St Ursula's Church
Berne, Switzerland
A Church of the Anglican Communion, welcoming all who seek the Lord Jesus Christ
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| St Ursula's Church A Church of the Anglican Communion, welcoming all who seek the Lord Jesus Christ | ||||||||
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Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you
and also with you.
1 God is Love: let heaven adore him;
God is Love: let earth rejoice;
let creation sing before him,
and exalt him with one voice.
He who laid the earth's foundation,
he who spread the heavens above,
he who breathes through all creation,
he is Love, eternal Love.
2 God is Love: and he enfoldeth
all the world in one embrace;
with unfailing grasp he holdeth
every child of every race.
And when human hearts are breaking
under sorrow's iron rod,
then they find that selfsame aching
deep within the heart of God.
3 God is Love: and though with blindness
sin afflicts the souls of men,
God's eternal loving-kindness
holds and guides them even then.
Sin and death and hell shall never
o'er us final triumph gain;
God is Love, so Love for ever
o'er the universe must reign.
Timothy Rees
Almighty God,
to whom all hearts are open,
all desires known,
and from whom no secrets are hidden:
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love you,
and worthily magnify your holy name;
through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
My God is so big, so strong and so mighty,
there's nothing that he cannot do.
My God is so big, so strong and so mighty,
there's nothing that he cannot do.
The rivers are his, the mountains are his,
the stars are his handiwork too.
My God is so big, so strong and so mighty,
there's nothing that he cannot do.
God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son Jesus Christ
to save us from our sins,
to be our advocate in heaven,
and to bring us to eternal life.
Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith,
firmly resolved to keep God's commandments
and to live in love and peace with all.
Almighty God, our heavenly Father,
we have sinned against you and against our neighbour
in thought and word and deed,
through negligence, through weakness,
through our own deliberate fault.
We are truly sorry and repent of all our sins.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, who died for us,
forgive us all that is past and grant
that we may serve you in newness of life
to the glory of your name. Amen.
Almighty God, who forgives all who truly repent,
have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your sins,
confirm and strengthen you in all goodness,
and keep you in life eternal;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Glory to God in the highest,
and peace to his people on earth.
Lord God, heavenly King,
almighty God and Father,
we worship you, we give you thanks,
we praise you for your glory.
Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father,
Lord God, Lamb of God,
you take away the sin of the world:
have mercy on us;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father:
receive our prayer.
For you alone are the Holy One,
you alone are the Lord,
you alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ,
with the Holy Spirit,
in the glory of God the Father. Amen.
Merciful God,
whose holy apostle Saint James,
leaving his father and all that he had,
was obedient to the calling of your Son Jesus Christ
and followed him even to death:
help us, forsaking the false attractions of the world,
to be ready at all times to answer your call without delay;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
A reading from the book of the prophet Jeremiah.
1The word that the prophet Jeremiah spoke to Baruch son of Neriah, when he wrote these words in a scroll at the dictation of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah: 2Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to you, O Baruch: 3You said, "Woe is me! The Lord has added sorrow to my pain; I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest." 4Thus you shall say to him, "Thus says the Lord: I am going to break down what I have built, and pluck up what I have planted – that is, the whole land. 5And you, do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for I am going to bring disaster upon all flesh, says the Lord; but I will give you your life as a prize of war in every place to which you may go."
A reading from the Acts of the Apostles.
27At that time prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28One of them named Agabus stood up and predicted by the Spirit that there would be a severe famine over all the world; and this took place during the reign of Claudius. 29The disciples determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the believers[a] living in Judea; 30this they did, sending it to the elders by Barnabas and Saul. 1About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. 2He had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword.
1 From heav'n you came, helpless babe
entered our world, your glory veiled;
not to be served but to serve,
and give your life, that we might live.
This is our God, the servant King,
he calls us now to follow him,
to bring our lives as a daily offering
of worship to the servant King.
2 There in the garden of tears,
my heavy load he chose to bear;
his heart with sorrow was torn,
'Yet not my will but yours,' he said.
This is our God, the servant King,
he calls us now to follow him,
to bring our lives as a daily offering
of worship to the servant King.
3 Come see his hands and his feet,
the scars that speak of sacrifice;
hands that flung stars into space,
to cruel nails surrendered.
This is our God, the servant King,
he calls us now to follow him,
to bring our lives as a daily offering
of worship to the servant King.
4 So let us learn how to serve,
and in our lives enthrone him;
each other's needs to prefer,
for it is Christ we're serving.
This is our God, the servant King,
he calls us now to follow him,
to bring our lives as a daily offering
of worship to the servant King.
Graham Kendrick
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew
Glory to you, O Lord
20The mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favour of him. 21And he said to her, "What do you want?" She said to him, "Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom." 22But Jesus answered, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?" They said to him, "We are able." 23He said to them, "You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father."
24When the ten heard it, they were angry with the two brothers. 25But Jesus called them to him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 26It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, 27and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; 28just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."
This is the Gospel of the Lord
Praise to you, O Christ
'And you, do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them.'
