Koonung Heights Uniting Church
Service of Worship at Home
Easter 6 – 10 May, 2026 – 10am or whenever possible
You may like to light a candle during your time of worship.
Feel free to text the Peace to other members of the congregation.
Introit: Jubilate Servite – (TiS 731)
Jubilate Deo, omnis terra. Servite Domino in laetitia.
Alleluia, alleluia in laetitia; allelulia, alleluia in laetitia!
(Translation: Rejoice in God, all the earth: serve the Lord in gladness.)
Candle Lighting:
As we light this candle
we acknowledge that the triune God is with us.
God in our midst, come close to us,
and help us come close to you,
and even if just for a moment,
may you be the focus of our attention.
Holy Three in One, One in Three
be with us in this time together.
Acknowledgement of Country:
This is God’s land and God’s Spirit dwells here.
I acknowledge the Wurundjeri WoiWurrung
People of the Kulin nations,
traditional custodians of this land under God.
I pay my respects to elders past and present,
and to all future leaders and generations.
Call to Worship:
Followers of Jesus, do not be afraid.
The risen Christ has sent an advocate to be with us,
a constant companion,
so we never need feel alone.
So come into this space with confidence,
come as you are,
come into community.
Come to worship God.
We Sing: Jesus calls us – (TiS 477)
Jesus calls us here to meet him as, through word and song and prayer,
we affirm God’s promised presence where the people live and care.
Praise the God who keeps his promise; praise the Son who calls us friends;
praise the Spirit who, among us, to our hopes and fears attends.
Jesus calls us to confess him Word of Life and Lord of All,
sharer of our flesh and frailness saving all who fail or fall.
Tell his holy human story; tell his tales that all may hear;
tell the world that Christ in glory came to earth to meet us here.
Jesus calls us to each other: found in him are no divides.
Race and class and sex and language such are barriers he derides.
Join the hand of friend and stranger; join the hands of age and youth;
join the faithful and the doubter in their common search for truth.
Prayer of Praise and Confession:
Majestic God,
we are born of stardust,
recycled atoms from distant times.
In you we live and move and have our being.
Mothering God
we are born of flesh,
each of us a new miracle of creation.
In you we live and move and have our being.
Midwifing God
we are born of the Spirit,
woven together in unimaginable love.
In you we live and move and have our being.
Praise to you, God of all creation,
flowing from our lives in endless streams of love.
Praise to you, God of all things past,
joyful presence in our memories and before us.
Praise to you, God of all that is to come,
hopeful midwife of unimaginable possibilities.
God you know everyone’s heart.
You know our delights. You dance in our joy.
You know our secret fears and sadness,
our longings and our struggles.
For it is in you that we live and move and have our being.
Come to us now, in your mercy,
and take from us the things that we need to lay down.
Create in us a new heart that delights in your ways.
Let our words thoughts and actions be revelations of your goodness.
Amen.
Words of Assurance:
Followers of the risen Christ
through the gift of the Holy Spirit
know that you are accompanied, loved and forgiven.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
The Peace:
As the Spirit is in us, and we are in the Spirit,
this peace is a powerful gift
that we may share with others.
Know the blessing of this peace for yourself.
Pass the blessing of this peace
to your friends and neighbours,
to all the children of God.
Peace be with you and also with you.
Mother’s Day:
I wanted to take a couple of minutes to acknowledge that it is Mother’s Day today. For many this is a really happy day, a day of celebration and connection, of fond memories and special moments. But it is not this way for everyone, so I want to also acknowledge those for whom today is particularly difficult. For those who have wished to become mothers and have not had the opportunity, for those who suffer from strained relationships with their mother or child, for those who have lost mothers or children, and those who feel they have not done all they could have as a mother.
Of course there are many significant women in our lives who impact us in positive ways and today is a good day to celebrate them too. I celebrated a 90th birthday with one of these special women from my life only yesterday. As women, it is important that we remember that whoever we are, and no matter how things have gone for us, we are women preciously loved by God and called into relationship with God.
Let me share with you a poem by Clare McBeath (2011) …
Who are we?
