February 7, 2021

WELCOME TO ST ANDREW’S ON THE TERRACE

Now you together are the body of Christ

Today’s service is led by Rev. Dr Jim Cunningham

GATHERING

We come to be opened by visions

that can enlist us in larger causes

and more caring actions.

We come to hear stories that might takes us

into a deeper kind of integrity,

and reconnect us with our better selves.

So may the warmer fullness that we seek

fill our hearts, our minds and our spirits.

 

PROCESSIONAL HYMN CH4 198 ‘All are Welcome’
Words and music: Marty Haugen © 1994 GIA Publications Inc., Used by permission

1. Let us build a house where love can dwell and all can safely live,
A place where saints and children tell how hearts learn to forgive.
Built of hopes and dreams and visions, rock of faith and vault of grace;
Here the love of Christ shall end divisions: All are welcome in this place.

2. Let us build a house where prophets speak, and words are strong and true,
Where all God’s children dare to seek to dream God’s reign anew.
Here the cross shall stand as witness and as symbol of God’s grace;
Here as one we claim the faith of Jesus: All are welcome in this place.

3. Let us build a house where love is found in water, wine and wheat:
A banquet hall on holy ground, where peace and justice meet.
Here the love of God, through Jesus, is revealed in time and space,
As we share in Christ the feast that frees us: All are welcome in this place.

4. Let us build a house where hands will reach beyond the wood and stone
To heal and strengthen, serve and teach and live the Word they’ve known.
Here the outcast and the stranger, bear the image of God’s face,
Let us bring an end to fear and danger: All are welcome in this place.

5. Let us build a house where all are named, their songs and visions heard
And loved and treasured, taught and claimed as words within the Word.
Built of tears and cries and laughter, prayers of faith and songs of grace;
Let this house proclaim from floor to rafter: All are welcome in this place.
WELCOME
Kia ora tatou.
Kia ora.
PRAYER

JESUS’ PRAYER Jim Cotter paraphrase

Eternal Spirit
Life-Giver, Pain-Bearer, Love-Maker,
source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
loving God, in whom is heaven:
the hallowing of your name
echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed
by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done
by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test,
strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory
of the power that is love, now and for ever.
Amen.

LIGHTING THE RAINBOW CANDLE
TIME WITH THE CHILDREN Dawn Cowdry
BLESSING THE CHILDREN (All stand)
We remember all the children in our faith community and bless them as they begin a new year in the Rainbow Room and at School.
We bless you. Amen.
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.
HYMN ‘People are language’
Words: G. Stuart, Music: Eventide WOV 502

1. People are language through whom God can speak;
heard by the list’ners, found by those who seek;
heard in a whisper, never in a roar,
heard in compassion, not through formal law.

2. People are language through whom God can care
with words of comfort when we see despair;
spoken in kindness, yet with certainty;
heard with delight when calming misery.

3. People are language through whom God can plead
for peace and mercy, for the ones in need;
spoken in strength, with poise and dignity,
calling for justice and for liberty.

4. Sharing of love with acts of gentleness,
sharing the load with deeds of thoughtfulness,
we can ensure the message can be heard;
for we are language of God’s living word

THE WORD IN TEXTS AND SPEECH Reader: Bronwyn White
Reflections: Jim Cunningham
Introduction

Hebrew Scriptures: Numbers 13:25 – 14:4
The Report of the spies
Reflection

New Testament Letter 1 Corinthians 12: 12-27
One Body with Many Members
Reflection

Gospel: Luke 4: 14-21
The meaning of Jesus’ ministry
Reflection

Contemporary Reading A counter-cultural vision and an eagerness to celebrate
by Norman Shanks
An Iona Community Publication

The Church vocation in each and every locality
is to be a worshipping, healing, learning,
serving community,
faithfully living by the values of the kingdom,
modelling and embodying
a counter-cultural vision,
looking and reaching out beyond itself
with a wider vision,
to discover the light and love of God
in engagement with the life of the world,
standing up and speaking out against
all that diminishes and disempowers humanity.

In so doing it will dream and explore;
it will be open, flexible and ready to take risks;
it will be generous, hospitable
and ready to celebrate;
it will not be a ghetto but keen
to co-operate and engage;
it will be a transforming community –
influencing others for good,
and being transformed itself in the process;
it will be resilient and persistent,
however hard the way,
and it will be marked by joy
and an eagerness to celebrate.
RESPONSE
For the Word in scripture,
for the Word among us,
for the Word within us,
we give thanks.

OFFERING PRAYER (said together)
For the gifts we receive and the gifts we share
we give thanks.
For the abundant universe, with resources enough and to spare
we give thanks.
May our offerings of money and food, compassion and goodwill,
be multiplied to those who receive them
blessing them, as we are blessed to give. Amen

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 Barrie Keenan
CIRCLE OF PRAYER
We think today of the people of Czech Republic and the Ecumenical Council of Churches in the Czech Republic. We are thankful for progress which has been made for some of the detainees in Papua New Guinea and Nauru and continue to hope for a satisfactory resolution for those who remain. In New Zealand, we remember those in Parliament, and today we name Camilla Belich and David Bennett, List MPs. Here in the Central Presbytery, we pray for the leaders and people of Knox Fitzroy Presbyterian Church, New Plymouth.
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
COMMUNION

St Andrew’s is an open community and all are invited to Christ’s table. Wherever you are on your faith's journey, wherever you have come from and wherever you are going to, whatever you believe, whatever you do not believe, you are welcome to share in the communion. This is God’s meal for all people.
WELCOME TO THE TABLE

At this Table we give thanks for justice, love, peace and freedom.
At this Table we give thanks for friends and strangers together
in community in this safe place.
For everyone born a place at the Table.
We are all invited.

HYMN ‘Crowded table, urgent faces’
Words: Andrew Pratt ©2011 Stainer & Bell Ltd.,
Music: Hymn to Joy WOV 92
1. Crowded table, urgent faces,
people longing for the bread;
bread of life and bread for living,
bread for rising from the dead;
Young and old, both men and women,
those for whom this life is hard,
those who live in warmth and comfort,
those whose life is stained or tarred;

2. All are welcome, wise or foolish,
at this table all are fed,
sharing wine in celebration,
eating Christ’s communion bread.
Then in costly life and giving
we will share what we receive;
demonstrate in daily living
all that we affirm, believe.

THE STORY...
We remember the stories from our tradition....

How on many occasions Jesus would share a meal with friends.
Bread and wine, the very basics of life, shared in community.
How bread would be taken, a blessing offered, and then shared amongst them. And all ate.

How some wine would be poured out, a blessing offered, and then passed amongst them. All of them drank.

When they gathered in this way it was a time of concern,
conversation and celebration.
The bread and the wine symbolised
human lives interconnected
with other human lives,
and the power of giving and receiving.
May the passion for life as seen in Jesus
and in the lives and struggles
of many other committed and faithful people, then and now,
enable us to dream and to risk....

Together may we re-imagine the world.

Together may we work to make all things new.

Together may we celebrate the possibilities and hope
we each have and are called to share.

For everyone born, a place at the Table.
THE BREAD IS BROKEN

We break the bread for the broken Earth,
ravaged and plundered for greed.

May there be healing for our beautiful blue and green planet.

We break the bread for our broken humanity,
for the powerful and the powerless
trapped by exploitation and oppression.

May there be healing for humanity.

We break the bread for those who follow other paths;
who travel on a different road from us;
those who think and act differently;
those whose belief system is different to ours;
those who see our world through different eyes
of ethnicity and culture.

May there be healing where there is pain and woundedness.

We break this bread for the unhealed hurts and wounds
that lie within us all.

May we, too, be healed.

THE WINE IS POURED

This is the cup of peace and of new life for all.
A sign of love for the community of hope.

A reminder of the call
to live life fully,
to love wastefully,
and to be all that we can be.

Come then, life-giving Spirit of our God,
brood over these bodily things,
and make us one body with Christ;
that we may no longer be in bondage
to the principalities and powers that enslave creation,
but may know your liberating peace
such as the world cannot give.
THE BREAD AND THE WINE ARE SHARED
THE CALL TO SERVICE (standing)
Go as far as your courage takes you,
for we cannot go beyond the reach of God.
Give as extravagantly as you may,
for we cannot spend all the riches of God.
Care as lavishly as you are able,
for we cannot exhaust the love of God.
Keep journeying and searching,
for God will always travel with us.
HYMN ‘Past and Present’
Words © William L Wallace. Tune: Cwm Rhondda WOV 478

1. Past and present, with our dreaming,
join to make us what we are;
ancient wisdom, ancient follies
shape the way we love and care:
Give us reverence, Give us wisdom,
From the past for life today.

2. Make us mindful of each moment –
ev’ry force, each strength, each flaw;
free us from those empty longings
which consume us more and more:
Give us vision, Give us courage,
For this present age of change.

3. We must face the future’s challenge
to create a better earth,
hand in hand with all who labour
dream and suffer for its birth.
For through sharing and through caring
We shall build community.
BLESSING & SUNG AMEN

May the love that gives to life its beauty,
the reverence that gives to life its sacredness,
and the purposes that give to life its deep significance
be strong within each of you
and lead you into ever deepening relationships
with all of life.
And the Grace.......
POSTLUDE Prelude in C major, BWV 553
by J.S. Bach (1685 – 1750)