FREELTON STRABANE UNITED CHURCH
To Live Our Discipleship With Integrity And Grace
Horseshoe Falls Regional Council
Sixth Sunday of Epiphany
February 16 2025
Rev. Will Wheeler BA M. Div. E-mail: [email protected]
Organist : Joan Simpson
Gathering
Come out of the darkness, come out of the shadow
Come out of the endless night
All you who are poor now, All you who are broken all you who are bowed by fight
Come into the light of God’s sacred intention
Come under the shelter of his hand
Here you may find riches here you may find healing
Here now you may rise and stand
Call To worship
One: Holy is the Lord of host the whole earth is full of God’s glory
All: We give you thanks, O God, with all our hearts for your steadfast love and faithfulness.
One: You stretch out your hand to deliver and fulfil your purposes through us.
All: We will sing of the ways of God, for great is the glory of God forever. .
Great Planter and Provider, we rejoice at the streams of living water you send within our reach. Help us to grow deep roots that partake of your truth and thick branches that reach out in loving support to all in need of our embrace. In this hour we seek, with enthusiasm, the energy you provide as we sense your presence. Blessing us. Amen.
One This is the word of the Lord
All Thanks be to God
Epistle 1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Lesson Luke 6:17-26
One: The Word of God for the People of God
All Thanks be to God
In our life journey, there will be people that will change us. Hopefully for the Good but not always. If we are lucky they are the people that journey with us, influence and shape us but most of all love us.
Last week we heard one of the call stories. Jesus comes into the lives of Peter James and John and changes them. They leave it all and just follow. The set all the fear they must have had and stepped boldly into the unknown. They walk away with Jesus and the journey begins. Jesus speaks with passion, a new way of preaching. His words, well they leave that impression the influence and shape those that hear then.
Here we hear Luke’s telling of the sermon on the Plain. And Jesus is once more preaching the unexpected.
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
Blessed are the poor and the like, but Luke goes one step more and add the woes.
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
“Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.
Here rather poetically Jesus here does not tell them what they should do, how should should act. What Jesus does is state is fact. Its not about the rich or the poor its about God.
Blessed are the poor. You know them the same people, whom we overlook, disregard, despise, and consider failures.
Blessed are the hungry. The same hungry people whom we expect must be lazy or inept or they wouldn’t be asking for handouts.
Blessed are those who weep the same whiners and complainers who are always acting like they’ve had it worse than anyone else.
Blessed are you when people hate you. Because you are abrasive, or holier than thou, or self-righteous, the way so called religious people often are.
Just who is Jesus talking about?
If he only stuck to the Blessed like he did when he used this stuff on the mount. NO its bad to worse. As he curses the rich, the content, the happy and the morally upright.
Just who is Jesus talking about? Surely Not us?
Jesus makes a statement. The thing about a statement is that it does not always require an answer but it hopefully will cause us to think.
Here is Jesus showing the gathered, the people on the plain and the people on the pew a reality of God. We are at times both blessed and cursed
Jesus takes everything we know and turns it in side out. There is more in side out in what Jesus says than laundry in a teenagers laundry basket. (or floor) The blessed are those that are cursed and the Blessed of society are those that will be cursed.
What Jesus is really saying to us is “Watch out!! For your seeming blessedness is in truth a great danger.”
Paul says now we see dimly. We see the shadows of our reality played out before us and we fail perhaps to see the truth.
In one of his dialogues, Plato tells his famous Allegory of the Cave.
We are Prisoners in cave. All we see are shadows on the wall. That is our reality all just shadows and reflection.
If we are released we are able to look around at the mouth of the cave but we are first blinded by the light of the opening but as our eyes adjust we would see things for how they really are.
Thus Plato taught that we ought not to take our perception of the world to seriously as if what we perceived of the world where that is “really there.” We ought to question the images that come before our eyes for some of them are deeply misleading. They are only the shadows but not reality.
This resonates true in light of our Christian Gospel. Jesus calls us to questions the shadows of our perceived world and to break the bounds of convention that hold and to see the world in a new light. A world beyond the shadows and the shame. A world bathed in the light of God’s Grace and love.
So what do we take from this?
Perhaps it is a reminder to look beyond our own reflection in our own world. To ponder how are our actions may be shaping someone’s life journey. How what we do here is helping someone find there way or feel accepted.
To perhaps be a voice that speaks to up.
We are reminded that in following God, in listening to the teaching of Jesus that faith sometimes requires us to speak up, to be for the one that has no voice. To seek Justice and resist evil as we say in our creed. To search out ways to help the light of God’s love to shine into a darkened world changing its stark reality to something new.
God gives us lessons like today to help us to see beyond our present condition. To perhaps to see in the light of God’s knowledge and love. That there is a greater world beyond ourselves that we are called to serve.
To be like a young person with a magnifying glass looking at the world and seeing it differently. Discovering that which has not been seen
As we travel together as a community of faith may we open ourselves to all the possibilities of God in the spirit. To help bring about a world bathed in the light of God’s Grace and love To see the world in a different way. One where we all know that God is with us that we are not alone.
Prayers of the people
Hear our prayer we humbly offer
Grant to us your peace O God
Hear our prayer we humbly offer
Grant to us your peace O God.
Blessed God who leads us beyond the shadows to see the world we pray for the poor, the marginalized. We pray for those who struggle with food security. We pray for those that live in fear. We see your world as it is and know that your Spirit is needed to move upon your people. We pray that we may be empowered with a voice that will speak of justice. A voice that will speak to wrong and work towards right relations. We own that we may not change the course of history but we know empowered by your spirit We may within our way make a difference in your name.
We give thanks for your Son Jesus our Saviour that lifts us from just watching the shadows of what has been to the light of the possibilities that might be. In that Light we pray for all those that morn the loss of loved ones, of dreams and hopes. May they know the promise of hope. We pray for those whom we are called to walk with. May your light guide us in ways that we may offer support and give those whom we name strength and courage for the journey. We name them before you.
Bless us in our lives and our work as your people. Bless our community of faith that this place may be a shelter and a place of renewal in the times in which we live.
We hold to you and offer you our own prays of thanksgiving and petition before you. We offer you the great prayer which binds us as one saying Our Father….
Offering
We give thee but thy own. The work of the Church continues and there are three ways you can continue to support that work. Consider using PAR, use the donate button on our Web Site or drop your gift at the Manse. Let us make our offering and give thanks.
One: Praise God who from all Blessing flow
Prayer May these gifts of response to your love enable many to touch Jesus and be healed. May all who suffer for the sake of Christ be empowered to continue their witness. May your church mange well the resources , entrusted to us, that faith and hope may abound. We rejoice in the resurrection and its power to transform us. Amen.
Sending Forth and Blessing.
One: We have known the touch of Jesus Christ in our listening, our songs, and our prayers.
All: The God who searches our minds and tries our hearts has met us here to bless and make whole.
One: God sends you out to the world. Serve with Joyful hearts full of songs of thanksgiving for the steadfast love of God endures forever
Blessing
One: May God the one who brings us comfort surround you, May Christ our Joy walk with you. May the Continued presence of The Holy Spirit illuminate our path and keep us safe until we can gather again in community. Amen
VU 4
God of all places present unseen
Voice in our silence song in our mist
Send us your people knowing and sure
Called to spread the word.
amen amen amen
Yesterdaywe honour our heritage.
Todaywe know that we are not alone,that we live in God's world.
Tomorrowwith God,we will discoverthe undiscovered country.
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