Led by Revd George Mwaura

[The service is contained in the following video.  All words spoken and sung appear in the video and are as shown below.]

Call to Worship

Do you have a desire, a deep desire to worship and to know the Lord God,
and to understand the values of the kingdom?
Come, then, and worship – for Jesus says,
where two or three are gathered in my name I am there among them!

Good morning, Church, and welcome to this Sunday online service. How are you?
Today some of our sisters and brother went back to the sanctuary to fellowship together.
For those of us still not up to it, I want you to know that the Lord is with you,
wherever you may be listening to this service.

So let us begin with a prayer:

Opening Prayer

Lord, take us as we are, for we come before your throne of divine mercy with penitence and joy,
as individuals and as a Church scattered but held together by your spirit of love.
Abide with us Lord and still our fears by your steady and guiding hand.

Amen

Hymn: As we are gathered, Jesus is here

As we are gathered, Jesus is here,
one with another, Jesus is here;
joined by the Spirit, washed in his blood,
part of the body, the Church of God.
As we are gathered, Jesus is here,
one with another, Jesus is here.

John Daniels (1979)
CCL31580

Prayers of confession

In the haphazard ways of life, Lord, with challenges and changes
pulling us this way and that, we sometimes find it hard,
in the heat of the moment, to know what is right and what is wrong.
Forgive us for our failings and wrongdoings.
Forgive our insensitivities to the ways of others.
Forgive anything that cuts us off from each other or from you.

[Please take a minute and offer personal confessions.]

Absolution

May the God of all healing and forgiveness draw us to himself and cleanse us from all the sins,
that we may behold the glory of his Son, the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

Prayer of the week

Almighty God, we tremble as we think of who we are and who you are.
Bring us now, in this moment, to know you.
See us as we are, and see our yearning to be more like you.
May we lay aside anything that hinders our journey with you,
and with our friends and neighbours and we ask in Jesus’ name.

Amen

Bible Readings

Exodus 12: 1–13

Read by David Chapman

¹ The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt:
² This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you.
³ Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household.
⁴ If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it.
⁵ Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
⁶ You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight.
⁷ They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.
⁸ They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
⁹ Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs.
¹⁰ You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.
¹¹ This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the passover of the Lord.

¹² For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.
¹³ The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

RSV

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Hymn: Christ’s is the world in which we move

Christ’s is the world in which we move,
Christ’s are the folk we’re summoned to love,
Christ’s is the voice which calls us to care,
and Christ is the one who meets us here.

To the lost Christ shows his face;
to the unloved he gives his embrace;
to those who cry in pain or disgrace,
Christ makes, with his friends, a touching place.

Feel for the people we most avoid,
strange or bereaved or never employed;
feel for the women, and feel for the men
who feel that their living is all in vain.

To the lost Christ shows his face;
to the unloved he gives his embrace;
to those who cry in pain or disgrace,
Christ makes, with his friends, a touching place.

Feel for the parents who’ve lost their child,
feel for the women whom men have defiled,
feel for the baby for whom there’s no breast,
and feel for the weary who find no rest.

To the lost Christ shows his face;
to the unloved he gives his embrace;
to those who cry in pain or disgrace,
Christ makes, with his friends, a touching place.

Feel for the lives by life confused,
riddled with doubt, in loving abused;
feel for the lonely heart, conscious of sin,
which longs to be pure but fears to begin.

To the lost Christ shows his face;
to the unloved he gives his embrace;
to those who cry in pain or disgrace,
Christ makes, with his friends, a touching place.

John L. Bell & Graham Maule, The Iona Community (1989)
CCL31580

Matthew 18: 15–20

Read by Joy Chapman

¹⁵ ‘If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.
¹⁶ But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
¹⁷ If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
¹⁸ Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
¹⁹ Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.
²⁰ For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.’

RSV

This is the Gospel of Christ.

Praise to Christ our light.

Sermon by Revd George Mwaura

If you think church conflict is something new, then you haven’t been in church long enough. There is a church I read about where the Minister and the Director of Music were not getting along. As time went by, this began to spill over into the worship service. During the first week of the year, the Minister preached on commitment and how we all should dedicate ourselves to the service of God. The Music Director led the choir with the song, ‘I shall not be moved’. The second week the Minister preached on tithing and how we all should gladly give to the work of the Lord. The Director led the choir with the song, ‘Jesus paid it all’. The third week, the Minister preached on gossiping and how we should all watch our tongues. The Music Director led the choir with the song, ‘I love to tell the story’. With all this going on, the Minister became very frustrated and discouraged over the situation and on the following Sunday, he told the congregation that he was considering resigning. The Director of Music led the choir with the song, ‘Oh why not tonight?’ As it came to pass, the Minister did indeed resign. The following week he informed the church that it was Jesus who led him to that church and it was Jesus who was taking him away. The Music Director led the choir in singing: ‘What a friend we have in Jesus’! You may laugh, but some folks think there should be no conflict in church, as though by virtue of being Christians we are beyond all the shenanigans, disagreements and pettiness of ordinary mortals or we should hide all the quarrels under the guise of being nice and polite.

