Service sheet (pdf)
Prayer
Holy God, giver of life and bringer of peace, in this season of remembrance we ask the help of your Spirit, that we might remember clearly, pray earnestly, and work tirelessly for your kingdom. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
8 Come and see what the LORD has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
10 He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.’
11 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
We are often grateful when we remember past days, when something in the present triggers a thought of a person, a place, a moment of laughter or intimacy or love. Then it is good we can remember.
There are other times, however, when remembering revives hurt, or shame, or trauma. In these times we wish we could forget.
Take a few moments to be still with your memories, whether those you are thankful for, or those you would love to be rid of. Let your mind wander, opening as it will the baskets of memories it holds. Notice the pictures that want to be seen. And as you remember, hear God’s word from the Psalm – ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ ‘God is within her, she will not fall.’ ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.’ ‘The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.’
Let us pray: Ever-present God, always with us, bless our remembering, heal our memories, guide our forgetting, illuminate us this and every day with the light of your love, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
You are the Vine, we are the branches, keep us abiding in you. Then we’ll grow in your love, and we’ll go in your name, and the world will surely know that you have power to heal and to save.
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.’ Deuteronomy 31:6
We bless one another, and those we have brought to mind this day, as we share the Grace:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all, now and evermore. Amen.
(CCLI 79951. Service prepared by Rev’d Nick Blundell.)
Psalm 46
1 God is our refuge and strength,an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
8 Come and see what the LORD has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
10 He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.’
11 The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Song
You might like to sing, or reflect on the words of, Hymn StF 706, by Bernadette Farrell, Longing for light, we wait in darkness. Longing for truth, we turn to you.Reflection
To remember can be a mixed blessing. Remembering large family gatherings for example, Christmases, birthdays, can give us great joy, whilst at the same time bringing sadness with the realisation of times changed, friends no longer with us. In many of us there is anxiety about a covid-restricted Christmas this year, anxiety in part fuelled by happy memories of Christmas past.We are often grateful when we remember past days, when something in the present triggers a thought of a person, a place, a moment of laughter or intimacy or love. Then it is good we can remember.
There are other times, however, when remembering revives hurt, or shame, or trauma. In these times we wish we could forget.
Take a few moments to be still with your memories, whether those you are thankful for, or those you would love to be rid of. Let your mind wander, opening as it will the baskets of memories it holds. Notice the pictures that want to be seen. And as you remember, hear God’s word from the Psalm – ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ ‘God is within her, she will not fall.’ ‘God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.’ ‘The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.’
Let us pray: Ever-present God, always with us, bless our remembering, heal our memories, guide our forgetting, illuminate us this and every day with the light of your love, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Reading – John 15:9-17
‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: love each other.Song
We use as a prayerful reflection, StF 242, A new commandment I give unto you: that you love one another as I have loved you.Reflection
These words of Jesus from John 15, given to us to reflect on this Remembrance Sunday, sit in the context of Jesus’ teaching immediately previously about the vine and the branches. He has painted a picture of his Father as the Gardener, the Vinedresser, himself as the vine, and those to whom he is speaking as the branches of that vine, who, if they remain in him, will come to bear much fruit. ‘Now remain in my love’, he says, ‘I chose and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.’
On a day-off recently we spent a very good day at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park at West Bretton. Wandering across the extensive grounds of Bretton Hall, we chuckled at the humour of works by Joana Vasconcelos, were intrigued by Damien Hirst’s inside-out imagination, found ourselves humming alongside Barbara Hepworth’s Family of Man, and wondering at Sean Scully’s Wall Dale Cubed and Crate of Air. I thoroughly recommend YSP for a good walk that exercises the brain as much as the legs and lungs. However, more impressive still were the trees, stately, majestic, magnificent in their autumn finery. Beech, Elm, Oak, Maple, such colours, heightened by good light, were the true stars of the show.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been noticing the trees more this year. Back in March, when lockdown gave us our hour a day to exercise, we established a we-do-this-most-days walk from home, through the streets to the bottom of the golf course, up onto the moor, up to the trig point, then across and down through copses of trees, touching the farm, across the cattlegrids, then down to Hope Lane and home. Doing this through spring-time, we noticed the gradual greening of the bare trees and, into summer, the fullness of their leaves. What had been a skeleton of branches was now enfleshed with glorious greenery, a tree as a child would draw. And so to autumn, with its golden colours, a brief time of glory before the leaves begin to fall and the winter skeletons return.
