Fir Lane 22 Aug 2021

WELCOME TO OUR SERVICE

AT FIR LANE CHURCH

LED BY Norman Unsworth

The MethodistChurch in Oldham Fir Lane Methodist Church

CALL TO WORSHIP

We fix our eyes on you Jesus, our Lord, our Savour and King. Come fill our hearts with your endless love and send the wind of your Spirit to blow new hope through our lives. Come light up our souls to rise in faith, to stretch out and take in your kingdom

HYMN

34 O’ Worship the Lord in beauty of Holiness

John Samuel Bewley Monsell

O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness,

bow down before him, his glory proclaim;

with gold of obedience and incense of lowliness,

kneel and adore him: the Lord is his name.

Low at his feet lay your burden of carefulness,

high on his heart he will bear it for you,

comfort your sorrows, and answer your prayerfulness,

showing the pathway your feet should pursue.

Fear not to enter his courts in the slenderness

of the poor wealth you would count as your own;

truth in its beauty, and love in its tenderness,

these are the offerings to bring to his throne.

These, though we bring them in trembling and fearfulness,

he will accept for the name that is dear;

mornings of joy give for evenings of tearfulness,

trust for our trembling, and hope for our fear.

O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness,

bow down before him, his glory proclaim;

with gold of obedience and incense of lowliness,

kneel and adore him: the Lord is his name.

PRAYERS

Prayer of Praise and Adoration

Let us offer our praise to God

We lift our voices in gratitude and praise

Creator we adore you

All creation reflects your glory.

We lift our voices in gratitude and praise

You have made women and men, in your image

You welcome those who wish to join us in our praise of you

with open arms of compassionate acceptance:

We lift our voices in gratitude and praise

Redeemer, we adore you

All creation is reconciled in you.

We lift our voices in gratitude and praise

Where the weak and broken lie bruised and discarded

You challenge the complacent, revealing the truth behind our lies

and invite the wounded to your feast of life.

We lift our voices in gratitude and praise

Sustainer we adore you

All creation is inspired by you.

We lift our voices in gratitude and praise

You breathe life into places of deathly fear;

you increase our understanding of things hard to comprehend

and draw us into your dance of loving joy.

We lift our voices in gratitude and praise

God, three in one,

All creation sings of your great deeds.

We lift our voices in gratitude and praise

Amen

Prayer of Confession

We have not always lived in ways that reflect God’s love for all.

There are times when prejudice and ignorance have caused us to judge others

as less important, less capable, less whole than ourselves.

We have not always lived as people assured of our place in God’s heart.

There are times when despair has been our refuge and we have turned from

God’s promises.

We have not always lived as disciples of Jesus.

There are times when the paths to wealth and power have been more attractive

than the longer roads of justice, peace and tolerance.

We have not always lived as people of the Resurrection.

There are times when we have only seen the world as a place of threat and

brokenness, forgetting God’s creative genius.

In quietness we remember those thoughts, actions and words that have marred

your image in us, hurt others and damaged the world.

Silence

God has heard the confession of our hearts and minds.

In Christ we are set free.

Thanks be to God.

Amen

HYMN

66 The Steadfast love of the Lord never ceases

Edith Mc Neil

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning,

new every morning,

great is thy faithfulness, O Lord,

great is thy faithfulness.

READINGS

John 6: 56-69

HYMN

545 Be, Thou my Vision

Translated by Mary Elizabeth Byne

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,

be all else but naught to me, save that thou art;

be thou my best thought in the day and the night,

both waking and sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, be thou my true word,

be thou ever with me, and I with thee, Lord;

be thou my great Father, thy child let me be;

be thou in me dwelling, and I one with thee.

Be thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight;

be thou my whole armour, be thou my true might;

be thou my soul's shelter, be thou my strong tower:

O raise thou me heavenward, great Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor earth's empty praise:

be thou mine inheritance now and always;

be thou and thou only the first in my heart:

O Sovereign of heaven, my treasure thou art.

High King of heaven, thou heaven's bright Sun,

O grant me its joys after victory is won;

Great Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,

still be thou my vision, O Ruler of all.

SERMON

I’m told that there are three kinds of people in this world – people who can count and people who can’t!

In truth, I am loathe to start any sermon by saying that there are only two or even three types of people in the world, as I think that there are all sorts of people in this world and that any attempt to simplify that is most probably an over-simplification.

