Sunday Worship 22 September 2024

 
Today’s service is led by the Revd Nigel Uden

 
Welcome

Hello, my name is Nigel Uden and I’m recording this service for 22nd September 2024 in Downing Place United Reformed Church in Cambridge.  I’m privileged to be the minister here and at Fulwood URC a few miles to the east of this city.  A warm welcome.  

Opening Words

May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.                 
Jude 2

Like many seeking wisdom, consolation or hope,
perhaps we sometimes echo Samuel and say,
‘Speak Lord, your servant is listening.’
I Samuel 3.9

At such a time, may we also hear an echo of Isaiah:
And when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left, 
your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, 
“This is the way (hodos); walk in it.”                     
Isaiah 30.21

Prayer of Approach

Gracious God,
awaken us from sleep
that we may worship you 
in Spirit and in truth;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen  

Hymn     Christ is Made the Sure Foundation
Latin, 7th cent. tr. J. M. Neale (1818-66) altd. Public domain. Sung by the choir and people of North Stoneham and Bassett Parish Church and used with their kind permission.

Christ is made the sure foundation, Christ the head and comer-stone,
chosen of the Lord and precious, binding all the Church in one;
holy Zion’s help for ever, and her confidence alone.

All that dedicated city, dearly loved of God on high,
in exultant jubilation pours perpetual melody;
God, the One in Three, adoring in glad hymns eternally.

To this temple where we call thee, come, O Lord of Hosts, today;
with thy wonted loving-kindness hear thy servants as they pray;
and thy fullest benediction shed within its walls alway.

Here vouchsafe to all thy servants what they ask of thee to gain,
what they gain from thee for ever with the blessed to retain,
and hereafter in thy glory evermore with thee to reign.
 
Laud and honour to the Father, laud and honour to the Son,
laud and honour to the Spirit, every Three and ever and One,
consubstantial, co-eternal, while unending ages run.

Prayers of Adoration and Confession

Creator God, you are source, guide, and goal of all that is
and we praise you.
Carpenter God, you are way, truth and life
and we praise you.
Companion God, you offer faith, hope and love
and we praise you.

We know and are sorry that we have
too glibly spoken of you
forgetting that you are the one without whom we would not be.

We know and are sorry that we have
too rarely walked in your way, grappled with your truth 
or made known your life in us.

We know and are sorry that we have
too cautiously entertained the Holy Spirit,
and thus been shallow in faith, hesitant in hope and half-hearted in love.

By your grace
Creator, remake us,
Carpenter, refashion us,
Companion renew us,
through Jesus Christ, Amen.

Hymn     It is a Thing Most Wonderful
W. W. How (1823-97) altd. Public Domain.  BBC Songs of Praise

It is a thing most wonderful,
almost too wonderful to be,
that God’s own Son should come from heaven
and die to save a child like me.

And yet I know that it is true;
he came to this poor world below,
And wept, & toiled, & mourned, & died,
only because he loved me so.

I sometimes think about the cross
and shut my eyes, and try to see
the cruel nails and crown of thorns,
and Jesus crucified for me.

It is most wonderful to know
his love for me so free and sure;
but still more wonderful to see
my love for him so faint and poor;
 
And yet I want to love thee, Lord;
O light the flame within my heart,
and I will love thee more and more,
until I see thee as thou art.

Reading     St Mark 9.30-37

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know it;  for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’  But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’  Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them,  ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

Reading     St Luke 24.13-35

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem,  and talking with each other about all these things that had happened.  While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.  And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad.  Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’  He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth,  who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people,  and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him.  But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place.  Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning,  and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.  Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’  Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!  Was it not necessary that the Messiah[e] should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’  Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them.  When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.  Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.  They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’  Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Hymn     O Thou Who Camest
Charles Wesley (1707-88) Public Domain sung by Joy and Ruth Everingham and used with their kind permission.

O thou who camest from above,
the pure celestial fire to impart,
kindle a flame of sacred love
on the mean altar of my heart.

