Category: Worship Services

Dear all,

Tomorrow, we are again worshipping together in person, while maintaining physical distancing and wearing masks while we sing.  This is the last Sunday on which vaccine passports are still required.  No coffee hour tomorrow but we are good for the following week. The service will also be live-streamed on YouTube, as it was last week. Reports on the sound quality were positive.

Last week Jesus pronounced strange blessings on the poor, including “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.”

This week Jesus continues with instructions on how his disciples are to deal with those who hate and persecute them. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.”  These are astounding instructions or suggestions.

Sigmund Freud blamed Jesus for the psychological problems of western civilization.  He thought Jesus’ instruction to “love your enemy” was completely unreasonable. It was crazy making and impossible and immoral because it abolished moral distinctions that needed to be kept. “My love is something valuable to me which I ought not to throw away without reflection. It involves  duties and a readiness to make sacrifices.  If I love someone, he or she must deserve it in some way. He deserves it if he is so like me that I can love myself in him;  he deserves it if he is so much more perfect than myself that I can love my ideal of my own self in him.”…..  “But if he is a stranger, it will be hard to love him; indeed it would be wrong to do so.  It is unjust to put a stranger on par with my friends.”

Many other have made the same critique. it is probably true that Jesus words have resulted in lots of psychological damage over the centuries. How many battered women have stayed in abusive relationships  because they thought that was Jesus’ command?   But if that is not what Jesus meant, what did he mean by loving our enemies?

Order of Service

On line Prelude (O. Messien)

Prelude:

Call to Worship

Hymn #420 :  “Je louerai l’Eternel”

Prayer of Adoration

Prayer of Confession

Declaration of Grace

Responsive reading: Psalm 37:1-11; 39,40

Genesis 45: 3-11, 15   (The Message)

Anthem: “Jesus le Christ” (Taizé)

Luke 6: 27-38 (The Message)

Hymn # 712: “Arise your light has come”

Meditation:  “On loving enemies”

Hymn #762 “When the poor ones “

Offering and Offertory

Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession

Hymn: #740 “Make me a channel of your peace.” 

Benediction

Postlude:

Dear all,

Tomorrow, we are delighted to finally resume in-person worship at St. Andrews with Henry Cobb Howes at the piano. The service will also be live-streamed on YouTube, which should significantly improve sound quality (Peter also identified a hidden setting in the software that was generating lots of distortion.) The audio mixer finally arrived; it is an impressive beast and Peter has spent lots of time figuring our how it works and how it needs to be configured in our situation. We will continue to maintain physical distancing and wear masks. Vaccination passports are also required for the time being.

Unfortunately, we are not allowed to have coffee hour tomorrow or next week but, God and government willing, we will be able to gather for coffee or tea starting March 4th.  

This year we are reading through the gospel of Luke and tomorrow we get Luke’s version of the Beatitudes,  which is less familiar to us than Matthew’s . (Matthew quotes Jesus as saying, “blessed are the poor in spirit.” Luke’s “blessed are the poor” is simpler and combined with warnings to the  rich.  What he says might be summarized as “blessed are you who are poor, hungry, sad, and expendable. Woe to you who are rich, full, happy and popular.”  In the past couple of generations, Luke has been favoured by liberation theologians who have emphasized God’s “preferential option for the poor” in the ongoing class war between rich and poor.

Jesus’ inaugural sermon (that we read a few weeks ago)  is given a political twist. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”   Even if he is not interpreted in Marxist terms, Luke’s plain talk about the rich and the poor can leave us feeling awkward.  How often have we been told that, as citizens of North America, we are the “richest people on earth”?

