Croeso! Bore da! Welcome to you all on this Sunday.
Please do make yourself known to me if you are popping in or if I can help in any way.
+Yn enw'r Tad, a'r Mab, a'r Ysbryd Glan. Amen
+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN
Our opening Hymn is: In Christ There Is No East Or West
Heavenly Father, all hearts are open to you.
No secrets are hidden from you.
Purify us with the fire 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
The Gloria
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will. We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory, Lord God, heavenly King, O God, almighty Father. Lord Jesus Christ, Only Begotten Son, Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us; you take away the sins of the world, receive our prayer; you are seated at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us. 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.
Collect Lord, you have taught us
that all our doings without love are nothing worth:
send your Holy Spirit
and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. AMEN
The Word of God.
Psalm 92:1-8 1 It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; 2 to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night, 3 to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre. 4 For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy. 5 How great are your works, O Lord! Your thoughts are very deep! 6 The dullard cannot know, the stupid cannot understand this: 7 though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction forever, 8 but you, O Lord, are on high forever.
The Gospel of Christ according to St Mark
Glory to you. O Lord.
Mark 4:26-34
26 He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27 and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28 The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.” 30 He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? 31 It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; 32 yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” 33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; 34 he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
This is the Gospel of the Lord
Praise to you, O Christ.
Homily.
How do you learn things? Take yourself back to school days... was it through looking at a blackboard, or listening to endless explanations or by doing the task yourself? Was learning easy or did it seem to take a while to sink in? Did you need a bit of all the above or was it through constant repetition?
As a child I did my learning by expanding the situation and creating no end of issues for my poor teacher and parents. The farmer has five sheep in the field and takes three away, how many are left? I would want to know where they had gone and why. What happened to the sheep left and why were some taken? I needed to see the bigger picture the extra information and of course the maths was easy but almost irreverent. The awful thing is I see myself asking these questions still today, in different situations because I feel the wider picture is important and we can miss so much by not embracing things.
But how we learn is so important and Jesus sometimes used parables to teach. Now I know we were all taught a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. A parable can be defined as a simple story about everyday events and characters that illustrates a moral, religious truth, or important life lesson. Parables feature human characters and situations, distinguishing them from fables, whose stories often involve plants and animals. It can be a useful teaching aid. However this was and still is a valid teaching method used not just by Jesus and they appear in other cultures and in other religions too and are still used sometimes in marketing strategies today. Parables are not just relevant in Scripture, but in our life experience too, they are opportunities to make us stop, think and maybe think differently. To educate us, inform us, but challenge us too.
A modern parable could be this one. A lady boarding a aeroplane trip buys herself a coffee and some biscuits and sits down in the departure lounge. A man is sitting one seat away and it is quietish. She opens the biscuits and eats with a coffee, but she is concerned when the man also helps himself to her biscuits. This happens repeated with the lady becoming very cross but eventually when the man took the final biscuit and broke it in half for her and himself. She is now enraged and hurries to the open gate to get away from this rude man. On the plane she opens her handbag to discover there is her pkt of biscuits from here. Now the lady feels awful she can’t say anything she didn’t see anything until now. It the stone that has been throne, the word which has been said and the time which has passed. Now, we could spend the rest of today discussing this and seeing what the infor
Jesus used parables in much of his teaching, but he did explain in finer detail to his disciples what he meant. Would this work for you as a teaching method, would you absorb and learn from the stories? Stories that Jesus told are based on experience, so therefore familiar in some way but not always understood fully; the message of them might be obscure. But if you can see what Jesus is saying at its deepest level, it conveys the best news of the Kingdom. It is suggested by scholars that some parables, are a bit like a crossword clue and if you are up for the challenge you can understand what the Lord is saying through his clues. Yet, Mark in his Gospel some 70 odd years after Christ’s life can see Israel fell short and thus rejected Jesus because quite simply they hadn’t understood his teaching. How often do we reject things because we haven’t understood the concept, idea or teaching.
So today we are not considering the meaning of any parable but rather whether it is a good method of teaching does it make the truths clear and educate the people about things for example here, the Kingdom of God? Could you use parables to teach people about faith in Christ? I think we can try to use them but they are not an easy means to teach anyone and I think we learn best when we experience something for ourselves. I can tell you simply how to make a cake, but when you make for yourself it is a different experience and you will remember the one more than the other possibly because it was brilliant or that it failed or that it made you want to do more. So in our faith we need not just words, nor just ears to hear but the whole of ourselves to respond fully to God who calls and challenges us daily.
Prayers of Intercession and Lord's Prayer
We pray for Christian Church throughout the world and especially for churches in places where religious faith is suppressed or where Christianity is an unwelcome . We remember before you our Ministry Area and its Team, for Bishop June and the Llandaff Diocese.
Lord in your mercy: Hear our prayer
Creator God we pray for our G7 conference which finishes today. Help us to always be aware of the part that we can play by always acting carefully, thoughtfully and unselfishly.
Lord in your mercy:Hear our prayer
Loving God we think now of those in need in our own community and further afield; the elderly, the housebound and those in care homes, hospital and hospice. We also remember the victims of violence, abuse or cruelty. We give thanks for all those who care for the sick within the family, and for all our medical and voluntary services. Let us name those who are poorly or struggling before you.
Lord in your mercy:Hear our prayer.
We pray for those who face the pain of grief at the loss of a loved one. Help us to support all those who mourn, bo both this day and in the days and weeks to come.
We remember before God those who have died , those who have their anniversaries at this time. May they rest in peace and rise in glory.
Lord in your mercy:Hear our prayer
Lord we ask you to lead us into the coming week, Help us to experience that you are close by us. Let us share our joys our fun and laughter as well as our concerns and worries with you and those who care about us.
Lord in your mercy:hear our prayer
Merciful Father: Accept these prayers for the sake of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
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,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever. AMEN
Our concluding hymn is: Immortal love, for ever full
The Lord be with you And also with you.
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.
Ewch mewn tangnefedd i garu a gwasanaethu'r Arglwydd.
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 yn fawr.
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