Holy Communion for Sunday, 26 July 2020

by Robin.Kyd · 26 July 2020

[The complete Service is contained in one video file. The musical prelude and postlude are each in their own video file, at top and bottom of this post. The words of the service, hymns, readings and intercessions are all included in the video of the Service, but not the words of the Sermon by Revd David Moore; if you wish to read his text while listening, you will need to scroll down to it in the text of the Service, which is below the video recordings here.]

The Service today is led by Revd Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga

Organ Prelude

Service

Introit: O God, you search me and you know me

O God, you search me, and you know me.
All my thoughts lie open to your gaze.
When I walk or lie down, you are before me,
ever the maker and keeper of my days.

You know my resting and my rising.
You discern my purpose from afar
and with love everlasting, you besiege me,
in every moment of life or death, you are.

Before a word is on my tongue, Lord,
you have known its meaning through and through.
You are with me beyond my understanding:
God of my present, my past and future, too.

Although your Spirit is upon me,
still I search for shelter from your light.
There is nowhere on earth I can escape you;
even the darkness is radiant in your sight.

For you created me and shaped me,
gave me life within my mother’s womb.
For the wonder of who I am, I praise you.
Safe in your hands, all creation is made new —
mmm, all creation is made new.

Bernadette Farrell (b. 1957)
CCL31580

Welcome

Good morning, Living Stones, and welcome to our Holy Communion Service
on the seventh Sunday after Trinity.

A warm welcome to our preacher too, our dear David Moore.

We begin with the Prayer of the Week.

Let us pray.

Prayer of the Week

Provident Father,
with the prayer your Son taught us
always on our lips,
we ask, we seek, we knock at your door.
In our every need,
grant us the first and best of all your gifts,
the Spirit who makes us your children.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.

Amen

Hymn: Come, now is the time to worship

Come, now is the time to worship.
Come, now is the time to give your heart.
Come, just as you are, to worship.
Come, just as you are, before your God, come.

One day every tongue will confess You are God,
one day every knee will bow.
Still the greatest treasure remains
for those who gladly choose You now.

Come, now is the time to worship.
Come, now is the time to give your heart.
Come, just as you are, to worship.
Come, just as you are, before your God, come.

One day every tongue will confess You are God,
one day every knee will bow.
Still the greatest treasure remains
for those who gladly choose You now.

Come, now is the time to worship.
Come, now is the time to give your heart.
Come, just as you are, to worship.
Come, just as you are, before your God, come.

Brian Doerksen (b. 1965)
CCL31580

Gathering Prayer

Jesus said: My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.

Welcome to the house of God.
We have come from all the corners of the earth.

Welcome to the hospitality of God.
We come as we are; we bring our life, our stories, our journey.

Welcome, brothers and sisters.
We are the rainbow people of God.

Welcome, chosen people.
May God our companion bind us in his love.

Amen

The Confession

Forgive us for the things we have done and have not done.
Forgive us for the things we have said and have not said.
Forgive us for the life we have lived and not lived.
Beloved God, help us to reflect the image
of the one we profess to follow
in thought, word and deed,
and in discovering our true self
draw others into that light.

Amen

Kyrie eléison

Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.

The Word of the Lord

1 Kings 3: 5–12

Read by Suzanne Richardson-Bailey

⁵ At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, ‘Ask for whatever you want me to give you.’

⁶ Solomon answered, ‘You have shown great kindness to your servant, my father David, because he was faithful to you and righteous and upright in heart. You have continued this great kindness to him and have given him a son to sit on his throne this very day.

⁷ ‘Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. ⁸ Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. ⁹ So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?’

¹⁰ The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. ¹¹ So God said to him, ‘Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, ¹² I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.

NIV®

This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

Matthew 13: 31–33 & 44–52

Read by Robin Kyd

The parables of the mustard seed and the yeast

³¹ He told them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. ³² Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.’

³³ He told them still another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about thirty kilograms of flour until it worked all through the dough.’

The parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl

⁴⁴ ‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

⁴⁵ ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. ⁴⁶ When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

The parable of the net

⁴⁷ ‘Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. ⁴⁸ When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. ⁴⁹ This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous ⁵⁰ and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

⁵¹ ‘Have you understood all these things?’ Jesus asked.