Well, if you ask me, that’s not doing church that is sheer hypocrisy. In today’s lesson, Jesus seems to be suggesting that conflict in Christian communities is normal and natural, and should be dealt with honestly and with compassion. But as we all know, honesty and compassion are not the primary catchphrases of conflict in any church. Quite often, anger, malice, hurt feelings and lack of clear communication drive us toward either sweeping everything under the rug to keep the peace, or it sends us looking for bigger shovels to dig deeper trenches which only alienates some people who eventually leave the church. The result is either a Body of Christ beautiful on the outside but riddled with the disease and rot of resentment on the inside, or an openly dismembered and bleeding Body of Christ haemorrhaging members and devoid of direction and mission focus. Surely there must be another way, don’t you agree?

Jesus provides us another way in our Gospel lesson today. First, he asks us to use direct and respectful communication. If we are struggling with something a church member has said or done, we are not to talk behind their back (that is really hard). Nor are we to stage a dramatic public confrontation during coffee; rather, we are to take time out! After our tempers have cooled, then we must enter into a dialogue with that person. If that conversation does not work, we then proceed to stage two and create a small group of all parties involved to discern and pray together. If no progress is made, then we let transparency be our guiding principle and search for a solution as a whole church community, bearing one another’s burdens and seeking reconciliation. Good luck Walter! I have preached on this very same subject here at Cornerstone three years ago. You see, some disagreements are so deep that even these steps cannot ease them, and so Jesus says: if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a gentile and a tax collector. Phew, now we breathe a sigh of relief. If we’ve ticked all the boxes as a responsible church and didn’t get anywhere, we can slam the doors and kick out these troublemakers. Hooray! Really; really! Is that what Jesus is saying? As it turns out: no. That’s not what he is saying. Why do I beg to differ? Well, because of how Jesus treated gentiles and tax collectors. Is there then something that we can learn from his words and actions toward these gentiles and tax collectors that we can apply to our own churches? Oh, yes there is!

When Jesus tells the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the temple, he emphasizes the Pharisee’s pride and self-satisfaction as opposed to the tax collector’s pained and private acknowledgement of his own sin. To treat a fellow church member like a tax collector then,  is to realize that beneath the façade of bravado and anger, that person might be hiding a great deal of pain and regret over his or her own actions in the conflict. Jesus says this tax collector went home justified or forgiven. Could we not look for the hidden self of the person with whom we are in conflict and have our compassion awakened? Could we not realise that we might be in danger of praying like the Pharisee and making the prayers all about ourselves and our imagined righteousness?

Zacchaeus was not just a tax collector but a chief tax collector and very rich. But he is so eager to see Jesus that he climbs a tree to get a better view of him. Jesus calls Zacchaeus down and suggests dinner at Zacchaeus’s home. Can we do that? Can we invite a troublesome member to share their gifts with the church in some way, just as Jesus did with Zacchaeus?  Can we not share table during communion in the church and in each other’s homes? That is how Jesus treats tax collectors – with mercy, with invitation, with love and with an eye toward their potential for growth and service to the Kingdom. The apostle Matthew, was a tax collector, and Jesus called him to be one of the Twelve. When Jesus tells us that we are to treat our most difficult church members like tax collectors, he is advising us to treat them like members of his inner circle – disciples who were key to the spreading of the Word.

What about gentiles? What can we learn from Jesus treatment of gentiles in this passage? An encounter with a gentile that stands out was the meeting with the Syrophoenician woman who was seeking her daughter. He initially refuses, saying that the food for the children of Israel cannot be given to the dogs. But her clever response: ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table’, convinces him to change his mind. If our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who was perfect and without sin, can be persuaded to change his mind about someone, can we not do the same? Are we really paying attention to the argument our opponent in the church is offering? Jesus was not afraid to really listen and be changed by what he heard. We have the opportunity to do the same.

We see Jesus’ relationship with gentiles in another story: the healing of the centurion’s servant. The centurion seeks Jesus out, admits that he is not worthy of Jesus coming under his roof, and says that he knows that if Jesus says the word, his servant will be healed. Jesus immediately extends healing to the servant, and marvels at the depth and purity of the centurion’s faith. Notice that Jesus heals the servant not in person, but across the miles. This story is relevant in terms of how it sheds light to the church conflicts in our past, the ones that drove us or fellow Christians to leave the church. This story proves that healing can happen over a geographical distance or the distance of time. All it takes is faith. And so it is worth revisiting old broken relationships with our brothers and sisters and spending time in prayer for our faith and their faith. It might be a path to healing we never expected.

