{"id":555,"date":"2021-05-08T22:15:19","date_gmt":"2021-05-08T22:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/?p=555"},"modified":"2021-05-08T22:16:05","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T22:16:05","slug":"easter-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/2021\/05\/08\/easter-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Easter 6"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dear All,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here then is another morning service for those of you who still need to stay at home for safety\u2019s sake but also, because it can of course be used on any day of the week, for any and all of you to use at any time. The thoughts on the reading this time are based on a very personal meditation I had some years ago concerning \u2018my love of God\u2019. Though you may not share the problem I had\/have, I hope, nevertheless, it will speak to you as God spoke through it to me.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep keeping safe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With every blessing and love<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mary<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Service to say at home for the Sixth Sunday of Easter<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opening Prayer<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This day Lord, may I dream your dream,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This day Lord, may I reflect your love,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This day Lord, may I do your work,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This day Lord, may I taste your peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hymn<\/strong> – Sing something you enjoy!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canticle<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In days to come the mountain of the Lord\u2019s house<\/p>\n\n\n\n

will be established as the highest of the mountains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will be raised above the hills<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and all the nations will flock to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many peoples will come and they will say,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

to the house of the God of Jacob,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

that we may be taught the ways of the Lord<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and may walk in the right paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the mountain of the Lord shall go forth the law<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord will judge between the nations<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and settle disputes for many peoples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They shall beat their swords into ploughshares<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and their spears into pruning hooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

nor ever again prepare for war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Come, O house of Jacob<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us walk in the light of the Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bible Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 John 4:7-21<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

God\u2019s Love and Ours<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

7 <\/strong><\/sup>Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 <\/strong><\/sup>Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 <\/strong><\/sup>This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 <\/strong><\/sup>This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 <\/strong><\/sup>Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 <\/strong><\/sup>No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13 <\/strong><\/sup>This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 <\/strong><\/sup>And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. 15 <\/strong><\/sup>If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 <\/strong><\/sup>And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 <\/strong><\/sup>This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 <\/strong><\/sup>There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

19 <\/strong><\/sup>We love because he first loved us. 20 <\/strong><\/sup>Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 <\/strong><\/sup>And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the Word of the Lord<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks be to God<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Thoughts on the Readings from Mary<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m afraid I may be going to shock you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see I have a real problem with love – I\u2019m not entirely sure I know what it is and, more shocking still, the bit of it that has always worried me most is the continually repeated assertions we Christians make in our liturgies that we \u2018love God\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do I love God?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given this problem I decided I\u2019d better think about the reading from 1 John as it mentions love 27 times in just 14 verses!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat is this thing called love?\u201d That\u2019s a quote \u2013 someone will tell me at some point who it was written by, probably Shakespeare, it\u2019s usually Shakespeare!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know about some sorts of love. I love gardening \u2013 meaning I like it a lot, I enjoy it, it gives me pleasure, but I wouldn\u2019t want to do it every minute of every day and I love doing other things too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love Thornton\u2019s Continental Chocolates, especially the spherical ones with sugar crystals all over them. Again \u2013 eating them is a pleasurable experience but would be spoilt if it happened too often? (to say nothing of what it would do to my health and well-being!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love my family – I care about them deeply, I want what\u2019s best for them \u2013 want them to be happy, I feel a duty towards them and, in that awful modern phrase, want to \u2018be THERE for them\u2019 if they need me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love my husband. Even after over forty years together I still get that excited<\/p>\n\n\n\n

clap-my-hands, grin-on-the-face feeling as I hear his car come up the drive. I feel all the caring things I feel about family generally but with something extra and hard to explain – it\u2019s as though we\u2019re two halves of some whole thing, that without him I wouldn\u2019t be everything I am. There\u2019s a giving side to this love of course, I desperately want what\u2019s best for him and long for him to be happy but it\u2019s matched by a more selfish side – I am a better, happier, more fulfilled person because he is my other half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But are any of these four types of love (and I don\u2019t claim they\u2019re all that there are) – are any of them at all helpful in finding out whether I can claim to love God?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the gardening love I love taking part in worship, I enjoy starting the day in prayer and thanksgiving (usually!), I get great pleasure from the way God speaks to me and supports me through his Word, through meditation and contemplation and through preparing things like this \u2018sermon\u2019 – but is that loving him?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it, rather, more like my love of chocolate? I suppose if I greedily only spent my time reading the Bible and in prayer, meditating and contemplating I\u2019d soon get bored with it – or would I? Can you have too much of a good thing? – even a really good thing like this? \u2013 I think the answer is probably, \u2018yes\u2019 unless one is called to be a monk, nun or hermit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love of family and friends or partner, that deep desire for the happiness of another doesn\u2019t somehow seem relevant here. God doesn\u2019t need me to want what\u2019s best for him does he? Unless what\u2019s best for him includes what\u2019s best for those he loves? Hmmm! Perhaps we\u2019ll come back to that one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is something in the love of my spouse though that feels similar to feelings I have about God, the excitement of being in contact, the clap hands \u2013 grinning feeling that comes over me sometimes in his presence, the \u2018not being complete without him\u2019. But is that selfishness again, because I know that I am a better, happier, more fulfilled person because he is with me? I don\u2019t think I can claim that as \u2018loving\u2019 him – it\u2019s more about him loving me and I never had a problem with that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most I could say, perhaps, is that I feel a deep gratefulness, thankfulness that God loves me, but I don\u2019t think being grateful constitutes love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s turn to John\u2019s words and see if he can help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Dear friends,\u2019 he writes to us down the ages, \u2018let us love one another.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes,\u2019 I start to bluster, \u2018I\u2019ve already said – I know about loving other people, it\u2019s knowing whether I love God that\u2019s my problem . . . ,\u2018 but I am interrupted,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018This isn\u2019t a human achievement,\u2019 John reminds me sternly, \u2018the ability to love<\/p>\n\n\n\n

