Sunday Worship 22nd March

 Sunday Worship

Welcome to Sunday Worship in Leesfield Parish on the Fifth Sunday of Lent. Our Church Services this morning are at the usual times of 9.15 at St Agnes' and 11.15 at St Thomas'.

If you are unable to be with us in person, you will find resources below to worship at home.

Our first hymn this morning is "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling"

Today's Bible Reading

Ezekiel 37:1-14                   Valley of Dry Bones

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

Today's Gospel

John 11:1-45                  Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

Reflection

Ezekiel was a prophet who lived around 600 years before Jesus was born, during what is considered the darkest period in the history of Israel and Judaea. 

The Jews had broken their covenant with God and were rebellious against God. They broke the commandments handed down to Moses, by cheating, deceit, immorality and treating the poor and sick badly. Worst of all many had turned their backs on God and had begun again to worship false Gods and idols.  

God had spoken to them through other prophets like Jeremiah and had warned them to repent and turn away from their sinful ways. Yet they didn’t take any notice, they continued to ignore God.

So now they were being punished and removed from the Promised Land. First they suffered an invasion by the Assyrian army, and when they continued to disobey God they were conquered by the brutal Babylonian Empire. The Babylonians captured and exiled tens of thousands of Jews across the regions including Ezekial who at the time was in his mid-twenties. 

When he was 30 years old, Ezekiel had several powerful visions in which he recognised the Glory of God in all of His magnificence. He came to understand the immense power of God the creator and ruler of the whole cosmos – of everything that has ever existed. 

God called him to be his prophet, to speak his people. And God warned Ezekiel that his mission as a prophet would not be easy, because there would be many who wouldn’t believe him and because they were so rebellious. (After all they hadn’t listened to the other prophets!)

God uses Ezekiel to warn the Israelites that if they don’t repent, they will face much more suffering and destruction including against some of their enemies (such as the Moabs, Ammonites), who had moved into some of their land. He also foretells the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon which took place shortly afterwards in 587 BCE.

As God had warned, Ezekiel faced derision and mistreatment when he told the people that God wanted them to repent and change their ways. But Ezekiel has the absolute power of faith and absolute belief in the power of God. He had seen the Glory of God in his visions. 

And through God, Ezekiel not only delivers warnings, but he also delivers a message of hope and future redemption. A message of a new covenant, where He tells the Israelites that they can still repent and be saved by the Glory and grace of God. 

It’s a message that God still loved his people and wanted them to change and come back to him. 

In his vision of the valley of bones, that we just heard, Ezekiel understands that the lifeless bones represent the nation of Israel being restored. Where the people will return from exile - and God, who breathed life into Adam will breathe new life into the nation of Israel. It is a story of a merciful God who has infinite power. A message that through the power of God’s Love, we can experience the Power of Faith - and through Faith, God gives us the Power of Hope.

Even though the situation the Israelites find themselves in seems totally dire and irretrievable and even though it is a situation of their own making – God reminds them of His infinite power and his love for His people. His message through Ezekiel is a promise of hope for the future. 

God’s hand is clearly at work and it’s a reminder to us that we should not doubt that the word of the Lord can do what seems impossible.

Then we come to John’s story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Jesus, of course, totally understands the Power of God – He knows how this story ends. He knows that the Father will raise Lazarus – he knows that this is a sign so that others may believe in the Glory and Power of God. 

He even tells them plainly, “Lazarus is dead”. And He also tells them, “it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

So Jesus does not hurry to the bedside of the of the one we are told He loves. 

Jesus could have asked God to heal him before he returned to Bethany - like He did for the son of the royal official in Capernaum [John 4:46-53]. But He doesn’t, He chooses instead to take the hard alternative and let Lazarus die. 

As a consequence of this, the story unfolds into one of deep sorrow for Mary and Martha, who Jesus also loved. And it’s a story of sadness for the other friends and mourners. 

Yet amidst all the sadness, we see the power of faith. 

Both Martha and Mary had no doubt that Jesus could have saved Lazarus if He had got there in time, but neither really believed that Jesus could raise him from the dead. Not after 4 days when his body had begun to decompose. 

