Koonung Heights Uniting Church
Service of Worship at Home
Epiphany 5 – 9 February 2025 – 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: “Santo, santo, santo” – (TiS 723)
Santo, santo, santo. Mi corazón te adora!
Mi corazón te sabe decir: Santo eres Señor!
Holy, holy, holy. My heart, my heart adores you!
My heart knows how to say to you: Holy are you, Lord.
Acknowledgement of Country:
As we gather today, I acknowledge the
Traditional Custodians of these unceded lands and waters,
the Wurundjeri WoiWurrung People of the Kulin nation.
I pay my respects to their elders, past and present,
and to all future generations.
As First and Second Peoples walking together,
may we commit ourselves to be people of the covenant,
listening, truth telling and seeking justice for all.
Call to Worship:
As people of God we come fishing,
fishing for help and inspiration.
We try in all the normal places,
but without luck.
You call us to trust you,
to try out further again.
In trust and faith, we look in hope.
You call us to follow, to fish people for you:
catch us too, help us to be faithful.
We come to worship you,
hook, line and sinker.
We Sing: “Let all creation dance” – (TiS 187)
Let all creation dance in energies sublime,
as order turns with chance unfolding space and time,
for nature’s art in glory grows, and newly shows God’s mind and heart.
God’s breath each force unfurls, igniting from a spark,
expanding starry swirls with whirlpools dense and dark.
Though moon and sun seem mindless things, each orbit sings: ‘Your will be done.’
Our own amazing earth, with sunlight, cloud and storms
and life’s abundant growth in lovely shapes and forms,
is made for praise, a fragile whole, and from its soul heaven’s music plays.
Lift heart and soul and voice: in Christ all praises meet
and nature shall rejoice as all is made complete.
In hope be strong, all life befriend and kindly tend creation’s song.
Prayer of Praise and Confession:
Eternal God,
beyond the fluctuations of time
and the boundaries of space,
your perspective is so different from ours.
You see the bigger picture,
while we can so easily get caught up
in the immediate, in what is happening here and now.
Yet, you continue to love us,
again and again issuing an invitation of welcome,
an invitation to join you and be part of your family,
held close and loved dearly.
Wonderful God,
you stun us with your generosity,
amaze us with the brilliance of your creativity,
confound us with the openness of your grace
and blow our minds with your spirited love.
For all of this our hearts ache with the will to respond
and to echo your nature in our living.
Yet in our humanity, we can feel inadequate for the task.
Help us to continue to turn to you in trust,
trusting you to deal with our fears,
accepting and loving us despite our faults.
Forgive us for not trusting
that our inadequacies are covered by your grace
and taking the easy way out when we think it’s too hard.
Forgive us if we have failed you or other people,
and help us to forgive ourselves.
Loving God come close to us now
and give us whatever we need to keep going
or to stop and try something new.
Give us permission to rest if we are tired
or an energy boost if we have grown lethargic.
Give us a task worth doing,
and the confidence to believe that we can.
In Jesus’ name we pray,
Amen.
Words of Assurance:
Friends, hear this good news:
if anyone is in Christ they are a new creation –
the old has passed away and the new has come!
Christ has called us and remains faithful to us.
Thanks be to God.
The Peace:
May the Peace of Christ,
the One who calls us, encourages us, and is faithful to us,
dwell with you:
and also with you.
Time for All:
Who likes to go fishing? I quite enjoy fishing but to be honest I don’t get to do it all that much. What I have learnt though, in the times that I have gone, is fishing always seems to be a dependent on different things working together, so in my experience you often don’t end up catching what you expect.
That’s certainly what happened to my grandmother, in the one fishing story that she used to tell us when we were little. I think it must have been a true story, because it was one the family told again and again. This happened when she was a teenager, probably around 16 years old, and she had gone fishing with some friends. They were going to make a day of it and had taken homemade sandwiches and cake and a thermos of tea to enjoy while they fished.
She and her friends were fishing off the end of a long pier at a beach, baiting their hooks and throwing their hand-lines in again and again. Some of them caught a few fish, but she wasn’t catching anything. She was frustrated, but decided she’d throw her line in one last time before giving up.
This time she was in luck. Something attached itself to her line so she carefully tried to pull it up. It felt quite heavy and she imagined she had caught a big fish, so big that she wondered if she would be able to pull it in by herself. In the end she couldn’t and so one of her friends helped her. Finally the thing she had caught broke the service … and it wasn’t a fish at all. Do you know what it was? An octopus hanging on to a rock!
My grandmother didn’t catch what she imaged, and neither did some fishermen in our bible story today. Click on the link below to hear the story …
We Sing: “Fishers of All” – (Hope Publishing #468)
I will make you fishers of all, fishers of all, fishers of all,
I will make you fishers of all if you follow me;
If you follow me, if you follow me,
I will make you fishers of all if you follow me.
Hear Christ calling, come be with me, come be with me, come be with me,
Hear Christ calling, come be with me, I will give you rest;
I will give you rest, I will give you rest;
Hear Christ calling, come be with me, I will give you rest.
