Koonung Heights Uniting Church
Service of Worship at Home
Season of Creation 6 – 6 October 2024 – 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 might like to have the elements ready.
Introit: “Like A Rock” – (Seasons of the Spirit)
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 today,
let us reflect on the light,
both that 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 come to worship,
I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians
of the land where we meet,
the Wurundjeri WoiWurrung People of the Kulin Nation.
I pay my respects to their Elders, past and present,
and to all future leaders and 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:
Gathered in the name of Jesus Christ,
inspired by the Holy Spirit,
and blessed by God,
we come to worship one, holy God.
O God, our own God,
how wonderful is your name in all the earth.
Your majesty is the music of the starry skies
yet even children can sing your praises.
In the name of the Healer, the Provider and the Enabler
let your gratitude and joy be made known.
O God, our own God,
how wonderful is your name in all the earth!
(© Bruce Prewer, adapted)
We Sing: “Morning has broken” – (TiS 156)
Morning has broken
like the first morning;
blackbird has spoken
like the first bird.
Praise for the singing,
praise for the morning,
praise for them, springing
fresh from the word.
Sweet the rain’s new fall sunlit from heaven,
like the first dewfall on the first grass.
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden,
sprung from completeness where his feet pass.
Mine is the sunlight; mine is the morning
born of the one light Eden saw play.
Praise with elation, praise every morning,
God’s recreation of the new day.
Prayer of Adoration and Confession:
Loving God,
we come together in this place
and are thankful for all that we have –
homes, food, friends,
people who love us,
and a special safe place to meet.
We thank you for all of creation –
the joy of all we can see, hear and feel,
the pleasure of meeting with friends, sharing news,
encouraging each other, doing life together,
and the opportunity to join for worship.
We wish we could be people of integrity,
but know that we often fall short
and need your forgiveness.
There are times when we have been envious
and not grateful for what we have.
We can hold tightly to what we have
and not live with a spirit of generosity.
We act quickly instead of thoughtfully,
and break peace instead of being peace makers.
For all the times that we have fallen short
of being who we want to be,
and the people you created us to be,
forgive us.
In Jesus’ name we pray,
Amen.
Words of Assurance:
Siblings in Christ,
we are loved and forgiven in the name of Christ.
Thanks be to God.
A Time for All
(Rosemary Perry and Kathryn D’Alessandro):
Rosemary: My name is Rosemary Perry and I am an elder at Koonung Heights Uniting Church.
You may not know that the week beginning 1 September was National Child Protection Week. In their weekly snapshot, the Uniting Church in Australia wrote:
‘As a whole church and as communities of faith, the Uniting Church in Australia has a deep commitment to creating safe environments so that all people, including children and vulnerable people, may live life in all its fullness. In recognition of this week, the Uniting Church Assembly and National Safe Church Unit have released a new poster inspired by this year’s theme, “Every conversation matters.” The theme is an encouragement to speak up and speak together about what needs to happen so that every child in every community can safely grow and flourish. We invite Uniting Church communities to display the poster as a reminder of our commitments ana prompt for conversations. We also invite you to set aside a time that suits your community to remember and recommit to our shared call to be a safe church for all.’ (The poster mentioned is on the notice board in the church foyer.)
At Koonung Heights we are committed in faith and action to having a safe community for all. On 1 May, 2024, Church Council passed the following statement regarding Working with Children Checks, as per requirements set out by Synod.
‘We, the Church Council of Koonung Heights Uniting Church, want to ensure the safest possible environment for children and vulnerable people in accordance with best practice and to make us compliant with Government and Synod regulations. To that end, by 1 January 2025, we require all appointed leaders – those who are in trusted roles – to apply for and receive a Working with Children Check. We define appointed leaders as follows: Church Councillors, elders, worship leaders (including those who read scripture, pray and manage audio/visual desk), pastoral contact people, people asked by Church Council to perform leadership roles, small group leaders, musicians, everyone on the worship roster, and all who are working with children, young people or vulnerable people.’
As Koonung Heights UCA Church Council is committed to following ‘best practice’, the Church Council are pleased to inform the congregation of this important decision.
