麻豆约拍

This script cannot exactly reflect the transmission. It may include editorial notes prepared by the producer, and minor spelling and other errors.

It may contain gaps to be filled in at the time so that prayers may reflect the needs of the world, and changes may also be made at the last minute for timing reasons, or to reflect current events.

MUSIC
Elegy (Patrick Cassidy)
Perfomers: Lisa Gerrard & Patrick Cassidy
CD Immortal: Memory (4AD)

Introduction and Call to worship听Rev Joanne Smith

Welcome to this service of worship from Northern Ireland. Life rarely works out as we expect it to. In the weeks since the ending of the international military presence in Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of people have found themselves on the move, and uncertain about their futures. They are not alone, as across the world refugees flee violence and conflict. For them, perhaps their prevailing emotion is despair, rather than hope.

In the Psalms, we find writers who experienced similar times of upheaval. Today in this service, we will explore Psalm 23, one of the best known and loved of all the Psalms, asking how hope can emerge from despair, and how God accompanies us on the journey.

But we begin with a metrical version of another Psalm 鈥� Psalm 34 singing of God鈥檚 Faithfulness through 鈥渁ll the changing scenes of life鈥�, after which Rev Niall Lockhart, one of the Moderator鈥檚 chaplains will read Psalm 23 and lead our prayers while his other chaplain Rev Ben Walker will听 take part later in the service)

惭鲍厂滨颁听
Through all the changing scenes of life (WILTSHIRE, GT Smart)
Performers: The New Irish Choir
麻豆约拍 recording

Reading: 听Psalm 23 (NIV)听听Rev Niall Lockhart

Prayer of invocation and confession
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Rev Joanne Smith: Psalm 23 has been set to music a great many times. One of the best known examples is our next hymn, 鈥淭he King of Love my shepherd is鈥� and after this Dr Bruce will preach.

MUSIC
The King of Love my shepherd is (ST COLUMBA, Irish traditional melody, arr J Rea)
Performers: The New Irish Choir
麻豆约拍 recording

Right Rev Dr David Bruce Talk part 1

A Psalm as familiar as this one might slide past us, if we don鈥檛 take a moment to catch it and hold it and ask it some questions. Like many of the Psalms 鈥� this one is attributed by tradition to King David 鈥� it behaves rather like a snapshot on your smart phone which you save as wallpaper, so that it comes up again and again, every time you take the thing out of your pocket and switch it on. O yes 鈥� I remember that鈥�

The Psalm begins by describing God as like a shepherd for his sheep.

It is good to know we have a Shepherd looking out for us. But it is what this shepherd does for his sheep which is so intensely comforting for us, and probably why this particular Psalm is named by many people as their favourite of all. It has accompanied them helpfully through good times and bad. The good times seem really good, because we lack nothing. Everything we need and probably much that we desire is provided for us, so that the stress of 鈥渓acking鈥� is removed from us. People uprooted and forced to flee their homes or even their homelands in search of a new life elsewhere, (when this was not part of the script of their lives), will know what it feels like to lack much. For such a person or family facing this kind of turmoil today, the offering of a safe place of refuge, with a litre of milk and a loaf of bread and a realizable hope for the future for them and their children may be enough, at least at first, to bring these words to mind. I lack nothing.

The places God takes us with the care of a shepherd are good for us. Pastures which are green will seem to a hungry sheep, like a banqueting table groaning with good food. Lying down in such a place must seem like a sort of 鈥渟heep-ly鈥� paradise. Quiet waters are not only good for drinking if you are a sheep, but curiously, (and for a Hebrew readership) a sort of contradiction in terms. The sea, the waters and the deep are more usually Old Testament-speak for chaos, confusion, judgement and even death. But when we walk with our Shepherd, even the waters are quiet, and do us good not harm. As so often with the Bible鈥檚 narrative, our expectations are up-ended.

And as we walk this way with our shepherd, so we are guided on paths that are right for us 鈥� by which we must assume there are also paths that are wrong for us but which are firmly rejected as bad choices. Our way is lovingly blocked. And this careful guiding of the shepherd is for his name鈥檚 sake. A Shepherd turning up at journey鈥檚 end with a denuded and bedraggled gaggle of injured and malnourished animals would not have a great name. But this Shepherd鈥檚 name is unimpeachable, his reputation superb. He cares for his sheep, come what may, right through to journey鈥檚 end.

Ah, but you say, that鈥檚 all very nice, but it doesn鈥檛 really describe the kind of life most of us live. Isn鈥檛 it rather the case that life is often hard, routinely cruel, and inevitably temporary. Didn鈥檛 Thomas Hobbes get it right in his poem Leviathan, when he described human life as 鈥渟olitary, poor, nasty brutish and short鈥�? How does your idyllic picture of a sheep lovingly tended by a shepherd measure up to that lived experience?

