WE GATHER IN GOD’S PRESENCE:
Lighting the Candle:
Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness
but will have the light of life.’
Let us be mindful of each other as we engage in worship,
those who worship at home
and those who worship in the chapel:
Greeting:
The Lord be with you AND ALSO WITH YOU
We Focus on God Psalm 114
When Israel came out of Egypt,
Jacob from a people of foreign tongue,
2 JUDAH BECAME GOD’S SANCTUARY,
ISRAEL HIS DOMINION.
3 The sea looked and fled,
the Jordan turned back;
4 THE MOUNTAINS LEAPED LIKE RAMS,
THE HILLS LIKE LAMBS.
5 Why was it, sea, that you fled?
WHY, JORDAN, DID YOU TURN BACK?
6 Why, mountains, did you leap like rams,
you hills, like lambs?
7 TREMBLE, EARTH, AT THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD,
at the presence of the God of Jacob,
8 (ALL) WHO TURNED THE ROCK INTO A POOL,
THE HARD ROCK INTO SPRINGS OF WATER.
We Sing: TIS 155 O LORD MY GOD, WHEN I IN AWESOME WONDER 4vv
Prayer[1]
God sovereign and generous,
who commands the rise and fall of nations,
who calls and has chosen many peoples,
who weep when they harm each other,
who haunts every local culture-including ours-
with your will for well-being,
who draws close to the powerless and
surprises with power via weakness…
You are the one whom we praise in astonishment,
we adore in gladness,
we thank in gratitude…
for who you are,
for what you do,
for how you hope.
Look with mercy on us this day,
on this church we serve and love,
on all the people we name,
on all communities so fragile in which
we are embedded .
Look with mercy, and we will obey you all the day long.
in the name of Jesus who obeyed fully,
and who invites 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 today our daily bread.
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 LISTEN FOR A WORD FROM GOD
Scripture
Romans 9: 1-18
9 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. 9 For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”
10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
In this is the Word of the Lord WE HEAR AND REJOICE, O LORD
Matthew 18:21-35
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
This is the Gospel of our Lord PRAISE TO YOU LORD JESUS CHRIST
Prayer of Confession
God of Mercy,
we have just asked:
Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us,
Lord, have mercy LORD HAVE MERCY
Lord of Grace,
we have just learned
This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you
unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart
Christ, have mercy CHRIST, HAVE MERCY
Spirit of Holiness,
we are called
to be a community of forgiven people, forgiving in turn…
Lord, have mercy LORD HAVE MERCY
Declaration of Reconciliation
We hear: I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort,
but on God’s mercy.
We profess: But God proves his love for us
in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
In Christ we are forgiven,
so we say with joy in our hearts THANKS BE TO GOD
Passing the Peace.. as we raise our hands in blessing to those unseen…
The peace of the Risen Lord be with you all AND ALSO WITH YOU.
We Sing: TIS 635 FORGIVE OUR SINS AS WE FORGIVE 4vv
Contemporary Word OUR CRIES TO GOD
There was one text from the Scriptures which inevitably surfaced
into my consciousness when I lost myself in my ministry work
as a young family man with two children.
The text was from Song of Solomon,
its pertinent lines were: they made me keeper of the vineyards,
but my own vineyard I have not kept! (1.6)
Never mind its context, even that a woman is speaking,
and speaking of her inability to care for the beauty of her face!
When I first came across it,
the Word of the Lord for me was simply,
take care, you care for every other family,
make sure you care for your own!
I just took for granted that my children would engage in worship
and grow in a relationship with God
mirroring more or less my own spiritual development!
The text urged me to assume nothing,
rather to intentionally affirm, encourage and dialogue,
as I did with other youngsters!
There was the genuine concern, grief even, on my part,
that they were missing out on what I believed then,
and still do so now,
the potential special interaction with God
to which we open ourselves through corporate worship,
when they exercised their right to stop coming to worship.
As well as, I must confess, a certain embarrassment,
a fear of a loss of credibility,
that my own children choose not to attend church!
My concern and discomfort echoed
at a very personal level
the grief and discomfort I believe Paul expressed
at his awareness of his own people rejecting
the Good News of God concerning his Son
declared to be Son of God with power according
to the spirit of holiness
by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord! (1:4).
Paul commenced his lament concerning Israel’s unbelief as follows:
I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying;
my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit—
I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ
for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.
They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption,
the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law,
the worship, and the promises;
to them belong the patriarchs,
and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah,
who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
His anguish and sorrow also included a certain embarrassment,
an awareness of the question mark over his credibility!
Non-Jews were responding to his preaching and teaching
in most places where he proclaimed
the Gospel of God concerning Jesus Christ.