Children’s Blessing
God loves me –
from the top of my head to the tips of my toes,
from my wiggly ears to the end of my nose,
from my back to my front to my fingers that wiggle,
God loves me.
Reading: Isaiah 6:1-8
– A Vision of God in the Temple
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2 Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3 And one called to another and said,
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
4 The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. 5 And I said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7 The seraph touched my mouth with it and said, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
Bible Reading: Luke 5:1-11
– Jesus Calls the First Disciples
1 Once while Jesus was standing beside the Lake of Gennesaret and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, 2 he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.” 6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to burst. 7 So they signalled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink. 8 But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’s knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all who were with him were astounded at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10 and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” 11 When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.
Reflection:
I’d like to invite you into a short time of imagining … if it helps you to close your eyes as we do this, please feel free to do so.
Imagine a shoreline. Imagine the sounds you hear and the smells you smell …
In among the sounds of waves and wind and the aroma of sand and water, imagine another sound: the sound of a crowd, the babble, the sound of feet in the sand, of voices calling …
Imagine one voice raised higher than the others, loud enough to be heard above the rabble, a voice that was teaching, storytelling …
But you can’t quite make out what is being said …
Imagine a pause in this voice, almost giving up because he cannot be heard, the sound of more feet on the shore trying to get closer. What can you hear …?
You turn round and you see two boats on the shore a short distance away. You hear the crowd begin to follow the man who had been teaching as he moves towards them …
Imagine the sound of him clambering in, the grate of wood on stone, and the voices of the ones who own the boat realising it is being borrowed. Listen to them shout, “Hey!” and “Hoy!” and the conversation that has them decide to clamber in as well …
Imagine the sound of the boat being pushed off from the shore and onto the water. The whole days feels it has gone silent, leaving only the ripple of waves on the side of the boat. But the crowd on the shoreline, who think the man has left them, begin to shout again …
The board turns, and faces the crowd, and the man stands and speaks again. Imagine the crowd going silent, the man finding his feet, the sound of some splashing in the water. The voice is heard now, louder than the crowd who listen …
Imagine the man in the boat now turning to the fisherfolk and asking them to go into deeper waters. Imagine the small argument between the man and the fisher who is complaining there was no catch last night, what is the point in fishing now. What do they sound like …?
Listen as the men pick up the nets, and throw them out. Listen to the rolling splash as the nets hit the surface. Listen to the gulls …
More gulls gather, crying louder, the water swirls, the boat bounces, and the fisher-folk stare and begin to reach for the nets that are swelling in size. Listen to the sound of rope being pulled over the gunnels, the men strain, their voices loud, the water run as the nets are lifted, and the heavy smell of fish coming out the water, the lake water falls from the fish as they are raised out, the light sparkle, the boat come alive with a silver floor as the fish are landed, and finally the silence of the wonder …
Imagine Peter kneel, realising who this man could be, and Jesus saying to him, and to us, “Do not be afraid, come with me and we will catch people.”
This reading from Luke that we have just imagined ourselves into, and the reading we heard earlier from Isaiah, are both what are known as call stories. We have the call of Isaiah, and possibly through him the Israelite community, as well as the call of the first disciples. But today I want us to think briefly about how we encounter God and how we respond.
In the passage from Isaiah, written when the nation of Judah is being controlled by the Assyrians, Isaiah encounters God in a vision, and describes a scene that is both powerful and awe-inspiring, if not downright frightening. God is seen seated on a throne in an enormous space, which is described much like the Assyrian temples of the time. It was in these temple spaces that the upper classes were often invited to mix with their ruling captors as an act of soft power politics, so the fact that God fills this space and more, says something. In fact God is so huge that Isaiah cannot see God’s face, only God’s robes that fill the heavenly temple.
The winged creatures who call God holy, cover themselves as they are not able to look at God. Encountering God in all God’s holiness, causes Isaiah to realise just how unworthy he is, and he initially responds in fear.
It is only after Isaiah’s mouth being touched by the live coal, that Isaiah hears God’s voice, is questioned and responds in the affirmative ‘Here I am; send me!’ (Isaiah 6:8). Isaiah’s vision shows God to be powerful and holy, yet despite Isaiah’s fears, when he encounters God, he responds to God’s call in the affirmative.
When the fishermen encounter Jesus in the gospel passage, this is a sharp contrast to the vision of God Isaiah has. To begin with Jesus is not in the temple. The fact that he has spent time in the temple, and in his home town, and not been recognised for who he is, is interesting. Rather than in the expected places like the synagogue or the place he grew up, Jesus is encountered and acknowledged for who he is in a new place, among a crowd, on the edge of a lake among the ordinary. While Jesus has not called any disciples at this point, he has drawn a large crowd who recognise him as a teacher. Jesus must be seen as a good teacher because the crowd is so large that he has to climb into a boat to speak to them.
Simon Peter has what one might call a creeping epiphany. He agrees to take Jesus out from the shore so he can teach. He then calls him ‘Master’ as he explains that they have worked all night for no catch. He follows seemingly illogical instructions to let down the nets again, because Jesus has asked him. After the catch is hauled in, Simon Peter recognises Jesus as Lord, and himself as unworthy. Jesus reassures him ‘Do not be afraid’ (Luke 5:10) and informs him that he will now be ‘catching people’.
