BELLS CORNERS UNITED CHURCH
8th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
July 18, 2021
Worship Leader: Rev. Kim Vidal
Music: Abe & Susan TeGrotenhuis, Erin Berard/CGS & Choir
Summer Sermon Series: “VOICES OF LAMENT”
Theme: “Comfort Zones”
The video recording of this service can be found here.
You can also dial-in by phone to listen to the audio recording at 613-820-8104.
Gathering Music: Royal Fireworks – Siciliana : Handel Abe-harpsichord
Welcome & Centering for Worship
Good day everyone! Welcome to our worship service in the name of Jesus Christ on this 8th Sunday after Pentecost. I’m glad that you can join us in our virtual worship service. We continue our summer sermon series on the book of Lamentations and today’s big word is “comfort.” I encourage you to reflect this word with me with the hope that we can be God’s presence in comforting others.
As we continue to be under pandemic restrictions, please be reminded that the work of the church carries on. Please take time to keep in touch with each other through prayers, phone calls, emails or via Zoom. Check also the many announcements on our website at bcuc.org to keep you informed and give you opportunities to respond.
We are now re-opening our sanctuary for in-person worship service at 10 am with a maximum number of 50 people. The Public Health recommends staying at home but if you wish to attend the service, please call the office to register until Friday at 11 am. For the safety of all attendees, the usual health protocols will be in place which include masking, social distancing, hand sanitizing and staying home if you feel unwell. Take note too that our worship service will still be offered via Youtube, by email and by telephone.
Friends, God calls us to be individuals and a community that offer comfort to others. I now invite you to open your hearts and minds as we worship together.
Lighting of the Christ Candle Acolytes: Ellen & Bob Boynton
It is within the hidden mysteries of life we discover vulnerability.
Within the dancing shadows cast by a flickering candle flame
we discover the promise of comfort and of new possibilities.
We light this Christ candle reminding us that God’s comforting presence is near.
Call to Gather & Prayer of Approach Rev. Dr. Karen Boivin
(Richard Bott, Gathering-ACE 2021-2021, Year B Used with permission.)
Who is it that does the most wonderful things?
Do you not know?
Who is it that looks upon the smallest of creatures?
Have you not heard?
Who is it that gives guidance to rulers, great and small?
Have you not been told from the very beginning?
Who is it that renews our strength?
Who is it that causes us to soar like eagles?
Who is it that carries us through our lives?
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Have you not been told from the very beginning?
It is our God who does all these wonderful things!
Then come!
Let us come and worship God!
Let us pray:
(Diana Hannaford-Wilcox, Gathering-ACE 2020-2021, Year B. Used with permission.)
Sit beside me, God, My Friend, and share in a moment:
sing and share our heart song,
hymns that tell of our deepest sorrows
and songs that remind us to laugh and dance,
melodies and harmonies that move our hearts.
Sit beside me, God, My Friend, and listen:
your word shared to remind us of your presence,
stories to help us understand what we need to do.
Sit beside me, God, My Friend, and reflect:
connecting the past with our future,
reminding us of faith, hope and love.
Sit beside me, God, My Friend, and pray:
so many hearts full of need, pain, loss and grief,
So many thankful moments of the amazing comfort
that only you can provide.
Sit with all of us, God, Our Friend,
as we celebrate your holy presence. Amen.
Hymn: In the Bulb, there is A Flower - Voices United #703 – BCUC choir
1.In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
in cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there's a spring that waits to be,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
2.There's a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
there's a dawn in every darkness bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
3.In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
in our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity.
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
Words and Music © 1986 Natalie Sleeth
Song # 52456 Reprinted with permission under ONE LICENSE #A-733214. All rights reserved
Storytime Rev. Dr. Karen Boivin
Hello! I hope you are doing well today. (Karen is carrying a bar with a pail at both ends on her shoulders) As you can see I am a bit weighed down. For centuries people around the world have used this method to carry heavy loads such as water from a well to their home or gravel from a pit to a construction site. Usually the bar is a long thick stick of wood, often carved out to be more comfortable at the neck. That kind of pole is called a yoke.
