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Mothering
Sunday Notes 2020
2
Corinthians 1:3-7 (p1158)
Luke
2:21-40 (p1027)
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livestream to Bodle Street Green & Warbleton Facebook Pages
9:30am
Sunday 22nd March 2020
Common
Worship Morning Prayer on a Sunday
[Tell Out My Soul Music]
Good morning!
And welcome to our service for Mothering
Sunday, 22nd March, The Fourth Sunday of Lent.
Welcome from all corners of the internet, and
especially to those connected to Warbleton, Bodle Street Green and Dallington.
Although we’d much rather be together in the
flesh, it is a wonderful blessing to able to be together virtually like this –
and of course in Christ, untied by the Holy Spirit to all God’s people down the
centuries and around the world.
When I started planning this service, I
thought we’d be having all age family service fun of some kind.
You can find the order of service for that on
my blog.
But I’m not going to subject you to that
today.
And you’ll be pleased to hear I’m not going to
sing to you!
If you want to include hymns and you’re
watching the recording, you could just pause it wherever you like to sing or
listen to songs.
The internet has everything you could possibly
want and more!
We were going to do Tell Out My Soul, The
Mighty Son of God, Love Divine and In Christ Alone, but you might have better
ideas or other favourites.
If I can, I might play a little bit of Love
Divine during the service and In Christ Alone at the end.
Until further notice, and unless there’s is an
uproar to the contrary, I’m going to be using Common Worship Morning Prayer on
a Sunday with the Lectionary readings, and you can find that easily on the
Church of England website, if you want to read along and join in with the
responses.
You could even Google that now while I do
about a million other notices so that you’ll be ready when the service proper actually
starts.
Do stay on for coffee afterwards if you can –
you’ll have to provide your own - and hang out in the comments!
Discuss the sermon – nicely!
The Archbishops have asked us to observe today
as a special day of prayer and action.
One specific action they’ve asked us to take
is to light a candle in our windows at 7pm as a sign of the inextinguishable
light of Jesus, who shines in the darkness which cannot overcome it.
Don’t set fire to your curtains, but it would
be good to do that as a small act of public witness.
I do encourage you to avoid all unnecessary
social contact as long as that’s the government advice, both for your own sake
and as a very real way of loving your more vulnerable neighbours.
But do keep in touch.
Feel free to phone my landline or mobile or
email or Facebook or Tweet.
Email Steve if you’d like the weekly notice
sheet and sign up for our emails under CONTACT on the Warbleton church website.
Text me your name and number if you’d like to
join our Warbleton church WhatsApp group.
Do let me know if you need, or can offer
practical help.
We are hoping to meet every Wednesday for
prayer, Bible study and fellowship from 7:30pm with a formal finish by 9pm
using Zoom, so do download that and I’ll let you know how you can join our
meeting.
I think it’s possible to join in even by
landline if you’re not online.
I think that’s all so let’s just be quiet for
a moment and then we’ll begin.
* * *
This first reading is one of the set readings
for Mothering Sunday, but I confess that I chose it with the corona virus
situation in mind:
2 Corinthians 1:3-7 (p1158)
That passage deserves a sermon.
And this is not the best way to read the Bible
normally, but for today, I just want to pick out one boiled sweet from the box
and encourage you to suck on it today and this week:
Notice that description of God at the
beginning in v3:
THE FATHER OF COMPASSION AND THE GOD OF ALL
COMFORT
God your loving heavenly father feels for you
in all that you’re facing or fearing.
Our God is the God of all true, and ultimate,
and lasting comfort.
We so easily look to other false gods for
comfort in times of difficulty and distress, but we should lift our eyes and
hearts and minds afresh to:
THE FATHER OF COMPASSION AND THE GOD OF ALL
COMFORT
Why not dwell on that phrase?
THE FATHER OF COMPASSION AND THE GOD OF ALL
COMFORT
And as Paul says, God comforts you so that you
can comfort others with God-given comfort.
Others will need comfort in the months ahead.
So make sure you receive comfort from God so
that you have some comfort to give out.
It’s no good trying to serve God and others on
empty.
We can’t get through this well by our own unaided
resources.
God first loved us, and that enables us to
love others.
Our comfort comes from him in the gospel of
Jesus Christ and he gives us more than enough, spare comfort to overflow to
others.
Our hope is firm.
Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.
We know we may suffer, but we know God
himself, the Father of Compassion, will comfort us.
* * *
I’ve slightly extended our reading from the
Lectionary because I wanted you to get Simeon and the blessing of peace through
meeting Jesus.
Luke 2:21-40 (p1027)
The actual lectionary reading is that little
snippet in vv33-35.
This mothering Sunday, I want to say 6
things about Mary, the mother of God.
Here they are in one sentence:
(1)
Although some make too much of Mary,
(2)
she is a wonderful example to us of
faith in Christ.
(3)
She lived with strangeness and
uncertainty.
(4)
She believed and obeyed the Word of
God.
(5)
She treasured up these things in her
heart.
(6)
She faced suffering for the sake of
Christ.
* * *
(1)
Although some make too much of Mary,
Some people pray to Mary.
And call who co-redeemer.
And Queen of Heaven.
And think she was miraculously preserved from the
stain of original sin.
And that she didn’t die but was assumed bodily
to heaven.
All those things are mistakes, I think.
The Bible tells us how to worship God and
those things are without a Biblical basis if you ask me, which I accept you
didn’t!
What would the Bible say, but that we and Mary
alike are sinner saved by grace?
She calls God her Saviour.
Mary was a godly virgin, but that doesn’t mean
she was sinlessly perfect.
Mary seems not always to have got it right.
Sometimes she must have had questions and
doubts.