The abundance that Jesus brings is overwhelming – nets that were breaking and boats that were sinking – yet Peter, James and John chose to leave everything and follow Jesus. I think this is extraordinary. For fisherman who had not caught anything earlier, men whose lives depended on their catch, to just leave the abundance they had is mind-blowing. They walk away from wealth and prosperity, leaving everything behind. They don’t even ask for a week’s leave so they can sell the business, pack a bag and say goodbye to family, they just go.
This is what it’s like to encounter God. However you encounter God – whether the revelation is through an overwhelming vision or in the ordinary stuff of life, in a quiet or crowded place – when God reveals God-self to us, we recognise our own humanity. Yet God is the One who calls us in spite of our humanity, naming us as worthy as we are invited to follow what we are called for.
May we be attentive to hear God’s call, and brave enough to step into the vision that God has for us.
Amen.
We Sing: “I, the Lord of sea and sky” – (TiS 658)
I, the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin my hand will save.
I who make the stars of night, I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear my light to them? Whom shall I send?
Here I am, Lord; is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night;
I will go, Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart.
I, the Lord of snow and rain, I have borne my people’s pain;
I have wept for love of them. They turn away.
I will break their hearts of stone, give them hearts for love alone,
I will speak my work to them. Whom shall I send?
Here I am, Lord …
I, the Lord of wind and flame, I will tend the poor and lame,
I will set a feast for them, My hand will save.
Finest bread I will provide till their hearts are satisfied.
I will give my life to them. Whom shall I send?
Here I am, Lord …
Prayer for Others (prepared by Bryan Long):
Response:
We are one body in you …
that the world may believe.
Let’s spend a moment in silence as we enter into prayer.
Creator of rainbows, come through the closed doors of our emotions, minds and imaginations; come along side us as we pray, come to our worship, to our meetings and councils; come and call us by name; call us to pilgrimage.
We pray for places where there is conflict, violence, and misery: war ravaged countries, domestic cruelty, bullying in schools, and fear on our streets. We pray for displaced people in refugee camps, fugitives from oppression, and for all divided families and traumatised children. In times when antisemitism and islamophobia are rising, we pray for people of all faiths. Where there is hatred and division, sow seeds of calm and openness, justice, tolerance and equity.
We are one body in you … that the world may believe.
We pray for neighbours, friends, and those ‘doing it tough;’ those adversely affected by the economic conditions in our country. Help us to learn how dependent we are on each other, how we are one body in Christ, and how we might create a NEW world where kindness and compassion replace the business model which has so dominated our ways.
We are one body in you … that the world may believe.
We pray for our churches, some living in comfort, others surviving under persecution, some filled with self-doubt and fear for the future. We pray for ourselves in the changes which are coming as we continue on our journey of amalgamation, and we ask that you inspire and strengthen our leaders, our witness and our service. We pray for our children and young people as they begin another year of school. May they be guided and led by those who place a high value on their calling as teachers.
We are one body in you … that the world may believe.
We pray for the great powers of the world, the strong nations, and dominant governments. May their power be used so that the poor are protected, the weak are not exploited, and no one is oppressed. We pray too for multinational corporations who so often wield more power than governments, that in their pursuit of profit they will act with compassion and concern for the powerless.
We are one body in you … that the world may believe.
We pray for the delicate balance of your creation which is slowly being stripped of its riches; streams of living water choked with chemicals; life-giving trees dying, oceans polluted with our waste. We lament that we ignore the signs of climate change and fail to hear the cries of your creation. Teach us to cherish and protect your world and to live in partnership with all living things.
We are one body in you … that the world may believe.
We pray in silence for those dearest to us – friends and families in need. (Time of silence).
We are one body in you … that the world may believe.
Spirit of unity, challenge our preconceptions, enable us to grow in love and understanding, accompany us on our journey together, that we may go out with confidence into your world as a new creation – that the world may believe.
And we pray together the prayer Jesus taught us:
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: “Thuma Mina Somandla” – (TiS 749)
(Thuma mina.) Thuma mina, thuma mina, thuma mina Somandla.
(Send me Lord.) Send me, Jesus; send me, Jesus; send me, Jesus; send me, Lord.
(Lead me Lord.) Lead me, Jesus, lead me, Jesus; lead me, Jesus; lead me Lord.
(Fill me, Lord.) Fill me, Jesus, fill me, Jesus; fill me, Jesus, fill me Lord.
(I will go, Lord.) I will go, Lord; I will go, Lord: in your name, Lord, I will go.
Blessing:
As we go, let us remind ourselves:
that it’s not we who chose Christ,
but Christ who chooses and calls us.
As we go, we are not alone,
but in the company of the Spirit
who has great things in store for us.
Grace, mercy and peace, from God,
be your blessing, today and always.
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 Resources, WorkingPreacher.com, and Spill the Beans (Issue 41).