Yokes are often also put on oxen and attached to carts to help them pull a heavy load. Why do you think someone would use a yoke to carry water rather than just carry the pails in their hands? Your hands would get very sore, wouldn’t they, will all the weight going through that little wire rather than be spread by the bar across the shoulders. Sometimes in the Bible they use the word yoke to talk about how we can feel weighed down, not by heavy things on a bar, but by our thoughts, feelings or the events around us. There is talk of being yoked in today’s Lamentation reading.
(A card with each of the bolded words are put into the buckets during this portion)
Have you ever seen someone so sad that they are walking with their head down and their shoulders slumped as if they have a yoke around their neck and are carrying something heavy? Sometimes a person get so angry that they can’t let it go and it seems their anger is a heavy weight they carry around It’s also hard to let go of the hurt feelings and the mean things that have been said to cause them. And it’s hard not to keep thinking of something we have done wrong. Other times it is the things going on around us that make us feel weighed down. Maybe we just feel like there is too much going on to deal with, or we are worried about how they will turn out.
Jesus said, “Come to me all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens.” Whooohoo! (starts to take yoke off neck and then puts it back) But wait … he goes on to say “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me… My yoke is easy and my burden is light. So it appears Jesus teachings will act like the yoke helping us to bear hard things. He teaches us about forgiveness of others and ourselves to help us with our anger and hurt and concern about things we have done wrong. He’ll help us trust that things will come out all right and that God always with us and loves us.
It makes sense that the yoke and the weight doesn’t disappear with Jesus. He calls us to share love with as many people as we can and that means more chance of some upsets sometimes. But those are also easier to bear because with a bigger community around us we also enjoy more friends, more joy, and more fun and that makes any burdens seem easy to handle.
Thank you, Jesus, for showing us how to embrace life. Even with its troubles. Teach us your lessons of love, trust and forgiveness. Amen.
Hymn: Kumbaya (Traditional) CGS/Bell Canto – Director & Flute: Erin Berard
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya. (3X)
O Lord, kumbaya.
Someone’s (crying, hurting, praying) Lord, kumbaya. (3X)
O Lord, kumbaya.
Words & Music: Traditional
Song Reprinted with permission under ONE LICENSE #A-733214. All rights reserved.
Prayer for Illumination Reader: Angela Starchuk
(Sheryl Mcleod, Gathering- Pentecost 1 Year C. Used with permission.)
God of wisdom,
as we receive these words,
may we discover your urgings,
may they stir our thoughts,
may we be empowered to grow,
and may we act in ways that reveal who you are
to all who would notice. Amen.
Reading from the Hebrew Scripture: Lamentations 1: 12-22 (NRSV)
Daughter Zion Pleads for God to See
12 Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look and see
if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,
which was brought upon me,
which God inflicted
on the day of God’s fierce anger.
13 From on high God sent fire;
it went deep into my bones;
God spread a net for my feet;
and turned me back;
God has left me stunned,
faint all day long.
14 My transgressions were bound into a yoke;
by his hand they were fastened together;
they weigh on my neck,
sapping my strength;
God handed me over
to those whom I cannot withstand.
15 God has rejected
all my warriors in the midst of me;
and proclaimed a time against me
to crush my young men;
God has trodden as in a wine press
the virgin daughter Judah.
16 For these things I weep;
my eyes flow with tears;
for a comforter is far from me,
one to revive my courage;
my children are desolate,
for the enemy has prevailed.
17 Zion stretches out her hands,
but there is no one to comfort her;
God has commanded against Jacob
that his neighbors should become his foes;
Jerusalem has become
a filthy thing among them.
18 God is in the right,
for I have rebelled against God’s word;
but hear, all you peoples,
and behold my suffering;
my young women and young men
have gone into captivity.
19 I called to my lovers
but they deceived me;
my priests and elders
perished in the city
while seeking food
to revive their strength.
20 See, O God, how distressed I am;
my stomach churns, my heart is wrung within me,
because I have been very rebellious.
In the street the sword bereaves;
in the house it is like death.
21 They heard how I was groaning,
with no one to comfort me.
All my enemies heard of my trouble;
they are glad that you have done it.
Bring on the day you have announced,
and let them be as I am.
22 Let all their evil doing come before you;
and deal with them
as you have dealt with me
because of all my transgressions;
for my groans are many
and my heart is faint.
