Sunday Worship – 29th September 2024

(All our songs this morning are from Singing the Faith (StF) numbers will be given where available)

Our service today is based on the Lectionary readings for 29th September 2024.  It focusses on our response to those who are without power and influence in society.  These people were the substantial focus of the life, teaching, and example of Jesus, which we try to emulate.

Our first hymn was written by a wholly remarkable woman, Jan Struther (Joyce Placzek), she was born English but ended up American with a Polish husband.  Her writing was instrumental in bringing the USA into WW2, through a character that she created for Punch magazine, called Mrs Miniver.  Although she professed to be an agnostic, she wrote many hymns, including this one:

Sonf – StF 526 – Lord of all hopefulness, lord of all joy

Reading 1:  Our first lectionary reading is from the Book of Esther.  This story provides the traditional explanation for the Jewish festival of Purim. There is general agreement among scholars that the book of Esther is a work of fiction. The books of Esther and Song of Songs are the only books in the Hebrew Bible that do not mention God.  To get the best out of this reading you need to know that King Xerxes is omnipotent, he kills on a whim.  Jews live under his regime in fear, in what is now Iran. Haman is Xerxes’ trusted advisor.  Esther is a Jewish woman of great beauty who deliberately gets into the king’s harem and then is chosen as his queen.  Mordicai is her uncle and advisor. Mordicai discovered a plot against the King and alerted him.  Haman plots to kill Mordicai and all Jewish leaders.

Esther 7:1-6  7:9-10 9:20-22

Song – SfF 729 – Touch the Earth lightly

Reflection 1

Note how Esther takes for granted the values of the King:  she, as a woman, owes her continuing life to the kindness of the king in not executing her.  She is only queen because the last queen was dismissed, and the king sampled the women in his harem and chose Esther.  If it was only a matter of the Jews being enslaved, that was not worth even bringing to the king’s attention.  How our ideas change!

We would never, of course, execute people on a whim.  However, people do die of our actions all the time.  As one of the earliest countries to exploit the industrial revolution, we are responsible for the biggest share of global heating.  China puts us to shame in the rate at which it is converting to renewable energy supplies, we still use gas boilers and drive cars with internal combustion engines.  These actions of ours kill people, but its not deliberate.

Let me tell you about The Code of Hammurabi (a contemporary of Moses).  The code is a Babylonian legal text written about 1776 BC. It is the longest, best-organized, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. It details 282 laws and regulations and you can see the seven-foot-high basalt slab on which it was written next time you are on the ground floor of the Louvre in Paris.

Hammurabi claims to have been granted his rule by the gods “to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak”. The laws cover criminal law, family law, property law, and commercial law and to some extent they do support this compassionate claim, and protect widows, orphans and others from being harmed or exploited.

Some of the laws seem quite up-to-date:  Law 233 says that:  If a builder constructs a house for a man but does not make it conform to specifications so that a wall then buckles, that builder shall make that wall sound using his own silver.  The code gave us the phrase “an eye for an eye”, We think that we are now more civilised than that.  Law 21 says:  If a man breaks into a house, they shall kill him and hang him in front of that very breach. Let’s listen to laws 209-214:

Reading 2

The Code of Hammurabi, 1776 BC, law number:
209. If a man strike a free-born woman so that she lose her unborn child, he shall pay ten shekels for her loss.  (equivalent to £3000 today)
210. If the woman die, his daughter shall be put to death.
211. If a woman of the free class lose her child by a blow, he shall pay five shekels in money.  
212. If this woman die, he shall pay half a mina, (that is about 30 shekels, say, £10,000 today).
213. If he strike the female slave of a man, and she lose her child, he shall pay two shekels in money.
214. If this female slave die, he shall pay one-third of a mina.

Reflection 2

Here’s the thing:  People did not have equal worth:  the life of a male commoner was worth 60 silver shekels, that of a female commoner was worth 30 silver shekels, that of a female slave only 20 silver shekels.  Note the date:  1776 BC. Now fast forward.

Thirteen British colonies in North America felt that the king of England was treating them in an unjust way. The representatives of these 13 colonies gathered in the city of Philadelphia, and on 4 July 1776 AD these colonies declared that their independence from the British crown. Their declaration of independence further proclaimed universal and eternal principles of justice which, like those of king Hammurabi, were supposed to be inspired by a divine power. The American Declaration of Independence says that “we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.  Of course, they didn’t mean it;  “all men” excluded all women and all people with dark skins, whether native Americans or slaves trafficked from Africa.  Although it would appear that the Americans had moved on, had they?  Both the early settlers in the USA and the Persians under Hammurabi accepted that there were inequalities.

So, here is a question:  how far do we follow the example of Jesus in regarding everyone as equally important and valuable?  Our system of government says “no”; if you have enough money, you can influence laws made by Parliament, if you are poor it is much more difficult.