Kathryn: Hi, I’m Kathryn, a member of Church Council and I am extremely passionate about the Church, and particularly our church at Koonung Heights being a safe space for everyone. As many of you know, I work in the Uniting Church Synod office in the Governance and Administration Team and I work closely with the Culture of Safety Unit. As part of my role I have had the privilege to speak over the phone with many survivors of child sexual abuse which occurred under the care of institutions of the Uniting Church, as well as handing countless historical confidential files of people who were not protected or kept safe by the Church.
I believe that as followers of Christ our responsibility is to ensure that all spaces of the Church are safe for everyone and although we cannot guarantee 100% safety, we should do everything in our power to do so.
One important thing we can do to display the seriousness of Koonung Height’s commitment to a safe space is to ensure that all those who are appointed leaders, those recognised as being in roles of trust within the congregation, have a valid Working with Children Check.
I am not sure if you have this same experience but in conversation with many friends who are Christians but do not attend church, one of the main responses why they choose not to attend church is because of the broken trust as a result of the Church in the past not taking seriously the hurt and suffering caused to children and vulnerable people, and they are still not convinced that the Church has done enough to change. I feel so fortunate that in response I am able to speak about the strong commitment of the Uniting Church to be a safe Church for all and the many measures put into place across all the Councils of the Church, particularly the best practice requirement that all leaders In congregations have valid Working with Children Checks. To the wider community this commitment goes a long way to help rebuild people’s trust in the Church again.
I encourage you, as I will be, to share with passion and conviction Koonung Height’s renewed commitment to being a safe space far and wide.
Let us pray:
Loving God,
… you sent Jesus Christ to be the good shepherd of your people, so that all of us,
adults and children and teenagers, men and women, rich and poor,
may live in peace and safety.
Today we pray that this church may be a place of welcome, security and compassion.
Keep us watchful yet caring, trusting yet ready to question,
that all who worship here may do so in safety and in the knowledge of your love.
Amen.
We Sing: “Seek, O seek the Lord” – (TiS 464)
Seek, O seek the Lord, while he is near;
trust him, speak to him in prayer,
and he will hear.
God be with us in our lives,
direct us in our calling;
break the snares the world contrives, keep us from falling.
Seek, O seek the Lord …
Strengthen in our hearts the love we owe to one another;
how can we love God above and not each other?
Seek, O seek the Lord …
Bible Reading: Psalm 8
– The Divine Majesty and Human Dignity
1 O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
4 what are humans that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God
and crowned them with glory and honour.
6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Bible Reading: Mark 10:13-16
– Jesus Blesses Little Children
13 People were bringing children to him in order that he might touch them, and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14 But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
Reflection:
While returning from the historic first landing on the moon in 1969, astronaut Buzz Aldrin took part in a TV broadcast the night before splashing down. During the broadcast, the second man to set foot on the moon’s surface read Psalm 8:3-4: ‘When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?’ Psalm 8 was also the first Biblical text to reach the moon, heading skyward on Apollo 11 on a disc that had messages from seventy-three countries. The Vatican submitted a text which included Psalm 8.
Long before the first journey to the moon, Psalm 8 has been presented as the Creation Psalm par excellence. This psalm is the only hymn in the Psalter that is spoken entirely to God. It emphasizes God’s sovereignty and proclaims that humans exercise their authority only within the rule of God. Furthermore, it declares that the whole created order gives evidence of God’s sovereignty. It is not that the psalmist admires elements of creation as though God is in them, but rather, the psalmist wonders at the natural world because of the majesty of God who stands over them and has put them in place. The psalm also focuses on humanity and our place within the created order. Humans have a high place in creation, a ‘little lower than the angels’ (Psalm 8:6) which is quite marvellous.
I think this psalm gives us a firm steer towards the urgent need to listen to voices that are marginalised and disregarded, it is the voices of the children who provide prophetic input in the psalm. There is also a challenge as to how to read and claim our human place and purpose, for the benefit of the planet and the life which the Earth shares with us, how we are to be fully human in the way God intends.