Let me finish by saying that this Gospel lesson does not give us licence to drive out people we don’t like in the church and create a divide between us. Jesus’ instruction to treat the ones who seem to be the most troublesome and uninterested in reconciliation like tax collectors and gentiles opens to us new, creative and surprising paths toward reconciliation; toward seeing the best in one another, toward achieving healing even years after we no longer remember what got us so angry in the first place. In the imitation of Christ we find that treating others like tax collectors and gentiles is a path of gentleness, hope and potential. All of this is so important not just because of the simple reality that there is no such thing as church without conflict but because of how Jesus concludes his teachings: Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. How we choose to treat one another when the going gets tough has consequences that far outlast questions of theology, Brexit, sexuality or the kind of Bible version we read on Sunday. We have the power to bind and to loose. With the choices we make, we can bind each other even tighter into our separate camps and polarised positions. We can lose each other out into a world without the benefit of Christian fellowship, driving each other from the church with wounds that bleed for years to come. Or, we can release our church communities from the fear of church conflict. And then we can bind ourselves together with the unbreakable love of Christ, a body, tested, refined, healed and flourishing with new life.

Can I get an Amen?

Amen

Musical reflection: Beati quorum via

Beati quorum via integra est
qui ambulant in lege Domini.

Blessed are they, steadfast in the way,
who walk in the law of the Lord.

Intercessions

By Don Head

Let us now ask God to help us with all that is in our minds this morning:

We give thanks that we are at last able to join together in worship in our building,
albeit restricted by masks and not being able to join in the music.
We pray that the music in our hearts will resonate with that
in the hearts of those who are still in their homes and join with the harmony of heaven
to make our worship wholly acceptable to you, our strength and our Redeemer.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

We give thanks that for over a month our building has been open for private prayer.
We give thanks for the volunteers who have enabled this service to be offered.
We pray for all those who have visited in the last weeks,
that they may be reminded today of your love for them
and feel that their visits here have not been in vain.
Remain with them all and hold them in your loving care in the coming week.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

We pray for our city centre, and give thanks for all those who work to keep safe public access to it
for life and activity to return and offer opportunities for employment.
We pray for all those who are having financial difficulty in paying for their homes
and who could be made homeless in the coming weeks.
We pray for all those in official and unofficial roles to help those overwhelmed in any way
by the current circumstances of their lives and who can see little hope for their future.
We pray that all who face troubles will have the support of friends and find new purpose for their lives.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

We pray for all those in authority in our city, our country and in international affairs.
We ask that they will always act be guided to for the common good
and not for narrow or selfish objectives.
Grant us all your grace to exercise our dominion over your works
that the whole of creation will find fulfilment in you, our Creator, Saviour and Guide.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

[Now a period of silence for you to express your own thoughts.]

We ask you, Lord to hear these prayers
and those, which because of our weakness of faith, we have not thought or uttered
but which are according to your loving will for us.

We ask all our prayers in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Amen

The Lord’s Prayer
from the African Sanctus by David Fanshawe

Our Father who art, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us,
forgive our sins as we forgive the sins of them who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the glory.
Our Father who art, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Closing Prayer

Loving God, may our worship be acceptable before you.
Let the peace that surpasses all understanding be with us as we begin this new week.
Help us in the time ahead to make a difference in the world by our actions.
Let our words and actions align with your word.
Help us to practice what we have learnt today, in Jesus’ name.

Amen

Hymn: Great is thy faithfulness

Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
there is no shadow of turning with the;
thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not;
as thou hast been thou for ever wilt be:
Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
   Morning by morning new mercies I see;
  all I have needed thy hand has provided,
   great is the faithfulness, Lord, untt me.

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest,
sun, moon and stars in their courses above,
join with all nature in manifold witness
to thy great faithfulness, mercy and love:
  Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
   Morning by morning new mercies I see;
  all I have needed thy hand has provided,
   great is the faithfulness, Lord, untt me.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
thy own dear presence to steer and to guide;
strength for today and great hope for tomorrow,
blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!
Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
  all I have needed thy hand has provided,
   great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.

Thomas Chisholm (1866–1960)
CCL31580

Blessings and sending out

May the living God help us to see those we meet
beyond every day in the way that he sees them.
May he send us forth to be a shining and guiding light
for those in the margins;
and the blessings of God Almighty, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
rest and remain with us all, now and for ever.

Amen