Nonetheless, Martha says those wonderful words, “But even now, I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” That is a statement of faith in the power of God and Jesus - even if they did not believe that Lazarus could be raised there and then!

In reality no one present expected that!

Jesus did what the Father wanted, to demonstrate beyond all doubt, the power of God. A power that is infinitely greater than death. A power of God’s love and mercy for us all when we do his will. 

In the prophecy of Ezekiel and the story of Lazarus, we can see the presence of God in the times of utmost grief and despair. 

We can see God’s hand at work doing the impossible. 

So, in a world that is broken and at times seems full of despair, let us put our trust in God. Let us show the power of faith in the power of God to reveal His glory. The God through whose word the universe and all that lives came into existence. 

Let His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.                            Paul

Our Prayers

Father God,

We thank you that you demonstrated your power 

through Jesus, Christ your son.

That you demonstrate your power over death

and reveal your glory to the world through your word.

Help us to have the power of faith

to put our total trust in you.

In Jesus name we pray.  

Amen

Today's final hymn is "Christ Triumphant, Ever Reigning"

Notices

Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, and in addition to our usual services, St John's Church are holding "Stations of the Cross". Please see the poster below for details. 

Sunday Worship 15th March

 Sunday Worship

Welcome to Sunday Worship in Leesfield Parish on the Fourth Sunday of Lent, which is also Mothering Sunday.

Our Church Services this morning are at the usual times of 9.15 at St Agnes' and 11.15 at St Thomas'.

If you are unable to be with us in person, you will find resources below to worship at home.

Our first hymn this morning is "Lord for the Years"

Today's Gospel

John 19:25-27            Jesus entrusts His mother into John’s care

Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.  

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

Reflection

Today’s Gospel passage is perhaps one of the most harrowing and yet at the same time one of the most loving and compassionate parts of the Bible.

Harrowing, because we are at the point where Jesus is on the Cross where He will soon die. Harrowing when we think about His mother Mary at the foot of the Cross and what she is having to endure as she has seen Jesus, her beloved son,  criticised and victimised by the religious authorities and the Roman leaders. A mother who has seen Jesus betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, one of His closest allies, and abandoned by most of the rest of His disciples and followers.

And now she stands at the foot of the cross, witnessing the way people are treating, deriding and spitting on her beautiful son as He is publicly humiliated with the indignity of death by public crucifixion. How much pain and suffering must she have felt as her heart was pierced, as she witnessed the horrific suffering of her eldest son?

   

Amidst this scene of anguish and torment, John, the only disciple to witness the crucifixion, tells us that as Jesus hung on the cross, He saw his mother. 

And we learn of the extreme compassion in Jesus’ heart with His concern for the pain His mother is going through. Let’s just think about that the level of selfless compassion that happens at that moment. Jesus is hanging on the Cross, near to the point of death, where He is about to sacrifice His life for the sins of the human race - and His immediate concern is for His mother and who is going to look after her. Added to the physical pain and torment He is going through, He has to witness the pain and agony His mother is going through as she weeps at His feet. 

His immediate thoughts are for her future and who will look after her and care for her when He is gone. (It is generally believed by most scholars that her husband Joseph had died by this time and as a widow she would have been left alone).

John describes this most wonderful act of compassion as Jesus says to her, “Woman, here is your son,” before saying to John, “Here is your mother.” In that moment Jesus is making sure His mother will be looked after.

It is a moment of both extreme sorrow and extreme compassion and love. 

Jesus’ interactions emphasise that caring for one another is at the heart of the Christian faith. He sees his mother’s pain, and ensures she has support in the form of his beloved disciple, John. In this act of compassion, Jesus is also tending to the loss and sorrow of John, who must also be deeply hurting for his friend who has been ridiculed and tortured and will soon die. 

On this Mothering Sunday we see how much Jesus loved His mother. There is a message in this passage about how we should remember our mothers and all the things they have done for us during our lives. They look after us and tend our wounds when we fall and scrape our knee. They listen to our troubles and heartaches and provide emotional support when things go wrong. They teach us to look after each other and of course they care for us; with the hundreds of mundane things; like washing and ironing, cooking meals and cleaning the house so it is safe for us. But most of all, through the example they set from the time we are first cradled in their arms, they teach us how to love. 

