This Service was held via Zoom.

Led by Revd Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga
Preacher: Revd George Mwaura

Introit: Holy Ground

Call to Worship and Greetings

Come as you are to the house of the Lord.
Come with your mustard seed faith;
come even with your great faith;
come even without any faith.
It is for you that God sent his own son.

Prayer of Approach

We bring to you all that is growing within us
for you to bless and nurture.

We bring our prayers for the spread of your kingdom
for you to bless and nurture.

We bring the initiatives for justice multiplying among nations
for you to bless and nurture.

We bring the hopes and dreams, tiny and big, of all your children around the world
for you to bless and nurture in Jesus’ name.

Amen

Hymn: For the fruits of all creation

For the fruits of all creation,
thanks be to God;
for the gifts to every nation,
thanks be to God;
for the ploughing, sowing, reaping,
silent growth while we are sleeping,
future needs in earth’s safe keeping,
thanks be to God.

In the just reward of labour,
God’s will is done;
in the help we give our neighbour,
God’s will is done;
in our world-wide task of caring
for the hungry and despairing,
in the harvests we are sharing,
God’s will is done.

For the harvest of the Spirit,
thanks be to God;
for the good we all inherit,
thanks be to God;
for the wonders that astound us,
for the truths that still confound us,
most of all, that love has found us,
thanks be to God.

Fred Pratt Green (1903–2000)
CCL31580

Thanksgiving and Confession

God of surprises, we come to your house this morning with joy ready to worship your holy name.
Help us to find you in the hidden and the unexpected places.
May we see you in the small actions that make a difference
and discern your love at work when your presence is hidden.
Help us to know your life-giving power
so that we might flourish and bear fruit in our own lives and communities.

Generous God, you made our wonderful world with all its colour and growth,
its plants, fruits and flowers and you share with us the secrets of the kingdom,
in stories, pictures and parables.

We ask that you mercifully forgive us when we are blind
and ignorant for, we know that you God of all do
not force growth but nurture it.
Forgive us when we want too much too soon.

You do not start big but start small.
Forgive us when we want too much too soon.

You do not sow greedily but graciously.
Forgive us when we want too much too soon.

You do not hurry the harvest but hallow it.
Forgive us when we want too much too soon.

Forgive us, and accept the work of our hands,
in Jesus’ name.

Amen

Kyrie

Prayer of the Week

God of grace and growth,
you have called us to plant the seeds of your kingdom in the fields of your world,
and to trust you for their development and flourishing, and so we praise you.
We thank you for the abundance of your creativity,
for the transforming nature of your Spirit,
for the power of small beginnings and for the mystery of hidden growth in Jesus’ name.

Amen

Ministry of the Word

Read by Stuart and Maggie Kean

Ezekiel 17: 22–24

²² ‘ “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. ²³ On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches. ²⁴ All the trees of the forest will know that I the Lord bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish.

‘ “I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it.” ’

NIV®

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

Song:  This is the day

This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made.
We will rejoice, we will rejoice and be glad in it, and be glad in it.
This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.
This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made.

Les Garrett (b. 1943)
CCL31580

Mark 4: 26–34

The parable of the growing seed

²⁶ He also said, ‘This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. ²⁷ Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. ²⁸ All by itself the soil produces corn – first the stalk, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. ²⁹ As soon as the corn is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.’

The parable of the mustard seed

³⁰ Again he said, ‘What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? ³¹ It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. ³² Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.’

³³ With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. ³⁴ He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.

NIV®

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

Sermon

By Revd George Mwaura

Ezekiel 17: 22–24 and Mark 4: 26–34

God of wonders, we thank you because you have said to us that, when we pray with faith the size of a mustard seed,
we can move mountains. Lord, we do have faith; please help our doubts not to override our faith in Jesus’ name.

Amen

He was just a child, so young and apparently insignificant that his own father did not consider him worthy even
to attend the sacrifice offered by the travelling prophet Samuel.
Sure, he was good-looking, tough as nails and had some talent.
But by and large everyone who knew him assumed he would spend his days as an adult the same way he had spent those of his boyhood:
that is, looking after sheep. But clearly God had other plans.

