(All our songs this morning are from Hymns & Psalms (HP) Singing the Faith (StF) and Mission Praise (MP) numbers will be given where available)
Welcome to our Sunday Service, today shared on paper across our circuit and with the congregation at Christchurch, Windhill, where the Methodist Church and the Church of England work and worship together in a local ecumenical partnership (and have done for the last 25 years). Most of our prayers this morning are courtesy of Roots (‘Worship and learning for the whole church’).
Click on the blue links to follow them for bible readings and associated links
Call to Worship
We like plentiful resources, careful planning, guarantees that everything will be alright.
God asks us what we already have, invites us to give thanks, and trustfully to share of ourselves –
and the abundance when we do is overwhelming.
Prayer
Gracious God, we can often feel very ordinary and inadequate, worrying that we are not good enough.
Teach us in these moments to treasure ourselves as your creation,
and let your hospitable love flow through us to others. Amen.
Song – StF 581 – Come, my table is a meeting place
‘Come and meet me in this moment, taste and see this gift of my grace, here, the feast spread out before you, come, my child, and take your place.’
Prayers of approach, adoration, confession, and an assurance of forgiveness.
Lord God, ‘The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.’
We gather at your feet today, awaiting the spiritual succour you offer.
Help us to be worthy of this honour, open to receive. Amen.
Almighty God, you are the creator of all that sustains us.
Lord Jesus, you are the host whose hands and heart are ever
open in hospitality.
Holy Spirit, you are the unseen power that binds us in the
miracle of spiritual nurture.
Holy Trinity of compassion and grace, we bow before you. Amen.
Lord Jesus, we confess that we usually put our own needs first.
Burdened with griefs and problems, we withdraw into ourselves.
We fail to notice that others carry burdens, too, or selfishly fail to respond even if we do.
Yet you, Lord, are ever open to our needs.
When you walked among us in Galilee, you knew grief for your cousin, John, and fear for your own safety,
but still you welcomed the crowd who followed you, healing their sick and meeting their needs of body and soul.
You set an example to your disciples when they would have sent the people away,
and you enabled these humble, human men to share in the miracle of your making.
We thank you for your example of self-sacrificing compassion,
and we commit to greater hospitality of spirit, mirrored in our actions. Amen
The psalmist says, ‘The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.’
Father, we thank you for your saving grace.
The psalmist says, ‘The Lord is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings.’
Father, we thank you for your assurance of forgiveness when we have fallen down in our sin;
when we have failed to be open to others; when we have neglected to show hospitality.
Thank you for never failing to be a generous host to us, forgiving and nurturing always. Amen.
Reading
Song – MP 649 – The king of love my shepherd is
Reading
Song – MP 64 – Break thou the bread of life
Logos by Mary Oliver
Why worry about the loaves and fishes?
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love
and the felt ferocity of that love
and the felt necessity of that love,
the fish explode into many.
Imagine him, speaking,
and don’t worry about what is reality,
or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, it was all those things.
If you can imagine it, it is all those things.
Eat, drink, be happy.
Accept the miracle.
Accept, too, each spoken word
spoken with love.
Reflection
Our story today begins, ‘When Jesus heard what had happened…’ What had happened was the beheading of John the Baptist, Jesus’ herald, cousin, friend, who had not been afraid to speak out about corruption in high places, and had paid the highest price. Jesus’ response to this news is to seek solitude, a place in which to grieve, and perhaps reflect on his own situation and its likely outcome. Here we might expect to find Jesus at his most human, his most vulnerable, perhaps his most closed and circumspect. Yet as the crowds break into his retreat, following him into the wilderness, his heart is full, not of self pity or anxiety, but compassion. In Mark’s gospel here we are told Jesus saw ‘sheep without a shepherd’, and his heart went out to them. Despite his own awareness of the valley of the shadow of death, he stands up as the true good shepherd, healing those who are sick and preparing to meet the hunger of the multitude.
Eularia Clarke’s Five Thousand (see above) pictures a large, diverse crowd, sharing an all-age picnic of fish and chips. The boy in the centre is growing very tall as he listens and learns from the word that the preacher (top right) is sharing. Notice the bikes, perhaps symbols of journeying. Some of the women face the other way, sharing food with their children and looking directly at us – are they welcoming us? All ages are present, accepted, welcomed.
