Sunday 06 July 2025
Fourth 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.
Your Weekly Church Notices
Scripture
Galatians 6: 7 – 16
Luke 10: 1 – 12 & 16 – 20
Praise – Be still for the presence
Prayers
We praise You, Lord God, the God who made all things ad saw that they were ‘good.’ The God who has woven heaven and earth together, who taught the sun to rise and the stars to dance.
Mighty as you are; you still are tender in Your touch. You know the number of the grains of sand, you have counted the hairs on our head, detail means everything to you, you are intimately bound to Your creation, intimately bound to us.
How can it be then, that this very God, this highest host of heaven chooses to know and love each of us? How can it be then that this very God has made it so that we might draw close in worship and adoration; here, now, in this very place?
Even when we have wandered away You draw close, even when our hearts are heavy; You bring joy. When we struggle to believe that You care or that You are even there at all, you touch us again in the intimacy of your love and restore us.
We thank You, the Lord, who lifts us from the depths, who saves us and heals us, who restores and reshapes us, and who equips us to restore and reshape all the “good” things You created.
We worship our God who turns weeping into dancing and clothes us with joy.
May our heart sing God’s praises and never be silent.
In this place, and as we go from this place, may the joy of faith go with us to touch all things and all people.
Upon this table we have placed our offering, a gift too small by far for a God as great as you. Yet, you are gracious and kind and, in our offering, however humble, you see an expression of love and worship, a desire to serve You and each other and to love as you love. Accept what we bring to the Glory of Your name.
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
I hate things being dis-jointed. Dis-jointed stories are just the worst. How on earth are we meant to make sense of things when the bits don’t connect together in a nice smooth time line?
I think Luke chapter 9 going into 10 is dis-jointed.
Jesus is leaving the Sarmatian Village which refused to receive him, to go to “another” village. We are not told if this other village is Samaritan or Jewish or Gentile. As they go on their way to “another” village a series of short conversations take place from “would-be followers” of Jesus, but Jesus rejects those who are not immediately available, or maybe who don’t share the same sense of urgency in the task that he does. The Kingdom of God is now and so absolutely important that there is no time for saying goodbye to family or retuning to bury deceased parents.
All of a sudden, and out of nowhere it would seem, Jesus has chosen another seventy two men. Where did they come from? Luke doesn’t describe them as disciples, just random men who presumably shared the same sense of urgency for Jesus message. We still don’t know if they were Samaritan or Jewish or who they were. It would be all the more remarkable a story if those men were Samaritans in light of the previous sectarian rejection of Jesus.
With a clear message and clear instructions and a pretty good idea of what to expect those 72 men were sent on ahead of Jesus to every town and place where Jesus was about to go. And as we read on, those same 72 men came back full of stories about how amazing their experience had been. Even the demons obeyed them. Maybe Jesus really was trying to carry the Samaritan peoples with him by demonstrating the truth behind his words. It is in this context that we get the Parable of the Good Samaritan., which is not some generalised teaching about loving your neighbour but a very real lesson to a Teacher of the Law that his neighbour was the Samaritan. It is an anti-sectarian parable (but I jump ahead too much).
If those 72 men were in fact Samaritans, going out to Samaritan villages with the words of Jesus, the Jewish teacher and preacher, then it makes this story all the more wonderful and we might appreciate why Jesus says I’m sending you out like lambs among wolves. And yes, a Samaritan was more likely to hear the words of Jesus message if they were spoken by another Samaritan, but they were still the words of a Jewish teacher.
I suppose it is an early lesson on Message and Messenger; how these two things are so closely tied together and how Jesus saw the message of the Kingdom of God as being more important than him. The only way Jesus could get the message of the Kingdom of God into the Samaritan community was to entrust it to those 72 Samaritan men.
And he has done the same with us. The only way Jesus can get the message of the Kingdom of God into this community, Westwood and East Kilbride, is to entrust it to us so we can pass it on to those so inclined to listen to us.
Praise – You are called
Prayers for Others
Welfare Reforms
Draconian and unfair cuts, rebellion from the back benches, U Turns and amendments, two tier systems… Who really knows what is going on?
The Welfare system is part of a just and democratic society. Our ability to care for and support those facing times of need says a lot about who we are as a nation, what we believe in, who we are as a people. Welfare is an expression of love toward our neighbour. Caring for our neighbour can be costly and not just in financial terms. Welfare can be abused, kindness can be taken for granted, generosity can be taken advantage of, systems can be manipulated, the vulnerable can be overlooked, thresholds can be disadvantageous to some and advantageous to others.
In the muddle and complexity of life, when broad rules and guidelines and policies are applied, we know the individual can so easily slip through the net. It will never be a perfect system, yet we pray, and this is our prayer Lord, that the compassion of Christ might be reflected in our Welfare System in a way that brings kindness to all people. Lord hear us in our prayers as we confront a changing Welfare system…
Climate
Another summer of wildfires, predictably so. Even the Highlands and North East of Scotland are contending with wild fires. A summer of record temperatures in Europe, unbearable heat that bring health risks to the young and the elderly. Who can deny that humanity, and all of nature with us, is paying the price for humanity’s recklessness, ignorance and greed. Lord we could pray for your forgiveness when really, we need to pray for the strength to change our ways and the grace to acknowledge humanity’s shortsightedness. Lord, when we pray for concerning Climate Change help us realise it is not the climate we are praying for but the condition of the human soul, what is in the human heart; it is humanity that needs to change. Lord hear our prayers…
Our Own Prayers
Quietly now Lord we take these moments to offer our own prayers; to remember those we love and care for, to pray for situations around the world that cause us concern and touch our hearts, to offer ourselves to you seeking your guidance, your compassion and the deep desire to serve you with all that we are. Lord, hear our prayers…
Praise – I the Lord of sea and sky
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.