We need to understand that Hammurabi thought his laws were just and that they prevented the strong from oppressing the weak, provided they were from the same class;  but owning slaves was OK.  The founding fathers of the USA thought the same, they owned slaves and generally did not permit women to have a say in society.  What attitudes do we have that our children, and their children, will regard as unjust?

Would that be driving cars polluting the air that poorer children who live by main roads breathe?  Would that be eating meat that uses copious amounts of water in areas where water supply is restricted to poor people?  Would it be the purchase of clothes made in far-eastern sweatshops?  I don’t know.

Song – StF 666 – Master, Speak!  Thy servant heareth

 

Reading 3

Mark 9:38-50

John spoke up, “Teacher, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped him because he wasn’t in our group.”

Jesus wasn’t pleased. “Don’t stop him. No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath slam me. If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally. Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it that God will notice.

“On the other hand, if you give one of these simple, childlike believers a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck.

“If your hand or your foot gets in God’s way, chop it off and throw it away. You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owner of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire. And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You’re better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.

“Everyone’s going through a refining fire sooner or later, but you’ll be well-preserved, protected from the eternal flames. Be preservatives yourselves. Preserve the peace.”

Reflection 3

Well, I don’t know about you but “if you give one of these simple, childlike believers a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust” sounds very similar to our modern way of life in which it is acceptable practice to sell foods that damage children’s health and to facilitate gambling that ruins the lives of whole families, and indeed people get promoted to the House of Lords for doing this successfully.

On a personal level, we would never exploit the simple trust of anyone, we would never engage in bullying the weak.  But, is our church taking action to change our bit of the world for the better?  Or do we regard intervention in the values and laws of the nation to be something out of bounds for Christians?  Jesus did not appear to think so.  This is the reason why almost every church in our circuit has a target charity that supports progress towards equality.  It is not an add-one, it is a part of our Christian witness. 

But here’s the thing:  Jesus often overstates his case to make a point.  Cutting off hands and feet may not be necessary, nor putting our own eyes out.  Just thinking about that, however, makes simple things like no longer eating meat, or driving a car, seem quite reasonable.  What Jesus is saying is that sometimes major, unthinkable, changes are necessary.  We would like to ignore that, wouldn’t we?  I would.  Following the life, teaching, and example of Jesus does require us to abandon cherished lifestyles when they get in the way of our Christian duty.  It is easier to see the truth of this if we consider the choices other people make.

Consider a resident of, say, Malta, who becomes convinced of the catastrophic decline in songbirds in Europe.  He might have to give up his twice-yearly bird shoot and forgo his favourite nightingale pie.

Consider a woman in Baildon whose husband is trying to live with alcoholism.  She might have to stop having a little stock of wine in the house for when her friends come round, if she has any friends left that is.

Consider the situation of a man returning to his home in Afghanistan whose life was saved by a female surgeon as he suffered a heart attack on the aeroplane.  He realises that his daughters should be educated and has to fall out with his whole community to do what he thinks is right.

Now consider our own situation, as Jesus calls us to follow him.  Is there a significant, life changing, alteration of course that we need to make as captain of our own soul?

Song – StF 462 – Come with me, come wander, come welcome the world

Prayers

In our prayers, we give thanks constantly for every hour given to this church by the members here, enabling the church to minister to those who need it most.  We give thanks for every pound donated from hard-pressed budgets.

A prayer of gratitude
Lord, we long for gratitude to characterise our lives. 
We wish to express thanks for the privileges we enjoy, and when we think we have none, to involve ourselves with the poor and needy of this world.
We wish to express thanks to all those whose voluntary contributions of time, talent, and money, make our worship here possible.
We wish to express thanks for the parents who bring their children here, so that we may demonstrate the joys of living a Jesus-Shaped life.
We thank you that you made us capable of love, help us to practise it every day. Amen

A prayer for empathy

Hear our prayer for all those young people who are about to step into the unknown;  moving up a year, living between parents in different houses for the first time,  changing from one school to another,  Abbie off to Namibia;  older people entering new jobs or new relationships;  parents encountering new behaviours from their children;  people who have fallen on hard times and who worry about managing without a winter fuel payment.

Help us, Lord, to walk alongside all these people, and to understand that everyone we meet has their own fears and challenges of which we might know nothing. Amen

A prayer for peace

O Suffering God,
help us to create a place of healing,
a place where children can dance without fear,
a place where refugees feel safe,
a place where diversity and difference are welcomed,
a place where Muslims can declare your greatness,
a place where strangers are welcomed,
a place where terror is no more.
We long for peace O God for those frightened by intimidation,
especially those who have fled here for safety
only to be met by hostility and murderous rage.
We ask for grace for wounded police officers,
and wisdom for our political leaders
that they learn when to speak and when to remain silent,
and we ask for astute perception for judges and magistrates as justice is given.
Help us to create in our lives a space for comfort, for others who are in need of it.  Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer: Maori & Polynesian version

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven: The hallowing of your name echo through the universe;
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world;
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings;
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trial too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and forever. Amen.

Song – StF  477 – Teach me to dance to the beat of your heart

Blessing