We are women born of the past generations
we are women present in the here and now,
we dream of a future that is yet to be.
Who are we?
We are women made up of all nations and races,
we include people from all countries of the world,
we come from down the road and round the corner.
Who are we?
We represent all cultures and languages,
we consist of all ages and abilities,
we embrace strangers as neighbours.
Who are we?
We are called to be God’s people –
welcoming, embracing relating, creating
woven together into God’s community on earth.
We Sing: God of the women – (Tune TiS 547)
God of the women who answered your call, trusting your promises, giving their all,
women like Sarah and Hannah and Ruth – give us their courage to live in your truth.
God of the women who walked Jesus’ Way, giving their resources, learning to pray,
Mary, Joanna, Susanna, and more – may we give freely as they did before.
God of the women long put to the test, left out of stories, forgotten, oppressed,
quietly asking: “Who smiled at my birth?” – in Jesus’ dying you show us our worth.
God of the women who ran from the tomb, prayed with the others in that upper room,
then felt your Spirit on Pentecost Day – may we so gladly proclaim you today.
O God of Phoebe and ministers all, may we be joyful in answering your call.
Give us the strength of your Spirit so near that we may share in your ministry here.
Time for All: Community First Development – Rosalind Kentwell
Many of you will remember that, towards the end of last year, Malcolm, our Treasurer told us we had money to give away and asked for suggestions.
My suggestion, which we supported with $5000, was Community First Development, a First Nations-led community development and research organisation with over 20 years of experience supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across the country.
I have been supporting them on a monthly basis for some years now. I think of it as paying rent for the land on which my house is built, even if it is only a token.
The organisation believes every First Nations community has the strength, knowledge, and vision to shape its own future and works exclusively by invitation only allowing the community to decide when and how the organisation can support them by walking alongside, offering practical support, skilled volunteers, and resources to turn goals into reality.
Watch this short video to see the nature and impact of Community First Development.
I hope you agree our support has gone to a good place.
Bible Reading: Acts 17:22-31
22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely spiritual you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26 From one ancestor he made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps fumble about for him and find him – though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we, too, are his offspring.’
29 “Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Bible Reading: John 14:15-21
– The Promise of the Holy Spirit
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”
Reflection:
You’ve got a friend in me, you’ve got a friend in me.
When the road looks rough ahead
And you’re miles and miles from your nice warm bed
Just remember what your old pal said:
‘Boy, you’ve got a friend in me.’
This song was written by Randy Newman, in 1995, for the first Toy Story movie. Its lyrics emphasise unconditional friendship, loyalty and unwavering support, reflecting the devoted connection between Woody and his owner Andy.
It’s fair to say that we all appreciate having a friend, and those you can call best friends are a real blessing from God. I’m sure you know the people I’m talking about: the ones you can call on in a crisis because they will drop anything to help when needed, the ones who love you even on your really bad days, and the friends who care enough to challenge you and have the hard conversations. I can recall some who have been special friends for me, and as I’ve gotten older I feel that I’ve developed many good friendships.
Not all friendships are life-long, but this doesn’t mean that they aren’t valuable. When Elizabeth was young, it was particularly good to have a small network of friends who also had small children. They were a good sounding board and we all helped one another out when we could. Play dates were a great opportunity for the children (as well as parents) to socialise and, when our little ones were old enough for sleep-overs, these also gave parents a night to themselves. Now I find that friendships with colleagues are particularly valuable as they can appreciate the particular nuances of ministry, and understand that it is more than just a job!
Friendship, companionship, is a valuable thing in life, yet there are so many people who are lonely and long for someone to be their companion, someone to be their friend. In today’s passage from John’s gospel, we are reassured that we are not alone, that the Spirit is our Companion and that our place of dwelling is in God. We are invited to place confidence in God, because this passage shows that God, through the image of the Trinity, is involved in the ordinary stuff of everyday, all our lives. We are loved by the Source of Life who parents us; we are companioned by One who is closer than our next breath, the Spirit of Truth who is our Great Advocate; we follow Jesus who brought us Life, showed us the Way, prays for us, and reveals God to us. This God expresses one desire for us to follow, that we also love one another.
