Sunday Worship
Welcome to our Worship on the Sunday after Ascension Day. Our Parish Eucharist is at 10 am at St Thomas' Church, and Revd Richard Hawkins will be preaching and presiding. If you can't be with us in person, you'll find everything you need to worship from home here on this page.
Our first hymn this morning is "Be Still For The Presence Of The Lord"
Today's Gospel
John 17: 6-19
Jesus prayed for his disciples, “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”
Reflection
Anyone who cleans brasses in church knows that getting them to sparkle is hard work. For some of us the experience is cleaning brasses on military uniform! Brass tarnishes as oxygen reacts with the metal, making it dull and unattractive. To get its shine back, you have to use a cleaning agent and rub fast and hard with a soft cloth. Often the cleaning agent makes the metal muckier before the golden shine starts to show through afresh.
It has to be done repeatedly, as no sooner is the job done than the oxidation process starts again. Yet anyone visiting a church — or seeing candlesticks on a mantelpiece at home — just sees the sparkle; the hard work that has got the brass to this state is invisible.
Jesus has spent the three years of his ministry teaching his disciples. Now he knows he is about to leave them. The disciples will be left to shine God’s light in the world. Jesus has trained them for this moment and it has been hard work. Jesus completes his ministry to them with final teachings, and then prays for himself, for his disciples, which is today’s Gospel, and then for all believers.
Jesus asks several things for the disciples. First, that the disciples are at one with each other, as Jesus and the Father are one. Second, that they will have his joy within them — the joy of doing God’s will. He knows that the message of the Gospel is not welcomed in the world and so asks for their protection from the evil one. Finally, he asks God to “sanctify them in the truth”. For these all-too-human disciples, Jesus prays for oneness, joy, protection and holiness. Note: all this is not to take the disciples out of the world, but so they can shine out the love of God in the world.
Think back to cleaning the grubby brasses. This is like the job Jesus has done with the disciples, and now we need to shine the love of God out into the world. How do we become holy enough to do this? Jesus prays to his Father, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” We can learn so much by steeping ourselves in the scriptures — God’s word.
One of the optional readings for today is a passage from Ezekiel in which Ezekiel describes God’s great love for the people, even though they have strayed so far from God’s ways. He vividly describes how God will cleanse the people by sprinkling clean water on them, and so give them a new heart and a new spirit. He describes a renewal of the relationship between God and the people: “you shall be my people, and I will be your God”. Hearing this, we can understand God’s willingness to forgive, depth of love, and longing to be one with us — and be inspired and encouraged anew.
Listening to today’s reading from Acts, we are able to learn from the disciples the place of opening up our hearts in prayer when we are making decisions. Jesus too is the Word by which we are sanctified. John begins his Gospel by declaring, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... And the Word became flesh and lived among us...” To be sanctified, we need to steep ourselves in Jesus’ life, to think about how he lived, who he kept company with, who he challenged, how he managed to keep going — retreating to quiet places to pray and having good friends around him, for example.
We need to contemplate how Christ constantly surprised people with his offer of love and mercy instead of judgement. Pondering his parables alone is a lifetime’s work — and joy. Joy, as we find God-like ways of living in this world, which God so loves. Joy, for, as we begin to live like this, other people catch glimpses of God’s love - like the sparkle off the brasses - and together we transform the world into a place where all live as one.
Our Prayers