I am of course talking about the warrior king David, whose narrative serves as a good example
of the lesson Jesus taught when he told the parable of the mustard seed.
Jesus’ clever use of images of plants and trees in his parables is more significant than merely borrowing from the scenery around him.
He could have talked about carpentry and building, for instance, as we know he was a carpenter, but he chose plants.
You see the abiding image of the kingdom of God is growth and not construction.
Growth is silent and it continues day and night, largely without human input.
Jesus seems to be suggesting that the reign of God, when it comes, would appear first,
not as an overwhelming revolutionary movement to overthrow the Roman empire,
but as a tiny mustard seed which, when it grows, becomes the largest of all garden plants,
with such huge branches that the birds of the air can perch on it.
Please understand that there is no such thing as a mustard tree.
If you are thinking of a tree like the mighty horse chestnut growing from a tiny mustard seed, you are mistaken.
If Jesus had been teaching in England, he might have used the example of the giant chestnut tree
and talked about the miracle of the conkers. The principle would have been the same.
However, he was teaching in Palestine, and so he chose the mustard shrub, which was the largest shrub in that part of the world.
It was large enough for birds to nest in its branches.
But the point of the parable is the same: from a tiny seed, major growth can emerge.
And if you are familiar with the story of king David, then you know that this is true.

Another good example of that growth is the story of the early church.
It began only with Jesus, twelve disciples and an unknown number of women. Oh yes, we must not forget the women.
They were there right from the beginning to the end giving their support and sharing both their witness and resources.
And when Jesus was arrested, the men chickened and ran away leaving the women alone to bear witness.
But look at how much that tiny group has grown! Today, there are nearly three billion Christians in the world and still growing.
While it is true that churches in the West have shrunk and some have closed altogether,
there are places in the global South where the Gospel is exploding.
From the smallest of seeds, the mightiest of all plants has grown!

But the church itself is a seed. God planted us in the world to make a difference.
And even though we are not perfect, through the years the influence and impact we have had on our world cannot be disputed.
Many of the values of Western civilisation are rooted in Christianity.
For example, all the hospitals and colleges in America were originally Christian organisations.
The mental health institutions in Europe were started by Christians.
The civil rights movement had its origin in the Scriptures.
The much-celebrated period of Renaissance got its ideas from the reformation and the reformation in turn got its ideas from the Bible.
I could go on, but I think you get the point.
A tiny seed planted more than two thousand years ago is slowly changing and shaping the world,
although not as quickly as God would like, I dare add.

At times though, we Christians are a barrier rather than a vehicle to that growth.
Still, that seed is growing, and it will continue to grow until the day comes
when every knee shall bow, and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord. Amen?

There is, indeed, power in what we might call mustard-seed faith. As human beings we see the power of mustard-seed faith all the time.
When a new baby is born into a household, it represents hope for a new beginning.
Queen Victoria was so fascinated by the brilliance of the scholars who made up England’s Royal Society that on one occasion
she asked Prime Minister John Bright, ‘Where do all these clever men come from?’ Bright replied, ‘From babies, your Majesty, from babies!’
Every time a baby is born into the world a potential mustard seed of greatness is planted.
And so, children should be the primary seed that our church is sowing.
Please do not take this as an encouragement to have more babies!
I am using the word sowing here to mean nurturing.
If we do our job right, the children will be ambassadors of Christ
making the Kingdom of God ever more a reality in a world which desperately needs healing.

I must emphasise, though, that you do not have to be a biological parent to have an influence on children or youth.
Every teacher or adult who speaks a word of encouragement to a young person,
every church member who takes time off to be with Sunday-School children or their own grandchildren, great grandchildren
or even children of friends and neighbours, makes a difference on how effective we are in ministering to children and youth.
So many people ask: How can I serve the Lord?
I am too old to be in the church committees and my pension is not enough to sustain me, leave alone feeding the hungry!

Yes, you may not be able to do these things and perhaps you are not called to do them.
But every one of us can provide a proper environment for our children and our youth to grow in.
Our children are the mustard seeds that God has given us.
We are to love them, nurture them and help them be everything God intended them to be.

So really; the story of the mustard seed is the story of the church.
Someone has summed up mustard-seed faith like this:
The Son of Man grew up in a rural village. He did not begin his public ministry until he was thirty.
He taught for three years in neighbouring villages and occasionally ventured to Jerusalem.
He made a few converts, primarily among the poor and the marginalized;
and then, falling into the hands of his enemies, he died a shameful death on the cross.
Such was the humble beginning of this universal kingdom of God.
Tiny mustard seed sown in rural Galilee and buried at Jerusalem.
But God raised Jesus from the dead.
And those who had learned from him spread his story.
Today, more than two thousand years later, here we are, still retelling that story, sowing the seed again and again.
Chief among our duties is to ensure that our children and young people are well versed with this narrative
so that they might make it their own and pass it to their children and children’s children. What an honour!
I feel absolutely privileged to be a tiny pencil that God can use to continue writing this narrative.

What about you? I pray that the empowering God will grant each one of you strength and grace
to play your part in Jesus’ name.

