The Journey Goes On

Text of the Week: “Those who gathered much had nothing over, and those who gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed.” Exodus 16:18.

Welcome to our services today and a special welcome to any worshipping with us for the first time. Where has your journey brought you to today? Where’s your journey taking you from today? What do you need for the journey?  Those are questions our readings from Fresh From the Word prompt us to ask in the next couple of weeks. They take us to the book of Exodus and the long, winding way through the wilderness the people of Israel took on their journey to the promised land. Today they are on the verge of despair as they don’t have what they need for the journey. It is at that moment that God provides. Not too much. Not too little. Simply what they need. On the journey that lies ahead God will provide. Not too much. Not too little. Simply what we need.   Today it’s great to welcome back to Highbury members of the Livingstone Fellowship, the youth group that flourished at Highbury from 1954 to 1971. For the journey the prayer they made their own is a prayer we each can share: Teach us, good Lord, to serve Thee as Thou deservest; to give, and not to count the cost; to fight, and not to heed the wounds; to toil, and not to seek for rest; to labour, and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do Thy will. Amen. Next week sees the start of Christian Aid Week – do see Iain and Laura MacLeod or Louise Middleton if you can help with the collection. Next Sunday we are having a Big Brekkie – a Christian Aid Breakfast served from 9-15 – don’t miss it!

Welcome and Call to Worship

7 Holy, holy, holy

Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer

Who’s the greatest?

You would have thought they would have learned by now! But they hadn’t – they were forever doing it. They argued!

Do you ever argue?

They argued about who the greatest was – they just didn’t get it!

Reading: Matthew 18:1-5

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, asking, 

“Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?”

So Jesus called a child, made him stand in front of them, and said,

“I assure you that unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven. The greatest in the Kingdom of heaven is the one who humbles himself and becomes like this child. And whoever welcomes in my name one such child as this, welcomes me.”

In God’s eyes everyone is just as important as everyone else. All of us count.

Together as a fellowship where everyone is just as important as everyone else we all matter – it’s together that we can draw on the light of God’s presence in Christ, the strength of God’s power in the Holy Spirit. We are encircled with the love of God –

The sensor stick – lights up as we link hands – break the link and the light goes out!

Link hands around the table – around the church.

Song: the Family of God

1          We're all part of the family of God
            Living in God's wide world,
            Linking hands in the family of God,
            Living in God's wide world.
            God, you're my strong father
            Yet gentle as a mother,
            Jesus, I'm your sister,
            Jesus, I'm your brother.

2          We're all part of the family of God
            Caring for God's wide world,
            Linking hands in the family of God,
            Caring for God's wide world.
            Chorus

3          We're all part of the family of God
            Working in God's wide world,
            Linking hands in the family of God,
            Working in God's wide world.
            Chorus

4          We're all part of the family of God
            Loving in God's wide world,
            Linking hands in the family of God,
            Loving in God's wide world.
            Chorus

Heather Johnston (born 1943)
© 1999 Stainer & Bell Ltd
Used By Permission. CCL Licence No. 3540

Activities for all over 3

The Journey goes on

Tristram Shandy is one of the very first novels in the English language. Its zany off-beat humour is the humour of the Goon Show, Do Not Adjust Your Set, Monty Python’s Flying Circus all rolled into one.  There’s a moment when Tristram Shandy who is telling his life’s story reflects on the journey he’s taken so far.

It has not been a straightforward journey by any means.

He plots it on the page –

How would you plot your life’s journey?

Where has your journey brought you to today?

How has your journey brought you to this place on this day at this time?

A time to share with each other and with us all

We are sharing in reading the Bible using Fresh from the Word . Today we begin three weeks of readings in the Book of Exodus. It’s a book of journeying and of a long winding way through the wilderness.

It’s a journey with a beginning a middle and an end.

The journey begins in the presence of God. Faced with the horrors of all that is happening to his people Moses does something which fills him with horror and forces him to flee. His journeying takes him far from the land he grew up in, far from his own people.  But it is there in the most unexpected of places that he has a sense of the presence of God with him.

Still, in the presence of God, he stands on holy ground and in a bush that burns and yet is not consumed with fire, he feels the presence of God calling him - there’s a real sense of mystery in the presence of the God whose name is filled with mystery. It is a name that cannot be uttered.  It is a name that defies understanding. I am who I am – I will be who I will be – I am – this is nothing less than the God who is present at every moment of the journey.

