Hello everyone. It’s a real pleasure to have organised this worship service for you this week and I look forward to being with you online on Sunday morning.
Just by way of introduction: I’m a Presbyterian minister with around twenty years of experience in parish ministry (Auckland and Wellington) as well as a national church role supporting our Presbyterian church schools. I’m currently living with my husband Brian in Kirikiriroa/Hamilton and I am working with Presbyterian Support Northern as their Presbytery Liaison Manager, strengthening the engagement of PSN with the PCANZ.
Sharon Ross Ensor
Call to worship (drawing on Revelation 1:4-8)
Grace to you and peace from him who is
and who was
and who is to come
from Jesus Christ our brother, our beginning and our end.
We gather around him today,
deepest mystery, who knows the depth of our being,
the one who holds us, awakens us, and energises us
to be God’s people in Jesus’ name.
Lighting candle
We light our candles
As hope-bringers
love-sharers
peace-builders
joy-carriers
We are light-bearers of the hope, love, peace and joy of God revealed in Jesus Christ, light of our lives and of the world.
Notices and community news
Time in breakout rooms
Bible readings
2 Samuel 23:1-7 NRSV
23 Now these are the last words of David:
The oracle of David, son of Jesse,
the oracle of the man whom God exalted,
the anointed of the God of Jacob,
the favorite of the Strong One of Israel:
2 The spirit of the Lord speaks through me,
his word is upon my tongue.
3 The God of Israel has spoken,
the Rock of Israel has said to me:
One who rules over people justly,
ruling in the fear of God,
4 is like the light of morning,
like the sun rising on a cloudless morning,
gleaming from the rain on the grassy land.5 Is not my house like this with God?
For he has made with me an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things and secure.
Will he not cause to prosper
all my help and my desire?
6 But the godless are all like thorns that are thrown away;
for they cannot be picked up with the hand;
7 to touch them one uses an iron bar
or the shaft of a spear.
And they are entirely consumed in fire on the spot.
John 18:33-37 NRSV
33 Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” 35 Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” 37 Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
Reflection
In the ancient world the great and the good often had their last words recorded as a kind of summing up of the essence of their living, their leadership, their greatness. And that’s the case here in this reading from 2 Samuel of King David, remembered as Israel’s greatest King.
Did you notice the emphasis in the reading on David’s lived relationship with God and how that relationship was reflected both in what he said ‘the spirit of the Lord speaks through me, his word is upon my tongue.’ …and in what he did: ‘one who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning….’
These words reflect on David’s life grounded in relationship with God, as one which is life-giving and fruitful. The reading contrasts it with a life where that relationship with God is neglected or rejected using the image of sharp thorns which are damaging and of no use to anyone.
We know about the sharp thorns in our public discourse today particularly around issues of pandemic management and vaccination, but it could be any other number of issues which are hot topics for us…people in positions of leadership taking entrenched positions, shouting across the divide, using shame and abuse to silence the one who dares to disagree.
While it is important to name and to pushback on misinformation and harmful rhetoric, it can be challenging to do that in ways which leave communication channels open and maintain relationships.
At the same time we know that polarisation and division is not a life-giving path for us. We yearn for another way to light our path in this time of heightened stress and pressure on our social fabric.
Some years ago now I heard Murray Burton, who is Principal at Elim College in Auckland, speaking about the experience of the Mangatepopo River tragedy in 2008 when 6 students and a teacher drowned in a flash flood at the Hilary Outdoor Centre.
He talked about how in a time of crisis, trauma or tremendous stress the public face we present to the world often gets stripped away and our private face is on show for all to see. What really lies beneath is revealed. The depth and strength of our character and what our life is grounded on is unveiled.
Murray Burton talked about how in that crisis he had to dig very deep into what lay beneath in order to lead his school community through this terrible tragedy….for days, weeks, months, years.
He had to find the inner resources to be of use to people, to stay strong, calm, compassionate, courageous, to lead. All of this in the midst of his own grief and shock at what had happened.
He talked about how those inner resources don’t just magically appear in the moments of stress and crisis.
You can’t just turn them on with a flick of a switch, you can’t just Google them.
They are about the slow, steady work of building and strengthening character. For him, as a Christian, that was grounded in daily spiritual practices or disciplines of things like prayer, Bible study and gathered worship, along with other ways of continually nurturing and deepening his lived-out relationship with God.
In a similar vein, I listened last week to a presentation Dr Ashley Bloomfield gave to NZ Christians in Science titled ‘Faith and Anxiety in an Age of Pandemic.’ Dr Bloomfield talked about his conscious commitment to daily lived practices like kindness, compassion, humility (including a commitment to transparency and a willingness to learn from failure), and courage. For him these were all lived-out expressions of Jesus’ great commandment to love others as we love ourselves.
There’s been something of an awakening in recent decades within our Protestant arm of the church to us being a bit caught up in our heads and needing to move into our hearts and from there to our hands.
It’s not that we stop engaging our brains in our faith, but more that we acknowledge that Christian faith isn’t just assenting in our heads to a set of beliefs, it’s about living the expression of our relationship with God in a daily way of life through slow, steady spiritual practices or disciplines…being changed more and more into the likeness of Christ in the process.
Today, the last Sunday in the church’s year is called the Reign of Christ, or Christ the King Sunday. It invites us to reflect on how Jesus stands within and transcends the tradition of his ancestor King David…how Jesus amplifies and deepens those qualities of the good and just King living a life grounded in his love and trust of God.
Jesus shows us this path over and over again: what it means to be compassionate; to draw in to the circle those standing on the edges; to speak out against injustice; to enable others to experience the freedom of forgiveness, grace, life springing up from the places of death.
Jesus’ last words?
“This is my body, given for you.’’ “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”
And: “Forgive them Father, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Questions to discuss:
-Think of someone who you think is a good, even great, leader. What qualities do you admire in them?
-What qualities of Jesus’ example of leadership are important for you?
-Can you recognise any regular spiritual practices/disciplines which are important in grounding and growing your faith? What difference do these practices make to your daily living?
Prayer
Lagi leads us
Blessing
We are all blessed, we are all loved, we all belong.
And so may the love of God, the faithful creator,
The peace of Christ, the wounded healer,
The joy of the Spirit, challenging life-giver,
The hope of the Three in One
Surround, enliven and encourage you
Today and always. Amen
Saint Peters Presbyterian Church 