This passage begins and ends with love: ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments.’ (John 14:15) As Jesus speaks with his disciples he gives them a clear directive about life and relationships. From their time with Jesus, they know what it means to love one another, and they know that it is something Jesus commands. In fact, the only commandment that John attributes to Jesus is that of loving one another. It is that simple and profound for the writer of John: in fact so profound and important that he states it and states it and states it again! This is the commandment that Jesus calls his disciples, and us, to obey; the commandment to love one another. Jesus wants the disciples to keep this commandment for it is as they do this that they are living the kin-dom of God which is embodied through a life of love.
If this is the case, I wonder why we find it so hard to love one another. In fact, getting along together seems to be the hardest thing for people to have done through all of history. Obviously there are times when people might annoy us, differ from us, even infuriate or horrify us, but that doesn’t mean we are not called to love them and want the best for them. If God is the One in whom ‘we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28) then maybe we need to strive harder to do this difficult thing.
So how might we offer love to others, companionship to the lonely? Hospitality and welcome are part of the brief for most churches and community groups. It is easy to say that we welcome everyone, but what do we mean by this? Do we really welcome all, or are we really comfortable welcoming those who are just like us? In a world where hostility and confrontation are normalised, and where people guard themselves with strong defences, even small offerings of hospitality and welcome can be huge acts of love.
In the passage from Acts, we hear the story of Paul, and witness something of what it means to show love to others, to companion with them even when it’s uncomfortable and involves taking a risk. Paul moves out of his comfort zone (possibly unwillingly) into a space that is unfamiliar for him and filled with those who are, in many ways, not like him. We find him standing in front of the Areopagus: a rocky outcrop in Athens, Greece, which served as the meeting place for the city’s highest council and supreme court. He is invited to speak to the council and explain to them what is faith is all about.
Firstly, Paul meets the people where they are. He listens and observes, and then begins by affirming the Athenians for their interest in religion, even quoting from some of their most respected poets. Rather than telling them that they’ve got everything wrong he links his message directly to the things he has observed in their own religious practice. He suggests that the faith he is going to share with them is not something strange and new, but something they have been seeking after, acknowledged by their shrine to ‘the unknown God.’ (Acts 17:23) Secondly, in quoting the poet Epimenides, ‘in God we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28), Paul explains to the people that no-one is entirely cut off from God, that God is in reach of everyone and ready to welcome everyone. It is only after this, that he encourages them to think about making a commitment to God and turning towards a new way of living.
I wonder if this is, at least in part, what Jesus was referring to when he told us to love one another. For isn’t love caught up in revealing the God who is often hidden in plain sight, the God who lives in the everyday, the God who wants to companion with us? Jesus’ command really is pure simplicity: Love. It is simple and yet difficult, but in this is the revelation of the character of God. In this is our worship.
Amen.
We Sing: Jesus put this song – (TiS 670)
Jesus put this song into our hearts, Jesus put this song into our hearts,
it’s a song of joy no-one can take away: Jesus put this song into our hearts.
Jesus taught us how to live in harmony, Jesus taught us how to live in harmony;
different faces, different races, he made us one:
Jesus taught us how to live in harmony.
Jesus taught us how to be a family, Jesus taught us how to be a family,
loving one another with the love that he gives:
Jesus taught us how to be a family.
Jesus turned our sorrow into dancing, Jesus turned our sorrow into dancing,
changed our tears of sadness into rivers of joy:
Jesus turned our sorrow into a dance.
Prayer for Others (written by Peta Lowe):
When you hear the words, ‘Lord of inclusive love, hear us’, you are invited to respond, ‘Hear our prayer’.
God of love, whose love is for all people,
In love you made people, and gave them commandments not to kill or harm each other. How did we get to a situation so far away from your will for us?
Have mercy on our troubled world and grant us peace. We pray for an end to the killing, destruction and suffering that is rampant in so many places.
We hear of the unprecedented number of people who are displaced from their homes by war or internal conflict, and struggling to survive, and we know that each person is precious to you.