At times we catch glimpses of our full humanity as the Creator intended it to be. Who has not looked up at the sky on a clear and starry night, wondered at the breathtaking magnificence we are seeing, and not felt lifted up, just a little lower than the angels? Yet despite this, in the face of the crises of nature and climate, we can feel useless and powerless. Our apparent insignificance, which faced with the majesty of Creation as a whole, is not the whole story. The Creator has placed us where we need to be in the mystery of the bigger plan, and this plan includes our own dignity and fulfilment in the liberation of others. God’s covenant is with all flesh, not just human flesh, and we need to be mindful of creation which needs our care. For as we harm the Earth and it’s many ecosystems, we harm ourselves. We are part of God’s plan and design, but we are not the planners and designers, and our dignity and majesty emerges in the care and nurture of fellow creatures, not in their eradication or destruction.
This care and nurture is also seen in Jesus’ welcome and blessing of the children, those who are vulnerable and often marginalised. Just like the disciples tried to turn the children away, we often turn away from listening to Creation’s voice. We think we know better. We give precedence to what we perceive is important, and ignore those who are easy to overlook. Yet it is these little ones that Jesus welcomes and blesses.
Jesus makes it known to his disciples that the blessings of God’s kin-dom are not just for those who know more or have power, but those on the margins (mothers and their children in this case) are welcome too.
There is the kingdom of the heavens, the skies, the way that it is, where Creation is tarnished by violence and climate injustice which is inflicted by individuals and corporations on our common home. This is a broken kingdom. Yet this does not have to be the end of the story, for there is also the kin-dom of God, that way that it ought to be and can be. In this kin-dom, the marginalised voices are heard, including the voice of Creation which is crying out for love and care. We pray for this each Sunday, ‘your kingdom come’, but I wonder if we really think about what we say?
The church has long recognised the divide between how things are and how they should be, and from generation to generation there have been those who have enquired diligently after the wisdom and guidance of God. We need to continue this journey, moving away from how things are and spending more time being co-creators as we move to how things should be. We need to work in harmony with the birds, the fish, the sky, the sea, the trees, and the Earth for Creation is always a work in progress, and if we listen well, our brothers and sisters will teach, instruct and enlighten us.
I wonder if the readings we have heard today might encourage us to retain something of a child-like nature, where we marvel at all that God has made, delight in it, and work to care for it. This is opposite to the childishness that characterises the worst of us as politics and profit take precedence over care for the Earth, and we see global temperatures peace beyond the degree threshold. We are living with the harmful results of this, and again it is the most vulnerable who suffer most.
May we look out and give thanks for all that helps us change course, back into a relationship with the whole of Creation that acknowledges the hopes God has for all of Creation.
Amen.
We Sing: “Touch the earth lightly” – (TiS 668)
Touch the earth lightly, use the earth gently,
nourish the life of the world in our care:
gift of great wonder, ours to surrender,
trust for the children tomorrow will bear.
We who endanger, who create hunger,
agents of death for all creatures that life,
we who would foster clouds of disaster,
God of our planet, forestall and forgive!
Let there be greening, birth from the burning,
water that blesses and air that is sweet,
health in God’s garden, hope in God’s children,
regeneration that peace will complete.
God of all living, God of all loving,
God of the seedling, the snow and the sun,
teach us, deflect us, Christ re-connect us,
using us gently and making us one.
Prayer for Others (prepared by Harriet Ziegler):
As we come today to the Lord’s table, to partake in this life-giving feast, let us bring to God our prayers for others.
When I say, ‘God, in your eternal kindness,’ please respond if you wish with ‘Hear our prayers’.
God of our nation and of all nations, we lift before you our land, Australia. We give thanks for all those who tended this beautiful country for millenia, and ask that we may work and speak ceaselessly for justice for them and for later comers. We remember those who grow the grain and the grapes that have come to our table this morning in the shape of bread and cup. We ask that all primary producers and indeed all workers may have a just reward for their labour. We think of our leaders in government and in business and in human services and ask that they may seek what is right and good, over what is expedient.
God, in your eternal kindness – Hear our prayers.
God of this beautiful and damaged world, we remember your whole world and its troubles. We watch helplessly as lives and homes are tossed about by floods and winds on every continent. Help us to respond both with financial support and by changing our own lives to be more climate-conscious. We watch helplessly as nation batters nation in war and oppression. Show us how to support peace-making efforts wherever we can. Against the backdrop of climate change and war, millions are in need of food, of health care, of education. As we come to this table, guide us in ways to be your agents of nourishment for the world’s body and soul.
