February 5, 2023
WELCOME TO ST ANDREW’S ON THE TERRACE
Today’s service is led by Rev. Doug Lendrum
PRELUDE
In honouring the mind, one begins the journey toward Christian wholeness with a life-changing recognition of the power of one’s own choices.
Living the Questions is about revisiting the questions to apply them to the Christian present and increasing the measure of freedom so that one can live more fully.
Exploring the adventure of Humanity is about enjoying an unshakable Christian love, walking with confidence into the future and doing it in divine intimacy.
CALL TO WORSHIP
We are here because out of the land and sea ascending, yet another day arises. We are here because we seek to be where the rays of sun shine bright upon us attending and awakening our lives along the way. We are here because we know that shortly will come yet another closing, when moon and stars will assume their velvet sway and light bringing task. We are here because our lives are more than the struggles and the pain, they are more than the brevity of the day. We are here because our lives are ever wondrous, ever glorious ever awesome. We are here to share our faith stories to walk the Jesus Way together, to sing together the song without end.
PROCESSIONAL HYMN – “We Thank You God”
http://hymntime.com/tch/htm/a/w/a/k/a/awakaris.htm
Words; Scott Kearns Tune: OLD HUNDREDTH
- We thank you God for those who know
your depth of wisdom in their lives,
whose pride or pow’r do not prevent
the love of Christ from being shown. - We thank you for the scholar’s skill,
the learning that is honed and trained,
the gifts, that given, now are used
for good, for care, for love, for all. - We thank you for the poet’s art
that offers prophecy and light,
which through the rhythm of the words
remains with us when thoughts depart. - We thank you for the dancing form
that pirouettes with grace and skill,
that weaves a pattern through the air
and challenges our static norm.
WELCOME
E te whānau a Te Karaiti,
ngā mihi aroha ki a tātou katoa.
Kia ora tātou.
Talofa lava
Talofa
AN INVITATION TO COMMUNION
Beyond.
Beyond our naming free of disappointment,
beyond our shaming free of painfilled boundaries,
beyond our banter disguising defeat,
there is the promise of an ‘almost’- God.
Beyond our humiliation and segregation,
beyond our crushed hopes of certainty and control,
beyond our graceless regulations in search of fulfilment,
there is the promise of an ‘almost’ – God.
Beyond our anguish for our species, free of expectation,
beyond our hurt for our brothers, free of fear,
beyond our tears for the families torn asunder,
there is the promise of an ‘almost’ -God.
We seek to be drawn into that beyond,
where disappointments are redeemed,
where shame is transformed into honour
and defeat turned to gain.
A beyond, where humiliation is reshaped as dignity,
where crushed hope is restored,
a graceless regulation is softened; as worthy
a beyond, where an ‘almost’ God reigns bold.
A beyond, where anguish morphs into empathy,
hurts are healed, and tears no longer mourn.
A beyond where doubt and struggle cleanse.
A beyond safe in the promise of an ‘almost’ – God.
A beyond that impinges on our present,
so may it shape our becoming,
bringing us to a peace within, and without;
a peace with our ‘almost’ – God.
In the name of the event that we have named Christ,
One who brought beyond into our becoming,
inviting us to wonder and awe
in the freedom of the beyond, and to rest in the ‘Almost’
Amen.
PRAYER OF AWARENESS
Each morning brings a newness that we need but step into. It can wash us, lift us, heal us, hold us just as each of us has need. May we be open to the power that lies dormant within us. May we be full with a confidence in our own strength. May we move from the routines that we follow to the fullness of life that we might live.
(Gretta Vosper)
LIGHTING THE RAINBOW CANDLE
We are called to celebrate and worship, not just by words spoken, but also by miracles recalled: a baby’s first cry, the petals of a rose, mist-covered hills, the restless tides of the seas, human love, human hope.
We light the rainbow candle not just as symbol of inclusion and openness, but also with gratitude, with joy, with wonder, at life’s boundless possibilities, potential and the beauty of diversity and difference.
FAMILY TIME – Cam Smart
PASSING THE PEACE
Traditionally we shake hands to pass the peace and say “peace be with you.” Now that COVID-19 is here we ask that you pass the peace without shaking hands.
THE WORD IN TEXTS – Johan Van der Merwe Hebrew Bible – Isaiah 58: 1-12
Contemporary reading – by Trevor Hart
“The uncomfortable truth of life is that we are inconsequential cosmic dust, bumping and milling about on a tiny blue speck, fleeting configurations of matter entirely lacking in purpose or importance and bound only for dissolution and extinction…. Something needs to matter, or there is no reason to go on living…… and it is on the power of human imagination quietly to construct and project meaning, value, purpose, and significantly, narratives of hope that will sheath realities unbearable aspect and so prevent psychic meltdown from occurring.”
Gospel – Matthew 5: 13-20
RESPONSE
For the Word in scripture,
for the Word among us,
for the Word within us,
we give thanks.
