NEWCASTLE UNITED CHURCHMay 17, 2020 10:30 a.m.

The Season of Easter“As followers of Christ, we are called to be a worshipping and learning, receiving and giving community of

faith, hope and love.” – Newcastle United Church Mission Statement

Surely God is in this place. Help me notice.We Approach God

Lighting The Christ Candle

A Time of Centring – “Hey Now! Singing Hallelujah!” (chorus) MV # 121(Words & Music Copyright 1998 Borealis Music, www.LinneaGood.com)

Hey now! Singing hallelujah! Hey now! The morning has come!Hey now! Singing hallelujah! The tomb was empty at the rising sun.

Call to Worship (Responsive) We are connected. We are on in the Spirit.We are different and apart, but we are one in the body of Christ.We were promised by Jesus, he would be with us always.Through the Spirit we know we are not alone.

Hymn of Praise “All Creatures Of Our God” # 217(English translation copyright G. Schirmer, Inc.)

All creatures of our God and King, lift up your voice and with us sing: hallelujah, hallelujah! Bright burning sun with golden beam, soft shining moon with silver gleam, sing praises, sing praises, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!Let all things their Creator bless, and worship God in humbleness: sing praises, hallelujah!Praise God eternal, praise the Son, and praise the Spirit, three in one: sing praises, sing praises, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

A Reminder for all those who join us on Zoom for worship and other activities. By the end of May we all need to have upgraded. This upgrade is to both fix a few bugs and to increase the

level of security. When asked by Zoom if you want to upgrade please say yes so you don’t miss out on all our activities.

Below is the service I have created for this Sunday. I hope this is something you can use for personal/family worship. We are all worshiping together, no matter where we are. If you are joining us online this week then please have this resource with you so you have the words

to the responses and hymns at your fingertips in case you can’t see the screen.Rev. Mary-Jane

The words provided for the hymns are done with permission under One License # A-727596.

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Prayer of Approach (Unison)God, we gather continuing to look forward to spring and summer when all is renewed. We too, will feel renewed as we emerge into your creation once again. We are ready to appreciate all you have provided us. May we, having taken time to reflect, renew our commitment to be good stewards of the creation in which you have placed us. God of creation, let us grow in love and respect for nature and one another in the wonder that is your world. Amen.

We Hear God’s WordHymn “O For A World” # 697(Words copyright 1990 Medical Mission Sisters)

O for a world where everyone respects each other’s ways, where love is lived and all is done with justice and with praise.O for a world preparing for God’s glorious reign of peace, where time and tears will be no more, and all but love will cease.

A Time To Be ChildrenIf you could think of something that is the farthest possible distance away from you, what would that thing be? What is something that is really far away from you? (I put a picture of something that is out in our galaxy, farther away than we can hope to travel in our lives.) In our house, when we were talking about something far away from us someone would often quote the beginning of the original Star Wars movie – “In a galaxy far, far away.” That’s just the kind of thing we were into.

Now, if you could name something that is as close to you as is possible, what would that be? What are some things that are very, very close to you? (No, don’t sit on your sister/brother! You don’t have to get that close while you read the story.) All you have to do is turn your head and you can see things that are really close to you.Some people think that God must live far away. If we could travel to go see God, how far do you think we’d have to go? If we thought that God lived somewhere in the ‘up’ direction, and we got into a rocket ship to go and visit God, how far do you think our rocket would have to travel to finally get to where God is? (Some people refer to the picture I used today as the “God’s Eye.”)But is God really far away from us? Does God live waaaaay out there in outer space? Our God is not a distant God. God wants to be right here with us. Jesus was sent by God so that we could know how close God is. When Jesus went to be with God, he sent the Holy Spirit to be with us and fill us with God’s love.God is close to us. Jesus, through the Spirit, is closer than your mom or dad when they are hugging you. He’s closer than a hug! Jesus is closer than shoes and socks, closer than our skin. The apostle Paul described how close God is by saying that God isn’t far away from any of us, for in God “we live and move and have our being.” So close, in fact, that God is part of us.God is always that close, but we have to take time to recognize that the Spirit is with us. And we have to recognize that the Spirit is in everyone, so that God’s Spirit fills our world.

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Next time you get a nice squooshy hug from someone, remember God is even closer than that. And, until it is safe to hug people outside our home again, perhaps you can just take a moment to remember that the Spirit of God is in everyone you see. Treat those you see like you would treat the Spirit in you. 

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.Thy kingdom come, thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those that trespass against us.And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from

evil,For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,

for ever and ever. Amen.

Acts 17:22-31 Paul preaches about the ‘unknown god.’ Psalm 66:8-20 God preserved us. VU #785 Parts 2 & 3Sung Response: God of all, to you we raise this our song of joyful praise. Bless our God, all peoples, and let the sound of praise be heard.