Even so, Jesus Himself seems to make distinctions of this sort, and indeed in today’s Gospel reading it seems that people do fall into two simple categories – those who eat the flesh of Jesus and those who don’t!

John 6:53–54 ESV

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

It seems indeed that there are just two types of people in the world – people who eat Jesus and those who don’t.

Jesus says, “The one who eats my flesh & drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will also live because of me.”

This statement seems to divide us into two groups, even if it is not clear here how we are to identify that group that feeds on the flesh and blood of Jesus, we may consider them engaging in cannibalism.

Certainly, you may have heard about missionaries who were thought of as cannibals, as some people they met again though in the literal terms of taking the Lord’s Supper, it was down to their misunderstanding that led to this confusion.

We’ve been dealing with this now for four weeks in our services, and I admit that when I first looked up the reading for this week, I did wince a little, thinking, ‘I thought we’d gotten past this!’

And I suspect that some of you too, when you heard the Gospel read today, likewise thought, ‘I’ve heard enough of this!’ And so perhaps it comes as no surprise when we find that this was exactly how the crowd that originally heard Jesus responded. “This is a hard saying”, they said. “Who can hear it?”

They found the words of Jesus distasteful. They found Him incomprehensible. In the end they just found Him to be too much hard work. They had had enough, and so they turned to go home!

And Jesus, who had had ample opportunity to pacify His audience by explaining Himself – he, had had plenty of time to say, “guys! I was only speaking in metaphors when I spoke about drinking my blood. Don’t go away. I don’t mean to offend anyone” – instead he says,” Does, this offend you? What if you saw the Son of Man going up to the place where he was before?”

It seems he just wants to make things worse!

John 6:66 ESV

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.

and Jesus doesn’t seem to care. Indeed, His only question to His twelve remaining disciples is, “are you leaving too?”

If we didn’t know better, we might assume that it was because He was tired. If you’ve followed the story, you’ll remember that Jesus had been attempting to get away from the crowds and find some space for Himself for some time!

If we didn’t know better, we might think that this was the issue. But we do know better, for, as Jesus Himself explained to the twelve, this issue was not so much that He was tired of speaking with people, but more that he recognised that further talk was useless, as most of those listening to Him simply did not have the capacity to grasp what He was talking about!

John 6:63–65 ESV

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

It wasn’t because Jesus didn’t want them to understand, and it wasn’t because the crowd didn’t want to understand Jesus. It was because they were speaking two different languages. Jesus spoke words that were ‘spirit’ and ‘life’ while His listeners could only understand things in ‘the flesh’.

I’m sure that each of us has experienced the frustration of trying to communicate with someone whose language is not our own.

I remember many years ago going on a business trip to Tubingen in central Germany where very little English was spoken, I was with someone who spoke fluent German, I myself spoke and still speak very little or no German at all.

On the final day I went into the town which looked to me to be very much like how I imagined Hansel and Gretel’s town would look like.

I passed a chocolate shop hmm I thought I could buy some and fetch them home. So far so good I had a plan go into the shop point at what I wanted pay and get out.

The woman behind the counter said something to me, I had no idea what she said so I did the only thing I could and replied “Chocolate” and pointed at the ones I wanted.

The lady then repeated slowly and louder the same phrase, I think she must have picked this up from the English, i.e., if someone does not understand you speak slower and louder it’s bound to work. In this case and in most cases like this it didn’t I just stood there pointing despondently to the lovely chocolates.

I could sense the frustration of the woman, when thankfully my friend turned up.

It appears she was asking if I wanted them gift wrapped.

Although I think in the end she wanted to know if I really wanted anything at all!

This total misunderstanding between myself and the shopkeeper was so frustrating for both of us I could have just walked out of the shop. I think eventually we could have recognised that our ability to communicate had reached its fragile limits. As indeed, in the case with Jesus’ even though he spoke the same language as the people around him we see the crowd in their frustration repeatedly demanding that Jesus ‘speak English’ while Jesus maintains that the words, they need to hear are in a language that they do not understand!

And it’s hard because, as Jesus points out, you aren’t taught the language of the Spirit at school!

John 6:44–45 ESV

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—

So, this is the catch – that we have to be taught by God to speak the language of the Spirit and we will never truly understand Jesus or be able to come to Him unless God Himself takes the initiative and draws us to Him!