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Keen golfers will know of the famous obstacle in front of the 18th green at St Andrews 鈥� it鈥檚 called the valley of sin. It鈥檚 really just a hollow in the ground but it has caught many a golfer鈥檚 chip shot, and spoiled many a card in the cruelest of ways. But this valley in the Psalm is not a game, and the scale of the trouble facing us is not a dip in the ground. This is an awful place. This is the tough stuff of life, where even death might seem like a relief. Who knows what circumstance has opened up this vortex of despair in the life of the writer? And yet, as a believer there is something to say, because even here 鈥� perhaps it could be argued, especially here in the darkness of this valley 鈥� the Shepherd is present, not observing from a distance, but faithfully alongside and among and with his sheep, banishing fear, and with rod and staff to the fore, bringing the deepest of all comfort.

God is not absent in the darkness of the valley. With even the tiniest inkling of faith he becomes evidently present.听

MUSIC
Blessings (Laura Storey)
Performers: Stephanie Devlin/The New Irish Choir
麻豆约拍 recording

Reading 听Revelation 21:107听Rev Ben Walker

Talk part 2

The picture changes in the Psalm as it closes. No longer do we think of sheep and a shepherd, but we are taken into a home where a welcome is offered at a meal table. Our host is waiting to greet us,

Imagine arriving for dinner only to discover that all the guests were your sworn enemies.
Conversation around the table might be a little stilted. But perplexing though it might be, it is clear that the host has invited us, and this is the meal to which we have come, so we need to make the best of it. This is not an accident, or the result of bad planning, or even discourtesy. Perhaps it is a hint that with God, nothing is impossible, because no-one, even our enemies - are beyond the reach of his grace. These are after all, 鈥渙ur enemies鈥� but that doesn鈥檛 mean they are necessarily God鈥檚 enemies. Even people not quite like us may be found at the table 鈥� natural enemies, even actual foes. This is a powerful lesson picked up in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul when writing to the Ephesians who were divided in the church between those who were historically Jewish, and the rest who weren鈥檛. In Christ they needed to discover that they were one 鈥� a tough idea to grasp, and a difficult discipline to master, but a prophetic act before a deeply riven society, fraught with division and hatred. Christ unites his body in all its diverse difference, and achieves the extraordinary outworking of his own teaching, that we might indeed be able to love our enemies.

Goodness and love follow us all our days. It may be helpful to think of goodness and love as pursuers 鈥� rather like sheep dogs, faithfully chasing us and pushing us, occasionally barking at us, that we might do their will, which of course is the will of the Shepherd, under whose command they are. Goodness and Love follow us 鈥� they snap at our heels continually to get our attention, as if we need to be ushered into an everlasting presence with God in his house, old enemies and all, no longer enemies but bonded in Christ as brothers and sisters.

I don鈥檛 think this is a pipe dream. When our Catholicism or Protestantism 鈥� indeed our atheism or skepticism 鈥� is drawn under the shelter of God in Jesus Christ, we discover that all other loyalties and allegiances, important though they may be to us, resolve into perspective when set before his Lordship. The earliest Christians had a creed which underpins this belief 鈥� in New Testament Greek it is only two words: kyrios iesous. In English, Jesus is Lord. The first Christians were settled on Jesus鈥� identity as God the Son. They were convinced that he had risen from the dead. Nothing remained for them but to acknowledge his supremacy in all of life, and become his followers. Jew and Greek, slave and free, men and women, rich and poor, black and white, oppressor and oppressed. And in the centuries since, this has been the central call of the gospel to the whole of humanity in all its diversity. The improbable dinner party in the presence of enemies may become a celebration banquet in the presence of family, and (without death or mourning or crying or pain) the party goes on forever.

MUSIC
The Goodness of God (Jason David Ingram, Edward Martin Cash, Benjamin David Fielding, Brian Johnson, Jenn Johnson)
Performers: Sylvia Burnside/The New Irish Choir
麻豆约拍 recording
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Prayers for others听听Rev Ben Walker听

MUSIC
Loure from Lute Suite No. 4 in E Major, BWV 1006a (JS Bach)听
Performer: John Williams
CD The Four Lute Suites [Great Performances] (Sony Classical)

And so we pray as Jesus taught:
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your Kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours.
Now and for ever. Amen

Blessing听Rev Joanne Smith
And now, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God

惭鲍厂滨颁听He will hold me fast听 (Robert Harkness)
Performers: New Irish Kids
CD Getty Kids Hymnal Family Hymn Sing (Getty Music)

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