God has preserved us among the living, and kept our feet from stumbling.For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.

You led us into the desert, you laid a burden upon our back, you let sickness furrow our brow, and we passed through fire and water;

but you brought us out to a land of plenty. RI will come to your house with burnt-offerings; I will pay you my vows,

the vows which I made with my lips, and swore with my mouth when I was in trouble.

I will offer fat beasts in sacrifice, a savoury offering of rams;

I will prepare you an offering of bulls and goats. R

Come then and listen, all you that fear God, while I tell what God has done for me.

I cried aloud to God; high praise was ready on my tongue.

If I had cherished evil in my heart, God would not have heard me.

But truly God has heard me, has given heed to the voice of my prayer.

Blessed are you, O God, for you have not rejected my prayer, nor withdrawn from me your steadfast love. R

John 14:15-21 The Spirit will be with you.This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

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Hymn “Immortal, Invisible” # 264Immortal, invisible, God only wise; in light inaccessible hid from our eyes; most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days, almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.To all, life thou givest, to both great and small; in all life thou livest, the true life of all; we blossom and flourish like leaves on the tree, then wither and perish; but naught changeth

thee.

Message I was looking through some sermon notes from times past and came upon this beginning for a sermon. It made me think about what a different time it is right now. Here is what I wrote several years ago as a possible start to a sermon on today’s passage from the gospel of John:“Remember the snowstorm we had last January? Before long, school will be out for the year and our memories of that long ago time in January will be just that - long gone. Before long, it will be time for Conference Annual meeting. Before long we will be complaining about the heat, just as we did the cold. Before long (but perhaps not soon enough for some of you), this worship service will be over.”Our before long statements have changed recently haven’t they?”

“Before long” we say to one another, indicating that there is an anticipation of something yet to come. We’re not always sure what it is that is coming, be it good or bad, but we know it’s on its way. “Before long” --- We use this expression more than we think.

Before long, we will be able to shop again.Before long, I can get a haircut!Before long, the weather will be nice enough to be outside all day.Before long, I’ll be on vacation, whatever that might look like now.Before long, life can get back to normal!

Before long, we will see Jesus!

Before long, some versions of the Bible read at the beginning of verse 19. “Before long, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I in you.”

Friends, we’re in good company! Jesus is a “before long” person too. He knows his flock needs encouragement, and he also knows his physical time on this planet is limited. Before long, he will be with His Father in Heaven. These verses, then, form a large part of what we call the “Farewell Discourse” of Jesus, his final words and instruction to the faithful community. This community of believers is struggling in a world that doesn’t know nor care about Jesus. The disciples themselves fluctuate between believing and unbelief. Jesus has been with them for such a short

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time. If he is leaving, as he says he is, how will they ever be able to go on?

Into this mix of uncertainty and fear, Jesus encourages his flock. He promises them that in going away, he will not be like the “absentee father or mother” of so many broken homes. Unlike some parents who never come back, Jesus will return for his own to take them to that place where there is no darkness. And in the meantime? In the meantime he will send them another Advocate to be with them “forever” - the Spirit of truth, who is invisible to the world out there which can neither see him, or know him. That greater world out there held real fear for Jesus’ disciples. It was blind and ignorant to the things of God. Running heedlessly on its own power, it was a corrupt and dangerous place. Christians, alone in it, had reason to feel afraid. Things haven’t changed much. In this frightful time, Jesus promises he will not leave them as orphans. He will come to them. Before long... And when that time comes, the truly faithful will realize that He is in the Father and they are in him, and he is in them. These faithful ones will be loved by the Father and will see Jesus all over the place.

I have felt for a long time that these verses from John’s gospel are as powerful today as they were when Jesus walked the earth. Made all the more powerful in just the last few months of fear and isolation. The “before long” Jesus referred to came and went for the earliest disciples, but it’s still an assurance that rings true for us. We too live in a time when the Spirit of truth has been given to us, a Spirit that has pretty much been rejected by the world that neither sees him nor knows him. Like the disciples, we believers also suffer through some terrible “dark nights of the soul” when belief is choked by unbelief. We are pretty fearful when gunshots ring out in school halls, when tornadoes rip through the prairies, when cancer strikes closer to home than we would want, when bones that were once strong are now brittle with age, when men we know are being sent to war torn parts of the world, when a baby dies, when political leaders disappoint us, when the job closes, the family stretches and cramps, our money gets tighter and tighter, and a virus keeps us isolated, on edge and in fear. We believers are fast to describe the great world out there as blind to anything of God, but the “glare” and “glitter” the world reflects threatens to blind us to him as well.