Order of service

 On line Prelude (O. Messien)

Prelude:

Call to Worship

Hymn #134:  “Lord, you were rich”

Prayer of Adoration

Prayer of Confession

Declaration of Grace

Responsive reading: Psalm 1 

Jeremiah 17: 5-10  (The Message)

Anthem: “Aimer, c’est tout donner”

Luke 6: 17-26

Hymn: “The Trees”

Meditation:  “Luke’s version”

Hymn #624: “ Blessed are they”

Offering and Offertory

Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession

Hymn #748: Lord of all hopefulness

Benediction

Postlude:  

Dear all,

Tomorrow, February 6, will be our last worship service on Zoom-only (we hope). We look forward to holding in-person services again as of Sunday, February 13 and we welcome Henry Cobb back at the piano. However, we will resume our previous pattern of in-person services which will also be zoomed. The good news is that the audio-mixer – the last piece of the live-streaming equipment that was ordered last summer – finally arrived and Peter McDougall has been hard at work becoming familiar with its capabilities and its quirks. Of course, we will continue to maintain physical distancing and wear masks until we hear differently.

Theophany is a Greek word meaning “appearance of a deity in an observable way.” Greek literature is full of such ‘God-sightings’ and in these stories, the experience can be fatal. Theophanies are rarer in the Bible and are almost never fatal, though a sense of fear and danger in God’s presence is common. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews speaks of offering God “an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire.” Here are depictions of Moses getting close to God’s force field, first at the Burning Bush and later at the top of Mount Sinai when he receives the Ten Commandments.

Tomorrow, both our readings are theophanies. In both cases, the experiences give rise to great unease and fear and a sense of utter unworthiness before the holiness and glory of God. The young Isaiah is overwhelmed by a vision of God in the Jerusalem temple; Peter gets a jaw-dropping glimpse of Jesus’  true identity. No doubt Luke was thinking about Isaiah’s experience as he wrote his gospel. The parallels are striking. In both cases, theophany is tied to a call from God. In Isaiah’s case, it a call to be a God’s prophet. For Peter, it means dropping his nets and selling his boat in order to follow Jesus as a full-time disciple.

Order of worship

SUNDAY,  February 6, 2022

Prelude: Duruflé, Prelude for Epiphany

Call to Worship

Hymn # 313: “Holy, holy, holy”           

Prayer of Adoration

Prayer of Confession

Declaration of Grace

Responsive reading: Psalm 99 

Isaiah 6: 1-8  (The Message)

Anthem: “Veni sancte spiritus”  (Taizé)

Luke 5: 1-11

Hymn: “Christ is the world’s true light”

Meditation:  The Otherness of God 

Hymn #828: “You are holy, you are whole”

Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession

Hymn #592: “I the Lord of  sea and sky”

Benediction

Postlude

Dear all,

We have new Zoom arrangement. You will notice a new Zoom number, which is tied to a St. Andrew’s account rather than my personal one. (We also got a reduced rate because St. Andrew’s is a charitable organization; thank God for small blessings. St.  Andrew’s is inviting you, as usual ,to a worship service scheduled at the usual time on zoom.  Last week John began his telling of Jesus’ ministry with a great, well lubricated, wedding feast at the village of Cana.  Jesus is presented as the Messianic bridegroom. This week, Luke  recounts a visit to Jesus’ home town of Nazareth, which starts off  pleasantly enough. The home town boy is asked to read the scriptures and say a few words  by way of commentary. People were impressed with how he spoke and how he comported himself. Who would have guessed that this is how Joseph and Mary’s boy would have turned out etc.  etc?

But things go south and by the end of the sermon, the congregation tries to kill the preacher.

Barry

Time: Jan 23, 2022  @ 11:00 a.m. 

Here is the order of worship.

SUNDAY, January 23 2022

Prelude:

Call to Worship

Hymn # 313: “O Worship the King”           

Prayer of Adoration

Prayer of Confession

Declaration of Grace

Responsive reading: Psalm 19 (The Message)  

Isaiah 61: 1-4 (The Message)

Anthem:  guitar solo  (Kevin Low)

Luke 4: 14-30

Hymn: “When the King shall come again”

Meditation: A God’s eye view 

Hymn #275: “ Jesus shall reign”

Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession

Hymn #174: “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness”

Benediction

Postlude: