LIGHT A CANDLE AT YOUR PLACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF COUNTRY
Martin Rinkart At the age of thirty-one was offered the place of Archdeacon at his native town of Eilenburg in Saxony. He went there as the Thirty Year war (began 1618) broke out, and died just after the peace, and throughout these thirty-one years he stood by his flock, and helped them in the midst of every kind of distress.
The plague of 1637 visited Eilenburg with extraordinary severity; the town was overcrowded with fugitives from the country districts where the waring Swedes had spread devastation. In this one year 8,000 persons died in it. Rinkart, pastored at the beds of the town’s sick and dying. He buried more than 4,000 persons, but through all his labours he himself remained perfectly well. The pestilence was followed by a famine so extreme that thirty or forty persons might be seen fighting in the streets for a dead cat or crow. Rinkart, with the town mayor did what could be done to organize assistance, and gave away everything but the barest rations for his own family, so that his door was surrounded every day by a crowd of poor starving people, who found it their only refuge.
Let us now listen to his famous hymn written during that plague of 1637.
OPENING HYMN TIS 106 ‘Now thank we all our God’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s99dNPKYtHk
Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices
Who wondrous things has done, in whom the world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us
With ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us.
Lord, keep us in your grace and guide us when perplexed
And free us from all harm in this world and the next.
All praise and thanks to God, who reigns in highest heaven
To Father and to Son and Spirit now be given:
The one eternal God, whom heaven and earth adore
Who ever was, is now, and shall be ever more. Martin Rinkart 1586 – 1649 Public Domain
WELCOME
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Almighty and merciful God, the fountain of all goodness, you know the thoughts of our hearts:
We confess that we have sinned against you and done what is evil in your sight.
Wash us from the stains of our past sins, and give us grace and power, to put away all hurtful things
So that, being delivered from the bondage of sin, we may bring forth fruit worthy of repentance.
Grant that with all our hearts, and minds and strength, we may always seek your face; and finally in your infinite mercy, bring us to your holy presence. So strengthen our weakness that following in the footsteps of your blessed Son, we may obtain your mercy and enter into your promised joy.
St Alcuin 735 – 804 Anglo-Saxon Priest who served in King Charlemagne’s Court
Psalm 121 (Modern)
I lift up my eyes to a mushroom cloud from which death came and illness and loss of eyes and limbs,
the burning of skins and souls, and the sorrows of the hibakusha, survivors of seventy-six years,
and their children, and children’s children and all our children.
I lift up my eyes to that cloud from which comes the creed and belief that power, great power, killing power, defines reality and the belief that says ‘might equals right’ & which justifies ‘payback.’
But my hope comes from One who shares tears and memories, and whose power seeks to heal
the melted skins of all on the earth, and whose gifts from heaven are never a ball of fire, but only the gentleness of soft rain.
God is not into nuclear arsenal building, a knee on the neck, a wall along a border, a pipeline through a holy place, but neither does God slumber while power steals hope nor does God sleep through new gethsemanes. God bows low as at a Manger at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.
God is a child’s hand that folds a crane by day, the tanka a poet writes of moonlight.
God was companion on that day of the “noiseless flash” and also in this season of pandemic.
Going out and coming in – God keeps us all bowed for peace, lifted up for justice.
Maren Tirabassi ‘Gifts in Open Hands’ she is a United Churches of Christ Pastor, New Hampshire USA
GOSPEL READING Matthew 5:3 – 9
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
MESSAGE ‘Blessed are the peace-makers’
When Mathew’s Gospel was being written, it was just a decade or so after Jerusalem and its Temple had been utterly destroyed by the Romans with the loss of over 50,000 lives and 200,000 men, women and children enslaved. This combined with the brutal and de-humanizing way Jesus was flogged, beaten and crucified had a powerful impact upon the stories which Matthew and his faith community included in their Gospel. That the early Church proclaimed Jesus as the Prince of Peace is no accident, it comes in direct contract and challenge to all who believe that violence is a ready option in times of trouble.