The feeding of the 5000, appearing in all four gospels, is a massively significant story, full or promise and challenge. For those early Christian communities receiving the story, the breaking of the loaves by Jesus would be acted out in their lives together, as it is in ours. They, and we, break bread and give thanks for the incredible generosity of God, revealed in the one who not only breaks, but will become, the broken bread.
Let’s notice a thing or three about this generosity, and this generous God.
Firstly, it’s inclusive. There is no means-test applied to see who is needy enough, and no qualification required to find out who is worthy. Bread and fish in that time and place is staple. All who come are fed. Some would be really hungry, the missing-meals-for-your-child kind of hungry; some would be not-eaten-since-breakfast hungry; some would be well-I-don’t-mind-if-I-do-and I’ll-save-my-picnic-for-later hungry. All who come are fed. Many in the crowd would be there because they had seen Jesus before; others would have heard about him; some would be needy; others would be curious; some would be dragged their by relatives; some would be hostile and scheming, ready to report back to the authorities, religious and secular. All who come are fed.
Secondly, it’s free. Nobody’s selling tickets. You don’t need so many points on a loyalty card to get in. The baskets used to gather up the leftovers haven’t first been used to take the collection. This is God’s Good Shepherd giving freely what people need, as he will soon stretch out his arms and give himself freely on Calvary’s cross. This bread is a foretaste of that which will be eaten soon in an upper room, and a home in Emmaus, and in Philippi and Corinth and Ephesus and Rome and Bradford, and it’s free.
Thirdly, it’s enough. “They all ate and were satisfied”. Satisfied not sated. There are echoes of the manna in the wilderness here – there is enough for the day, enough to meet the need. The twelve baskets are not for those who have eaten to have more, but to go to those who have not yet received (through the twelve disciples). The generosity of God overflows as those who have been blessed become a blessing to others
I said the story was full of promise and challenge.
The promise – if it’s inclusive then we are included – invited to sit down on the grass with the 5000 and receive a portion of God’s blessing, a blessing which is free at the point of need and guaranteed to satisfy.
The challenge – to respond appropriately to this overflowing generosity. If the gathering is inclusive then our actions, our choices, our behaviour needs to include and not exclude. If the meal is to be free at the point of need then the generosity of those who have already received much is required – God needs our five loaves and two fish. So let’s be content with satisfied not sated, ready to gather up the pieces of God’s blessing, and take them to wherever and whoever needs them most. Amen.
Prayer of Praise and Thanksgiving
Lord, you are the ultimate host; we praise you for your generosity of spirit.
Thank you for your ever-open heart and hands, swift to forgive and to bless,
to feed our souls and to unburden our spirits.
Thank you for your nurturing nature, enfolding us in compassion and encouragement every day.
Praise you for having all the time in the world for us, even when we do not honour you in the same way.
Day by day, may we grow in love and grace, learning from you, becoming more like you, we pray. Amen.
Song – Come all you vagabonds
Prayers
Lord, today, we pray for people who have little or nothing: for those who feel trapped in their situation,
and can’t see the bigger picture, or even any tiny glimmer of light.
We pray for people who are hungry: for parents who struggle to feed their children, and themselves.
We thank you for the work of food banks, and pray that they would have the resources to continue to meet so many needs.
We pray that you would give us an appreciation of our food: the work that goes into producing and distributing it.
Teach us not to be wasteful, but to preserve and pass on the goodness of your earth. Amen.
We share the Lord’s Prayer.
The congregation at Christchurch share communion, with words from MWB p191-196. At home you might take a piece of bread as a sign of being included with the five thousand.
Song – HP 770 or MP 178 – Go forth and tell! O church of God awake!
Sending and blessing
Loving God, thank you for using our small contributions.
Help us not to doubt that each of us has something to offer, and that, when we trustfully offer it to you,
you do amazing things for us, among us and through us – in Jesus’ name.
And so may the blessing of God, Creator, Son and Spirit, remain with us, now and always. Amen.
(CCLI 432031. Service prepared by Rev’d Nick Blundell nickcblund@gmail.com 8 Cecil Ave, BD17
