Virtual worship - 26 April 2020

Third Sunday of Easter, Year A.

Service Sheet (pdf)

Call to worship

Come, walk with him. Come, talk with him.
Come, share with him. Come, worship Jesus, our risen Lord.

A prayer of approach

Risen Saviour, risen Lord, we come to you today.
We come to share in your story. We come to feast on your love.
We approach your throne with the knowledge that you died for us and rose again. Hallelujah, risen Lord Jesus. Hallelujah. Amen.

Song: Listen to or join in with a modern worship song with an Easter theme, such as: Come, people of the risen King

Or read the words of a well-known Easter hymn from your hymn book, such as Christ is alive, Let Christians sing (Singing the Faith 297, Hymns and Psalms 190)

A prayer of praise and thanksgiving

Father, we thank you that you come out and meet us where we are.
We worship and adore you.
We thank you that you walk the road with us, that you treat us
as an equal even when we fail to recognise you.
We worship and adore you.
You always love us, always care for us, always want to share with us – such is your love.
We worship and adore you.
Thank you, Lord, that you are not a stranger, but our friend. We worship and adore you.
Amen.

Reading – 1 Peter 1.17-23.

This passage of scripture includes the words, ‘live in reverent fear during the time of your exile’ (1.17). ‘The time of your exile’ is a reference back to the experience of the people of Judah after their capital, Jerusalem, had been captured by the invading Babylonians, and the Temple, which was not only the centre of the city but also of their national life, was destroyed. Many of Jerusalem’s inhabitants were taken away to Babylon, living there as exiles from their homeland. This experience was formative of the Jewish people, in part because it fostered a deep longing for return to their spiritual home, but also because it became a deep challenge to them as to how they might continue to live faithfully in a foreign land.

This feeling is summed up in the words of Psalm 137 ‘By the rivers of Babylon’, which includes the words ‘How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?’ It is a question not only for the Jewish people living in the 6th century BC, but one which also holds a powerful resonance for all of us living in our present circumstances. We too are living in a world which in many ways is wholly unrecognisable from that of even a couple of months ago. Living under the new rules of social distancing, self-isolation and shielding, ways of living that were engrained as part of our everyday lives can no longer be taken for granted in the manner with which we are used to regarding them. A consideration of exile, then, might not just lead us to have a particular thought and concern, say, for those who are stranded in a far-away country waiting for a flight back home, but become a summing up of how we are strangers living in a wholly changed and very different situation.

With lives having been disrupted and disturbed, we can be quite rightly fearful of the present situation and of what the future may hold. The answer that scripture gives however is not just the vague offer of some kind of return to normality, but to a deeper answer based on our hope in Christ. And so, if the first letter of Peter highlights the theme of exile, it also brings to the fore God’s promise in Jesus. Through Christ’s own self-giving that we will find the new start for which we all long. In our present crisis, we may feel like exiles, ripped away from everything that we have come to regard as normality, but God’s love in Christ tells us that we are never living outside of God’s care and the promise of an eternal home with him.

For personal reflection: take time to reflect on the strangeness of your life at the current time. Whatever your concerns, look confidently with hope to Christ, who reveals to us the love and care of God.

Reading – Luke 24.13-35.

This passage tells of the experience of two disciples as they journey the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus.

The gospel of Luke is full of movement. As Luke tells it, from the travels of Mary, carrying the unborn Jesus in her womb, to see her cousin Elizabeth (Luke 1) to the lifting up of Jesus as he is taken up into the clouds (Luke 24), movement becomes key to the telling of the gospel. At the heart of the gospel is the good news of God coming to meet us in Jesus Christ – God first moves towards us that we might move towards him. In his earthly mission, Jesus moves in an itinerant ministry as he journeys from place to place. In the account that Luke continues (the Book of Acts), this movement is lived out in the lives of the disciples as they fulfil their calling to carry the message of Jesus to Judea, Samaria, and ‘to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1).

The story of the walk to Emmaus characterises this gospel of movement, as the focus of the resurrection story is put on the experience of two disciples as they move with their feet, carrying with them all their disappointments and heartache following the death of Jesus. During their journeying, they recognise the reality of all that has happened but fail to recognise the stranger who joins them along the way. This journey facilitates a continuing conversation and a new twist in the two disciples’ understanding of scripture.

This emphasis on the movement of the gospel jars with the experience of many of us within our current dilemma of the coronavirus pandemic. Our movements are restricted – they need to be in order that the virus may be contained. We do not like being tied down in this way, as exemplified by those who deliberately bend the rules. Those everyday movements which make up so much of our ordinary lives no longer pattern day to day living. Regular travels as a part of our daily routine, including to church for worship on Sundays and other activities through the week are no longer available to us. Such movements, so easily overlooked and taken for granted as a part of everyday living, are now suddenly noticed and missed because of the restrictions placed upon us.

Nor are we able to enjoy in the way that we would like those sociable aspects of church life with which we are so accustomed; those opportunities for meeting and fellowship which we usually look forward to week by week. Not only might the story from Luke 24 of a traveller falling into step with those on already on the road seem odd to us (Keep two metres away please!) but the thought of inviting someone in to our home, to sit down at meal table together, and share food feels to us at the present time an unwelcome possibility. The companionship (from the Latin com and panis, ‘to share bread with’) which lies at the heart of Christian faith and practise for so many of us now seems much more remote and removed from what our present circumstances allow.

But at the same time, and in the midst our current crisis, we are given cause to reflect. Discipleship does not always take place on the move. Nearly every congregation includes members who are housebound, unable to travel to church as they would wish, but that does not make them any less of a member. In the Christian tradition, there are many examples, such as anchorite nuns and monks, who have expressed their faith through ‘staying put’ within the four walls of a monastic cell; their witness is no less valuable or genuine because of it.

The crisis also gives us opportunity to reflect upon travel as part of our modern world, which tends to equate travel with freedom. In his book, Faith on the Road, American Methodist Jeorg Rieger points out that our movement as tourists, freely chosen as part of our leisure time, stands in stark contrast to the movements of others such as refugees who move out of necessity rather than through choice. Rieger argues that discussion of travel cannot be done satisfactorily without a consideration of justice – what value should be placed on our own movements and the movements of others?

And in this time of restricted movements, we have the opportunity to re-evaluate the role that movement plays in our discipleship. We may not be able to move physically in the way that we are used to, but we can still be moved in the Christian life. Firstly, we can be moved by the plight of those around us, especially as they suffer from the effects of the virus. And this suggests to me not only a change of heart but also a ministry of prayer. We can also look again at what it means to be a Methodist people on the move – that if we, as Methodists, still wish to see ourselves in some way as a movement (as inheritors of Wesley’s itinerant mission), our circumstances at the moment challenge us to be on the move in a spiritual sense. What new ways might be identified and what new paths might be taken as part of our spiritual being and as we seek to be a Christian people moving for Christ’s sake.

As a resurrection people we should be fully aware of being a people on the move. If the crucifixion of Christ shows us an immobility – as Kosuke Koyama expresses it, ‘He was immobile! He was nailed down!’ – resurrection in Christ marks out movement. Let us take heed and act upon the injunction from scripture, ‘Rise and walk!’ (Acts 3.6), as we live out our lives for Christ’s sake. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

To think about:

1. Think about times when you have enjoyed a time walking with other people or meeting with others around a meal table. Walking together, we move ‘side-by-side’, whereas sitting down for a meal we are more likely to be ‘face-to-face’. What difference does it make to grow in our relationships with others in these different ways? What do the phrases ‘side-by-side’ and ‘face-to- face’ suggest to you? Does it say anything important about the ways in which we might ‘meet with Christ’ in each situation?
2. Recall a journey that you had to make in difficult circumstances – visiting a loved one who was seriously ill, perhaps, or going to the funeral of a family member or friend. What were your thoughts and feelings on that journey? Was there anything that spoke to you of signs of hope as you saw that journey through?
3. Luke 24.13-35 concentrates on the journey to Emmaus. It does not tell us a lot about the journey back again from Emmaus, only that ‘That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem’. What do you think that return journey was like? Can you picture something of their movements and the conversation between the two of them? As they retraced the route, how had life changed for them?

Prayers of confession, thanksgiving and intercession

Living, Loving Lord, as we travel through these difficult days,
open our eyes to your presence and our hearts to your love.

Like the travellers on the road to Emmaus, we so often fail to recognise you, wondering where you are and feeling deserted,
when your Spirit is always beside us and within us.
Forgive us Lord.
Open our eyes to your presence and our hearts to your love.

We thank you that we can see you in
the NHS staff, all the keyworkers,
and the helpful neighbours selflessly devoting themselves to caring for us.
May your strength uphold them.
Open our eyes to your presence and our hearts to your love.

We thank you that we can see you in the politicians, the scientists
and all those in industry trying their best to help us.
May your wisdom guide them.
Open our eyes to your presence and our hearts to your love.

We thank you that we can see you in
our fellow travellers, our loved ones, our friends and church family.
May your peace enfold them.
Open our eyes to your presence and our hearts to your love.

We thank you that we can know that
however hard the path, or bleak the landscape,
You, who travelled through Good Friday for us
promise us that Easter Sunday is our destination.
Open our eyes to your presence and our hearts to your love. Amen.

Song: Listen to, join in with, or read the words to the hymn, Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart (Singing the Faith 545, Hymns and Psalms 378)

Celtic Blessing

Before you, behind you and all around you
The Love of God.
Before you, behind you and all around you
The Grace of Christ.
Before you, behind you and all around you
The Light of Life.
Before you, behind you and all around you
The Peace of Jesus.
Before you, behind you and all around you
The Power of the Spirit.
Before you, behind you and all around you
The Father,
The Son
and The Holy Spirit
Before you, behind you and all around you, above you,
below you
and within you.

(Call to worship and opening prayers, Copyright: Roots for Churches Ltd)

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