Into our troubled times Jesus speaks the same words, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” Sometimes I feel like an orphan, don’t you? Sometimes I feel like nobody understands me, that nobody cares, that there are precious few places I can go that are safe and secure. I know many of you do too, for you have told me. When these times come, I go to the Word we have claimed as our own this morning, the promise that we will not be orphaned. The one who knows us best loves us most and has given us his unconditional love through Jesus. Living these words over a period of time, a journey in the faith that may take years, we find them written on our hearts. Before long, we live them.

Living in Jesus and having Jesus live in us are beautiful concepts, but full of sacrifice. Jesus gave his life for us. That is a sacrifice we will never be able to repay. Our responsibility, which is really quite sacrificial, is to obey, to keep, his commandments as he says in verse 15. In fact, he is even more specific. Our love for him will be known only as we keep his commandments. There is no avoiding the connection between obedience and love fully felt. And herein lies the tricky equation, I think. God loves us all, but his love is fully felt and taken to heart in us as we obey his commandments. How sad it is for those who only hear He loves them, but are not willing to let that love bloom in them because obedience to his commandments is too demanding. For them, and sometimes me, the glitter of the world overcomes and blinds us to the dazzle of God’s love. We settle for “second best” in the fulfillment of life, not because God doesn’t love us enough, but

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because we refuse to be love and put that love into action.

“Compassionate and wise in pain, most faithful in defeat” – there is a description of one who keeps the commandments and loves Jesus. The love is shown in the living out the compassion and bearing the pain, and holding fast in the face of earthly loss. How well do you bear up to this obedience? How well do I? How sacrificial do we live for our families? For our Lord?

Sacrificial loving doesn’t sound very rewarding, and on many days it isn’t. Parents can tell us all about that. Keeping rules is hard work, and obeying the Lord’s commandments is challenging. It calls out of us more than we ever thought we had in us to give. It is part of what we have been doing for two months now. Jesus links the obeying, though, with a far more glorious reward. “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by Father, and I will love then and reveal myself to them.” Right away the disciples have trouble with this. Perhaps they, like us, link the gift with the works. I choose to believe what the faithful community has believed all along. We are recognizable as Christians by the love we show. Our identity is linked with the love in action. And in the loving a miracle happens, we see others in the image of God. And something else happens too, according to Jesus. We recognize Jesus in loving others. He reveals himself to us most clearly as we love others. Mother Teresa said we see Jesus as we love the least lovely.

Before long, we will be done reading (or listening to) this service and headed somewhere else, or that used to be the way. We would go out for lunch, a family gathering, a ball game. Now, we will perhaps head for gardens and yards, walks in the neighbourhood, maybe a drive. But we will also head toward tomorrow’s opportunities and problems. If there is a lesson to be learned from our scripture, it may well lie in how deeply we believe God goes with us in the time yet to be; in how faithful we hold to the promise that His Son is returning to us; in how peacefully we walk with the Advocate He sends us for the journey ahead. God has given us some good guides in the people around us, but the best mark of how well we have walked in the journey will be evident in our obedience to his commandments spelled out in our love for others, even those we find most difficult to love. Especially those. Hopefully, before much longer, we will all be dazzling reflections of that Love. Amen.

We Respond To God’s WordOffering InvitationAs we go about our daily lives there are ways to share with others. This we are called to do. We share our monetary gifts with the church, with those meeting needs in our community, with those who reach out. We share our lives with those close to us, and those at a distance when we take the time to reach out. All of this is what God calls us to do, to offer. And so we give…

The Offertory (As we are not together, take a moment to think of all you can offer to God this week, even cooped up in your own home. Dedicate those things to God now.)

Hallelujah, hallelujah. Give thanks to the risen Christ;hallelujah, hallelujah! Give praise to God’s name.

(VU #179 Words & music copyright 1973 The Word of God Music)

Dedication Prayer (Unison)

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Loving and gracious God, in thankfulness for Christ’s life, death and resurrection which brought us fullness of life, we offer these gifts. May they show others how new life is possible in their lives and the world. Amen.

Prayers of the People (Today there are many spaces in our prayers in which I invite you to insert your private love and concern for others. The following bidding and response will be used after each prayer:            Spirit of truth enlighten us all.

Spirit of truth lead us into the fullness of Christ’s love.God, the truth of your living reality, is not captured in theory or a creed,

but revealed to those who love; the truth of Jesus and the Spirit of truth. We believe and therefore, we trust, not blindly but open eyed and bold as a child climbing into a parent’s lap. We serve, not as a slave that

serves a tyrant, but like farmers reaping a harvest.              Spirit of truth enlighten us all.            S pirit of truth lead us into the fullness of Christ’s love.Let us pray for those who are confused by life, and fear there is no Spirit of truth anywhere…             Spirit of truth enlighten us all.            Spirit of truth lead us into the fullness of Christ’s love.Let us pray for those who are too sure of themselves, who think they hold the truth without error…          Spirit of truth enlighten us all.