You are the branches. On this particular Remembrance Sunday it may be helpful to reflect on the journey through the seasons, from stark bare branches, to the first hints of green, to buds and leaves and fullness, to gold and brief glory and falling leaves and stark bare branches once more.
Firstly, there is a naturalness to this cycle, it is expected, predictable. In general terms, it can be relied upon. We know the vagaries of the weather (and spend enough time talking about them), but autumn follows summer follows spring. And winter comes. If we use this as a metaphor for life, then we can see God holding us through the seasons of our earthly life, from lively beginnings through adult fruitfulness to golden autumn, and the coming of winter. There is pattern to this, and beauty, and with them purpose. Life is to be lived in all its fullness, and the fullest way is through love. Fruit that will last comes through loving God, neighbour, world. This is how it should be.
Secondly though, there are times when events break the pattern. A storm comes, and leaves fall too soon, still green. Lightning strikes, and a tree is broken and falls before its time. As we remember those lost in war and damaged by conflict, we recognise the wrongness of such loss – untimely, before their time. When a tree falls we notice its absence, the space it leaves, it looks and feels wrong, the world is askew. So as we remember the countless men and women, so many of them young, who died in war and die in conflict, we acknowledge the wrongness of this, the human folly that brought it, brings it to be. This is not to diminish the sacrificial love of those ‘who laid down their lives for their friends’, it is to recognise those elements of human nature which exploit and disregard the neighbour, which are the opposite of sacrificial love. In this acknowledgement, we see our need of God, to abide within the Vine that is God’s love, to love God, neighbour, world.
Thirdly, remember on this day that we are part of something beautiful. The created world, vast, diverse, beyond us, beside us, represented by the birdsong in our gardens and those glorious autumn colours on the trees – we are able to experience, appreciate, wonder at this world. We stand in awe and offer God, its Creator, our humble praise. And not only are we part of a beautiful world, we are invited to be branches to Christ’s Vine, to play our parts in loving God, our neighbours, and our beautiful world.
May God deepen in us a love for all that is good, and turn our good words into actions.
May Christ lead us in the way of peace, beginning with our neighbours near and far.
May God’s Spirit fill our remembering with power, that we might learn from the past, live generously in the present, and gift a good world to our children for the future. Amen.
On a day-off recently we spent a very good day at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park at West Bretton. Wandering across the extensive grounds of Bretton Hall, we chuckled at the humour of works by Joana Vasconcelos, were intrigued by Damien Hirst’s inside-out imagination, found ourselves humming alongside Barbara Hepworth’s Family of Man, and wondering at Sean Scully’s Wall Dale Cubed and Crate of Air. I thoroughly recommend YSP for a good walk that exercises the brain as much as the legs and lungs. However, more impressive still were the trees, stately, majestic, magnificent in their autumn finery. Beech, Elm, Oak, Maple, such colours, heightened by good light, were the true stars of the show.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been noticing the trees more this year. Back in March, when lockdown gave us our hour a day to exercise, we established a we-do-this-most-days walk from home, through the streets to the bottom of the golf course, up onto the moor, up to the trig point, then across and down through copses of trees, touching the farm, across the cattlegrids, then down to Hope Lane and home. Doing this through spring-time, we noticed the gradual greening of the bare trees and, into summer, the fullness of their leaves. What had been a skeleton of branches was now enfleshed with glorious greenery, a tree as a child would draw. And so to autumn, with its golden colours, a brief time of glory before the leaves begin to fall and the winter skeletons return.