I cannot show you the destruction and loss of life that occurred in Jerusalem on 8 Sept 70AD. But I can show you a re-enactment of what happened in 1945.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wxWNAM8Cso
On 6 & 9 August 1945 two atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a loss of life of over 250,000 people. What isn’t so well remembered is that double that number of people were killed in the mass fire bombing raids that occurred during the previous 6 months over mainland Japan.
This was similar to the 25,000 civilians killed following the carpet bombing of Dresden in Germany over three nights in Feb 1945. In-spite of all the reasons given for each bombing in 1945, hidden within that decision-making lies pain, hatred and payback and kill or be killed as the ‘justified’ use of overwhelming military power, in part, just because they can.
We also see echoes of such brutality way back in the Creation stories involving Cain and Abel where after Abel’s death Cain says ‘but am I my brother’s keeper?’ i.e. am I responsible for him?
There are plenty in our day who still live out the washing of their hands of such sensibilities as Pilate also did in his decision making about the fate which awaited Jesus.
In response to the Gospel’s claim that Jesus is the Prince of Peace as compared with the popular title of the time ‘Prince of Peace’ given to the Emperor Augustus whose Pax Roma had been bought by the might of Roman Legions. In the face of such violence there are many in our day who have taken the step of becoming pacifists like Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, John Lennon & Martin Luther King; and while I walked in Vietnam Moratorium marches and was arrested for hunger fasting on the steps of the Melbourne GPO, I am not a pacifist.
If someone threatened to harm or kill those I love then I would defend them as best as I could.
I pray my Lord would understand and forgive me if I ever killed someone while defending my family.
Whether it was my Granddad talking about his experiences in WW1 or three former WW2 Changi & Burma Railway POW’s I knew during my years in ministry, these survivors all came to abhor violence even when and perhaps especially because they had witnessed first-hand such atrocities.
It has been said ‘soldiers are reluctant to go to war, it’s politicians who seem attracted to it’.
Like last Sunday’s wrestle with our constant hunger for many things, so on this remembrance day Jesus seeks to tackle, in his Beatitudes, head on the “old Adam’s” (Christ is the New Adam) propensity to want to harm, to seek revenge, to threaten, to kill, to inflict pain. As if any of these responses can ever solve or heal or draw a line in the sand to a radically changed behaviour as the Prophet Isaiah wrote in Ch 2 vs 4 “and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore”. Such ‘learning’ can be unlearnt!
As Martin Luther King wrote in 1958 “Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love. For as Christ has supremely shown us darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.”
In modern South Sudan, the ministers and elders of the Presbyterian Church, a partner church of UnitingWorld, in the aftermath of their civil war which began 6 years ago are still going from village to village where every family has experienced death. Death at the hands of the other tribe whether they be Dinka or Nuer. They preach a message of forgiveness, of reconciliation and peace. It is only then that true Peace, the Peace of the Lord Jesus Christ can be found, experienced & shared and Life, hoped for.
The key to Matthew’s famous verse about peace-makers, is just that. Peace-makers.
Not peace enforcers at the point of a spear, forcing people into doing what they don’t want to do.
Not the artificial peace signed on a piece of paper which is only skin deep.
But peace-makers that transform people from within.
Do you remember the family 2 years ago who lost 3 children to a now convicted drug & alcohol affected driver? The parents forgave him. “We cannot hate him, we have no choice but to forgive him” (lest our grief overwhelm us and turn us into people of hate. Our children would not want that as their epitaph ).
Such peace begins deep within each of us. Such peace begins with Christ’s offer of peace to each one of us ‘I call you not slaves, but friends’. The search for it may open many more rooms in our hearts to our Lord’s inquisitive conquering love, but it is a journey he is committed to undertaking because His world, our world, desperately needs peace-makers. Peace-makers who are blessed and beloved of God.
Whether it be round the dining room table, while washing the dishes, watching TV, listening to the radio or talking with people down the street, may you be peace-makers, for Christ’s sake. Amen
HYMN ‘The peace that we share’ Tune TO GOD BE THE GLORY with Refrain
The peace that we share when we turn and shake hands
Is simply the peace that our Saviour commands.