And that may sound all a little unfair and all a little hard to understand.

Yet it is entirely true. For as we move forward in faith, we do find, I think, that God opens a new awareness a new way of thinking within us, so, we are able to grasp things we just could not understand at all before.

I suspect that for all of us this is part of our experience of reading the Bible – that although we may have read the whole thing through from cover-to-cover years ago and yet, each time we read it over again with more mature eyes, we see things that we somehow overlooked before, and we become aware of new truths that had somehow missed.

And not only in reading the Bible but in so many areas of life, God open our eyes and our ears to hear and see things that were once both invisible and incomprehensible to us.

It is amazing to me that often I see things that Karon doesn’t relate too. For example, you have probably heard me speak about “The Chosen” looking at the life of Jesus but putting flesh on the bone of his followers.

I have been deeply moved at some or even most the episodes, Karon not so much. We both see it from a differing perspective. This is at the end of the day just a TV Show and not the end of the world. unlike if I talk during Emmerdale.

But what of more important issues? Thankfully we agree on most things.

But what happens when you speak to someone who holds a completely opposite opinion?

There’s no point arguing with such persons, is there? If they can’t see it, we can’t make them see it, can we? It’s like trying to argue with me about how great opera or ballet is. I’m sorry, but I just can’t see it! It bores me to tears! And I accept that there’s something there that is worthwhile, but I can’t see it!

There is beauty ballet after all I did enjoy watching Billy Elliott especially the dramatic ending, and I accept that the artistry in it. But for the most part it is invisible to me. I accept that there are likewise deep truths embedded in much of today’s modern art. Again though, for the most part, I am blind to it.

And when it comes to the teachings of Jesus, I accept that there is still much that the Lord has to show me that I am not yet able to see, and things He has to tell me that I am not yet ready to hear. Indeed, my fluency in the language of the Spirit, at this stage, is probably still even worse than my German. Indeed, my fluency is such that I still don’t pretend to fully grasp this passage!

“The person who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will also live because of me.”

“These are hard words”, the crowd say, “who can hear them?!” The crowd leaves. Jesus turns to the twelve and says, “Are you leaving too?” Peter says, “Lord, where else are we to go”, and there seems to be resignation in his voice, but then he adds, “You have the words of eternal life!”

And so indeed it turns out that there are just two types of people on view in this story, but it’s not, I think, the division we initially anticipated.

There are those who feed on Jesus and those who don’t, but we can’t identify them in this story. There are those who are taught by God and those who are not, but we can’t be sure exactly who they are either.

The two types of people we can see in the Gospel story are those who leave and those who stay. And it’s not clear that those who stay really understand a lot more of what Jesus was saying than those who left, but they saw enough in Jesus, that they wanted to stick it out with Jesus for the long haul.

And that’s us, I think!

We haven’t necessarily grasped it all, and we certainly don’t have all the answers, but we’re still here, and we’ve decided to stay!

HYMN

395 Spirit of the living God

Daniel Iverson

Spirit of the living God,

fall afresh on me.

Spirit of the living God,

fall afresh on me.

Break me, melt me,

mould me, fill me.

Spirit of the living God,

fall afresh on me.

PRAYERS OF THANKSGIVING AND INTERCESSION

LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father, 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 our trespasses,

As we forgive them that trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom,

The power, and the glory, For ever and ever. Amen

HYMN

322 How sweet the name of Jesus sounds

John Newton

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds

in a believer's ear!

It soothes our sorrows, heals our wounds,

and drives away our fear.

It makes the wounded spirit whole,

and calms the troubled breast;

'tis manna to the hungry soul,

and to the weary, rest.

Dear name — the rock on which I build,

my shield and hiding-place,

my never-failing treasury, filled

with boundless stores of grace!

Jesus! My Shepherd, Brother, Friend,

my Prophet, Priest, and King,

my Lord, my Life, my Way, my End,

accept the praise I bring.

Weak is the effort of my heart,

and cold my warmest thought;

but when I see thee as thou art,

I'll praise thee as I ought.

Till then I would thy love proclaim

with every fleeting breath;

and may the music of thy name

refresh my soul in death.

BLESSING

The Lord bless us and keep us,

the Lord make his face shine on us,

and be gracious to us,

the Lord turn his face towards us and give us peace,

and the blessing of God almighty,

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

be among us and remain with us always. Amen.

Go in Peace and serve the Lord