Once again a service to say at home for those of you preferring still to worship using our website. This one a ‘special’ for Fathers’ Day, whether we remember with love our own fathers or want to concentrate on the fatherly (motherly?) love of God.
With every blessing
Mary Tucker
Opening Litany
In the beginning God made the world
Made it and mothered it
Shaped it and fathered it
Filled it with seeds and signs of fertility
Filled it with love and its folk with ability
All that is green, blue, deep and growing
God’s is the hand that created you
All that is tender, firm, fragrant and curious
God’s is the hand that created you
All that crawls, flies, swims, walks or is motionless
God’s is the hand that created you
All that speaks, sighs, cries, laughs or keeps silent
God’s is the hand that created you
All that suffers, lacks, limps or longs for an end
God’s is the hand that created you
The world belongs to the Lord
The earth and all its people are his
Prayer of Approach
Let us pray
Before the world began when everything was shapeless you were there
Hovering over chaos
Planning the texture, the taste, the sight and the sound of things
Balancing the opposites
Weaving the rainbow
Turning the random into the real
And for this we praise you
Before we began when in the womb, we were shapeless
You were there
Calling us your own
Planning the nature and novelty in us
Weaning our potentials
Making us unique
Turning the random into the real
And for this we praise you
And even now when we dream dreams
Or puzzle over the future
Now, when our ideals are challenged
And the second best becomes attractive
You are there
Upsetting our easiness
Contradicting our compromises
Replacing our narrow vision
With the sight and sound and taste of a better life
Picking up the loose stitches of our devotion
Turning the random into the real
And for this we praise you
And it always will be so
For you did not say you were the answer
You said you were the way
You did not ask us to succeed
You asked us to be faithful
You did not promise us paradise tomorrow
You said you would be with us to the end of the world
Turning the random into the real
And for this we praise you
Now and for ever
Amen
The Word of God
Readings from the 15th chapter of Luke and the 4th chapter of Mark
The Parable of the Lost Son
11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him
Jesus Calms the Storm
35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
Thoughts on the Word of God
The first of our readings today is part of one of the most famous of Jesus’ parables commonly known as ‘The Prodigal Son’ but one I think would be more appropriately titled, ‘The Unconditionally Loving Father’ and this of course makes it particularly appropriate for today, not only because we are celebrating the best of human fatherhood but also because this is a parable where Jesus explains to us, in the simplest of terms, what our Father, God, is like. In fact I would go so far as to say that it is only with this picture of God in our mind that we can make sense of our faith – for it is the story of an unconditionally loving father.
The picture of God it gives us is of one who welcomes us in whatever we have done, is waiting for us, arms outstretched, not even letting us say the words we’ve prepared about how unworthy we are, but who grabs us, embraces us, kisses us and before we can even raise our worried eyes to his welcomes us into the rooms prepared for us.
Now some of us, many of us I hope, will have had experience of a loving father, husband, brother, friend, and the best of them will have offered (as well as they could being only human) unconditional love. Unconditional love, not depending on what people deserve but freely given.
The problem of belief in an unseen God is that we need help to understand what this person, spirit, being, is like. Jesus was well aware of our difficulty. He knows how hard it is to believe things that cannot be seen or proved, how difficult it is just to have faith.
One way he helped the people of his day was through stories like this the most famous of his parables. The picture it gives us of the character of God is of a God looking out for us from the roof top, waiting for us and finally gathering us in, even though we may not feel we deserve it, because he loves us –
Unconditionally.
However whilst we can begin to accept this as a picture of God, down here in the real world as we live it every day it can be tough being a parent or a carer or a grandparent. And the unconditional love, that ideal to which we can aspire, may be a challenge even in the most well-regulated of families.
There must have been some of us who, whilst we accepted gladly this parable’s truth as a picture of
God’s fatherhood, parenthood, felt totally inadequate.
