Koonung Heights Uniting Church
Service of Worship at Home
Justice Sunday – 1 October 2023 – 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.
During the service we will share Communion so you may wish to have the elements ready.
Introit: “Like a Rock” (Seasons of the Spirit – words below)
Like a rock, like a rock God is under our feet,
Like the starry night sky God is over our head,
Like the sun on the horizon God is ever before
Like the river runs to ocean, our home is in God evermore.
Candle Lighting:
‘In the beginning,
when God created the heavens and the earth,
the earth was a formless void
and darkness covered the face of the deep,
while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
Then God said, ‘Let there be light’;
and there was light.
And God saw that the light was good.’
As we light the Christ candle
let us reflect on the light,
both the first light of creation,
and the light of Christ which continues to shine
lighting the path we are to follow.
Acknowledgement of Country:
As we gather to worship this morning,
I acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land and these 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:
Spirit of life,
you call us together as one,
sharing the common life,
taking the common cup,
breaking the common bread,
Draw us closer
in the commonwealth
of your extravagant and abundant love,
flowing freely from the source of all.
We come to worship you
We Sing: “Come, O God of all the earth” – (TiS 181 – words below)
Come, O God of all the earth come to us, O Righteous One;
come and bring our love to birth: in the glory of your Son.
Sing out, earth and skies! Sing of the God who loves you;
raise your joyful cries; dance to the life around you.
Come, O God of wind and flame: fill the earth with righteousness;
teach us all to sing your name: may our lives your love confess.
Sing out, earth and skies! …
Come, O God of flashing light; twinkling star and burning sun;
God of day and God of night: in your light we all are one:
Sing out, earth and skies! …
Come, O God of snow and rain; shower down upon the earth;
come, O God of joy and pain: God of sorrow, God of mirth.
Sing out, earth and skies!
Come, O Justice, come, O Peace: come and shape our hearts anew;
come and make oppression cease: bring us all to life in you.
Sing out, earth and skies! Sing of the God who loves you;
raise your joyful cries: dance to the life around you.
Call to prayer:
When we gather together
we remember that God wants us to be recreated,
and experience abundant life.
Abundant life is experienced
when justice and peace flow,
when little tributaries come together
to form a mighty river.
God invites us to be partners in this.
We are watering our plant every week
to remind ourselves of God’s recreation,
recognising that we are loved as we are
and acknowledging God’s hopes for us.
So, let us come before God in prayer.
Let us pray.
Prayer of Praise and Confession:
Gracious God,
Creator Spirit and Source of life,
you have given order, light and life to the world around us,
and you have expressed delight in your creation.
You have placed before us an abundance of wonder,
and led us on journeys that take us beyond our small imaginings.
For this, and so much more, we praise you.
We praise you for the circle of life,
and for new growth that continues to springs forth.
We praise you for life that emerges in barren places,
for water in the wilderness
and hope in despair.
Yet so easily we can mess up.
You commanded us to care for the garden of life,
and yet we have trampled on the beauty of your creation,
and neglected to follow your Word.
Forgive us for the times we have offended against the integrity of your Creation.
Forgive us for the times we grumble and are discontented,
and when it we can’t be bothered, forgive our apathy and ignorance.
Forgive our wasteful use of your gifts
and our lack of gratitude for your provision.
Forgive us, too, for the times we fail to see you
within, beside, around and amongst us.
Companion God, as you reach your arms out to us,
in an embrace of forgiveness and reconciliation,
remind us to seek your face in the faces of others,
in the strangers we encounter,
and in the wildness of life all around us.
In Jesus’ name we pray,
Amen.
Words of Assurance:
As we water our plant,
hear that in God we are a new creation.
God continues to reach out to each one of us
inviting us into the embrace of forgiveness.
This is good news … thanks be to God.
We Sing: “I will give thanks to you” – (TiS 726 – words below)
I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples.
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
For your steadfast love is great,
is great to the heavens,
and your faithfulness,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.
Let your glory be over all the earth.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.
Let your glory be over all the earth.
A Time for All:
The Basis of Union is one of the founding documents of the Uniting Church. Paragraph 11 of the Basis of Union states that the Uniting Church lives within a world-wide fellowship of Churches in which it will learn to sharpen its understanding of the will and purpose of God by contact with contemporary thought.