These words from today's first reading must rank among the most crushing in the Bible – crushing not just because of their brutal directness, but also because the speaker is God. 'Do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them.' Baruch, the person addressed by these words, must have felt well and truly put in his place. He was an assistant to the prophet Jeremiah, and had been complaining about how hard his life was: 'Woe is me! The Lord has added sorrow to my pain; I am weary with my groaning and I find no rest.' Or, as we might say: 'Things are not working out; things aren't going as well for me as they should. I was made for better things than this...'
'Do you seek great things for yourself?' God asks Baruch. 'Do not seek them.'
Today we celebrate the festival of the apostle St James, one of the first disciples of Jesus. James and Baruch have this in common: they are both memorably rebuked in the Bible for seeking great things for themselves.
We hear about James' experience in today's Gospel, and we'll reflect on it in a moment, but first we might ask whimsically whether James gets fed up with hearing this embarrassing story about himself read out solemnly on his big day every year: if they want to honour me, he might ask, why do they keep digging up that embarrassing episode? Why do they keep rubbing my nose in it?
More seriously, this passage illustrates something very important: the way the Bible portrays the saints 'warts and all'. In this story James and his brother John appear sneaky, manipulative and power-hungry, with no real understanding of what Jesus is seeking to do. This tells us that on saints' days we don't celebrate people who were born shining with holiness and then went on to live lives of effortless perfection. The good news is that the saints that the Church celebrates were made of the same unpromising, confused, mixed-up material as you and me. That's why we can celebrate them: if God was able to make something wonderful, something Christlike, out of their lives, he can do the same with you, he can do the same with me.
Back to James and his brother John, and today's Gospel. Along with the other disciples, they are with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. His movement seems to be coming to a head, with all kinds of expectations swirling around. What exactly is Jesus aiming to achieve? One very natural hope is that he will bring in a real kingdom, a new political order sweeping away the unjust rule of the Romans and of the Jewish powers-that-be.
James and John, as good sons of Israel, long for this day and they want to be in the thick of the action, right beside Jesus; they want to stake their claim to high office in the new order. It's a natural ambition. They have been with Jesus from the beginning; they were among the first people he called; they are very close to him. They love the prospect of his kingdom (as they understand it) and they want to be at the heart of it, making it happen. They want to be at Jesus' right and left hand when he establishes his kingdom.
So they go to Jesus with their mother and she asks Jesus to reserve this special status for her sons, this special share in his greatness. We don't know whether it's their mother's initiative, pushing her boys forward, or whether they get her to ask the question for them. Either way, James and John certainly do this out of earshot of the other disciples, because they know that the others won't be amused.
And what does Jesus say in response? It's one of those many moments when he is disappointed by the failure of his disciples to grasp what he's really about. He has already told the disciples more than once that he is going up to Jerusalem to suffer and to die; he spoke of this immediately before this episode with James and John. And they just don't seem able to hear this. So he explains again. 'You don't understand what you're asking for', Jesus says. 'I am going to suffer – to drink a cup of suffering – do you want to suffer with me; can you share that cup?' 'Of course we can', they say. But they don't know what they are talking about.
Then the other disciples do hear about what James and John have asked Jesus, and they are furious. A great row breaks out: egos in conflict all over the place. Just like we all know about at work, in our family, our club, our church. Familiar, depressing stuff. Egos in conflict, grasping after high standing, craving status.
James and John seek great things for themselves. We could say, putting it more charitably, that they want to share in the greatness of Jesus. The trouble is that they don't understand the greatness of Jesus.
So Jesus gets all the disciples together and he talks to them about greatness. If you want to know what it means to be truly great, he says, you have to un-learn a great deal. You have to un-learn the lessons about greatness you have absorbed from your earliest days. You have learnt that to be great you have to get hold of power and control other people. But I want you to be part of the new thing I am bringing into being, the new human reality. You spoke about my kingdom. Well, in my kingdom greatness is not about getting other people to fulfil your aims, but about becoming a servant and letting go of your life for the sake of others, so that they might live more fully. If you want to know what that means, look at me, says Jesus. I am not among you as a master controlling you but as a servant, letting go of my life moment by moment for your sakes. In the coming days you will see this at its fullest as I totally let go of my life, I lay it down, I die, as a 'ransom for many', to bring life and freedom for the world.
That is greatness, re-defined by Jesus. That is the greatness of Jesus, and it is also the greatness of God; because if Jesus is God in human flesh, in Jesus we see the greatness of God in a human life. God shows his greatness by becoming a servant and giving his life for the sake of the world. That is the greatness of God, the greatness at the heart of all things.
And as those who bear the name of Christ we are called to share in this kind of greatness. I spoke earlier of how James might grow tired of hearing this embarrassing episode re-told again and again. But perhaps he would recall it with good-humoured gratitude as a key moment in the painful but liberating process into which Jesus called him: the process of being set free from wrong, imprisoning ideas about ourselves and about God, and being released to live with a new understanding of life, a new understanding of what it means to be truly great.
