sky, trailing bright clouds of elation;

sun of delight succeeds the velvet of night,

warming the earth’s exultation.

Sing for God’s power that shatters the chains that would bind us,

searing the darkness of fear and despair that could blind us,

touching our shame with love that will not lay blame,

reaching out gently to find us.

Sing for God’s justice disturbing each easy illusion,

tearing down tyrants and putting our pride to confusion;

lifeblood of right, resisting evil and slight,

offering freedom’s transfusion.

Sing for God’s saints who have travelled faith’s journey before us,

who in our weariness give us their hope to restore us;

in them we see the new creation to be,

spirit of love made flesh for us.

READINGS

(If you have time, now or later, read the other lectionary readings listed above)

1 Thessalonians 1.1-10 (NRSV)

Salutation

1  Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace to you and peace.

The Thessalonians’ Faith and Example

2 We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

4 For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake.

6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

8 For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it.

9 For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.

Part of my Printing and Design education involved an understanding of colour, including colour wheels, complementary and analogous colours, and additive and subtractive colour theory.

[pic]

[pic]Colour wheels can get very complex.

[pic]

Complementary colours are those opposite each other.

Analogous colours are those alongside each other,

[pic]

|Additive Colour Theory relates to light, where the different wavelengths |Subtractive Colour Theory relates to pigments, where the pigments SUBTRACT light |

|ADDED together results in pure light (white) |(or absorbs it) to leave no colour (black) |

Printing, including computer printing, uses cyan, magenta and yellow and the subtractive theory but exact pigments are not available so, in order to achieve a satisfactory result, black is added. The unavailability of true pigments also explains why flesh tones cannot be accurately achieved but our eyes are so used to seeing the inaccuracy that our brain makes the adjustment.

All this gave me a better understanding of the subject but, like my performance with the Ishihara Test, my ability to analyse what I see remains far from good. When I worked for one of the world’s leading fine art printers our technical colour experts had to be able to view and analyse what we had proof-printed against the original painting (often requiring visits to places like The Tate Gallery) and making the, sometimes very subtle, colour corrections necessary to achieve the best possible representation of the original. I would struggle to do this but my wife, Margarete, can look at a colour and, from a limited palette of two or three colours plus black and white, know what to mix to achieve it for her paintings.

In our reading from his letter to the church at Thessalonica, Paul acknowledges and gives thanks for their ability to imitate, or reflect, the light they have received and, by their living the love revealed, to be a force for good in the world. Such was their impact that the ripple effect carried their story far and wide; so much so that there was no need for Paul to speak further of it.

This reading challenges us about how we respond to what we have ourselves received. At its simplest, it is an invitation to imitate or reflect God’s love. But within that love is a much more complex picture of God which, for many, is a struggle to see or to reflect clearly and in far from its entirety. Some parts of the picture are very quickly and clearly seen by us, whilst other parts are difficult to absorb and even more difficult to imitate (or reflect). How are we to tell the story and our story? I look at myself and my inadequacies and have to own to being blind to, or at least seeing unclearly, some, probably many, aspects of the revelation given in Jesus.

And that is also due in some measure to the fact that almost all of that revelation has come to me, not directly, but through the reflected vision from others, in scripture and elsewhere, who are themselves trying to imitate him to the best of their ability.

As Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:12

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.

Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

John Wesley expressed these contributing sources as The Methodist Quadrilateral which, traditionally uses a fourfold approach to learn about our Christian faith and apply it to contemporary issues and to our Christian practice:

Scripture

We seek to discover the word of God through reading the Bible. There are different understandings among Methodists about the Bible's authority in our lives. We need to use resources like different Bible translations, commentaries and Bible reading notes.

Tradition

This is the wisdom and creativity of Christians over time and across the world. It includes inspirational material like hymns, songs, prayers, poetry, Christian art and devotional books. There are also formally agreed teachings like the creeds, the content of the catechism, and statements and reports from the Methodist Conference.

Reason

We are called to love God with our minds as well as with our hearts. To the best of our ability we need to think things through in the light of reason. This means becoming aware of different points of view, and using our own critical thinking to make sense of God's world.

Experience

Methodism particularly stresses the importance of our own experience of God's grace working in our lives. We gain wisdom and maturity from life experience, especially when we pray and reflect about our story with other Christians

I have to say that I have questions about some of this but my view is that we all have absorbed something of the image of God and we all, to a greater or lesser degree, can reflect what we have received and understood in the way we live. When sharing and reflecting with other followers of Jesus, be they Methodists or other denominations or, indeed, other faith traditions, the resulting image will be more complex and hopefully more complete, saying more about the nature of God than each can say individually.

One of the things that the current situation presents us with is the time and opportunity to consider, explore and reflect on who we are, what we have learned, what we believe, what we see in others who are on a similar journey and, dare I say, what we have been clinging on to that may need discarding, rethinking, revising or changing.

The amazing core of the story, our story, is the love of God and, in whatever ways we can, that remains what needs absorbing and reflecting in our lives.

Hymn StF 706

Christ, be our light! © Bernadette Farrell

You will find a recording at (you may have to “skip ads”)

Here are the words to read, if you are not able to access the internet.

Longing for light, we wait in darkness.

Longing for truth, we turn to you.

Make us your own, your holy people,

Light for the world to see.

Refrain

Christ, be our light!

Shine in our hearts.

Shine through the darkness.

Christ, be our light!

Shine in Your church gathered today.

Longing for peace, our world is troubled.

Longing for hope, many despair.

Your word alone has power to save us.

Make us your living voice.

Refrain

Longing for food, many are hungry.

Longing for water, many still thirst.

Make us your bread, broken for others,

shared until all are fed.

Refrain

Longing for shelter, many are homeless.

Longing for warmth, many are cold.

Make us your building, sheltering others,

walls made of living stone.

Refrain

Many the gifts, many the people,

many the hearts that yearn to belong.

Let us be servants to one another,

Making your kingdom come.

Refrain

Prayers of intercession

Lord God, in our corner of the world it isn’t easy to really feel the pain of persecution for our faith, but we know that it happens.

We pray for those who are persecuted and punished, violated and scarred because of their faith. We pray for those who despite these things speak out and speak up, and witness to you, the living God.

We pray for the families of these people that they may be given strength and support in their own faith and discipleship.

We pray for those who teach us of you, who unpack your truths, who explain what living a Christian life is and how to follow you.

We pray for those who guide us in times of struggles with our faith, those who stand by us in times of denial and bewilderment.

We pray for those who are dying in the faith, and those who are struggling to find their faith before they die.

For these and all your witnesses, Lord, we pray. Amen.

Think of who first told you stories of Jesus; who first influenced you to make you want to be a Christian, and to want to find out more about the Jesus story. Let these names and faces be part of your praying and worship, and a part of your living and witness.

Who will name you as their influence in days or years to come?

Closing Prayer

Into a world of confusion and disbelief,

into a world of welcome and rejection,

we take the grace of God that has been among us,

and the peace of God that has been on our hearts.

Amen.

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