Our second reading may touch another nerve and one that is particularly the preserve of men and Dads and husbands in particular. And that is the, still common, expectation that in any situation, however disastrous, difficult or dangerous, the man will sort it, the man will know what to do. He will be tough but calm and everything will be all right!
In the boat on that stormy sea we see normal men, not this unrealistic macho image though they must have been physically strong and tough, they were, after all, fishermen in an age before modern the gadgetry.
Jesus, of an age with many of them, possibly younger than several, had however become a father figure, one to be turned to in a crisis.
One wonders how this had come about. Though carpentry no doubt calls for good muscles and a life on the road, such as they had been living, isn’t one for wimps, the picture we have painted for us of Jesus in scripture is not one of an obviously mighty hero, or not in human terms, Yet something about this man inspired confidence and meant that in the moment of greatest fear, greatest danger, it was he they turned to.
Their fear at the storm was a very rational fear. In that time, on that lake, in that boat, there was a very good chance that they might not make it. However their fear of the storm is not the fear that Jesus is referring to when he finally wakes, calms the sea and wind and asks them, “Why are you afraid?”
Given the weather conditions that have just abated that would have been a foolish question. What Jesus sees now is a fear, mixed with amazement and possibly terror. The fear of men who realise, basically, that they are in a boat with God!
In the parable of the Son, Jesus gave them and us a helpful picture of what God is like. Now these rough fishermen are faced, not with a picture, but with the real thing. He who has seen Jesus has seen God. She who has seen the power of Jesus, who commands the very elements, has seen the sheer power of the God they worship.
We are not surprised at their shock and fear, but with the hindsight of two millennia, we come to Jesus as a human version, picture, of what God is like and see, I hope not with fear but with joy and perhaps relief, the power at his and our disposal. His trustworthiness in every situation.
So – relax Dads, don’t panic men, and everyone else who is put in a position of parental type care. Trust in this unconditionally loving Father, in this powerful friend and it is he who will bring us through.
He does not have unrealistic expectations of our ability to be the hero in every situation but what he brings out in us may surprise us as much as it surprises anybody else.
Prayers
Heavenly Father
You entrusted your son Jesus the child of Mary
To the care of Joseph, an earthly father.
Bless all fathers and step fathers as they care for their families.
Give them strength and wisdom,
Tenderness and patience;
Support them in the work they do,
Protecting those who look to them,
As we look to you for love and salvation
Through Jesus Christ our rock and our defender
Lord hear us
Lord graciously hear us
We give thanks for fathers all around the world.
Bless these men for their hard work, their caring,
for their generosity and their loyalty to their families.
Lord hear us
Lord graciously hear us
We pray especially for fathers
who are struggling to care for their children
because of economic or other crises.
Fathers who have been laid off, who are looking for work,
who are in despair about keeping a secure roof over their families’ heads
in this country and in countries around the world.
Lord hear us
Lord graciously hear us
We pray, too, for fathers who cannot care for their families
because they are ill, or because they are separated from their children by marriage break up or divorce.
Lord hear us
Lord graciously hear us
We pray for the millions of fathers who are imprisoned,
who are immigrants, refugees or displaced persons,
who have experienced violence and are wounded, in body and soul.
Lord hear us
Lord graciously hear us
We pray for all who are missing Fathers today,
Particularly for those whose fathers have died
Recently or long ago.
Bring comfort in loss
Joy in remembering
And healing to broken hearts
Lord hear us
Lord graciously hear us
You who give life and give it abundantly,
Son of our heavenly Father,
be with all fathers this day,
and grant them your grace and your healing
so they may live out their vocation
with dignity, strength, and peace.
Amen
Closing Responses and Blessing
For all that God can do within us
For all that God can do without us
Thanks be to God
For all in whom God lived before us
For all in whom God lives beside us
Thanks be to God
For all the Spirit wants to bring us
For where the Spirit wants to send us
Thanks be to God
Listen
Christ has promise to be with us
In the world as in our worship.
And the blessing of God Almighty
Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Be with you all
Those you love and those you pray for
Today and for ever
Amen, we go to meet him.