We feel hopeless and tempted to give up in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles to peace, but we know that with you, all things are possible.
Have mercy on your people and grant us hope, and strength to work for a lasting peace based on justice.
Lord of inclusive love, hear us. Hear our prayer.
God of love, whose love is for all your creation,
We hold before you all those who today strive for Climate Action and Conservation,
who work to halt and reverse the ravages wrought by human activity on the environment, and nurture the survival of endangered species and ecosystems.
Lord of inclusive love, hear us. Hear our prayer.
God of love, whose love is for all people:
On this Mother’s Day, we pray for mothers everywhere.
We pray especially for mothers whose lives are very hard.
Mothers who have to labour and give birth in dangerous conditions or without medical care.
Mothers who have to watch their children die of preventable diseases or malnutrition.
Mothers caring for children in war zones and refugee camps, or during disasters.
We pray for mothers who are raising children in difficult situations, in poverty, homelessness or domestic violence.
We pray for all mothers of children who have special needs, and mothers who themselves live with disabilities or chronic illnesses.
We pray for mothers who grieve this day, and for daughters and sons who grieve for their mothers.
We pray for mothers who are separated from their children, and those who will spend Mother’s Day alone.
Lord of inclusive love, hear us. Hear our prayer.
Lord, we thank you for our mothers. We thank you for all the mothers who show unselfish love and make sacrifices for their children.
We hold before you all families who will gather today to celebrate and show appreciation of their mothers. Bless their time together as they make memories to treasure.
Thank you for the great love that so many mothers demonstrate, reminding us of your even greater love for us. Thank you Lord for the gift of love.
Lord of inclusive love, hear us. Hear our prayer.
God of love, whose love is for all people:
We pray that your Church worldwide will clearly show your inclusive love and hospitality to all people, regardless of race, ability or gender.
We pray that your Church across the world might model respect for women, and encourage communities to reduce gender inequality, especially in societies where women are disadvantaged, disrespected and discriminated against.
Lord of inclusive love, hear us. Hear our prayer.
Lord of the church, we pray for our congregation here at Koonung Heights, especially for those who are experiencing difficulties or ill health at this time.
We pray for our Rev. Heather and her family, as they navigate times of change and challenge. Bless Heather as she prepares to leave Koonung Heights, travel, and then commence a new chapter of her Ministry in Colac. Bless our congregation as we too navigate change and meet challenges.
We pray for our Presbytery and its new leadership team.
We pray for our Synod and our Moderator, Rev. Salesi Faupula.
We pray for our Assembly and our President, Rev. Charissa Suli.
We remember before you the other faith communities around us, also beloved by you.
Lord of inclusive love, hear us. Hear our prayer.
God of love, whose love is for all people, we pray for ourselves.
You know our needs and our concerns, our fears and our worries. You know us even better than our mothers! And you love us.
Guide our daily living and help us to be the people you want us to be, ever conscious of your love.
Bless us this day as we reflect on our mothers, and help us to appreciate the women in our lives.
Lord of inclusive love, hear us. Hear our prayer.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name;
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.
For the Kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever.
Amen.
We Sing: Now thank we all our God – (TiS 106i)
Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices
who wondrous things has done, in whom the world rejoices;
who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
with countless gifts of love and still is ours today.
O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us
with ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us.
Lord, keep us in your grace, and guide us when perplexed,
and free us from all harm in this world and the next.
All praise and thanks to God who reigns in highest heaven,
to Father and to Son and Spirit now be given:
the one eternal God whom heaven and earth adore,
who ever was, is now, and shall be ever more.
Blessing and Sending:
Go with hope in your hearts and joy in your lives.
Go knowing you are loved,
and do your best to share that love.
Go and walk the path of life.
May the blessing of God,
Holy One in Three and Three in One,
be upon you today, tonight, always and for ever.
And all the people say:
Amen.
Thanks to all those who have assisted in preparation for this liturgy with encouragement, prayers and conversation. I have also utilised the following resources: Fig Tree Worship, Spill the Beans (Issue 34) and Billabong Worship Resources and WorkingPreacher.com.
God of the women – words by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette.