Sunday 24 October 2021

 BURTON JOYCE 

COMMUNITY CHURCH

with Nottingham North East Methodist Circuit 

24 October 2021  

Although not in a church building, we can worship. A service from local preacher Ian Pickering, adapted for Burton Joyce Community Church by Phil Colbourn. Hymns from Songs of Fellowship (SoF)

Call to Worship 

Let us come together to be still, to be held by God our creator and to be thankful for all that God gives us; to be healed and restored, that in our worship today, joy and gladness may refresh and renew us. 

Setting the Scene 

Today we will explore our place in Jesus’ community, with a passage from Mark where 2 disciples ask for special positions and recognition. ‘Position’ is not important in God’s kingdom but serving others is. 

Our first hymn asks God to come and fill our hearts with love. 

Hymn SoF 1202 Come down, O Love divine

Prayers 

Lord of community, you reach out in love to all, without limit.

God the Father, in Creation, you share good gifts with us. 

We adore you. 

God the Son, you are always here with us and for us. 

We adore you. 

God the Spirit, we know you deep within our hearts.

We adore you. 

Lord, sometimes we have very set ideas about our communities. The ones we belong to. The ones we aspire to. The ones we stay away from. Help us, like you, to love every member of every community. 

We are all one in you. 

Forgive us when we look down on others, or consider our way alone to be the right one. Help us to work together for the good of all, with you, putting ourselves to one side and putting others first. Amen. 

Assurance of Forgiveness 

God sees our hearts as we turn to him to seek forgiveness. We come, acknowledging that we don’t always get it right but God freely and abundantly pardons us. Thank you, most gracious God. Amen. 

Reading Mark 10, 35 - 45 The request of James and John

Our next hymn reminds us that servanthood is at the heart of our faith, personified in the life and ministry of Christ. 

Hymn SoF 120 From heaven you came 

Reflection All in this together

In our passage today, not for the first time, the disciples get the wrong end of the stick about what Jesus has come to do. On this occasion, James and John ask for leadership and status in God’s kingdom. They ask a question almost as if they haven’t been listening or watching. They simply fail to grasp what sort of King Jesus is. 

Jesus takes the road to Jerusalem and James and John follow, but they try to do so on their own terms. Are we like that? Is the cost of discipleship too much, or is it something cultural, in a world where independence and being your own person is constantly emphasised?

When asked if they are willing share in what Jesus is doing, James and John say yes, but are they really in the same adventure? Similarly, we who follow Jesus and ask God to act for us, how committed are we to hearing and doing what God might be asking of us? 

In recent years we have seen all sorts of ecological initiatives in this country. One high-profile initiative has been the re-introduction of beavers into the UK. Once upon a time, they were an indigenous species but went locally extinct as people hunted them for their fur. 

Beavers work as a community. They create a lodge and dam that provides their family space and shelter. And in felling trees and making dams, they change the landscape, creating new wetland habitats for themselves, and for plants and other animals in the surrounding countryside. They bring new light and space and improve water quality and prevent harmful flooding. This description might be a helpful analogy for the gathered church. 

The church provides a place for a family, a community, to gather and shelter. Church members serve and transform their neighbourhood, flooding the area with God’s unconditional love, bringing the light of Christ into people’s lives and improving the quality of their lives. 

The Kingdom of God is not about position or status. It is about setting ourselves aside and, in partnership with fellow disciples, using our God-given gifts to help people in need within our society. In this way they glimpse the personality and nature of Christ, so much so, that they want to play their own part in working for the establishment of the Kingdom of God here on earth. 

It was Mother Teresa who said, ‘Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.’ When we are challenged to serve a needy world, the task can seem overwhelming. The world is a big place. We feel useless and helpless. But we can all do one thing with great love. We can start by thinking about the needs of the part of the world where God has placed us, among the challenges of our church or other community groups. Is there one thing that we might take on? We are not alone. We are all in this together.

Do we see God in every human being? Dare we pray less for what we want and more for the world as God sees it? It can be a challenge to see people who are different to us – people with different ideas and principles, people we may genuinely fear – as being God’s children. 

Jesus calls us to love and to serve everyone, not just our friends and family. That can be very challenging. In the words of St Loyola: ‘Teach us to give and not to count the cost.’ In Jesus’ kingdom, the normal pattern of the contemporary world is inverted and it is the slave who reveals what it means to be really great. 

May our lives be surrendered into God’s loving purposes so that, in so doing, we may be led into a greater understanding of what God wants of us and that, more and more, we will get the right end of the stick. Then, as a consequence, God’s love will be revealed more and more in what we say and do. Amen 

Prayers of Intercession 

Christ throughout his ministry, repeatedly reached out to people in need and taking on the nature of a servant sought to heal them whether in body, mind or spirit. Often his first action was to use the power of prayer, as we will do now as we pray not just for people and situations, but to challenge ourselves how we may be able, through word and/or deed to help ‘make difference’. 

So let us pray:

Lord, we pray for those who have given their lives to serve whether on far-off mission fields or just around the corner, pouring out love and compassion on those you have placed in their lives; may they know your strength, especially when they are weary or overwhelmed. Be their refuge, O God, and give them all they need for each day. 

Lord, we pray for those who, in their vocations and work, care for others, looking after the sick and lonely, providing housing or advice, being at the other end of a phone, transporting those who cannot get around easily. We thank you for them, and ask your blessing on them. May they be provided with the resources to do their jobs well. And we pray that those who are in supervisory positions might have wisdom and awareness of the needs of those who work for them. 

Lord, we pray for each one of us, that you may lead us in our own service of others, reminding us of the deep motivation of Christ’s love, and giving us a heart for your world. In Jesus’ name we pray. 

Amen. 

The Lord’s Prayer 

Our final hymn reminds us that Jesus has shown us the way and, as we take up his invitation to serve others, he goes with us. 

Hymn SoF 803 I, the Lord of sea and sky

Blessing (with actions)

Lord, take our thoughts (touch head) and turn them into prayer (hands together) Take our prayer and turn it into love (hands over heart) Take our love and turn it into life today and every day (palms face up in offering). In Jesus Christ, Amen