May God’s wisdom give us understanding as we ponder on this difficult passage. Thanks be to God!
Sermon: “No One to Comfort Me?!”
The Spirit listened as I uttered my mind.
The Spirit said not a word as I pleaded and pined
And then the Spirit spoke in the language of conviction
Saying, "Comfort isn't comfort in the absence of affliction." (bible.org)
A few weeks ago, I led a celebration of life service for a woman who struggled with lots of challenges in her life. Her son who was so close to her was devastated by her death. I couldn’t give him a hug nor a pat on his back, but only words of comfort. After I offered a prayer with the family, the son turned to me and said, “Thank you for your kind words. She’s safe now. No more pain for her.” This is not the first time I’ve been around grieving people and heard them repeat something similar – safe words in trying to make sense of their loss or to find comfort in the midst of death. I’ve heard people say things like, “I’m glad she’s now in heaven with God’s angels looking after her”, and “Death was the only way she could finally find any peace from her pain,” and, “I guess God just needed her more there than we do here.” And, of course we often say and hear, “She’s now in God’s hands. She’s now in a better place.” How often we need words of comfort when we needed them! We look for the right words to find peace in a storm of sadness and clarity in moments of confusion. But some of these words comes from the usual way of dealing with grief instead of coming from a solid understanding of human condition. The words might sound nice, but they are only partly true or perhaps not absolutely true.
In his 1993 book, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC, Frederick Buechner writes: "Don't start looking in the Bible for the answers it gives. Start by listening for the questions it asks." The very first word in the book of Lamentations is the Hebrew word, “eykhah” meaning “How,” and it is meant to be read both as a question and as a shocking statement. This is a word of woe and disbelief. In English, we might express it this way: “Oh no!” or “How in the world did that happen?” Or, if I we hear someone say, “What!? How!?” I know that something is terribly wrong. That is the intention of this word.
Today’s text in the book of Lamentations is a continuation of our reading from last Sunday which emphasizes the eykhah – the question how did this happen to the city of Jerusalem? If we have listened to the Funeral Singer as the first voice of lament, today, we hear the cry of anguish, a cry of lament from the city of Jerusalem personified as a woman named as Daughter Zion. In this overwhelming, stark and depressing passage, we see Daughter Zion wanting someone to acknowledge her pain with compassion. She’s not looking for someone who will remind her of her situation, instead, she’s looking for someone to take seriously the situation she was in. She claimed that her transgressions, her sinfulness was huge like a heavy yoke put by God on her neck. She’s naming the cause of her suffering as acts of God’s anger in violent images and depictions: “God sent fire and it went deep into my bones; God spread a net for my feet; and turned me back; God has left me stunned, faint all day long.” In earlier verses in chapter 1, Daughter Zion asked God twice to look at her situation but with no response from God. Then for the 3rd time, she calls on passersby to listen to her. Kathleen O’ Connor writes: “When God does not respond to Zion’s demand for God to see her suffering, she turns to passersby. Passersby is a conventional term in Hebrew poetry for witnesses of suffering and devastation who often mock the sufferer and do not intervene.” That’s how downcast she had become. She expresses her emotions through endless weeping and tears. She bereaves her children’s death and the nation’s destruction.
Susan Young in our study last Tuesday put her feet in Daughter Zion’s shoes and said: “If I were daughter Zion, these are the questions I need to ask: Do I deserve all these suffering? Is this fair? Where is God’s justice?” Like a protesting child, Susan said, Daughter Zion expresses her deepest anguish to God: “Didn’t we have a wonderful relationship in the past? Don’t you love me anymore? Where are you when I needed you the most?” Peggy Aitchison also added that the lament and situation of Daughter Zion reminded Peggy of the “worm theology” – the belief system that human beings are lowly creatures with very low self-worth because of sinfulness and that no one can forgive their sins except through the grace and compassion of God. Seen this way, what could be worse than being Daughter Zion? She was pleading, begging on her knees and desperately in need of comfort. C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity, that “Comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end. If you look for comfort, you will not get either comfort or truth — only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.” To comfort literally means “to soothe, to console, or to reassure with compassion.” The Hebrew verb nachamu translated as “to offer comfort” means, “to cause to breathe again.” In other words, Daughter Zion is not just pleading to God to see and be present in her dire situation but she wants God to let her breathe again.