HYMN – “We Thank You God”
http://hymntime.com/tch/htm/j/s/r/e/jsreign.htm
Words: Andrew Pratt, Tune Duke Street
- We thank you for the singing soul
that soars to some harmonious height
above, beyond our human sense,
and glimpses heaven, almost whole.
- We thank you for incisive sight
that analyses and discerns,
through science, patterns that inform
predictions, actions we repeat.
- We thank you, God, for light and sound
with which we interact and move;
for singing colours, thrumming beat,
that thrill, that shake the solid ground.
- We thank you, God, for all the gifts
of human spirit, skill and mind;
O may indifference never numb
our sense of awe at love so deft.
REFLECTION
‘Salt and Light… Today?’
Rev. Doug Lendrum
OFFERING HYMN – Tune: Duke Street WOV 24
Willing hands, to lead the blind,
heal the wounded, feed the poor.
Love embracing all our kind,
charity with liberal store.
We recognise and bless the gifts brought to the table, and those which wing
their way electronically from our banks to the church’s account.
LIFE IN THE COMMUNITY OF ST ANDREW’S
People share notices and visitors are welcomed. If you have a notice, please move to the front row, ready to speak briefly from the lectern.
For the benefit of newcomers, please introduce yourself before you begin.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE – Wendy Matthews
CIRCLE OF PRAYER
We think today of the people of Vietnam and the organisations working for HIV and AIDS education in Vietnam and throughout the world. We hold all refugees in our hearts. We pray in particular for the refugees still detained in Nauru. We give thanks for recent progress and pray that their calls for justice might yet be answered with compassion. In New Zealand, we remember those in Parliament, and today we name Erica Stanford (East Coast Bays electorate) and Jamie Strange (Hamilton East Electorate). Here in the Central Presbytery, we pray for the leaders and people of Waipawa – St John’s Co-operating Church (Presbyterian-Methodist).
PRAYER FOR ST ANDREW’S
Renew your people, God,
and renew our life in this place.
Give us a new spirit of unity
with all who follow the Way of Jesus
and new bonds of love
with people of other faiths.
Bless the city in which we live
that it may be a place
where honest dealing,
good government,
the desire for beauty,
and the care for others flourish.
Bless this church
that what we know of your will
may become what we do,
and what we believe
the strong impulse
of our worship and work.
Amen
INVITATION TO COMMUNION
St Andrew’s is an open community and all are invited to Christ’s table.
Wherever you are on your faith journey, wherever you have come from and wherever you are going to, whatever you believe, whatever you do not believe, you are welcome to participate in the communion. This is God’s meal for all people.
COMMUNION HYMN – ‘Certain of Uncertainty’
http://hymntime.com/tch/htm/o/s/p/i/ospirtlg.htm
Words: G Stuart, Tune: Forest Green
- In life with such uncertainty
we long to feel at peace;
but with no proven guarantee
we feel our stress increase.
When in the maze we grope each day,
‘Confusion’ is our name;
when change can ruin life we say,
“Please, let things stay the same.”
- Sometimes our journey feeds our fear,
can lead us to despair.
But in these times we need to hear
from Jesus and his care.
He trusted ‘Love’ would find a way
to ease his troubled soul;
he found that ‘Love’ would always say,
“My strength shall make you whole.”
- Disease, distress can take control
And test our firm resolve
To be a source that would console,
That helps our fears dissolve.
In human ways we play our part
When hearing Jesus’ call;
He said “Fear not.” He’s in our heart
When helping those who fall.
- We find our true humanity
when ‘Love’ directs our course.
Inspired by Jesus’ melody
of hope, with all its force.
He is our guide when life is grim,
he’s with us in our strife.
We stride together; trust in him
who came to bring us life.
- We cannot see what lies ahead;
it mostly is unknown.
But ‘God in us’ shares every dread;
we need not feel alone.
Together we can help ‘Love’ grow,
together stand as one.
Our human love can make it so;
our future can be won.
COMMUNION LITURGY
You are invited to come to the front of the church and receive a piece of bread, or wine (light coloured) or grape juice (dark coloured).
Or, remain in your seat to be served if mobility is difficult. If you don’t wish to receive communion, please remain in your seat – we’re glad you are here with us.
Presentation
We begin another year as a community of faith, as a community of souls who would walk the Jesus Way knowing that it is both beginnings and endings that shape our lives and today we bring together the manifestation of our living with the past journeys of others who have walked the Jesus Way in a symbolic way. We recall the ancient Hebrew Passover that in its symbol transcended time and space so shaping this meal gathering today. We celebrate a faithful, strong past. We prepare for a future yet to be conceived. We call it the rhythm of life.
Thanksgiving
May it be well with you.
And also with you.
Sacred is the cosmos, whirling, expanding, living, dying, yearning for abundance and freedom in its dance of manifestation and entropy
We come to this table awe-struck creatures conscious that as we take these few short steps the whole cosmos — gathered up in us — journeys with us, and in us.
How can we not stand in awe. Those same vast processes that created galaxies and suns and stars and planets, continue to shape our existence… Out of the Big Bang the stars;
Out of the stardust the Earth; Out of the molecules of the Earth, life.