Amen

Choral response: Gratias Agimus Tibi by J.S. Bach

Affirmation of Faith

Let us declare our faith.

We believe in a loving God,
who is life’s breath for all of earth’s creatures,
who is the ground in which our lives flourish,
who is the mystery toward which we are drawn.

We believe in the risen Christ,
whose life is the way we see God made real,
whose death bears witness to the power of love,
whose presence nourishes our spirits each day.

We believe in the Holy Spirit,
who flows as a refreshing spring of life,
who comes as divine fire to energize the faithful,
who creates communities of joy and justice.

Amen

Intercessions

By Adrian Boynton

Heavenly Father we pray for the leaders of the G7 summit as they meet this weekend in Cornwall.
We urge them to tackle seriously the inequalities in our world, to learn the lessons of the recent pandemic,
to do everything in their power to improve global health and to make far-reaching commitments to climate change.
As Prince Charles reminded us on Friday, the fight against the terrible pandemic
is a crystal-clear example of the scale, and sheer speed at which the global community can tackle crises
when we combine political will with business ingenuity and public mobilisation. If we are doing it for the pandemic, we must also do it for the planet.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

Heavenly Father, we rejoice at the miraculous progress in the development of vaccines to fight the pandemic.
We give thanks for the incredible skills of scientists and laboratory technicians which have made this possible.
We pray for parts of the world where vaccines are not readily available, especially Kenya and Ghana,
where stocks are dwindling, and many other countries in sub-Saharan Africa where supplies have completely run out.
We urge all richer nations to give support wherever it is needed around the world.
We echo the words of Pope Francis, who reminded us recently that God created us to be interdependent,
and that we are the link in the chain.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

Heavenly Father, this week we have been given a stark reminder that slavery still exists in our modern world.
Millions of people still toil in debt bondage in South-East Asia.
Forced labour is rife in the Gulf States and among the Rigas in Xinjiang, North West China.
Many young people are vulnerable to employment scams that lure them abroad,
confiscate their passports and leave them with little choice but to work for low wages.
And all over the world people are exploited in the agriculture, construction and hospitality industries.
We pray for the work of Anti Slavery International, the London based organisation founded by William Wilberforce
that attempts to lift people out of modern slavery and help them to build new lives.
May we as a church and as individuals do everything we can to fight this terrible scourge of our modern life,
and work for a world where everyone can live in freedom and without exploitation.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

Finally, Father, we pray for our own community here in Milton Keynes.
As we look forward to a further relaxing of restrictions in the coming weeks,
we urge ourselves to be cautious as new variants of the virus continue to cause concern.
We give thanks that the dedication of our ministers, stewards, musicians and technical support team
enables us to worship both on line and in our beautiful building at the same time.
We thank you for the developing technology which will shortly enable us to live-stream our Sunday services.
And we hope it will not be long before we can all meet together again in the building as the family of God.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

Heavenly Father, we ask you to accept these and all our prayers, for the sake of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Amen

The Lord’s Prayer

As our Saviour taught us, let us pray:

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.

Amen

The Peace

Hymn

Notices

Offering

Thank you
to everyone who has continued giving through our regular schemes during these past months.
Your generosity has been amazing and much appreciated.
We couldn’t have carried on without you.

We have various ways in which you can continue to give your offering in support of the Church.

For details please contact the Stewardship Secretary, Janet Trimnell, at steward.cccmk@gmail.com

Full details are also available on our website at: www.cornerstonemk.co.uk/giving.

Hymn: We have a gospel to proclaim

We have a gospel to proclaim,
good news for all throughout the earth;
the gospel of a saviour’s name:
we sing his glory, tell his worth.</span

Tell of his birth at Bethlehem
not in a royal house or hall
but in a stable dark and dim
the Word made flesh, a light for all.</span

Tell of his death at Calvary,
hated by those he came to save,
in lonely suffering on the cross;
for all he loved his life he gave.

Tell of that glorious Easter morn:
empty the tomb, for he was free.
He broke the power of death and hell
that we might share his victory.

Tell of his reign at God’s right hand,
by all creation glorified.
He sends his Spirit on his church
to live for him, the Lamb who died.

Now we rejoice to name him King:
Jesus is Lord of all the earth.
This gospel-message we proclaim:
we sing his glory, tell his worth.

Edward J. Burns (b. 1938)
CCL31580

Mission

Go in peace to love and serve God’s world.
It is beautiful, and you are part of it.

It is our sacred commission to help God love it.

Amen

Blessings

And may the blessings of God Almighty,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
rest and remain upon us all now and for ever.

Amen

Postlude

Allegro from Sonatina in E flat, opus 19 no.6, composed by Jan Ladislav Dussek