There let it for thy glory burn
with inextinguishable blaze;
and trembling to its source return,
in humble prayer & fervent praise.

Jesus, confirm my heart’s desire
to work & speak & think for thee;
still let me guard the holy fire,
and still stir up thy gift in me:

Ready for all thy perfect will,
my acts of faith and love repeat,
till death thine endless mercies seal,
and make my sacrifice complete.
 
Sermon

In the Bible, we often join Jesus and the disciples ‘on the way’. Frequently they are going somewhere. In today’s Gospel passage, they are out and about around Galilee, and in but a little while they will be setting off for the decisive walk from Jericho to Jerusalem, with the events of Holy Week and Easter. 

I find myself ‘on the way’ all the time. Sometimes literal journeys, perhaps long-distance ones to see family, or en route to a much-anticipated holiday. Then there are the far shorter trips, like a walk along the banks of the Cam, just a cock’s stride from our home. On that way, there’s much to cherish, and in particular the heron who lives there and timidly rises up from the undergrowth as I draw too near for its comfort. I also recall the newly hatched family of cygnets who were being marshalled – not entirely successfully – by their parents one morning last May. 

Other journeys are quite different though. Many of us know what it is like to be 

• on the way through the seemingly endless and tortuous processes required when amending a charity’s constitution or adding a signatory to a bank account;
• on the way of discernment as local churches wonder what, under God’s good hand, their future should be;
• on the way towards retirement, with all its known and unknown unknowns;
• on the way along the sobering path into dementia;
• on the way round the sharp corner we call death. 

They are all journeys, and few of us will be unfamiliar with some or even all of them, plus a whole lot more. 

When we read St Mark telling of the disciples being ‘on the way’, it’s the translation of a word that is frequently used in the Bible. This word, derived from ‘hodos’, often means simply road or pathway. So, there’s the Ethiopian in Acts 8: after being captivated by the prophecy of Isaiah – ‘he was led like a sheep to the slaughter’ – and then baptised, they go ‘on their way rejoicing’. Hodos can also refer to being guided ‘on the way’ as Paul says God and Jesus helped him get to the church in Thessalonica. (I Thessalonians 3.11). 

More metaphorically, however, hodos can mean ‘a way of proceeding’. Remember how, in I Corinthians 12, Paul tells of the Holy Spirit’s work, bringing his point to a climax with ‘and yet I will show you the most excellent way’ (12.31), that hodos leading into his paean to love. (13.1-13)

Hodos comes right at the beginning of Mark, as well, when we learn of John the Baptist ‘preparing the way for the Lord’ (1.3).  

So, being ‘on the way’ is a profound thing, albeit never more so than as Jesus makes his way into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday – the way to the cross and the empty tomb; the way of dying and undying love. 

The Acts of the Apostles says that early in the life of The Church, followers of Jesus were known as people of The Way. Again it’s that word hodos. So it is that as Paul is in Ephesus his opponents ‘publicly maligned the Way’ (19.9), and in Caesarea, Paul admits to Governor Felix that he worships God … ‘as a follower of the Way.’ (24.14)

Do we see our Christian life as being followers of the Way? And if we do, how do we travel along the Way with a sense of progress and of getting somewhere?

Well, there is another use of hodos that comes in one of St Luke’s post-resurrection narratives – that exquisitely wrought account of two followers of Jesus disconsolately walking to Emmaus on Easter evening, when someone drew near to them and engaged them in deedy conversation. Looking back on it, they ask, ‘‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ And ‘road’ there is this word hodos. 

But it was no ordinary road that they found themselves trudging along. Nor was it any ordinary fellow traveller. This was a hodos with a difference; their companion himself something of a hodos. 

