Sunday Service, 13th September 2020

Welcome to You All as We Celebrate the Fourteenth Sunday After Trinity

The Gathering of the Community

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.

And also, with you.

Dear friends in Christ, we have come together on this fourteenth Sunday after Trinity to celebrate in word and song and to affirm our faith in God

Hymn: "Make me a channel of your peace”

Heavenly Father, all hearts are open to you.

No secrets are hidden from you.

Purify us with the love of your Holy Spirit

That we may love and worship you faithfully,

through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen

Lord, have mercy Lord, have Mercy

Christ, have mercy Christ, have mercy

Lord, have mercy Lord, have mercy

Heavenly Father,

we have sinned in thought, word, and deed,

and have failed to do

what we ought to have done.

We are sorry and truly repent.

For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ

who died for us, forgive us all that is past,

and lead us in his way

to walk as children of light. AMEN

May God our Father,

who by the Lord Jesus Christ

has reconciled the world to himself

and forgives the sins of all who truly repent,

pardon and deliver us from all our sins,

and grant us the grace and power of the Holy Spirit. AMEN

The Gloria.

Glory to God in the highest

and peace to his people on earth.

Lord God, heavenly King,

Almighty God and Father,

we worship you; we give you thanks,

we praise you for your glory.

Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the father,

Lord God, Lamb of God,

you take away the sin of the world:

have mercy on us.

you are seated at the right hand of the Father:

receive our prayer,

For you alone are the Holy One,

you alone are the Lord,

you alone are the Most High,

Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit,

in the glory of God, the Father. AMEN

The Collect

O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ or Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Readings

Romans 8:12-15

14 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

5 One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. 6 Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.

10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11 It is written:

“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’”

12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.

Gospel Acclamation

Your words oh lord give Joy to my heart and light to my Soul

The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant

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 the Lord

Thanks be to Christ

Reflection

This weeks Gospel reading is clearly about forgiveness rather than finance, however what I would like us to think about is, is forgiveness a “one-off” act or a process?

When I look back at specific times in my life when I have found it difficult to forgive someone for something they have done to me or a loved one, those few times in my life when I have felt so hurt and offended by someone`s words or actions that forgiveness was difficult to find I have as the quote at the top of the service says felt trapped like a prisoner and found it difficult to escape from those thoughts of revenge and anger and injustice. Some research into forgiveness has actually shown, that it has many stages, including anger, reframing of the situation and releasing that sense of victimhood. When today Jesus asks us to forgive seventy-seven times perhaps he is not asking ask to repeatedly forgive the same grievance but to acknowledge the many stages we must go to progress through forgiveness and perhaps is he actually asking us to continually hold an attitude of forgiveness to others?

I am always amazed by the stories you come across in the news when someone publicly forgives someone for a crime that seems so heinous. I would like to share with you one such story of a lady called Mary Johnston

In 1993, a mother lost her only son when Oshea Israel shot him during an argument at a party. Her initial reaction was that she wanted justice. She wanted him to pay for his crime, which he did. After serving 17 years of a 25-year sentence, he was released from jail and returned back to his old neighborhood—right next door to Mary. This was not by accident, but by a remarkable act of mercy. A few years prior to his release, Mary was overcome by the conviction to forgive him, so she set out to do just that through the course of several meetings. After some time, she was able to not only forgive him, but help him upon his departure from prison. In fact, they don’t just live close to each other—they are close in spirit. Mary gives God the glory with her ability to forgive such a tragedy, "unforgiveness is like cancer. It will eat you from the inside out. It’s not about the other person, me forgiving him does not diminish what he’s done. Yes, he murdered my son - but the forgiveness is for me. It’s just for me."

I pray today, that in the words of our first hymn you will make us a channel of your peace. That you will give us the strength to take the first step on the path of forgiveness.

Amen

The Creed

I believe and trust in God the father,

who created all that is.

I believe and trust in his Son Jesus Christ,

who redeemed humankind.

I believe and trust in his Holy Spirit,

who gives life to the people of God.

I believe in and trust

father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN

Prayers of intercession:

O God the Father, we thank you that you are a creator God. We thank you that you have made all things and have made them well. That you have given to us all things richly to enjoy. For the beauty and the bounty of this fair earth. We thank you, O Father who has made all things and all people. Forgive us if in pride and selfishness and in anger we have misused your gifts and have used for death that which was meant for life.

Lord in your mercy - Hear our prayer

O Lord Jesus Christ, the Son, we thank you for your redeeming power. You love us and we see your love shown most clearly on the cross where you gave of your life to conquer death and to make well the brokenness of the universe. We thank you Son of God who loves us with a never-ending love. Forgive us if we have treated your love lightly as a little thing and if we have shown little love in return

Lord in your mercy - Hear our prayer

O Holy Spirit of God we thank you that you are always with us. We ask you to help us discern the things in our lives that suffocate our thoughts and distract us from following you. We ask you to come into our lives and weed out those things that have no place in in this world the thoughts words and actions that only bring sin to the world but instead help to bring Love Joy and hope to the world by living with Christ in our hearts.

Lord in your mercy - Hear our prayer

May the blessing of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Three in One and One in Three be on us now and stay with each one of us always. Amen.

Lord God in spite of our unbelief and lack of understanding of who you are, show us your new way of living with forgiveness at the center

Merciful Father accept these prayers for the sake of your son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy Name,

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those

who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever. Amen.

Hymn: “Praise my soul the King of Heaven”

The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all now and ever more. AMEN

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

If you would like to donate £5 to the overall work of the 12 churches in the parish, please carefully text: GIVE5 to 70970. Thank you, diolch.