CHRIST CANDLE
We light this candle, because we are fearful of darkness lest it overwhelm us.
We light this candle, because it reminds us of Christ Jesus’ presence and power.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF COUNTRY
We gather on the land of the Dharawal people. It was never ceded or sold or given away, it was taken without the thought that they ever owned it, without the awareness that their very identity and purpose is entwined in this land that we too now call home. We acknowledge their elders past and present and pledge ourselves to work together in peace, in solidarity and in justice making.
CALL TO WORSHIP
The world belong to God, the earth and all its people.
In God love and faithfulness meet, Justice and Peace embrace.
O God, my soul thirsts for you; as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Come, let us worship God and quench our hunger! Amen
HYMN – TIS 107 Paul to sing
Sing praise and thanksgiving, let all creatures living
Now worship their maker with gladness and song
All glory and honour we come to him bringing:
O praise to the Almighty, sing praise to our God!
Our lives of his making he brings to their waking
In darkness he held us in his gracious care
Now into the light we are called from our sleeping:
O praise to the Almighty, sing praise to our God!
Lord, frame our desiring to do your requiring
That unto your glory be all that we do
And where we have faltered, give strength and give healing:
O praise to the Almighty, sing praise to our God!
Paul Gerhardt 1607 – 1676. Adapted © by Colin Alexander Gibson 1933 -
WELCOME
Eternal Creator God, God with us in Christ, God in Spirit our Helper. You welcome us to this place where your name is acknowledged and honoured and where your love is celebrated. Each one of you is known to God. All that is you is acknowledged. All you have been, all that you are today and all that you may be tomorrow. So, come, welcome, you are all made in God’s image.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
OT BIBLE READING
2Samuel 11:26 – 12:13a When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord. The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
“Now a traveller came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveller who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.” David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’ “This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’”
Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
PRAYER OF CONFESSION Psalm 51 selected verses
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness
In your great compassion blot out my offences.
Wash me through and through from my wickedness
And cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions
And my sin is ever before me.
Against you only have I sinned
And done what is evil in your sight.
And so you are justified when you speak
And upright in your judgment.
Purge me from sin, and I shall be pure
Wash me, and I shall be clean indeed. Uniting in Worship Peoples Book © 1988
SONG ‘Create in me a clean heart’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fVliokreqE
Create in me a clean heart, oh God
And renew a right spirit within me
Create in me a clean heart, oh God
And renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Thy presence, oh Lord
And take not Thy Holy Spirit from me
Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation
And renew a right spirit within me. © Keith Green
GOSPEL READING
John 6: 27 – 28a, 31 – 35 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
Then they asked him, “What must we do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
In this we find God’s Word of Life. Thanks be to God.
MESSAGE ‘Are you always hungry?’
“Please Sir, I want some more” is an iconic line from Charles Dickens ‘Oliver Twist’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tOkpntQtBM
Being hungry is something most of our world’s 7.875 Billion people experience every day.
We could talk this morning about our use of food, how much we may throw out each week and just how much we actually need to live on. We give thanks that our major supermarkets now have formal relationships with organizations like SecondBite and OzHarvest for leftover food.
But today’s Gospel Reading and the story of King David highlight a very different hunger that has nothing to do with what food might be on your plate, but rather what sustains your inner being.
Jesus is not talking about ‘will I have seconds’, what about that ‘extra sausage’ or that ‘2nd packet of chips’, that ‘extra glass of wine’ or, ‘look, you’ve had a demanding week you’ve earnt it, or ‘you’re worth it’ (to quote a TV ad) or ‘I’ll treat myself to that extra piece of chocolate’. Why? Because I can.
I’m sure we’ve all done something like that! While for some of us this ‘justification’ is now second nature to us, and I’m not just talking about food and drink but also about our emotional and mental health wants and needs too.
Jesus is saying ‘can you identify the hunger that lies deep within you that always craves for more’ (that leaves you like sheep without a shepherd) for more self-esteem, for more self-giving, for more self-valuing, purpose and Peace that is never attained; let alone at peace with what we do have.
Where life is mostly a glass ‘half empty’. What Jesus is offering is not just a sardine on a bread roll!
King David had his own insatiable hunger when he saw Bathsheba bathing.
Even though the Scriptures said that he had many wives & concubines, he wanted Bathsheba and because he was King he had the political and the military power (regarding Uriah) to demand it.