So on this special day, no matter how many things are going on in our lives - let us make some time to remember them and how they have loved us. Even if our mothers are far away or are no longer with us, let us hold them in our thoughts. And let us give thanks for their love by loving one another.

As Rudyard Kipling wrote: "If I were hanged on the highest hill, I know whose love would follow me most – Mother of mine, O mother of mine!"         

Paul

Our Prayers

Loving Father,

As your son hung from the cross,

He continued to show us how to love one another.

He commanded us,

to love one another, just as He loved us.

Help us, day by day, to follow his selfless example of 

compassion and love with all whom  we meet. 

Amen

Today's final hymn is "The King of Love my Shepherd is"

Notices

The Ladies of Leesfield meet this Tuesday, please see the notice below for details.

All of the Holy Week and Easter Services in the parishes of Leesfield and Hey are shown in the poster below.

Sunday Worship 8th March

 Sunday Worship

Welcome to Sunday Worship in Leesfield Parish on the Third Sunday of Lent. Our Church Services this morning are at the usual times of 9.15 at St Agnes' and 11.15 at St Thomas'.

If you are unable to be with us in person, you will find resources below to worship at home.

Our first hymn this morning is "As the Deer Pants for the Water"

Today's Gospel

John 4:5-42               Jesus and the Woman of Samaria

Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.”

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

Reflection

As we journey though Lent, we are presented with repeated stories of transformation and the power of the Holy Spirit. Last week we looked at the transformation of Nicodemus from his first meeting with Jesus to His death on the Cross.

Today we look at the transformation and reconciling powers on a number of levels. Firstly the encounter between Jesus and the woman, and secondly the ethnic and religious barriers that are so wonderfully removed when the Samaritan community recognise Jesus as the Messiah.

In speaking with a woman Jesus’ actions would have been seen as outrageous. Rabbis were not to be seen to talk to women in public - it just wasn’t done. Even speaking to their wives and daughters was not acceptable. There were even Pharisees who were called ‘the bruised and bleeding Pharisees’ because they shut their eyes when they saw a woman on the street and so walked into walls and obstacles!” I have to admit, I do find that quite amusing. 

There may also have been potential sexual connotations, not least because of the number of relationships she had had. But this is Jesus, He sees the woman for who she is. He knows her whole life story and how sinful she is. Yet Jesus reaches out to the sinners because part of His mission is to reach out and save those who have fallen, including you and I. John later describes the awkwardness of the disciples when they return and see Jesus with the woman. They are obviously shocked, but remain silent, unwilling to challenge His behaviour. They had probably learned on several occasions that Jesus always had reasons for His actions which are often not obvious.  

John also mentions how Jews, “do not share things in common with Samaritans”. The people at that time would have been well aware of the extreme hatred between the two communities who had been fighting each other for several hundred years. So this is the most significant act of all, because although there is extreme hostility between the Jews and Samaritans, (we should remember that Jesus was a Jew), He chose to reveal himself to the Samaritans as the Messiah and Son of God. Moreover, He reveals how He has come to eliminate the barriers and hostility, not only between the Jewish man and Samaritan woman, but also He is inviting the non-Jewish people to be part of this new future. A future where all will worship God, not through sacrifices in different temples in Samaria and Jerusalem, but  together with a spiritual harmony in unity and worship of spirit and truth.  

In this week’s encounter, Jesus is offering an opportunity for miraculous reconciliation through faith and the power of the Holy Spirit. An opportunity that opens the way to reconciliation in one of the most pervasive and longest conflicts of the era.  John’s listeners are invited to witness the wonder of the transformation that happens, because the outcast woman chose to believe and then, through her faith, the community accepted the invitation of the Holy Spirit and chose to believe as well. As disciples, we too are called to profess our faith and extend that same invitation to all, to become united by the Spirit in the truth.

Paul

Our Prayers

Father God, we thank you for the power of the Holy Spirit.

That through faith and belief in you,

we can break down barriers and come together to worship in truth. We pray that we may labour and find new believers, to help others to live in harmony together and to bring peace in our world. 

Amen

Today's final hymn is "And Can it Be"