You are the branches. On this particular Remembrance Sunday it may be helpful to reflect on the journey through the seasons, from stark bare branches, to the first hints of green, to buds and leaves and fullness, to gold and brief glory and falling leaves and stark bare branches once more.
Firstly, there is a naturalness to this cycle, it is expected, predictable. In general terms, it can be relied upon. We know the vagaries of the weather (and spend enough time talking about them), but autumn follows summer follows spring. And winter comes. If we use this as a metaphor for life, then we can see God holding us through the seasons of our earthly life, from lively beginnings through adult fruitfulness to golden autumn, and the coming of winter. There is pattern to this, and beauty, and with them purpose. Life is to be lived in all its fullness, and the fullest way is through love. Fruit that will last comes through loving God, neighbour, world. This is how it should be.
Secondly though, there are times when events break the pattern. A storm comes, and leaves fall too soon, still green. Lightning strikes, and a tree is broken and falls before its time. As we remember those lost in war and damaged by conflict, we recognise the wrongness of such loss – untimely, before their time. When a tree falls we notice its absence, the space it leaves, it looks and feels wrong, the world is askew. So as we remember the countless men and women, so many of them young, who died in war and die in conflict, we acknowledge the wrongness of this, the human folly that brought it, brings it to be. This is not to diminish the sacrificial love of those ‘who laid down their lives for their friends’, it is to recognise those elements of human nature which exploit and disregard the neighbour, which are the opposite of sacrificial love. In this acknowledgement, we see our need of God, to abide within the Vine that is God’s love, to love God, neighbour, world.
Thirdly, remember on this day that we are part of something beautiful. The created world, vast, diverse, beyond us, beside us, represented by the birdsong in our gardens and those glorious autumn colours on the trees – we are able to experience, appreciate, wonder at this world. We stand in awe and offer God, its Creator, our humble praise. And not only are we part of a beautiful world, we are invited to be branches to Christ’s Vine, to play our parts in loving God, our neighbours, and our beautiful world.
May God deepen in us a love for all that is good, and turn our good words into actions.
May Christ lead us in the way of peace, beginning with our neighbours near and far.
May God’s Spirit fill our remembering with power, that we might learn from the past, live generously in the present, and gift a good world to our children for the future. Amen.
Song
You might like to sing, or reflect on the words of Danny Daniels & Randy Rigby’s song StF 258, You are the Vine, we are the branches, keep us abiding in you.You are the Vine, we are the branches, keep us abiding in you. Then we’ll grow in your love, and we’ll go in your name, and the world will surely know that you have power to heal and to save.
The Act of Remembrance
(normally held at 11.00am on Remembrance Sunday morning)
It might be that this year in the silence, along with the victims and casualties of war and conflict, we might also remember those health professionals and key workers who have died because of covid19 this year.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. We will remember them.
The Two Minute Silence is observed.
The Kohima Epitaph: When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today.
Lord our God, maker of heaven and earth, we praise you for the beauty and bio-diversity of your creation. This year, perhaps more than before, we have found delight and hope in the natural world, as we have listened to the birdsong and noticed the plants and trees. We have noticed the changing seasons, and praise you for the cycle of the year. We acknowledge, however, that moving from autumn towards winter is a difficult transition for us, perhaps more difficult this year with all the uncertainties we face. Draw our attention to all that is good, and help us to be thankful in all circumstance. Lift our spirits that we might worship, and show us how to turn our worship words into loving actions. In particular, teach us those actions by which we cherish and protect the biodiversity of this beautiful world. We pray for one another in our care for creation, and especially those whose courage, dedication, and knowledge act as examples and challenges to governments, companies, communities, and ourselves to be good stewards of creation.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
May Christ lead us in the way of peace, beginning with our neighbours near and far.