She found it hard to get her head around the
teenage Jesus that day when he stayed behind in the temple, and who can blame
her?
At one point, Jesus’ family come to take
charge of him thinking he’s lost his mind!
But although not perfect,
(2)
Mary is a wonderful example to us of
faith in Christ – many would say the supreme example.
Just because some people have gone overboard
on Mary, it doesn’t mean that we don’t have much to learn from her.
Even if some people wrongly drive at 100 miles
an hour, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t drive at 70mph.
Maybe we could say Mary was the first New
Testament believer.
She put her trust in her son and that’s what
we should do.
That’s what she’d want!
She would have us focus on Jesus.
“It’s all about the boy” she’d say.
Jesus’ mum like Jesus’ cousin, John the
Baptist, would say:
“Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin
of the world!”
“He, Jesus, must become greater I must become
less.”
Mary is confessed by the church as the Mother
of God, the God bearer.
But can you see that’s really a title about
Jesus, not about Mary?
What does it tell us about Mary?
She was a mother.
Well we knew that!
The great question is who was her baby:
He was God:
God incarnate:
God made flesh:
The eternal creator as an embryo:
God made small and weak so that Mary gave
birth to God as a human being.
In Jesus, God came to be with us and for us,
to save us!
And that’s good news for us if we face any
kind of threat or crisis or fear.
This passage is somewhat about Mary but it’s
really about Jesus.
Jesus will cause the falling and rising of
many in Israel.
He is the child of our destiny.
All human history pivots on him.
It’s appropriate that his birth divides our
calendar.
But every individual life turns on Jesus too.
Life and death and eternity depend on what you
make of Jesus.
There is no more important question than this.
What do you make of Jesus?
And what would he say to you?
Have you come to terms with Jesus?
One day you will meet him as you judge.
Do you know him now as your Lord and Saviour
and Friend and Brother?
He is the stone the builders rejected which
has become the cornerstone.
You can either build your life on the sure foundation
rock of Jesus Christ, or you can be dashed to pieces by him.
That is the stark alternative the Word of God
lays before us.
He will cause the falling and rising of many
in Israel, in the ostensible church.
Is that talking about two groups or one?
Perhaps it’s two groups:
Some will fall (group 1); others will rise
(group 2).
Certainly that’s true.
Humanity is divided between those who reject
Jesus, who will fall, and those who trust in Jesus, who will rise.
But maybe only one group is spoken of here:
We must fall and then rise if we are to come
to Christ.
We must fall at Jesus’ feet in repentance and
faith so that he will raise us up.
As Mary said in her famous song, humble
yourself and God will lift you up.
God opposes the proud but gives grace to the
humble.
He brings down princes from their thrones and
exalts the lowly and meek.
He feeds the hungry and the rich he sends
empty away.
In the tops turvey kingdom of God, the way up
is down.
God’s favourite shape is a tick:
Down a bit and then up a mile!
May that be the shape of the our lives and
society in the wake of the Corona Virus outbreak too!
We may go down to the depths, but God can
raise us to the skies.
Yes, death, maybe, but resurrection.
(3)
Mary lived with strangeness and
uncertainty.
There’s a cartoon which you might think is
blasphemous, which I think is very funny, which I might have shown you if this
was an all age service:
It shows Jesus as a toddler having a bath:
But of course he’s walking on the water!
Now I’m sure Jesus didn’t do that.
But it must have been rather weird having God
as your firstborn.
Nothing can really prepare parents for the
shock of a baby, but none of the books will have had a chapter on how to parent
your Maker.
This wasn’t what Mary had asked for or expected.
The virgin will conceive and be with child.
How can this be?!
Unprecedented and unique are much over used
words.
They certainly apply to the virgin birth.
And they probably apply to the Corona virus
too.
Pope Innocent III excommunicated King John
between 1209 and 1213 and imposed an interdict during which no church services
took place.
And now again the churches are closed down.
Even during the second world war, schools
managed to stay open.
We are living through very strange and
uncertain times.
So did Mary.
And here’s how she coped with it and how we
can too:
(4)
She believed and obeyed the Word of
God
Mary said to the angel: “I am the Lord’s
servant. May it be to me as you have said.”
Like the disciples later, she could have said:
“Nevertheless, according to your word.”
She takes God at his word.
What God says she will believe and do.
Mary shows us humble, quiet, patient trust in
God.
I don’t need to have all the answers or know
all the whys and wherefores.
I have the word of God and by his grace I’m
going to live by that, depending on him.
Let’s be like Mary!
(5)
She treasured up these things in her
heart
What could you ponder from today’s service
this week?
Maybe its that phrase from earlier:
THE FATHER OF COMPASSION AND THE GOD OF ALL
COMFORT
Or something about Mary.
Ultimately it must be something about Jesus.
We should try to stock our hearts and minds well.
Treasure Jesus in your heart.
Ponder him and his word.
Maybe this week you could memorise a simple
Bible verse so that you can think and pray about it.
(6)
Lastly, Mary faced suffering for the
sake of Christ
It’s not a very happy prospect, is it:
“A sword will pierce your own soul too.”
Mary would watch her eldest son cut off in his
prime,
Something heart breaking for any parent.
It was terrible suffering.
But Mary could face it for Jesus’ sake.
Some of us may face terrible suffering in the
months ahead.
But we too can face it with Jesus and for
Jesus.
(1)
Although some make too much of Mary,
(2)
she is a wonderful example to us of
faith in Christ.
(3)
She lived with strangeness and
uncertainty.
(4)
She believed and obeyed the Word of
God.
(5)
She treasured up these things in her
heart.
(6)
She faced suffering for the sake of
Christ.
Like Mary, may we know THE FATHER OF
COMPASSION AND THE GOD OF ALL COMFORT.
Amen.
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