God, in your eternal kindness – Hear our prayers.
God of this community, we give thanks for the lives that have shaped our life together. Today we pray for those who are grieving, especially Jim and all the family of our dear friend, Tui Beggs. We pray for our minister and her family, and for our new friends at Surrey Hills. We think of people who have been hurt by the church, and give thanks that we can help to make our church a safe community for all. We remember all people who are experiencing crises of health, employment, ageing, and all who are celebrating new life, renewed health, new opportunities. In this moment of silence, we lift those prayers that are closest to our hearts.
(Hold silence.)
God, in your eternal kindness – Hear our prayers.
As we come soon to your table, to receive your blessing in bread and cup, may we be strengthened to help bring our prayers to action in your name.
Amen.
Communion:
Invitation
As human beings we gather around this table
as others, at God’s calling, flock, shoal or swarm.
Drawn together to receive whom we are:
to be more than we are alone,
or even this community.
Like the Earth, we do not own Christ’s table;
and like our common home,
it’s ‘ours’ only when we share.
Yet here, we’re welcome:
like those friends Christ first gathered.
Welcome for justice, fulfillment and love.
Welcome, with prophets and publicans,
with eco-warriors and dodgy characters,
with those you’d expect and those you’d rather weren’t here.
Welcome to celebrate being a work of God repurposed
as friends of Jesus refreshed by bread and wine
through human hands, from Earth’s own self
on whom, and whom, we feed.
The Peace
God be with you and in you and also with you.
Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to God.
Give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give our thanks and praise.
Prayer
Throughout all ages,
as mountains dance and trees applaud,
the cries of birth are also loud for all to hear and tend.
Your Sabbath make space for all Creation’s refreshment,
but we make exceptions.
Your people sought milk and honey, yet injustice laid lands to waste.
Your prophets, priests and farmers, call us to account.
Yet your loving signs of warning often fall by the wayside,
as greed and pride inspire harmful choices
which are knowingly embraced.
Yet still comes Christ Jesus,
friend of wildlife, beloved of the poor,
scolding the seas, teaching with trees,
and God’s wildness in wind.
With Christ we shoulder the cross of healing;
we shudder at the disaster
of truth denied by power,
and yet …
risen and present through food and faith
Christ calls us afresh to care for a damaged world.
And so we sing …
Holy, holy, holy, God of power shared.
Sky and soil’s abundant glory:
Hosanna – help us God!
Hosanna – heal Creation!
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.
Blessing and Distribution
God, Sustainer,
gusting and fluttering life with the good things of the Earth:
food and drink we offer, flesh and blood we are.
As Jesus did, so do we:
We break this bread. We share this cup. We trust that
Christ who died is Christ who rose and Christ who comes again.
These are the gifts of God that make you God’s people:
the bread of life, the cup of hope.
Come, feast and be refreshed.
(Eat and drink)
Prayer after Communion
God-with-Earth,
invited and fed at your table we are remade, repurposed.
May this food empower us
to cherish your Creation who we also are.
And whether our cares be light or heavy,
our song be strong or weak,
keep our hearts warm, our hands open,
our lives ever embracing
and embraced by your love.
Amen.
We Sing: “God, you touch the earth with beauty” – (TiS 610)
God, you touch the earth with beauty, make my heart anew,
with your Spirit re-create me, pure and strong and true.
Like your dancing waves in sunlight,
make me glad and free;
like the straightness of the pine trees,
let me upright be.
Like the arching of the heavens,
lift my thoughts above,
turn my dreams to noble action,
ministries of love.
Blessing:
The blessing of God be upon you –
the Giver of life,
the Christ of love,
the Spirit of Peace.
The blessing of the Triune God,
who sprinkles our hearts with the dew of Grace
be with you 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: Season of Creation Celebration Guide, Ministry Matters and WorkingPreacher.com. Communion Liturgy written by Rev DJM Coleman, EcoChaplain, EcoCongregation Scotland (offered for use and adaption).