One contemporary document the Uniting Church has been engaging with is Laudato si’, Pope Francis’ 2015 Encyclical on ‘care for our common home.’ It is a wide-ranging and challenging document which offers a theological understanding of the ecological crisis the world faces and provides a theological framework for our responses to this crisis.
An encyclical is one of the most authoritative documents a Pope can produce. Usually, they are directed to Catholic clergy and laity as statements of the church’s teaching. This encyclical, however, broke new ground in that Pope Francis addressed this encyclical to ‘every person living on this planet’ (#3). Its call has been heard: it has been praised by people of other denominations, other faiths and atheists.
The title, Laudato si’ (meaning praise be to you) is taken from the ‘Canticle of the Creatures’ written by St Francis of Assisi, and on which the English hymn, ‘All Creatures of our God and King’ is based. Taking his cue from St Francis, Pope Francis encourages us to look to creation as our sister, through and with whom we offer our praise to God. Pope Francis reverses the human tendency to place ourselves at the centre of creation with this key claim: ‘The ultimate purpose of other creatures is not to be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things’ (# 83).
This document is well worth a read, and easy to find on the internet. It reflects conversations with biblical, economic, political and technological perspectives, and accepts the scientific evidence for human-generated climate change. It notes the disproportionate effects of climate change on the world’s poor, and in seeking deeper knowledge of creation, acknowledges there is a special summons to dialogue with Indigenous peoples (#146). It is very pointed in its critique of consumerism and its ‘throw away culture’ (#22). It is expansive in the vision it offers and adopts a posture that is repentant, prophetic and hopeful.
In the final paragraph of the document Pope Francis says ‘at the conclusion of this lengthy reflection which has been both joyful and troubling, I propose that we offer two prayers. The first we can share with all who believe in a God who is the all-powerful Creator, while in the other we Christians ask for inspiration to take up the commitment to creation set before us by the Gospel of Jesus.’
Let us pray together as we listen to ‘God has given us the earth’.
Click on the link to watch and listen: https://vimeo.com/280567593
Bible Reading: Amos 5:21-24
21 I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings
and grain offerings,
I will not accept them,
and the offerings of well-being
of your fatted animals I will not look upon.
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
24 But let justice roll down like water
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Bible Reading: Matthew 21:28-32 –
The Parable of the Two Sons
28 “What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29 He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went. 30 The father went to the second and said the same, and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. 31 Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him, and even after you saw it you did not change your minds and believe him.
Reflection:
When we pick up the Bible we love to read nice stories – there is no denying that it is much easier to gaze on the baby Jesus born in Bethlehem than it is to face the adult Jesus hanging on the cross. We like passages that have happy endings where people are healed, or where we are reminded that we are loved. If there is a bad character in the story, or someone who gets things a little wrong, we tend to adopt the posture that says we are not like that character, for we are far more enlightened and would behave much better. But if we are to take the Bible seriously, and if we believe that the Holy Spirit uses its words to speak to us, then we need to tune in and listen, even to the bits that are hard to hear because they challenge us.
Both of the passages we have heard today are part of the good story of God’s love and generosity for humanity. From Amos we hear that justice will ‘roll down like the water and righteous like an ever-flowing stream’, and the gospel story reminds us of God’s love and mercy which even includes tax collectors and prostitutes, the despised and outcasts of society.
But both these readings also present something of a challenge for us. Firstly we hear Amos delivering a message from God to the people of Israel, and the message isn’t ‘job well done!’ as they might have expected, but rather a harsh critique of all they have been doing. In the gospel parable about the two sons, Jesus reminds his listeners that empty words don’t cut it and it is our behaviour which speaks most clearly.
I certainly don’t want us to miss the message of abundant life in these passages, but in this last week of the Season of Creation, I’d like to encourage us to hear the challenge these words might present, beginning with the challenge to the people of God. In the message from God that the prophet Amos delivers, he tells the people that they’ve got things wrong. It seems that they think they know exactly how to worship, with the right kind of grain offerings and animal sacrifices, with their anthems and harp music. But according to Amos, God wants nothing to do with any of it. God has no interest in their worship services, no matter how closely they follow the laws of ritual and sacrifice. God has no interest because, according to Amos, unless your actions outside of worship reflect your actions during worship, you may as well not bother. Unless our everyday lives line up with our theology and our ‘Sunday best’, we are missing the point.