Earth was planted with the seeds of its future; by the sacrifice of our sun, Earth flowered forth. In the human species, nature became conscious of itself and open to fulfilment in thought and word and deed.
Blessed be Earth our home.
We celebrate the interconnectedness that is our life—all life. Stardust and mountains, wild flowers and rain forests; gilled ones of river and sea and the feathered ones of the air; Kiwi and Kea, earth-worm, butterfly, and bacteria; First Peoples and recent arrivals; sacred wisdom of sages and the consciousness of prophets. Every day we encounter the cosmos.
It is our bodies, our food our air our everything.
One thing is made up of all other things.
Being and beauty flow freely through all the universe in this great procession of life.
Bread and Wine
All will receive the elements before partaking. Please hold the elements and eat and drink together when requested
As we gather together to share and eat food we remember the stories around all the meals in the wisdom tradition of the Galilean sage we call Jesus… Born of a woman and the Hebrew gene pool, he was a creature of earth, a moment in the biological evolution of this planet. Like all human beings, he carried within himself the signature of the supernovas and the geology and life history of the Earth… For just as the Milky Way is the universe in the form of a galaxy, and the Albatross is the universe in the form of a bird, Jesus was and we are, the universe in the form of a human.
May we care for our planet. May we nurture this piece of stardust! May we celebrate with the cosmos!
Bread is broken several times
And so we remember the living tradition… How, during a meal, bread would be taken and after thanks given, it would be broken and shared with both friend and stranger.
This piece of bread is the body of the whole cosmos. Look deeply and you notice the sunshine in the bread, the blue sky in the bread,
the clouds and the great earth in the bread.
The whole cosmos has come together in order to bring to us this piece of bread.
The bread is served to the people
After conversation some Wine would be taken, thanks for it would be given, and poured out and shared with all those present.
Wine, fruit of the vine, gift of nature.
Since all food is cosmic and born of the sun and photosynthesis, sharing a meal of bread and wine renders the universe both sacred and intimate.
Wine/juice is taken to the people
Elders and Minister receive elements
Bread and Wine, Elements for life on Earth… In solidarity with life… Let us eat and drink with all sojourners who in their time and place, enter into a new journey…..
All Partake in Communion at the same time
After Communion:
When all the glasses have been retrieved the Minister reads the following.
The Dynamic Divine Presence By D Lendrum
Like the branches of a tree swaying in the wind
The breath of life makes itself known to us.
Like the sunlight breaking through in darting shafts of light
The warmth of love enters our evolving bodies
Becoming the presence of our God
Awakening the divine power that is life.
Like the sharpening cold of a frosty morning
Or the gently transforming morning sun.
The divine power turns the thrusting needles
Into the welcoming embrace of nurturing hands,
Becoming the presence of our God
Deepening the divine loving that is life.
Like the dying embers of the hearth
Or the sumptuous duvet cover at night
Our petty worries are swept away beyond
And shake us free from any fears.
Becoming the presence of our God
Moving and swaying together with us in our mind.
Sometimes our days are as strong as winter storms,
And others as soft as the rustling of ferns.
We are taught to bend and not be broken,
To be flexible without shifting ground.
Becoming the presence of our God
Meeting us in the uprooting of the shallow and unkind.
Like the welcome of a sunlit, warm and welcoming day
Ours moments of calm offer rest content,
An invitation to watch each other in stillness;
To enjoy the quietness of knowing
Becoming the presence of our God
Always here in the now and then.
HYMN – ‘The Sound of History Humming’
http://hymntime.com/tch/htm/c/h/o/f/chofound.htm
Words Andrew Pratt, Tune: ‘Aurelia’,
- The sound of history humming,
the origins of time,
as galaxies are clustered,
as light and matter rhyme:
philosophers imagine
while science gathers facts,
we reach for understanding,
yet what we know contracts. - We delve beyond the present
through interstellar gas;
we fathom, seek to measure,
a sub-atomic mass.
The God that we conceive of,
a thief within the night:
we cannot gauge this treasure,
beyond the scale of light. - As yet the mystery blinds us,
confined by birth and death,
but human exploration
will not discard the quest;
as yet we live in tension:
the only earth we know
is where all skill and science
must help our love to grow.
BLESSING
We pray for the fragile ecology
of the heart and the mind:
the sense of meaning
so finely assembled and balanced and so
easily overturned;
the careful, ongoing construction of LOVE.
As painful and exhausting as the struggle for truth
and as easily abandoned.
Hard fought and won
are the shifting sands of this sacred ground,
this ecology.
Easy to desecrate and difficult to defend,
this vulnerable joy, this exposed faith,
this precious order. This sanity.
We shall be careful.
With others and with ourselves.
BENEDICTION
As we find our way in life, even in the midst of chaos, we shall remember that the calm, open, stillness, is home to our awareness and our attentiveness. And that those who walk with the beauty of the natural planet will journey on.
SUNG AMEN
POSTLUDE
THANK YOU
Mark Stamper