We celebrate James today because he did re-learn what it means to be great. This encourages us to believe that we can too. James did un-learn his instinctive beliefs about power and greatness. Along with his brother John and the other disciples, James learnt that the Jesus who laid his life down as a ransom for many was also raised to life by the Father, to show that the way of the suffering servant is the way of true greatness and the way to life. James followed that way and some years later he did drink the cup of suffering that Jesus spoke of. In today's reading from the Acts of the Apostles we heard how James laid his life down as a faithful disciple, put to the sword by King Herod, dying as one of the martyrs of the early church. So he did come to share in the greatness of Jesus, but this was a quite different greatness from what James had in mind when he, John and their mother came to Jesus with their request.
Do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them.
Instead, seek to be like God, the God we know in Jesus Christ, who did not seek great things for himself, but laid his life down to bring life to others.
Revd David Marshall
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is,
seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,
was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.
United with Christ and empowered by the spirit, let us pray to God, our source of being.
We thank you for your church, for all who worship you, and for our freedom to worship. May people everywhere be able to serve and worship you without fear, or criticism, or persecution. Open the eyes of church members to help each other, and to realize that no one is ahead or behind anyone else, that we all have the same value in your eyes, we all have access to your grace and your gifts.
Give wisdom to all who serve – to our bishops, Robert and David. May their vision for your church, bring us to overflow with your spirit. Help them and us to seek not to be served but to serve. Bless Helen and David as they serve us, and bless Archana and James, Martin and Sue, as they take on greater responsibility for worship during their absence.
Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer.
We pray for all governments seeking to handle the Covid situation, and particularly for Japan, as it hosts the Olympic Games, and for Spain, whose patron saint James is. We pray for peace, internationally, nationally and on our doorsteps, and for new understanding where once there was conflict. Open the eyes of those who are still affected by tension, by terror and suffering among the innocent, especially in focal points of conflict – Syria, Afghanistan, the refugees and those suffering in recent natural disasters.
Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer.
Teach us to respect the world around us. We thank you for the food on our plates. Make us all more aware of people in hardship and the grip of poverty, and open hearts to find good solutions to the problems of hunger and need, and give us the will to live together in safety.
..
Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer..
We thank you for all who work to strengthen the weak. Bless and sustain them. Bless those who teach, and foster a spirit of discovery in those who learn. We thank you for the work of the missions we support. Guide them in the right course of action. We thank you for modern technology. May we use it wisely.
Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer.
We give thanks for families and friends, for all we come in contact with. Bind us together. Bless Helen and David as they set off for a time away, and smooth their path. Be with those who are unable to set off, who are on their own, give your wisdom to those who are in need of counselling and support. And grant your healing to the sick, in body, mind or spirit.
Lord in your mercy
Hear our prayer..
And we remember the departed. Give them with us the joy of seeing you face to face.
Merciful Father
Accept these prayers for the sake of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
We are the body of Christ.
In the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.
Let us then pursue all that makes for peace
and builds up our common life.
The peace of the Lord be always with you.
And also with you.
1 Lord Jesus Christ,
you have come to us,
you are one with us,
Mary's Son.
Cleansing our souls from all their sin,
pouring your love and goodness in;
Jesus, our love for you we sing,
living Lord.
3 Lord Jesus Christ,
you have come to us,
born as one of us,
Mary's Son.
Led out to die on Calvary,
risen from death to set us free,
living Lord Jesus, help us see
you are Lord.
4 Lord Jesus Christ,
I would come to you
live my life for you,
Son of God.
All your commands I know are true,
your many gifts will make me new,
into my life your power breaks through,
living Lord.
Patrick Appleford
As our Saviour has taught us, so we pray
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.
Almighty God, Father of all mercies,
we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks
for all your goodness and loving-kindness
to us and to all whom you have made.
We bless you for our creation, preservation,
and all the blessings of this life;
but above all for your immeasurable love
in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ;
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies,
that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praises
not only with our lips, but in our lives,
by giving up ourselves to your service,
and by walking before you
in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honour and glory throughout all ages.
Amen.
God of our pilgrimage,
you have willed that the gate of mercy
should stand open for those who trust in you:
look upon us with your favour
that we who follow the path of your will
may never wander from the way of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
1 Come down, O Love divine,
seek thou this soul of mine,
and visit it with thine own ardour glowing;
O Comforter, draw near,
within my heart appear,
and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.
2 O let it freely burn,
till earthly passions turn
to dust and ashes in its heat consuming;
and let thy glorious light
shine ever on my sight,
and clothe me round, the while my path illuming.
3 Let holy charity
mine outward vesture be,
and lowliness become mine inner clothing:
true lowliness of heart,
which takes the humbler part,
and o'er its own shortcomings weeps with loathing.
4 And so the yearning strong,
with which the soul will long,
shall far outpass the power of human telling;
for none can guess its grace,
till he become the place
wherein the Holy Spirit makes his dwelling.
Bianco da Siena, tr. R F Littledale
The peace of God,
which passes all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds
in the knowledge and love of God,
and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord;
and the blessing of God Almighty,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be with you
and remain with you now and always. Amen.
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
In the name of Christ. Amen.
| We hope that you enjoyed the online service and
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