In the gospel passage, the work in the vineyard is important, and the father asks his two sons to undertake the task that needs to be done ‘today’. One does not do what he says he will. The other considers his first response and does what he has originally declined to do. Jesus reminds the religious leaders who are challenging him that it matters to God that our deeds and actions match up. If we say that will take a stand for justice then we need to do something about it too. The ‘tax collectors and prostitutes’, those seen to be outside the faith, are the ones who actually get it. The work of caring for this planet, our common home, is urgent. We use words to praise the Creator, but can be slow in caring for this sacred plant and all of its forms and delicate ecosystems, to which we are connected. Like the first son we must change our minds, turn our lives around, and work in the vineyard of God.
Many of us would claim that our faith is one of the things that brings us to church on Sunday morning rather than having a coffee with a friend or enjoying a quiet lie-in. But surely our faith should also be the thing that propels us out of the church and into the community, where we are the hands and feet of God. Each one of us is called to irrigate our lives and the lives of others with the waters of justice and righteousness. So how might we do this?
Firstly, we need to be brave enough to get out there so we can do what we are called to. I believe we are called to join the river of justice and peace. We are called to take up climate and ecological justice. We are called to speak out for communities most impacted by climate injustice and the loss of biodiversity. We need to renew our relationship with Creation so that we stop seeing it as an object to be exploited, but cherish it as a sacred gift from our Creator.
Secondly, individually and as a global community we need to look at transforming our lifestyles so that they are marked by less waste and unnecessary consumption. We need to co-operate in God’s ongoing creation through positive choices: using resources with moderation, recycling waste, and making greater use of products and services that are environmentally and socially responsible.
Thirdly, we need to work at transforming the public policies that govern our societies today, and shape the lives of those who will come after us. Policies that promote scandalous wealth for a privileged few and degrading conditions for many others, spell the end of peace and justice. Richer nations need to take seriously the ecological debt that is piling up, and acknowledge their disproportionate use of natural resources to the detriment of others. Investment in resources for clean energy need to be made, rather than permitting expansion of fossil fuel infrastructures. We need to raise our voices to halt the injustices that affect the poor and most marginalised people. We need to act urgently to protect our children, their children and their children, who will bear the worst effects of climate change if we do nothing.
May the Holy Spirit once more move over the waters and guide our efforts to be co-creators with God, working to ‘renew the face of the earth’ (Psalm 104:30).
Amen.
We Sing: “Song for Plant Earth” – (Tune TiS 156 – words by Neil Wilkinson (2007) below)
Mystery and wonder greet your creation;
out of the chaos galaxies grow.
Yet may we discover creative living
by how we relate to this world that we know.
Kangaroos bounding through ancient fern gullies,
whales in the ocean, birds in the air:
we are a part of all this profusion,
may we yet grasp how stewards should care.
We are a nation of doubts and downpours,
yet blighting our world by consumerist urge:
may we have grace to repent of our folly,
move with your rhythm, conserve your earth.
You have endowed us
with wisdom and foresight,
minds that can focus, dreams that bring life:
may we have wills to embrace all creation,
to faithfully serve you doing the right.
Prayer for Others (prepared by Harriet Ziegler):
In our prayers of the people today, I will be offering moments for your own reflection and prayer. After each of those moments, there will be a response:
I will say – Let justice roll down like waters,
and you are welcome to respond
and goodness like an ever-flowing stream.
Let us pray –
O Disturber of our Peace and Lover of our Souls – we come before you with our prayers for others and for ourselves.
On this, our Communion Sunday, we are reminded of your children all around the world and all around our nation who also gather around the sacred table, who also take the bread and the cup in memory of your love. Whatever our colour or our creed, we are equally yours. Yet we know that there is no justice for some of our fellow Christians, no justice for some people of other faiths. We name silently before you the peoples and places we hold in our hearts.
Let justice roll down like waters – and goodness like an ever-flowing stream.
We pray for the world. You know our deepest fears – whether it is the climate crisis, war in Ukraine and other places, refugees fleeing the dangers of their homelands, the oppression of women, the enslavement of children. Whatever our gravest worries and dearest hopes, we raise them to you now.
Let justice roll down like waters – and goodness like an ever-flowing stream.