If Job lamented of his innocent personal misfortunes, Daughter Zion voiced out her grievances as a fallen nation because of guilt and sins. That makes Lamentations challenging in some ways because I’m sure there were people in Jerusalem who tried to be faithful and who prayed for repentance. But they too were affected directly and significantly by the city’s destruction. Lamentations shows us that sometimes innocent and righteous people are still affected by the consequences of national sins. The book reminds us that sin is more than just an individual issue. Sin is also systemic and communal.
So, where do you go for comfort? What do you do to ease your pain? We’ve all been there before. Like Daughter Zion, we have moments when we need comfort and sometimes no one comes to our rescue. The reality is - when people suffer and need comfort but receives none, they often begin to feel a deep sense of isolation and abandonment, and then resorts to other things that may harm them instead of comfort them. We want someone to console us, love us, heal us, and take us home. Imagine the darkest places in your life; the fear, the anger, the pain, the hurt, the illness - wondering when, or whether, it will end. You carry guilt and regret like a worn-out suitcase wherever you go. The days are filled with “should haves” and the nights with “if only.” Over and over again, you see your life replayed to the point that you can see no future - only moments of abandonment, of alienation, of wilderness.
What does comfort look like for you? Jan Pound said that comfort is very much part of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. We need comfort to function fully as human beings. Comfort reminds me of a story of a little girl who came home from a neighbour's house where her best friend had died. "Why did you go?" questioned her father. "To comfort her mother," said the child. "What did you do to comfort her?" "I climbed into her lap and cried with her." Is there any good news about text?
Susan Young offered some important points. She said “because we are humans not God, we need to offer comfort in ways that are humanely possible.” As Jesus taught us to comfort the needy and the downtrodden, we are challenged to offer comfort in many ways that we can, through sincere words and acts of love. These words and acts of love need to be heard and felt by those who face death and life-threatening illnesses; those who suffer because of broken relationships; those who lost their jobs, those who face issues of economic poverty, homelessness, or those who experience great financial loss. These words and actions must address those who lost everything as a result of an unjust government, or the greed and corruption of political leaders. They need to be heard and felt by children and teenagers who were intimidated, bullied, rejected by their peers, those who have no friends, those who are abandoned by family. The victims of abuse badly need comfort as well. Women and children who suffer behind closed doors, because of physical, sexual and emotional abuse! You need to hear these words of comfort if you carry the heavy burden of self-blame or guilt. If you are pressed down by stress, hopelessness, sadness, loneliness and heartache, you need to be comforted.
Offering comfort needs courage. We cannot fully take people’s pain away, we cannot stop those tears from flowing, nor fully mend their broken hearts. But we can comfort them. We can make them strong. We can make them breathe again. Not with “empty words” or false assumptions that everything is going to be ok, but with listening hearts and helping hands, and a non-anxious presence to make them strong. How is God calling you to participate in this uncomfortable but essential work of offering comfort?
Since the funeral service a few weeks ago, I’ve been asking myself, what are those things that offer profound truth when we offer comfort in the midst of grief and anguish? I think there is one thing that we need to reflect on: that is - to trust God’s presence in us and through others who offer comfort. When the son of the dead woman said to me, “She’s safe now. No more pain for her,” in essence he was saying, “I am trusting God through you to offer comfort in my pain and grief.” Once more, before I left the funeral home, I offered the grieving son an invitation – “I am just an email or a phone call away. Please reach out if you need to talk.” Life is not without pain, without sorrow, or without rain. But comfort awaits those who trust in God’s presence through us. May we believe this. May we become courageous voices of comfort here and now. Amen.
Sources: BCUC Lectionary Group, Bruce Epperley, patheos.org, Michael K. Marsh, interrupting the silence.com, Tim Suttle, patheos.com., Nancy Guthrie - author of Even Better Than Eden: Nine Ways the Bible’s Story Changes Everything about Your Story. Kathleen O’Connor, Lamentations & the Tears of the World. Robert Williamson Jr., The Forgotten Books of the Bible.