Spirit of truth lead us into the fullness of Christ’s love.Let us pray for those cowered by oppression & suffering, who fear that despair is the truth…          Spirit of truth enlighten us all.

Spirit of truth lead us into the fullness of Christ’s love.Let us pray for the severely handicapped in any way, who are angry with whatever truth is responsible…            Spirit of truth enlighten us all.

Spirit of truth lead us into the fullness of Christ’s love.Let us pray for the very healthy and proud, who imagine that all the truth favours the strong…           Spirit of truth enlighten us all.

Spirit of truth lead us into the fullness of Christ’s love.Let us pray for the dying and those who love them, who fear that death is the ultimate truth…           Spirit of truth enlighten us all.           Spirit of truth lead us into the fullness of Christ’s love.Let us pray for those who nurse the newborn, who today intuitively know that truth is love…            Spirit of truth enlighten us all.            Spirit of truth lead us into the fullness of Christ’s love.Let us pray for those who today need the faith of others to lead them and lift them…            Spirit of truth enlighten us all.            Spirit of truth lead us into the fullness of Christ’s love.Holy Friend, pervade us with your living Truth, making us more at peace with ourselves and more understanding of others. Please give us a deeper insight into, and concern for, those who seem

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shallow, coarse or utterly selfish. Make us patient with all who easily irritate us but firm with those who try to manipulate us. Teach us how to live loyally, lovingly, wisely, courageously and with abundant good humour.            Spirit of truth enlighten us all.            Spirit of truth lead us into the fullness of Christ’s love.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen!(inspired by and adapted from Bruce Prewer and used with permission.)

Closing Hymn “Rejoice, The Lord Is King” # 213

Rejoice the Lord is King! Your risen Lord adore!Rejoice, give thanks and sing and triumph evermore.Lift up your heart, lift up your voice: rejoice; again I say, rejoice!

Rejoice in glorious hope, for Christ, the judge, shall come to glorify the saints for their eternal home. We soon shall hear the archangel’s voice; the trump of God shall sound, rejoice!

Commissioning and Benediction We go forth, not alone, but with the Spirit. In all we do, may we allow the Spirit to inspire and encourage, us and others.And may the grace of Christ attend you, the love of God surround you, and the Holy Spirit keep each one of you, now and always. Amen.

Sung Blessing “I Am Walking A Path Of Peace MV #221(Words & Music copyright Janet Bauman Tissandier)

I am walking a path of JOY (3x) Lead me home, lead me home.

I am walking a path of HOPE (3x)Lead me home, lead me home.

And online we end together (wait for me to get your mics unmuted) And the people say:

Hallelujah and Amen!

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Weekly Happenings:

Don’t forget: You need to update Zoom by the end of May. While we are apart, we are still gathering together at various times, for different activities on Zoom. If you haven’t thought about joining any of the gatherings, please know you are welcome to join at any time. The link for each activity is sent out during the week so you can join with relative ease.

Tuesday Tea & Talk on Tuesdays at 2 pm is a relaxed gathering where we start with a topic, but generally just wander wherever the conversation takes us. It is a great way to just gather with others from the church community and get to know one another and chat.

Bible Study is Wednesdays at 10 am. We have specific scriptures we look at each week, usually the ones we will encounter in worship that Sunday (these are listed with the link each week). This is not a group where you need a depth of biblical knowledge, it is where you can come to share what the scripture is staying to you, hear what it says to others, and learn a bit about the context in which things were written. It is a time

of sharing what the Spirit, through the scriptures, is bringing into our lives.

Music to Wash Dishes By is recorded by Joanne (with a little help from Rev. Mary-Jane with the technical stuff, certainly not with the piano playing!) each Thursday afternoon and then posted to the website by supper time so you can enjoy at your leisure, with or without dishes.

Please note: During this time, and if you are able, please continue giving your church donations regularly. You can contact Lorna McSwan, our treasurer, at le.mcswan@bell.net or 905-987-3940. You can arrange for drop off or pick up of offering envelopes or to register for Pre-

Authorized Remittance (PAR) which can be cancelled at any time. You can mail your donations to the church at: 84 Mill St. South, Newcastle, ON L1B 1K2. You can donate via CanadaHelps: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/newcastle-unted-church/ through this link or the link on our website: www.newcastleunitedchurch.org “Donate” page.Thank you for considering these options. While we may not be gathering together, work is still being done and bills still have to be paid.

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NEWCASTLE UNITED CHURCH