‘Yes,’ they replied.

⁵² He said to them, ‘Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.’

NIV®

This is the Gospel of Christ.
Praise to Christ our light.

Sermon

By Revd David Moore

The first time I conducted public worship was in a tiny Methodist Chapel in the village of Hinton Charterhouse, which is six miles from Bath where I lived. I was nineteen. Dorothy accompanied me and, as the organist was sick, had to play the harmonium!

We travelled by bus. It was winter and the Chapel was heated by a coke stove positioned in the centre of the chapel. I read the notices, which were in a large notebook. But the last notice was a folded poster, which, by the time I had unfolded it completely, I could no longer see the congregation and it was much too near my face for me to read. So, carefully turning the poster I asked the congregation to read the poster to me. Which they did! Not the usual Call to Worship!

That first sermon somehow got parcelled up in the chaos and cooperation of those moments. The service proceeded and eventually concluded with the Blessing and when I opened my eyes there was a kettle on the coke-fired stove!

Then there were, of course, disputes within the service as to which tunes were sung to two of the hymns and that was part and parcel of the worship! That’s West Country chapel-religion for you!

This was a congregation who in the main had known each other much, if not most, of their lives. And today, sixty-four years later, the memories of that day remain in a deep secure place in my memory. The chapel is no longer there…, but in my memory it will remain as long as I live.

I tell you all this personal history because somehow ‘the hit and miss’ nature of reading scripture aloud in church is still as critical to me as it was for my first service all those years ago. So today’s reading about finding a treasure in a field, a man acting with dubious morals, is held up as virtuous! So what do we think of that? What are we to make of this?

Parables are about story-telling and at their best are just wonderful, but to the modern mind there are plenty of issues which make some recoil.

The one thing I wish to point out to you from the Gospel reading today is that we encounter the purposes of God, and indeed the presence of God in countless ways – waving our personal religious flag – Anglican, Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, United Reformed, which mean nothing to God.

But Anglicans, Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, United Reformed actively pursuing a joined-up Ecumenical agenda will make God do more than smile – probably whistle or even tap dance!

This Church of Christ the Cornerstone was built as a fortress to the lasting values of Ecumenical modernity. After quite a good start we have, to my mind, for years been slipping, missing the mark, failing to be sufficiently ambitious to remain positive and politically true to our vision. Churches that boast of political neutrality, or who fail to focus upon the period of history of Ecumenism in Milton Keynes sell the future short.

We as a congregation, and I include myself in this critique, can turn up on Sundays, say our prayers, listen to a sermon, receive communion, have a chat and that is it for another week. Belonging to a congregation means more than turning up on time and putting money in the collection – it should be about sharing the weight of the overall purpose of this place in recognising in today’s world every church is now an outpost for pilgrims.

That tiny congregation in Somerset I referred to earlier has not survived and there is no guarantee that a church such as this will survive in the same form for ever. That is why Cornerstone first and foremost chose an Ecumenical Partnership; it is the only way to survive in a city centre.

All praise to God for every office holder, and every hand that drops coins in the collection basket. … We haven’t arrived, we are simply catching our breath for the next stage of a very long journey, and that means formulating what our long-term game plan really is.

That is why we should be shaking the gates of heaven in prayer for the Ministers, the Officers, the Stewards and all who are part of this community.

City-centre churches are extremely hard places to work and that is another reason for praying for our Ministers and for ourselves.

Amen

Choral Response: Put peace into each other’s hands

Put peace into each other’s hands
and like a treasure hold it,
protect it like a candle-flame,
with tenderness enfold it.

Put peace into each other’s hands
with loving expectation;
be gentle in your words and ways,
in touch with God’s creation.

As at Communion, shape your hands
into a waiting cradle;
the gift of Christ receive, revere,
united round the table.

Put Christ into each other’s hands
he is love’s deepest measure;
in love make peace, give peace a chance,
and share it like a treasure.

Fred Kaan (1929–2009)
CCL31580

An Affirmation of Faith

We believe in the Creator:
the maker of all things.

We believe in the Son:
the redeemer of our broken world.

We believe in the Spirit:
The sacred wind that binds all things together in the family of God.

Creator Father, beloved Son and living Spirit.

Amen

Intercessions