Prayers of the People & the Lord’s Prayer
Let us pray.
God who calls us from our comfortable lives, we come to you this day for your personal touch; the knowledge that we are loved and that we belong, that we are a part of a community that longs to love and care for each other. Help us feel your comforting presence as you call us to offer comfort to others. May your blessings for us continue to inspire us to work for the good of others and of the world where we live. We ask that you continue to bless us to acts of selfless love and continue to inspire our hearts to acts of healing.
We remember all those celebrating joyful occasions and milestones in their lives – anniversaries and birthdays, vaccinations and recovery from illness. We also remember those with illness or a sudden threat to their health, or those recovering from treatment or those who are in hospitals seeking healing. We continue to pray for those who are hurting because of broken relationships or grief or loneliness. In the light of God’s love for us, may we seek God to inspire us, to find a way to pick up the pieces of our lives and carry on. In the spark of God’s Spirit in us, may we be embraced where new life can begin and old ways transformed.
Wise God, inspire us to seek out justice for those who find far too little of it in this world that we have created...a world that too frequently values money over children; a world that values power over people; a world whose preferential treatment bends heavily toward the wealthiest among us, rather than towards those in need.
We pray for our loved ones and for ourselves, for the energy you give us, for the gifts of time, talents and treasures, empowering us to be stewards of faith. In our desire to live authentic discipleship, we now pause in silence, asking you to listen to our longings and reveal to us those things we have done and those we have left undone that are not acceptable in your sight…
God who calls us blessed, may we be filled with your goodness so that we may be your comforter and touch the world with kindness and grace. This we ask in Jesus’ name, who taught us to pray.. Our Father... Amen.
Let us unite in this ancient prayer offered by Jesus to his friends:
Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kin-dom come, thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, And forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kin-dom, the power and the glory,
Forever and ever, Amen.
Invitation to Offer
Let us offer our gifts of time, talents and treasures so that the ministry of this church will be a growing, vibrant witness to God’s healing love. If you are not on PAR and wish to send in your offering and donations, you can drop them in the mailbox by the kitchen door of the church or mail them to BCUC. You can also send in your support through e-transfer. Thank you for your continued love and support to BCUC.
Offertory Prayer
(Gord Dunbar, Gathering-L/E 2021 Year B. Used with permission.)
Take what we offer and bless it, O God, for your mission of love.
In a world of conflict and pandemic, may these gifts and we, ourselves,
become agents of change and transformation, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Sending Forth
(Wendy MacLean, Gathering-L/E 2021 Year B. Used with permission.)
In a world that is closed in and distanced, be a sign of comfort and love.
Let your faith lead you into a life that blesses the world.
Dare to trust that God’s comforting goodness is not at a distance, but in each breath.
Go now, knowing that God goes before you and calls you to come.
Beside you is Christ, our teacher, our healer, or friend.
Surrounding you like light, like breath is the Spirit.
Go in peace and serve God, today and each day. Amen.
Hymn: God of the Bible (Fresh As the Morning) - More Voices #28 Abe & Susan
1. God of the Bible, God in the Gospel,
hope seen in Jesus, hope yet to come,
you are our center, daylight or darkness, freedom or prison, you are our home.
Refrain (2X)
Fresh as the morning,
sure as the sunrise,
God always faithful,
you do not change.
2. God in our struggles, God in our hunger, suffering with us, taking our part,
still you empow’r us, mothering Spirit, feeding, sustaining, from your own heart. R
3. Those without status, those who are nothing, you have made royal, gifted with rights, chosen as partners, midwives of justice, birthing new systems, lighting new lights. R
4. Not by your finger, not by your anger will our world order change in a day,
but by your people, fearless and faithful, small paper lanterns, lighting the way. R
5. Hope we must carry, shining and certain through all our turmoil, terror and loss, bonding us gladly one to the other, ‘til our world changes facing the Cross. R
Words © 1996 Shirley Erena Murray Hope Pub, Music © 2001 Tony Alonso GIA
Song #02882 & 02880 Reprinted with permission under ONE LICENSE #A-733214. All rights reserved
Departing Music: Royal Fireworks – Allegro : Handel Abe-organ
Zoom Fellowship – 11 am