Though not the moral or ethical insight and wisdom to discern how he should use such power.
Whenever we demand something more to satisfy our needs or wants it usually occurs at the expense of another person. Why? Because this sort of hunger is viewed from the perspective that my needs and my wants are paramount. I’m at the centre of my world and no one else.
We see echoes of “it’s all about me” in last week’s mass anti-lockdown / anti-vax rally in Sydney.
In too many critical encounters and exchanges that we may have with others, I come first.
And because as disciples of Jesus we believe that we are made in God’s image, this out of kilter focus usurps God’s place at the centre of our lives. If we can be ‘still enough, for long enough’ to know this then we will get in touch with a deep restlessness or hunger, or to quote St Augustine of Hippo:
‘Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord and our hearts are restless, until it finds its rest in Thee’.
This ‘restlessness’ is the hunger Jesus is talking about, which in Matthew he views with compassion.
This ‘restlessness’ also resonated with John Wesley the funder of Methodism.
In 1738, he was almost in despair. He did not have the faith to continue to preach.
After attending a Bible study on 24 May he said ‘I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation and an assurance was given to me that my sins had been taken away.’
The insatiable hunger and burden he carried that he had to earn his salvation, but which he always fell short of, that burden was now lifted. It transformed the rest of his life and ministry.
Placing Christ at the centre, satisfies the hunger we all have. That is why Jesus said: ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’.
Often Jesus after performing such miracles like the feeding of the 5,000 goes off either to another place or to a solitary place. He does this in part so that he is not tempted to ‘be’ what the crowd demand of him, lest Jesus be tempted to deliver it! This means that Jesus too needed to ‘let go’ of such temptations, to trust more deeply in His God. And for us to let go of that driven desire which manifests itself as always being hungry and demanding to be fed.
David had Nathan the prophet to say to him in boldness and with truth: ‘you are the man’.
In gentleness, undergirded by Christ’s Grace & Peace, may you find a Nathan in your life to speak the words of truth in love that you may need to hear or like the crowd who gathered:
‘Sir, always give us this bread.’
There is no better time as we gather for communion, graciously and lovingly fed by Christ, for each of us to acknowledge our hunger within and to accept His invitation to Life.
To Christ Jesus’ name be praise & glory! Amen
HYMN TIS 692 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvOViM5OiGM
Sometimes a healing words is comfort:
easing the grieved or anxious heart
giving assurance of our caring
treasuring each and every part.
Come break the silence! Let us tell the Word that makes us free and well.
Sometimes a healing word remembers:
calling up days of joy or pain
letting the past renew the present
till hope can mend and move again.
Come break the silence…
Sometimes a healing word is angry:
giving a name to discontent
shining a light on sin and grievance
calling a people to repent.
Come break the silence…
Sometimes a healing word takes chances:
going where no one yet has been
facing the dangers of the desert
hoping for shelter at the inn.
Come break the silence…
Sometimes a healing word will listen:
hearing the voiceless into speech
letting the pattern of the story
move us to learn what it can teach.
Come break the silence… Words ©Patrick G Michaels Music © H Moen-Boyd
WE ACKNOWLEDGE OUR OFFERINGS TO GOD
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
HOLY COMMUNION
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.
A PRAYER OF THANKGIVING IS SHARED
And so with the faithful of every time and place, joining with the choirs of angels and the whole creation in the eternal hymn:
Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
WORDS OF INSTITUTION & INVOCATION
DISTRIBUTION
HYMN TIS 604 ‘Make me a captive Lord’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8REwQj8h5I
Make me a captive Lord
And then I shall be free
Force me to render up my sword
And I shall conqueror be.
I sink in life’s alarms
When by myself I stand
Imprison me within thine arms
And strong shall be my hand.
My heart is weak and poor
Until it master find
It has no spring of action sure
It varies with the wind.
It cannot freely move
Till thou hast wrought its chain
Enslave it with thy matchless love
And deathless it shall reign.
My will is not my own
Till thou has made it thine
If it would reach a monarch’s throne
It must its crown resign;
It only stands unbent
Amid the clashing strife
When on thy bosom it has leant
And found in thee its life. George Matheson 1842 – 1906 Public Domain
BLESSING & BENEDICTION
As the candle is extinguished, we become the light of Christ. Burn brightly at the centre of your life!
And the blessing of God who comes to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit
Delight in who you are and in whom you are becoming until the day God makes all things new. Amen