Sunday 28 April 2024
Fifth Sunday of Easter
Welcome!
We know not everyone who is part of Westwood Church is able to be in church on Sunday morning however, we thought it would be good to offer some excerpts from the Sunday morning service. Where we can, we offer parts of the service in text and audio, whichever works best for you. If you want to plug in headphones to your computer, tablet or mobile phone now is a good time to do it ! If you want to offer some comment or feedback just use the comment box at the end of this post.
Scripture
John 15: 1 – 10
Acts 8: 26 – 40
Praise – Come let us sing
Prayers
God of Love, may we gather together in Your name to spend time in Your presence. May we abide with You in love that we may share and offer Your love to one another.
The road we have travelled to get here today is different for each one of us, but we meet together in this place to praise You. May we be open to Your transforming love, may we be Your disciples and follow in the Way that is Christ.
Creator God, Giver of life and compassion, nurture our spirits and our faith.
We have come to know You in Spirit and in truth, to experience you through our humanity, our physicality, our senses and in the stillness, the silence, the quietness of just being.
We thank You, the God who has created us in different ways, with diverse abilities to experience and communicate. In this moment we ponder who you are and the creation you have placed us within so we can be in awe of you and experiencing together the God who creates, restores, and sustains all things.
God of Creation, God of all humanity we take this time to worship You.
Your love for us Father is beyond all understanding. When we have tried to take control, acted like we are ’god’, taken control over things not within our power; times when we should have left the heavy burdens to You, the moments when we let our fear stand in the way of sharing Your love, Father God, we are sorry. Like the prodigal son we return to you to experience your warm and forgiving embrace. Most merciful God, you know our guilt but still you forgive us, help us forgive ourselves.
It is then in all humility, knowing our weakness and the strength of your love that we place an offering before you. This is our way of saying we love you Lord, this is our way of saying ‘sorry’, this is our way of working for your kingdom and bringing glory to your name. Accept all that we bring in worship, prayer, praise and gift.
Hear us as we join in the words of the Lord’s Prayer saying…
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 debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory forever. Amen.
Address
In my student days the story of the Ethiopian eunuch was almost a standing joke. Some people suffer for their faith and some for their career. This poor Ethiopian official had suffered in both respects. As a convert to the Jewish faith, he had been circumcised and as a eunuch serving the Queen of Ethiopia he had been castrated !! Just how much must a man suffer!!!
[Anyway, we are so much more grown up now so we don’t laugh at these things anymore!]
If we are able to set aside, for the time being, the strange and miraculous ending to this story where Philip is transported by the Holy Spirit from this roadside conversation and baptism to Azotus – Azotus being one of the five major cities of the Philistines; then we can focus a little more on the way Philip opens up the scriptures to the Ethiopian official; in what is described as “the Good News about Jesus”.
Even though we are still in the early days of the spread of the Christian faith clearly, a short hand has developed. Whatever it was that Philip told the Ethiopian, as he opened the scriptures to him, this had become known as “The Good News”. We don’t have the full text of that here in Acts Chp8 but if we were to look back to the preaching of Peter on the day of Pentecost, and again when Peter and John heal the lame beggar, and to Stephen’s speech to the High Priests before he was stoned to death, we certainly do get the flavour of what the early church was referring to as ‘The Good News”. Read any of those speeches by Peter or Stephen and they will come across to you as a rather rambling history of God’s relationship with the Jewish people. It’s almost like a set piece. No matter what the question is – this is the reply.
For some reason I don’t quite understand, it may be just the way my brain works, Jehovah Witnesses or maybe the Mormon church comes to mind. If you’ve ever had a door step visit from some of their members and engaged with them, you never feel you have a proper discussion; it’s an exercise for them to communicate key points, ask certain questions so the conversation can be steered around to what they want to or have to tell you. Like it’s a set piece that needs to be delivered.
So somewhere in those early days agreement was reached as to what the message was, what were the key points of that message and how it was parcelled up in the common ground of the history of God’s chosen people. And they called all this ‘The Good News.”
And yet, it troubles me because it no longer resembles the way that Jesus preached. Where have the parables gone? What has happened to Jesus central theme, the Kingdom of God? Why do they gloss over the fact that Jesus healed on the Sabbath day and picked corn on the Sabbath day and in other ways flouted Jewish law. Jesus gave us wonderful fresh images of a loving Heavenly Father while Peter and Stephen and Philip have returned to a message stifled by the dry dust of history. Why?
Perhaps the answer is simple. They knew their audience. The apostles, who took on the responsibility of preaching “The Good News” knew their audience was steeped in the history and culture of the Jewish faith, so they parcelled up the message of Jesus Christ in language their audience could listen to and understand. The Apostle Paul did the same thing when he went to Athens and looking round the Areopagus saw an inscription to an “Unknown God”. Paul used that as the way in, the means by which to parcel up the message of Jesus Christ in language his audience could to listen to and understand.
The “Good News” was never understood to be a static, unchanging, story. It has its key elements; Jesus Christ his life and death and resurrection is at the very heart of it. But how that dovetails into the life and culture and times of any audience is the never-ending task of the church. We cannot do that well unless we know the language of our world.
Praise – At the name of Jesus
Prayers for Others
Loving God, we thank You that You are a God of wonderful abundance and generous grace. We are grateful that within Your loving embrace there is space enough for all of us. We pray for a world that sadly does not always reflect love or grace or generosity that refuses to see that all of us are children of God, equally worthy of respect.
Scottish Politics – Scottish Parliament
We pray to you Lord, for places where political instability and changes of allegiance cause times of uncertainty. We pray for the Scottish Parliament now that the power sharing deal between SNP and Green Party has ended. Stability is slowly crumbling. When no one party has the clear majority making progress of any kind is so much more difficult. May the Scottish Parliament be able to offer the leadership the people of Scotland deserve. Lord hear us in our prayers for the future of politics in Scotland…
The Post Office Enquiry
It’s old news and yet it’s not; as the truth trickles out to disbelieving ears from successive senior executives and bosses of the Post Office, it is still hard to comprehend the scale of the injustice, the unremitting cover up of the facts, the endless desire to protect the good name of the Post Office at such cost to so many innocent people. Father God, so many organisations behave this way, even churches strive to protect their reputation regarding individuals as collateral damage. We thank you then for your upside down Kingdom where the individual is valued, loved and offered justice. Father God, as we remember the Post Office Enquiry and scandal, help us also to remember that we are called to bring in your Kingdom and to pray for those who seek justice for the individual because they are working for your Kingdom. Lord hear our prayers…
To pray for those we love
We offer our prayers for those closest to our hearts. Quietly now we think on them, naming them before you Lord…
Lord of all compassion and love, surround each person we have named with Your grace and peace. Whatever they may be experiencing at this time, in anxiety or ill-health, facing pressures at work or the pressure of exams, relationships that are struggling, or finances they cannot manage, may You be a source of healing and confidence in their lives; and most of all through the care and compassion we show to know how much they are loved by You. AMEN.
Praise – Who is on the Lord’s side
The Grace
And now… May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you and all whom you love, now and for evermore. AMEN.
A great and moving service thanks to the Rev Kevin McKenzie. I still remember my dad Rev Kevin and memories that they bring to me.