We pray for our nation. We are facing a difficult decision – how will we live with one another with justice and goodness when we are at loggerheads over many issues. We see corruption and poor decision-making, resulting in obscene wealth for a few and impoverishment for many. We know that there is suffering of all kinds – illness, grief, unemployment, discrimination, loneliness and exploitation. Hear the yearnings of our hearts.
Let justice roll down like waters – and goodness like an ever-flowing stream.
We pray for the Uniting Church. You know our weaknesses, but you also know our strengths and our dreams. We ask for guidance for our leaders in every council of the church, including our own minister, Rev. Heather, our elders, our pastoral contact people, and all who give leadership in our congregation. We name silently before you our hopes and dreams for this congregation, and the larger Uniting Church.
Let justice roll down like waters – and goodness like an ever-flowing stream.
We pray for those closest to us – our families and our friends. You know their needs, and we lift them to you in these moments.
Let justice roll down like waters – and goodness like an ever-flowing stream.
Finally, we pray for ourselves. We are grateful that you both disturb and love us. We pray especially that we may have the strength to help bring to fruition all we have prayed for.
Let justice roll down like waters – and goodness like an ever-flowing stream.
Amen.
Communion:
Invitation:
As we come to this time of Communion,
we are invited to remember
that this is an act of cosmic love,
for even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a tiny church,
it is being celebrated in some way on the altar of the world.
This is a meal that joins heaven and earth,
and embraces and penetrates all creation.
The Peace:
The peace of the Lord be with you
and also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
Prayer of Thanksgiving:
It is right that we give you thanks and praise at all times and in all places
for you have created and sustained us.
We praise you that through your eternal Word you brought the universe into being.
You have given us this earth to care for and delight in.
You love us and have bound yourself to us.
Above all thank you for Jesus, the living Word,
born as one of us, living our common life and walking the path to death,
yet through his actions reconciling us to you and to one another.
Therefore we gladly join our voices to the song of the Church on earth and in heaven,
singing:
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of love and light,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
On the night of Jesus betrayal and arrest, as he shared a meal with his friends,
Jesus took bread; gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his followers, saying:
“Share this bread among you; this is my body which will be broken for justice.
Do this to remember me.”
When supper was over, he took the cup, gave thanks and gave it to his disciples, saying:
“Share this wine among you; this is my blood which will be shed for liberation.
Do this to remember me.”
Invocation:
Creating, Redeeming, Sustaining God,
…let justice roll down like waters on all of creation,
and goodness like an ever-flowing stream.
As we celebrate this meal together,
may your Spirit come upon those gathered here and in their homes.
Spirit of compassion, bless us and this bread and wine.
May this meal be food and drink for our journey
renewing, sustaining and making us whole.
When we eat and drink may we experience again
the presence of the risen Jesus in our midst.
Amen.
Lord’s Prayer:
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.
Distribution:
The bread we take is a sharing in the body of Christ.
The wine we take is a sharing in the blood of Christ.
These are the gifts of God for the people of God.
The bread of life – the cup of hope.
May this meal nourish and refresh you, strengthen and renew you,
and may it remind you that you are loved.
Amen.
Prayer:
God of love, we give you thanks for satisfying us with this meal.
Send us from here to reveal your love in the world,
and to be agents of justice and righteousness.
Inspire us to use our words to point others to the Word.
Inspire in us the resolve and the courage, the compassion and passion
to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with you. Amen.
We Sing: “God gives us a future” – (TiS 687 –words below)
God gives us a future, daring us to go
into dreams and dangers on a path unknown.
We will face tomorrow in the Spirit’s power,
we will let God change us for new life starts now.
We must leave behind us sins of yesterday,
for God’s new beginning is a better way.
Fear and doubt and habit must not hold us back:
God gives hope, and insight, and the strength we lack.
Holy Spirit, teach us how to read the signs,
how to meet the challenge of our troubled times.
Love us into action, stir us into prayer,
till we choose God’s life, and find our future there.
Blessing:
Spirit of life, you have called us together as one,
sharing the common life, taking the common cup, breaking the common bread.
Send us out to live as your people
in the commonwealth of your extravagant and abundant love,
flowing freely from the source of all.
And may the blessing of God,
Creator, Son and Spirit,
the One who Mothers us all,
rest on you this day 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:- Seasons of Creation 2023 (Laudato Si working group), Laudato Si, A Sermon for Every Sunday and Fig Tree Worship.