Virtual Worship - 1 August 2021

Service Sheet (pdf)

Welcome

Welcome to worship today. Currently, on the first Sunday of each month, we are being encouraged to consider our environment, the climate crisis, and the forthcoming United Nations Conference on climate change (COP26), due to be held in Glasgow in November. Material included in today’s service has been provided by the World Methodist Council through its project ‘Climate Justice for All’ (CJ4A). The material for this week has been written by Methodists in Uruguay in South America.

Song: 

Read or sing, For the beauty of the earth (Singing the Faith 102, Hymns & Psalms 333)

1. For the beauty of the earth,
for the beauty of the skies,
for the love which from our birth
over and around us lies,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our sacrifice of praise.

2. For the beauty of each hour
of the day and of the night,
hill and vale, and tree and flower,
sun and moon and stars of light,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our sacrifice of praise.

3. For the joy of ear and eye,
for the heart and mind's delight,
for the mystic harmony
linking sense to sound and sight,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our sacrifice of praise.

4. For the joy of human love,
brother, sister, parent, child,
friends on earth and friends above,
for all gentle thoughts and mild,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our sacrifice of praise.

5. For each perfect gift of thine,
to the earth so freely given,
graces human and divine,
flowers of earth and buds of heaven,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our sacrifice of praise.

Prayer of praise and confession

Creator God
We thank you, Creator God, for your perfect creation.
Forgive us for not cherishing it when we should have.
We thank you for the waters, the land, the mountains, the trees
and all the amazing and wonderful creatures with which we share the earth.
We thank you for giving us spaces where we can gather together
and draw strength as a community.
Forgive us for the way we have treated the Earth which sustains our life.
We pray that you stay with and protect all the people and communities
who have been most affected by the climate crisis.
Give us the strength to revert the situation facing us.
Help us build a world that is inhabitable and fair for all.
Amen. (Written by Martina Baridón, aged 19)

Bible reading: 

Psalm 65.5-13

5 You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds, God our Saviour,
the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas,
6 who formed the mountains by your power, having armed yourself with strength,
7 who stilled the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves,
and the turmoil of the nations.
8 The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders;
where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy.
9 You care for the land and water it; you enrich it abundantly.
The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain,
for so you have ordained it.
10 You drench its furrows and level its ridges; you soften it with showers and bless its crops.
11 You crown the year with your bounty, and your carts overflow with abundance.
12 The grasslands of the wilderness overflow; the hills are clothed with gladness.
13 The meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are mantled with grain;
they shout for joy and sing.

Poem for reflection: 

Do I love you when I burn my carbon?

Do I proclaim
The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it,
And then just bin it.
Not recycling, or up cycling, or even gone-out cycling,
But landfill it,
Kill it,
Oil-spill it.

Do I love you when I burn my carbon?
Every time I turn my car on,
And pour more petrol into the tank,
Blanking out the plankton I’m killing,
Ozone layer I’m filling with toxic fumes,
The plumes of smoke.
Doom looms and yet,
The lupins in the garden still bloom,
So I don’t seem to worry.
What’s the hurry?

‘All things come into being through him’, I say,
Then every single day, betray the truth in that verse.
My ignorance for the planet is perverse,
A reverse of what I believe about God’s love for the whole of creation.
My recreation is an undoing of God’s own creation,
A misdirection of the conception of God in Christ Jesus - God with us.

Do I love you when I burn my carbon?
And my actions add to the inequality,
Affecting the quality of life,
Adding to the strife
Of the husband and wife I met
In Zimbabwe.
How can I say the things I say
About the way we must live,
And still burn my carbon?
Father, forgive.

Show me how to change,
In the face of climate change.
The pace of change accelerating, the exasperating realisation
That creation might not be here to stay…

Show me another way.
To show real love.
Not just feel-love,
But real-love.
Earthy love.
Gritty love.
For the whole earth.
And real grit.
Show me how to love, O God,
And not just burn my carbon.

(Tim Baker, worker with All We Can (formerly The Methodist Relief and Development Fund))

Song:

Thoughts from Uruguay

You will need to turn on captions for the English translation.

Prayers and The Lord’s Prayer

(The word ruah, used in this prayer, is the Hebrew word for wind and also for Spirit; see the picture below entitled Ruach, the Spirit of creation)

Dear God, our Mother and Father,
May your Spirit, your ruah, stay close and breathe on us.
We thank you every day for the earth we walk on and the water we drink.
We thank you for the land we toil, and its fruit that feeds our children.
We pray for those who do not know how to share your creation,
who have used and misused the soil and the water, leaving our brothers and sisters with nothing.
And who, driven by their ambition, have destroyed the world that you created for us to live well.
Join us in our reflections. We know that we too, at times, do wrong; we also squander and waste.
Please help us to keep good company with the families and communities suffering in the front lines, who have to bear the consequences of this system that destroys and kills in its
eagerness to produce.
We know that although production steadily increases day by day, hunger continues to claim the lives of our sisters and brothers.
Please, God, stay close to us.
May your creative ruah remind us, breathing softly on us, the beautiful gift of your Creation, of which we are sons and daughters by your grace.
Grant us strength to continue working for your climate justice, so that we may all enjoy life in its fullest.

(Written by Rocío Geymonat, aged 22)

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.

Song: 

Sing or read, Sing for God’s glory that colours the heart of creation (Singing the Faith 116, the tune is the one used for Praise to the lord, the almighty, the King of creation)

or God in his love for us gave us this planet (Singing the Faith 727, Hymns and Psalms 343)

Blessing:

May God bless you with sensitivity, that your ear may hear the groaning of Creation.
May God bless you with a spirit of justice,
That you may stand up for the home of every creature.
May God bless you with enough boldness
That you may do what others claim to be impossible.
And so may She bless you, the fountain of all life and all love. Amen.

(Written by Rev. Jorge Gerhard, Methodist Church in Uruguay)


Acknowledgments: Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Poem, Do I love God when I burn my carbon, copyright, Tim Baker, used with permission). Prayers, courtesy of The World Methodist Council, written by Christians in Uruguay for the Climate Justice for All project. Pictures, downloaded from theworshipcloud.com, with permission to use in worship.