Sunday 09 June 2024
3rd Sunday after Pentecost
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
2 Corinthians 4: 13 – 5: 1
Mark 3: 20 – 35
Praise – Lord you have come to the seashore
Prayers
Compassionate and ever-loving Lord, we thank You that in Your mercy You have brought us together today to worship You, the one true, holy and everlasting Lord. We ask that You would give us the grace to grow in knowledge of You.
Loving, Heavenly Father, we come and bow in Your presence, offering our prayers and worship to You. We acknowledge that You are the one who has created all things, and to whom we all owe our existence, our life. We seek to live in Your light and Your strength, but we confess that there are times when our steps are faltering, times when our trust in You wavers. Lord we would ask that You give us a deeper trust, that You would give us a deeper knowledge of Yourself as our Saviour, Master, Lord, and King.
May we find a deepening need to seek you in prayer, a deepening devotion to Your holy word, and a steadfast reliance upon its truth.
Give us, we pray, a deeper holiness in our words, thoughts, and actions, and let our lives more fully reflect Your grace and beauty, until our lives overflow with the living water of Your Holy Spirit.
Just as we have offered these prayers in your name, so we offer the gifts now placed upon the table. Out of the abundance you have given us we bring our gifts, grateful for the gifts you have placed in our lives and glad to offer them back so your Kingdom may grow. Lord, we bring so much more to you than material possession. We bring that which cannot be seen or touched, only known and experienced; we bring our love for you and all people, we bring our service to church and community, we bring our hopes and dreams and place them all before you.
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
“We fix our attention not on things that are seen but on things that are unseen.”
My Mum and I tend to have recurring conversations. Sometimes it’s quite amusing, sometimes it drives you daft as you go round the same thing again and again. Mum has had some eyesight problems due to cataracts forming on the lens of both eyes. I’m sure there will be some of you here who will sympathise with that.
“You know” says mum, “I’ve discovered just how important your eyes are. They are like windows to the world. You can’t do anything unless you can see. All the information you need comes from your eyes.” And then she gets a bit angry at the NHS for doing nothing to help her! Mum and I have had that conversation more times than I can shake a stick at.
Now I’m not saying that Mum is wrong, it’s just that she can’t work out how someone who really does have significant visual impairment might adjust to that, or rely more heavily on their other senses to navigate the world. I don’t suppose I can work that out either. OK the text of this address is a total blur when I take my glasses off, but I still take my eyesight for granted. I see all the physical stuff around me, I see the beauty of nature, I can recognise a person’s face and see their facial expressions and I’m not going to underestimate the importance of any of that.
Yet, Paul as he writes for a second time to the Christians living in Corinth asks them, (and us) to fix our attention on things that are unseen, that which we cannot see with our eyes yet may be the most important things of all.
Now this may be a poor example but I hope it will help. During the pandemic we brought ten round tables into the sanctuary and that required a different layout for the seating in here too. We can physically see the tables and the different layout but it’s the unseen stuff that has become the most important feature of this. The way it has refreshed relationships and has brought us closer together in friendship and fellowship – that’s way more important. That I’m not up there in a pulpit like I’m in some place of authority but here with you, all of us on the same level, speaking with you not at you. We are equal contributors in this time of worship and in the whole life of this church. These are things that are unseen and ultimately these things are spiritual.
Gathered round the Lord’s Table, the bread and wine of Communion set before us, we are afforded the opportunity of experiencing the seen and the unseen. We can see the bread as it comes to us on its platter, feel its texture as we hold it in our fingers, taste it upon our tongue and know that it is bread like any piece of bread. And we will raise a small glass to our lips and taste the sweetness of the red grape juice that was purchased at the supermarket. What is seen is ordinary what is unseen is extraordinary. The unseen is the love of Christ expressed in his sacrifice, his body broken, his blood poured out. The unseen is the forgiveness he offers to each and every one of us as we take the bread and the wine. The unseen is the refreshing of our relationship with Christ and with each other, to be one with Him and one with each other. The unseen is Christ’s desire to speak with you not at you. The unseen is fellowship with Jesus Christ and with all who follow him. The unseen is the deep sense of worth we have as individuals because we know Jesus Christ has loved us enough to offer his whole life for us. These things are spiritual.
As we receive of the bread and wine, we fix our eyes “not on things that are seen but on things that are unseen.”
Praise – This is my body
Prayers for Others
D-Day Normandy Landing 80th Commemoration
Lord and God, in recent days we have paused to remember and commemorate the brave events of the D-Day landing on Normandy beaches that took place 80 years ago. The years slip by and those who faced those events in person are now so few in number. Yet we ask that those who gave their all may never slip away from our consciousness because by their endeavours they shaped the future and they shaped us. Lord and God, as now we sit in quietness we offer our prayers, our respect, for those who gave their all…
Young People
God our Father, we pray together for our young ones; exams having drawn to a close, wondering what their exam results will be like, what the future holds for them, and how they might find their place in a complex world. In times of uncertainty, we know that our young one will often be the last to find jobs, their sense of worth diminished by rejection. Show them that life does have meaning and purpose, that there is a better way to live life than that which the world portrays. We do not need to chase after empty goals when we can follow Christ and find our sense of worth in Him. Give us a faith which is positive, supportive and strong so that we can support and encourage those who are still finding their way. Hear us Lord as we pray for our young people to find strength and purpose through faith in Christ…
The Church’s Ministry
We thank you Lord for calling us to be your witnesses. Give us the courage to say that we belong to you even when we might be ridiculed for believing. We know that Peter, your disciple, was confident that he would never betray you but in the heat of the moment he denied you three times. We know how easy it is to back down and make it look like our faith is not important, anxious not to cause offence or to find ourselves in an awkward situation. Thank you Lord, that you could forgive Peter and that you forgive us. Help us to go forward in the confidence that you are with us always and that we can bear witness to your presence in this world. Lord hear our prayers for the ministry of the whole church…
Praise – Christ be our light
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.
Great service again very moving thanks to the Rev Kevin McKenzie for giving me things to think about.