Nevertheless it was becoming quite clear
that the majority of the very people who had spawned the Messiah
refused to recognize Jesus as such,
let alone as Saviour and Lord.
Paul, as one would expect, thought about this dilemma
both passionately and carefully…
though not with a modern so-called analytical logical clarity
which twenty-first century commentators,
actually, to be more correct,
which twentieth century commentators
would attribute to their own thinking.
Those of us who have been working our way through
Jon D levenson’s book, Inheriting Abraham,
in our Thursday afternoon bible study group
have been exposed to Rabbinic thinking,
both ancient and more modern…
We have learned to put aside the assumptions
of Modern scholarship,
and listen to what ancient traditions have had to say.
We also learned to recognize certain parallels
between how ancient Rabbis, and how Paul
made sense of the scriptures available to them.
If we are to arrive at a properly nuanced estimate
of Paul’s theological stance toward his own people and their sacred texts, we must engage him on his own terms,
by following his readings of the texts
in which he heard the word of God.
How did Paul interpret Israel’s Scriptures?
In order to keep that question in proper historical perspective,
We should bear in mind the following:
First, Paul’s letters are the earliest writings in the New Testament, although this fact is somewhat obscured
by our arrangement of the New Testament books.
These letters were all sent as pastoral communications
to particular churches long before the earliest of the canonical Gospels had been composed.
Second: because Paul wrote in a time
when there was no New Testament,
no body of generally acknowledged authoritative Christian writings,
his Scripture was the body of writings
that constituted Israel’s sacred text,
which Christians later came to call the Old Testament.
The Scripture that Paul had known as a Pharisee
remained Scripture for him after his call to proclaim
the gospel of the crucified Messiah.
It would be misleading, however, to refer to this Scripture
as the “Hebrew Bible,”
because the original Hebrew language of the biblical writings
was not a concern of Paul.
His citations characteristically follow the Septuagint (LXX),
a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible
dating from the second or third century B.C.,
which was in common use in Hellenistic synagogues
during Paul’s lifetime.
Rarely do Paul’s quotations agree with the Masoretic Hebrew text (MT) against the LXX when these differ[2] …
Paul expressed his grief and passion for Israel
through this extended lament within Romans chapters 9 to 11:
broadly analogous to the structure of a lament psalm:
9:1–5: Lament over Israel.
9:6–29: Has God’s word failed? Defense of God’s elective purpose.
9:30–10:21: Paradox: Israel failed to grasp the word of faith attested by God in Scripture.
11:1–32: Has God abandoned his people? No, all Israel will be saved.
11:33–36: Doxological conclusion.[3]
A lament is a pain filled cry to God.
A cry of anguish, a cry of anger, a cry of ambivalence,
a cry of guilt, a cry of innocence…
A lament is a troubled whisper to God,
a whisper of pain, a whisper of disbelief,
a whisper of confession, whispers of uncertainty and questions…
A lament is silence before God…
speech stunned into silence
as one’s emotions catch up
with the dire straits and horrendous circumstances
which invaded one’s life,
tearing apart its once thought indestructible fabric;
speech stunned into silence
at the self-revealing uncomfortableness of baring one’s soul….
This lament, though obviously not word-less,
expresses the groanings deep within Paul,
groanings picked up by the Spirit
and understood by God
(as Paul has pointed out merely verses earlier in Chapter 8)
even if we cannot quite make sense of what is going on,
or what is being argued, questioned, recalled?!
Walter Brueggeman labels the Psalms of Lament
as ‘Psalms of disorientation’.[4]
He reminds us that whilst we may prefer life
as described in Psalms and hymns
which celebrate equilibrium, coherence and symmetry,
life deals us often
disequilibrium, incoherence and unrelieved asymmetry[5].
I still remember well the first dawning of the day
after the hours of darkness during which I was with my father
when he breathed his last, and died…
As I made my way to the family home in Zillmere
to inform my mother of what had happened,
I could not believe what was going on!
Birds were commencing their pre-dawn chirping,
greeting the rising sun,
beginning their search for breakfast…
busses began their stop and start journeys to and fro their destinations,
trains rumbled along their tracks…
people were starting their day
as if nothing of significance had happened,
cheerily greeting each other as they made their way to work;
I felt totally disoriented, out of step and off kilter with life
as it progressed around me
as the sun rose slowly in the sky…
I can empathise with Paul’s sense of disorientation
as the realization dawned on him that the very people
God intended to witness to God’s saving activity
for humanity and creation,
failed to recognize what God is doing in, and through Jesus Christ!
Most of us in Australia in March experienced a massive disorientation!
Many, many people, families, businesses, groups,
organisations and communities even,
continue to live life as a disoriented people.