As he drew alongside the two who were talking with each other, he was a stranger. ‘They were kept from recognising him.’ Maybe we’ve all struck up conversation with a person we aren’t familiar with: 

• a street dweller, begging more for a chat than for loose change; 
• someone at the bus stop waiting for the Number 2 that never comes and at risk of missing an exam; 
• or the anxious soul beside us in the hospital waiting room, waiting like us for results they know they won’t find cheering. 

Encounters on the way with a stranger can be so precious in mutual support and embodying real community. 

Moreover, simply because they were willing to chat ‘on the way’, the Emmaus Two began to learn things. The stranger understood something of their story. And not only so. ‘He explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself.’ (24.27) The stranger became a teacher.

How much there is to learn from the chance encounter somewhere like an airport departure lounge, or meeting up on a hike, or queuing together at the supermarket checkout. I recall learning about music, about history, about God – and less fruitfully abut football – from various unexpected dialogues unconstrained by rush, but sitting or walking side by side without the intimidating eye-balling of facing each other.

On the way to Emmaus, stranger became teacher. Then, gradually some sense of connection developed. Indeed, reaching their destination they were reluctant to part company. ‘Come in for a meal’, they said. If Caravaggio is to be believed, it was a roast chicken dinner. So their fellowship intensified. The teacher becomes a friend.    

There is something ever so precious about learning from each other. Adventuring along the way of faith together can be profoundly and mutually enriching. It doesn’t leave us where it finds us. We engage at a level that gradually deepens and we, like the Emmaus Two find the flames of friendship being kindled. If we weren’t ‘on the way’ it wouldn’t happen. That’s what engenders the sharing, the growing trust and the respect that are the very essence of friendship. Of course, all this journey from Jesus being stranger to friend may happen in an evening, but for many of us it’s more of a lifetime’s pilgrimage, with many a diversion, as well as some deeply moving homecomings.

And then as they break bread (and chew chicken) together, the journey is completed. ‘Were not our hearts burning within us?’ Their journey reaches a revelation.
On this hodos to Emmaus, Jesus is revealed as the hodos to God. Yes, that’s the very word we find when in John 14 Jesus is summed as being the Way, the Truth and the Life. He is the way, the path, the access to God. ‘If we have seen him we have seen the Father’, Jesus says to Philip (John 14.9)   Stranger, Teacher, Friend, Saviour. 

It goes without saying that the life of the Christian Church in twenty-first century western Europe is challenging. It can sometimes feel as if we have ‘lost our way’. Might there be in the way that Jesus meets the Emmaus Two on their way a pointer to how we can be caught up throughout our lives in discovering Jesus as our way into walking with God? 

I dare to believe that it remains as full of potential as ever it has. We may not encounter the stranger/teacher/friend/Saviour in either the way or the order that Cleopas and their partner do. No, as each of us is different so our way into fellowship with God will vary. Nonetheless, I suspect we each have 

• periods of disconsolate despair;
• seasons of careful listening and fascinated learning;
• experiences of that friendship with Jesus which makes us marvel how ‘it is a thing most wonderful, almost too wonderful to be, that God’s own Son should come from heaven and die to save a child like me’;
• and the aha moments that find us with the Thomas who is told Jesus is the way, and just days later can murmur ‘My Lord and my God.’

Whatever it is that challenges local churches and denominations at this time, I cannot avoid the conclusion that alongside the arduous trek towards justice and peace, and the search for contemporary ways of authentically being The Church, there remains the commitment to accompany one another on the Way, there to find that the one who walks the Way to Calvary and beyond is beside us, unsurprised when we treat him as a stranger, available whenever we look to him for teaching, faithful as we reach out to him for friendship, and joyous as we own him as Lord, until he brings us the journey’s culmination and takes us home.

May it be so. And thanks be to God.  Amen   

Hymn     The Church of Christ 
F. Pratt Green (1903-2000) © 1971 Hope Publishing Co sung by members of Saint Peter’s Choir New York City OneLicence # A-734713  

The Church of Christ, in every age beset by change but Spirit-led,
must claim and test its heritage and keep on rising from the dead.

