Sunday 24 Nov 2024
Christ the King Sunday
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.
Your Weekly Church Notices
Scripture
Psalm 93
John 18: 33 – 37
Praise – O worship the King
Prayers
Loving God, long ago, out of the chaos of darkness You created everything above our heads and everything below our feet. And we thank You for it.
In Your great love and goodness, You created human-kind, to be like you, to be creators, and sustainers of the world. And what You created You saw to be good. So, we come this morning to give You thanks for the wonderful diversity You have placed in humanity. We thank You for the skills and gifts entrusted to each of us – gifts of artistry and design, of building and constructing, gifts of compassion and understanding, of insight and logic. And we thank You that in Your wisdom You have given to each of us without prejudice or bias.
Yet, we have not responded with the same kindness. We have been swift to judge which gifts should be given to some and not to others. We have been hasty to assess another’s worthiness based on the world’s standards and not on Your wisdom. We have made snap judgements from ease, rather than doing the hard work of informing and then transforming our stance. For the times when we’ve judged another’s worthiness based on gender, or age, or race, we ask for Your forgiveness. For the times when, in the muddle of our minds, we’ve instantly written someone off based only on what we see from the outside, we ask for Your forgiveness.
Gracious God, challenge us, bother us and inconvenience us, so we are no longer satisfied with a society that acts out of habit, and limits the expression of Your boundless love revealed in Your glorious creation.
God of forgiveness, we thank You that we can come to You in humility and ask for Your mercy. And in Your unlimited love, You forgive us, but You also dare us to be more like You every day; to live a life that echoes the endless creativity of Your love.
And so, we dedicate ourselves to you in loving service. We offer who we are and what we are, we offer what we have, trusting that through your great love our humble offering may be enough to glorify your name and touch the hearts of those who do not know your salvation.
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
There is an antique shop in Gatehouse of Fleet, which I’m informed (I’ve never seen it myself) is rather unusual for the shop used to be a church, and on its walls, there are still memorial plaques. One of them is a memorial tablet to a minister who walked out of St Andrew’s Church in Edinburgh in the Disruption of 1843. The issues of that historic moment, of that split in the Church of Scotland, that gave birth to the Free Church, are largely forgotten now: but to those who took part in the struggle – on both sides – the issue was clear. The issue was how to be obedient to Christ the King. On that memorial tablet it says,
“He cast his lot with the faithful brethren who preferred the endurance of their master’s cross to the practical denial of their master’s crown, and with them left the testimony of a good conscience and the treasure of an unsullied reputation.”
It is that phrase about “the practical denial of their master’s crown” that makes us take notice. That Minister could not deny what he believed or ever knowingly fail to be obedient to his King. It was a complex time in the life of the church where the relationship between church and state was under scrutiny. Just who was Head of the Church? Those ministers who left the Church of Scotland to form the Free Church, 450 in all, were determined that the church should have no other head or King but Christ.
In 1843 Queen Victoria was on the throne having come to the throne in 1837. These were times of huge expansion of the British Empire, great wealth for the wealthy and struggle for the poor. Yet, in all sections of society there was immense respect, allegiance and obedience to the Monarch. And I think I would be on safe enough ground to say that kind of allegiance to the Monarchy continued until after the Second War. We cannot say it is the same now. Victoria, did however, maybe inadvertently, set the foundations for a new style of Monarchy, a Constitutional Monarchy, Monarchy as a servant that operated above the fray of party politics.
King Charles, Queen Camilla, and Wiliam and Kate, really do set themselves in the mould of being servants of the people. They use their position and influence to highlight areas of need, like homelessness or domestic abuse, or climate change to try to make the world we live in a better place.
The point I’m trying to make is that what we mean by “King”, what monarchy does, or represents, has changed significantly. Who would we rather have on the throne Charles, Victoria, or Henry VIII ? I’m pretty sure Henry VIII would demand our obedience on pain of death, while now with Charles obedience is not even a question that enters our minds. Charles as King cannot even be described as a benevolent dictator. He has, to all intents and purposes, no authority over us, yet he is still our King. And in another way, we could argue that King Charles, Queen Camilla, William and Kate are exactly the kind of Monarchy we need. They speaks out on behalf of others, are not frightened to highlight places of need in society, and they are able to unify all the strands of support and help that charitable organisations offer. Theirs is a life of service to others made possible through their high position in Monarchy.
And I’m hoping that by saying these things we can begin to appreciate how contradictory ideas can be held together in a wonderful way.
On Christ the King Sunday it is good to remember that Jesus came to us from the line of King David, his royal lineage meant that God’s promise was being fulfilled through him. It is good to remember that we believe he came to us as God’s only son his divine lineage setting him apart as King of kings. It is good to remember that he came to us as a human being, one of us, with no authority over us, only that he came in love and seeks a loving response from us. It is good to remember that he was not frightened to highlight and enter into places of human need, restore dignity and worth to the human soul. It is good to remember that his servanthood was made possible only because of his high position as God’s only son, Lord of lords and King of kings.
And it is good to remember that Christ is neither a servant nor a King unless we choose to follow him and enthrone him in our hearts.
Praise – I have a Dream
Prayers for Others
Sovereign God, Your realm is unlike the world we see around us.
Your realm bends towards those the world would rather forget. Your realm outshines the world in grace and forgiveness, justice and generosity. Your realm renders worth by the simple truth of Your unlimited love for all of humanity.
Yet, when we gaze around our communities, when we open our newspapers or scroll our social media or TV channels, we are too often hounded by images and stories of destruction, revenge, imbalance and discrimination. Where those who need the most help are afforded the least. And in these moments, something kindles our souls and tells us that this is not the way the world should be.
So, gracious God, we bring before You our prayers for this world, our prayers for our community and our prayers for those who burden our hearts at this time.
Let us be One People, grounded not just by the griefs we bear, but by the good we begin.
We pray this morning for those women who have been victims of domestic abuse or sexual abuse. We thank you for the work of Rape Crisis Scotland and every charity and organisation that seeks to offer compassion and support in times of crisis and trauma. Where the Scottish Parliament can offer funding may they have the wisdom to do so, and may we carry this burden in prayer always. Lord hear our prayers for those who suffer abuse at the hands of another…
We pray for those in our communities who feel disconnected from others,
for those who are isolated in any way, those who are dealing with substance abuse issues, with mental health concerns, depression and anxiety. Holy Spirit, bring calm and bring stillness.
We pray for those who work to help our communities, we pray for those who work for the police, fire service, our health centres, social work departments, and charities that support those who are struggling. Sustain them when they cannot see an end to their work, or when work overwhelms. Lord hear our prayers…
Let us be One People, grounded not just by the griefs we bear, but by the good we begin.
We pray for ourselves. We pray for those times when we’ve felt the sting of judgment and criticism. Help us to put these moments into Your hands, and help us, through the compassion of the Holy Spirit, to respond in honesty, with gentleness, with surprising kindness. And may we be aware of our own moments of prejudice – moments where we judge without thinking.
So, help us rely on the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives everywhere we are and everywhere we go. Lord hear our prayers…
Let us be One People, grounded not just by the griefs we bear, but by the good we begin. AMEN
Praise – When out of poverty
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 very good and very interesting service . Lots to think about.