And so Moses returns to speak out for his people against the horrors of the world they find themselves trapped by. And that world will not listen.

Then it is we reach the mid-point of the story.

And in the middle of the story once again we encounter the presence of God.

So strong is that sense of the presence of God with them in the Passover meal the people celebrate on the night before their deliverance from the horrors of their world that they vowed ever after to share in a Passover meal to remember that moment.

That moment of the presence of God with them.

For them the journey was just beginning but it would take them to the Promised land and again to the presence of God with them.

Whatever it is that brings us to this place on this date and at this time, may it be in some way the presence of God that meets us here. What is this God like? The God who meets us here is the God who is the God of Love – it is the God who in Christ values each one of us, the God for whom each one of us matters the world.

In Jesus we meet with the God who is love.

480 Lord God, your love has called us here 1,3,5  Tune: Mozart

1          Great God, your love has called us here,
            as we, by love for love were made.
            Your living likeness still we bear,
            though marred, dishonoured, disobeyed.
            We come, with all our heart and mind
            your call to hear, your love to find.

2          We come with self-inflicted pains
            of broken trust and chosen wrong,
            half-free, half-bound by inner chains,
            by social forces swept along,
            by powers and systems close confined,
            yet seeking hope for humankind.

3          Great God, in Christ you call our name
            and then receive us as your own,
            not through some merit, right or claim,
            but by your gracious love alone.
            We strain to glimpse your mercy seat
            and find you kneeling at our feet.

4          Then take the towel, and break the bread,
            and humble us, and call us friends.
            Suffer and serve till all are fed,
            and show how grandly love intends
            to work till all creation sings,
            to fill all worlds, to crown all things.

5          Great God, in Christ you set us free
            your life to live, your joy to share.
            Give us your Spirit's liberty
            to turn from guilt and dull despair
            and offer all that faith can do
            while love is making all things new.

Brian Wren (born 1936)        
© 1975, 1995 Stainer & Bell Ltd

Where’s your journey taking you from today? What do you need for the journey?  Those are questions our readings from Fresh From the Word prompt us to ask in the next couple of weeks. They take us to the book of Exodus and the long, winding way through the wilderness the people of Israel took on their journey to the promised land.

Today they are on the verge of despair as they don’t have what they need for the journey.

It is at that moment that God provides. Not too much. Not too little. Simply what they need. On the journey that lies ahead God will provide. Not too much. Not too little. Simply what we need.

Exodus 16:1-18

The presence of God made real in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. The God who provides that daily bread.

Not too much, not too little.

The prayer we are invited to pray asks just that.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Not too much, not too little.

Simply what we need.

So much in our society in the journeys we take has to do with getting on – we measure all sorts of things by success – success in our own lives, success of our children, our grandchildren too.

Maybe the wonder of this moment is that this is the moment that counts – and in this moment the presence of God meets the need we have.

May that be our prayer for each moment that lies ahead of us.

How important that we then seek to meet the needs of others around us whatever their need may be. Next Sunday marks the start of the 60^th Christian Aid Week – Christian Aid had started twenty years ealier just after the second world war as a response to a Refugee Crisis such as the world had not seen before. In the middle of a refugee crisis of those proportions – maybe it is salutary for us to seek to share what is needed just as we receive what we need too.

It is good to welcome back to Highbury members of the Livingstone Fellowship. That was the youth group that met here at Highbury from 1954 to 1971. Something has drawn people back – and still does.

Maybe things were shared, things happened, lives were formed, faith was found at that time.

Last week we had our Gift Day – it is one of those special moments in our church calendar when we ask people to give a special gift. We have a mission project to employ a children’s worker. Andrea introduced our service last week, spoke of the focus of her work on outreach through things like Messy Church and Film Club – sharing something of that presence of God, the God who in Jesus is love, with the next generation. It is so important to support our children and our young people – so they come to know the difference that love of God can make in their lives and in their futures – so that the presence of God is there on the journey.

525 Lead us heavenly Father

The LF Prayer

Teach us, good Lord, to serve Thee as Thou deservest;

to give, and not to count the cost;

to fight, and not to heed the wounds;

to toil, and not to seek for rest;

to labour, and not to ask for any reward,

save that of knowing that we do Thy will. Amen.

Prayers of Concern

528 Guide me O thou great Jehovah

Words of Blessing