Across the world, across the street, the victims of injustice cry
for shelter and for bread to eat, and never live until they die.

Then let the Servant Church arise, a caring Church, that longs to be
a partner in Christ’s sacrifice, and clothed in Christ’s humanity.

For he alone, whose blood was shed, can cure the fever in our blood,
& teach us how to share our bread and feed the starving multitude.
 
We have no mission but to serve, in full obedience to our Lord;
to care for all, without reserve, and spread his liberating Word.

Statement of Faith

We believe in God, 
from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. 

We believe in Jesus Christ,
who lives in our hearts through faith,
and fills us with his love. 

We believe in the Holy Spirit,
who strengthens us with power from on high.

We believe in God, 
three in one and one in three.  Amen.

Offertory Prayer

God, we bring our gifts of money and with them we offer ourselves – 
all that we have and are.

We bring them not to buy your love, nor to earn your forgiveness,
less still to deserve your grace, but as a thank offering,
and a sign of our commitment to answer your love with our love,
in the church and in the world, through Jesus Christ, Amen

Prayers

Let us pray.

Gracious God, our companion on the Way, 
whose Spirit helps us in our weakness and guides us in our prayers,
we pray for the Church and for the world in the name of Jesus Christ. 

We pray for  the church throughout the world,
its unity and sense of purpose as it serves God’s mission.

Renew the faith and life of the Church, 
strengthen its witness; and make us one in Christ. 
Grant that we  and all who confess Jesus as our Saviour
may be faithful in service and filled with his Spirit, 
and that the world may be turned to him. 

We pray for the nations of the world,
for our own country, and for all seeking reconciliation

Guide the nations in the way of justice, liberty and peace;
and help them to seek the unity and welfare of humanity.

Give to all in authority 
wisdom to know and strength to do what is right. 

We pray for people who are sick and suffering,
for victims of injustice, and for people who are lonely and bereaved

Comfort those in sorrow, heal the sick in body or in mind;
and deliver the oppressed.

Give us active sympathy for all who suffer and help us
so to bear the burdens of others that we may fulfil the law of Christ.

We pray for our families, friends and neighbours
and for people we know who need our prayers.

Keep us and our loved ones united in loyalty and love,
and always in your care;
and may our friends and neighbours, and all for whom we pray,
receive the help they need, and live in peace. 

We remember those who have died. 

Eternal God, accept our thanks and praise
for all who have served you faithfully here on earth,
and especially for those dear to our own hearts.

May we and all your people,
past, present and to come,
share the life and joy of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen 

The Lord’s Prayer

Hymn     Thine Be the Glory
Edmond Louis Budry. (1854-1932)  tr. Richard Birch Hoyle (1875-1939) Public Domain
Courtesy of St Andrew’s Cathedral & Choir,  Sydney, Australia

Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son;
endless is the victory thou o’er death hast won;
angels in bright raiment rolled the stone away,
kept the folded grave-clothes where thy body lay.

Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son;
endless is the victory thou o’er death hast won!

Lo, Jesus meets us, risen from the tomb;
lovingly he greets us, scatters fear and gloom;
let the Church with gladness hymns of triumph sing,
for her Lord now liveth, death hath lost its sting:

Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son;
endless is the victory thou o’er death hast won!

No more we doubt thee, glorious Prince of life;
life is naught without thee: aid us in our strife;
make us more than conquerors, through thy deathless love;
bring us safe through Jordan to thy home above. 
 
Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son;
endless is the victory thou o’er death hast won!

Blessing

Bless to us, O God, the earth beneath our feet.
Bless to us, O God, the path whereon we go:
we on your path, you in our steps. 

God, be with us in every valley;
Jesus be with us on every hill;
Holy Spirit, be with us on every stream, every cliff edge,
every green pasture, every moor and meadow,
in the crest of the waves on the sea.
Every time we rest and every time we wake up;
God be with us every step we take. Amen