As Christ reigns in heaven, he calls us to live
As people forgiven, with God’s peace to give.
Refrain (after first and last verses):
May the peace that we share be for more than our friends;
As we risk and we dare so God’s kingdom extends.
Remind us again, Lord, that seeds will increase –
that you’ll give the harvest when we work for peace!
Peace grows through the dreamers who seek a new way,
Through workers who struggle to build God’s new day.
It grows through the soldiers who once fought in wars
Yet now seek a new way that heals and restores.
Peace grows through the diplomats forging a deal
And building a treaty so nations can heal.
Peace grows when our fears don’t control what we do –
When we see that others are God’s children, too.
Peace grows when our leaders are brave to spend funds
On schools and on students, not weapons and guns.
Peace grows when all citizens work for the good
So all will have housing and health care and food.
When all use their talents so conflicts will cease,
Imagining, working and risking for peace,
When nations negotiate rather than fight
Then justice is possible! Peace is in sight!
Refrain: May the peace that we share be for more than our friends;
As we risk and we dare so God’s kingdom extends.
Remind us again, Lord, that seeds will increase –
that you’ll give the harvest when we work for peace!
Text: Copyright © 2015 by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. All rights reserved.
Email: Carolynshymns@gmail.com New Hymns: www.carolynshymns.com
A PRAYER FOR OURSELVES & THE WORLD
Let us join in prayer on this day of remembrance for Hiroshima, to recall the past, to be challenged in the present and to seek hope for the future.
O God of power, gracious in love, you have given humankind responsibility to care for all the earth. But we put our faith in military power, while you call us to build a community of trust and love.
By our actions and by our inaction, and by our participation in the systems of society we often become agents of violence and destruction.
O God of us all, let Hiroshima become for us a symbol of hope that nuclear weapons will never again be used to kill and destroy.
Let us remember Hiroshima as a beacon to commit ourselves to find ways to live together in peace, that we may not be just peace lovers, but peacemakers.
O God of infinite possibility, transform our hearts and minds and give us courage to use our skills and technology to transform weapons that destroy into all that upholds life.
The Prophet Isaiah said: “It shall come to pass that the peoples shall beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks.
We pray for the time when “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”
We remember the 250,000+ people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki who died as a result of two atomic bombs: May they rest in peace. We also remember all those who died in the war with Japan, especially those who perished in prisoner of war camps. May they rest in peace.
Hear the prayers of those who continue to live lives torn apart by war and civil unrest in our day: in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chad and Mali, Tigray and many other places we name in our hearts…
We also remember the 4.1 Million people who have died from COVID-19 and the 191 Million people who have contracted this virus and the many people who still live with its symptoms.
We especially uphold our States, Territories and our Federal Government as they seek to balance the economic and health needs of all Australians. In the name of Christ Jesus, the Prince of Peace, we pray.
HYMN TIS 242 ‘I danced in the morning’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDdQhsjNHcw
I danced in the morning when the world was begun,
And I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun,
And I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth:
At Bethlehem I had my birth.
Refrain: Dance, then, wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the dance, said he,
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, and I'll lead you all in the dance, said he.
I danced for the scribe and the Pharisee,
But they would not dance and they wouldn't follow me;
I danced for the fishermen, for James and John;
They came with me and the dance went on:
Refrain…
I danced on the Sabbath and I cured the lame:
The holy people said it was a shame.
They whipped and they stripped and they hung me on high,
And they left me there on a cross to die:
Refrain…
I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black;
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back.
They buried my body and they thought I'd gone;
But I am the dance, and I still go on:
Refrain…
They cut me down and I leapt up high;
I am the life that'll never, never die.
I'll live in you if you'll live in me:
I am the Lord of the dance, said he.
Refrain…
Sydney Carter 1915 – 2004 Words & music by permission Stainer & Bell Ltd, London
BLESSING & BENEDICTION