The impact of the Corona virus pandemic does that!
Reflecting on the impact of this global scourge,
countering an approach that looks for whom to blame,
Tom Wright, drawing on the content of some typical Psalms of Lament,
also, and especially, the book of Job, states:
“We are simply to know that when we are caught up
in awful circumstances, apparent gross injustices, terrible plagues—
…, suffering strange sicknesses with no apparent reason, let alone cure—
at those points we are to lament, we are to complain,
we are to state the case, and leave it with God.
God himself declares at the end that Job has told the truth (42:8).
He has clung on to the fact that God is just,
even though his own misery seems to deny it.”[6]
This Paul does in these chapters of Romans 9-11.
He tries to make sense of what is happening,
drawing on certain texts of his Scriptures,
including the story of Israel, from Abraham to the Exile,[7]
drawing on his own life experiences,
and drawing on his still unshakeable conviction
concerning his calling to be an Apostle to the gentiles!
Paul is arguing with God like Job;
he is praying a lament psalm,
begging God to show him
why the conclusions he does not want to reach are wrong;
that that “the righteousness of God,”
the subject of the entire letter,
is nowhere more at stake than
it is in the question of God’s dealings with God’s own people, Israel.
Paul begins as if he were praying to God…
that God would indeed show, in these same Scriptures
which contain the promises to Israel’s ancestors,
some way through the problem
of God’s apparent unrighteousness to Israel
— apparent but not real,
for Paul knows that unrighteousness
cannot be the case with God.
He bares his emotions in this prayer of lament;
Four times during this section,
at each of the major turning points of the discussion
(9: 1– 5; 10: 1– 4; 11: 1– 6; 11: 13– 14)
Paul places himself and his story into the argument.
In 9: 1– 5, he speaks of himself to stress
how strongly God’s mercy to Israel matters to him—
enough that he would be willing to be cut off
for the sake of his people.
At 10: 1– 4 he bears witness on behalf of Israel
that their intentions are good:
they have a zeal for God; it just is not according to knowledge.
At 11: 1– 6 he testifies to God’s faithfulness:
God has in fact called a remnant of Israel in Paul himself.
Finally, at 11: 13– 14 he describes
how he glorifies his ministry as apostle to the Gentiles
as part of God’s plan to make Israel jealous.[8]
These chapters seem almost a prayer/ psalm
that Paul speaks representatively
on behalf of those who have not heard and responded as he has.
Paul will attempt to show that the same God
who spoke covenant promises to Israel
has not now abandoned Israel
by opening those covenant promises to Gentiles—
who have become part of Israel’s Messiah
and therefore heirs of the covenant inheritance
promised to the seed of Abraham.
The density of scriptural citation and allusion
increases dramatically in these chapters,
these chapters are saturated
with scriptural quotations, allusions, and echoes!
Paul through these, seeks to show that Israel’s unbelief,
though paradoxical, is neither unexpected nor final.
As Paul recalls Scripture,
he finds not only manifold
prefigurations of God’s mercy to the Gentiles
but also promises of Israel’s ultimate restoration.
The purpose of Romans 9–11—as of the letter in its entirety—
is to show that God’s dealing with Israel
and the nations in the present age
is fully consistent with God’s modus operandi in the past
and with his declared purposes.[9]
We should not minimize though,
the painful processes and the necessary time
for the restoration of all and everything
to God’s intentions for creation and humanity!
We are realizing now that in our pandemic crisis
a return to how life was seems unlikely.
The way forward to the new way of normalcy
will be slow, and no doubt,
include some trials and errors,
and pain for most of us,
economically and socially!
The phrase “all creation is groaning”
is employed by Paul in Rom 8:22
wherein he elaborates on the struggle for newness
through the imagery of the anguish and demand of labor pains,
a new creation willed by God but not yet birthed,
only in anticipation.
We must not pass over
the labor pains, cries, and demands, too easily.
I recall a friend, from those days when the father was, as usual,
not present with his wife in the hospital at the birth of their child.
He was unaware of the difficulty
of the prolonged birthing process his wife endured;
really unaware I mean, like most of us men then;
though he had been informed of the phrase, ‘difficult birth’.
So, soon after the birth, he hurried to the hospital
and upon seeing the new babe,
reassured his weary wife and new mother,
“Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it”.
Paul was under no illusion
about the problematic nature of birth pangs
—how deep, how painful,
how nearly unbearable they may be.[10]
He might well have recalled God’s words in Isaiah 42:
For a long time I have held my peace,
I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out like a woman in labour,
I will gasp and pant.