Lord Jesus Christ, the one true vine, we thank you for calling us to be your friends, branches of the vine, sent to bear fruit that will last. You have encouraged us to remain in your love by loving one another. We acknowledge those occasions when we find it hard to love our neighbour, acting instead out of self-interest and selfishness. Deepen within us the ability to respond to others with love, and continue to shape us into people who walk the way of peace. Help us to recognise in ourselves those aspects of unconscious bias that get in the way of our peacemaking. We pray for one another in our love for our neighbours, and especially those whose wisdom, gentleness, and knowledge enable them to make reconciliation possible. We also pray for any caught up in conflict, whether across national borders or garden fences.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
May God’s Spirit fill our remembering with power, that we might learn from the past, live generously in the present, and gift a good world to our children for the future.
Holy Spirit, heartbeat of our world, thank you for the gift of remembrance, connecting us to those who have gone before, helping us to see the present with clarity, shaping us for the future. Grant us discernment in our remembering, that we might learn lessons from both good and bad memories, yet not be hamstrung by nostalgia or shame. We pray for those living with bereavement, whether newly grieving or long established. We pray for those suffering with PTSD and other psychological trauma. We pray for those whose anxiety about the future is disabling. And we pray for one another, that we might help each other remember well, live thankfully and generously, and hope steadfastly.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
We bring our prayers together, as we pray, with all God’s people, the Lord’s Prayer.
It might be that this year in the silence, along with the victims and casualties of war and conflict, we might also remember those health professionals and key workers who have died because of covid19 this year.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. We will remember them.
The Two Minute Silence is observed.
The Kohima Epitaph: When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today.
Praying for others, and ourselves
May God deepen in us a love for all that is good, and turn our good words into actions.Lord our God, maker of heaven and earth, we praise you for the beauty and bio-diversity of your creation. This year, perhaps more than before, we have found delight and hope in the natural world, as we have listened to the birdsong and noticed the plants and trees. We have noticed the changing seasons, and praise you for the cycle of the year. We acknowledge, however, that moving from autumn towards winter is a difficult transition for us, perhaps more difficult this year with all the uncertainties we face. Draw our attention to all that is good, and help us to be thankful in all circumstance. Lift our spirits that we might worship, and show us how to turn our worship words into loving actions. In particular, teach us those actions by which we cherish and protect the biodiversity of this beautiful world. We pray for one another in our care for creation, and especially those whose courage, dedication, and knowledge act as examples and challenges to governments, companies, communities, and ourselves to be good stewards of creation.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
May Christ lead us in the way of peace, beginning with our neighbours near and far.
Lord Jesus Christ, the one true vine, we thank you for calling us to be your friends, branches of the vine, sent to bear fruit that will last. You have encouraged us to remain in your love by loving one another. We acknowledge those occasions when we find it hard to love our neighbour, acting instead out of self-interest and selfishness. Deepen within us the ability to respond to others with love, and continue to shape us into people who walk the way of peace. Help us to recognise in ourselves those aspects of unconscious bias that get in the way of our peacemaking. We pray for one another in our love for our neighbours, and especially those whose wisdom, gentleness, and knowledge enable them to make reconciliation possible. We also pray for any caught up in conflict, whether across national borders or garden fences.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
May God’s Spirit fill our remembering with power, that we might learn from the past, live generously in the present, and gift a good world to our children for the future.
Holy Spirit, heartbeat of our world, thank you for the gift of remembrance, connecting us to those who have gone before, helping us to see the present with clarity, shaping us for the future. Grant us discernment in our remembering, that we might learn lessons from both good and bad memories, yet not be hamstrung by nostalgia or shame. We pray for those living with bereavement, whether newly grieving or long established. We pray for those suffering with PTSD and other psychological trauma. We pray for those whose anxiety about the future is disabling. And we pray for one another, that we might help each other remember well, live thankfully and generously, and hope steadfastly.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
We bring our prayers together, as we pray, with all God’s people, the Lord’s Prayer.
Song
Please sing, or reflect on, Mary Peter’s hymn, (StF 639) Through the love of God our Saviour all will be well.
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.’ Deuteronomy 31:6
We bless one another, and those we have brought to mind this day, as we share the Grace:
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all, now and evermore. Amen.
(CCLI 79951. Service prepared by Rev’d Nick Blundell.)
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