is only yours because love comes from God, it\u2019s his gift to us.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as we read on he has more to say, not only is love\u2019s origin in God but God IS<\/strong> love and this is probably the single most important statement in the passage. It means more than \u2018God is loving,\u2019 or \u2018God sometimes loves\u2019, it means that he loves, not because things or people are worthy of love but because it is his nature to love. His love for us depends not on what we are but on what He is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well that\u2019s a thought worth restating, reminding ourselves of, but it is still about his love for us not ours for him. John\u2019s ahead of us, he agrees,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You\u2019re right,\u2019 he writes (in my paraphrase!), \u2018it is not that we love God, stop looking for an answer to your problem by concentrating on yourselves, you will never find what this love is if you start from the human end.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God loves us so much, God\u2019s nature of love is so fundamental to his being God that, John reminds us, he sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice, he came himself and gave himself up to death to save us from the punishment we all so richly deserve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This calls out huge thankfulness from us. I do live in a life where fear for what will happen to me hereafter has been (largely) driven out. I know it\u2019s not down to me. I know God has paid the price. I know and I\u2019m grateful but is my gratefulness enough to be called love?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Dear friend,\u2019 says John soothingly (I can almost feel him patting me on the arm and telling me to calm down, stop panicking and listen), \u2018since God so loved us we also ought to love one another. God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My love for God, your love for God is to be shown in our love for others. That\u2019s what God desires, that IS<\/strong> our love for him, so much so that he says<\/p>\n\n\n\n

in our<\/strong> love for one another God\u2019s<\/strong> love is made complete. He loves us, we try to love others in an act of supreme thankfulness and that is accepted by God as our love for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly other words, the words of Jesus himself burst into my brain,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018In as much as you do it unto others, you do it unto me.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do love God, we can love him, we will love him every time we show love for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can we just ignore the bit at the end though? where it says, \u2018If anyone says \u2018I love God, yet hates his brother he is a liar?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We DO love our brothers, our friends, our neighbours! Don\u2019t we? Or at least we try. Again the voice of Jesus from another place interrupts us,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Who is your brother? Who is your neighbour?\u2019 and of course we know the answer. It\u2019s the Samaritan, the outcast, the untouchable, the stranger<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In God, in his death for us, in Jesus his Son, in his saving of us all, whoever we are, whatever we are, we have the pattern for the love we are to show. Christians should love, we should love, I should love, not because all those we meet are attractive people, are friends and family, husbands, wives or partners, those we are naturally drawn to but because we are being transformed by God\u2019s love into the sort of people whose nature it is to love, to love like God, unconditionally. To love everyone and anyone however unappealing or unpleasant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you ever wish you hadn\u2019t asked a question? The answer to mine, to yours as well possibly, is a tough one and I, for one, am not sure I can do it. Yet,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

paradoxically, as we discover that the ability to love at all is a gift from God<\/p>\n\n\n\n

he reassures us that the power to love him by loving others will also be a gift, will be made possible because he, God, will live in us and we live in him. He will give us his Spirit and the nature of that Spirit is only, and can only be, love. It is our other half, it will make us complete and it will give us the power, the strength and the ability to love our totally loving God in the only way possible by loving others as he loved us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prayers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let us pray to God,
who alone makes us dwell in safety:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all who are still affected by coronavirus, through illness or isolation or anxiety, that they may find relief and recovery:
Lord, hear us,
Lord, graciously hear us.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those who are guiding our nation at this time and shaping national policies, that they may make wise decisions:
Lord, hear us,
Lord, graciously hear us.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For doctors, nurses and medical researchers, that through their skill and insights many, worldwide, will be restored to health:
Lord, hear us,
Lord, graciously hear us.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the isolated and housebound, that we may be alert to their needs, and care for them in their vulnerability:
Lord, hear us,
Lord, graciously hear us.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For our homes and families, our schools and young people, and all in any kind of need or distress:
Lord, hear us,
Lord, graciously hear us.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a blessing on our local community, that our neighbourhoods may be places of trust and friendship, where all are known and cared for:
Lord, hear us,
Lord, graciously hear us.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the vulnerable and the fearful, for the gravely ill and the dying, that they may know your comfort and peace:
Lord, hear us,
Lord, graciously hear us.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We commend ourselves, and all for whom we pray,
to the mercy and protection of God.
Merciful Father,
accept these prayers
for the sake of your Son,
our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We pray with confidence as our Saviour has taught us,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 those who 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Closing Prayer and blessing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

May the love of God sustain us this day,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

May the light of Jesus radiate our thinking and speaking,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

May the power of the Spirit penetrate all our decisions,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And may all we do this day witness to your presence in our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord bless us and keep us,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord make his face shine upon us and be gracious to us,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon us,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And give us peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lord bless us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amen<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear All, Here then is another morning service for those of you who still need to stay at home for safety\u2019s sake but also, because it can of course be used on any day of the week, for any and all of you to use at any time. The thoughts on the reading this time … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Easter 6”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions\/556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heuristika.co.uk\/lfgdiscussion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}