Inevitably, as Brueggemann and others have shown,
and we can read for ourselves in our reading of the Psalms,
Psalms of Lament conclude with praise, affirmation…
the old secure mind set, disturbed by disorientation,
moves into a new found security…[11]
In the midst of the global redemption and transformation
God is working for our well-being and life,
as we bear perhaps its labour pains and birth pangs,
remember the ultimate good promised by God
God himself co-operates for good with those who love God’ (8:28)
The pain brings new life!
Paul approached God as Job approached God,
in turmoil, with questions…
ultimately, Paul, echoing Job’s confession, (Job 42:3)
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
could say, again like Job from a place of divine affirmation,
(Romans 11)
33 O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgements
and how inscrutable his ways!
34 ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counsellor?’
35 ‘Or who has given a gift to him,
to receive a gift in return?’
WE RESPOND TO GOD’S WORD
We Sing: TIS 667 HOW SHALL I SING TO GOD? 3vv
We Bring Our offering to God
setting aside our gifts to support the local and wider work of the church
and bless our gifts in an act of praise…
We Share Our Community Life
Prayers of the People[12]
A Thou Who Hears!
We prefer our worship of you should be upbeat.
We like it that the church is “the happiest place in town.”
We take our glimpse of your promised kingdom as a venue,
where never is heard a discouraging word!
But then . . . reality!!
like suffering and death, like pandemic and virus, like loss unimaginable!
That reality breaks our happy illusion
of a fairy-tale life in the first world,
and we are left with stone-cold fear and bottomless need.
So we cry out with urgent imperative:
Hear, help, save!!
Lord hear us LORD HEAR OUR PRAYER
We cry out along with the whole company of people of faith
who have cried out.
We cry out, because our cry,
since the lips of the slaves in Egypt,
is our most elemental word back to you, our creator.
We cry out, not in despair,
but in confidence that you hear.
You are the one, the only one,
who can turn sorrow to joy, mourning to dancing, weeping to laughter.
Lord hear us LORD HEAR OUR PRAYER
So now, God who hears, helps, and saves,
hear, act, and make new!
Give us courage and patience;
end the virus;
let us be rich in soul and poor in things,
ordered for neighborliness, generous with goods, free of fear,
but mostly: end the virus!
Lord hear us LORD HEAR OUR PRAYER
We pray this in the name of Jesus
who defeated the powers of death
overcame the forces of evil,
ended the unbearable vexation of leprosy for some,
and became the Lord of the Dance,
the dance of wellbeing, gladness, and peace.
So we pray, so we trust, so we hope . . . in you!
Lord hear us LORD HEAR OUR PRAYER AMEN
WE GO OUT TO SERVE GOD
We Sing TIS 648 HELP US ACCEPT EACH OTHER 4vv
Sending Out
We go as a people called by God:
to receive mercy,
and to distribute mercy,
to receive compassion
and to share compassion…
Blessing
The God of creation bless you with love,
the Lord of all bless you with grace,
the Spirit of life bless you with hope,
both now and into the future God has in mind for us!
AMEN, AMEN, AMEN
[1] Brueggemann, Walter (2003) Awed to Heaven, Rooted on Earth (p.10) Minneapolis: Augsburg
[2] Hays, R. B. (1989). Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (pp. x–xi). New Haven; London: Yale University Press.
[3] Hays, R. B. (1989). Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (p.64). New Haven; London: Yale University Press.
[4] Brueggemann, Walter (1984) The Message of the Psalms: a theological commentary (p.51) Minneapolis: Augsburg.
[5] ibid.
[6] Wright, N. T. (2020). God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath (p. 14). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Reflective.
[7] Wright, N. T. (1994–2004). The Letter of the Romans. In L. E. Keck (Ed.), New Interpreter’s Bible (Vol. 10, p. 411). Nashville: Abingdon Press.
[8] Grieb, A. Katherine. (2002) The Story of Romans (p. 90). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition
[9] Hays, R. B. (1989). Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (p. 64). New Haven; London: Yale University Press.
[10] Brueggemann, Walter (2020) . Virus as a Summons to Faith: Biblical Reflections in a Time of Loss, Grief, and Uncertainty (p. 61). Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
[11] Brueggemann, Walter (1984) The Message of the Psalms: a theological commentary (p.21) Minneapolis: Augsburg
[12] Brueggemann, Walter (2020). Virus as a Summons to Faith: Biblical Reflections in a Time of Loss, Grief, and Uncertainty (pp. 70-72). Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
If you wish to leave a comment, send an email to baldhillsuc1@gmail .com
Service for Sunday 28th June 2020 – Rev Louis van Laar 
Service for Pentecost Sunday 31st May 2020 – Rev Louis van Laar 
Service for Sunday 18th October 2020, – Rev Louis van Laar 
Service for Sunday 21st June 2020 – Rev Louis van Laar 
