March 7, 2021

WELCOME TO ST ANDREW’S ON THE TERRACE

GATHERING

 

In myth and poem and parable,

in historical chronicle and friendly letter,

in lament, and exultation, and oracle,

in prophetic warning and gospel invitation,

the Bible has served as a vehicle

for the creative word of God

down through the ages.

 

We are called today

to find our place in this history of salvation,

letting our stories find their place in the wider story,

and re-membering and re-telling the old stories

for this and future generations.

We will celebrate life in the presence we name God.

 

PROCESSIONAL HYMN – FOR LENT HIOS 8 ‘Autumn comes in all its fullness’
Words and Music: William L. Wallace Arr: Barry Brinson
© New Zealand hymnbook trust 2009, 3 verses
Reprinted with permission under One License A-623996. All rights reserved

1. Autumn comes in all its fullness
harvesting both land and hearts.
Autumn has its birth in winter
in the stillness where life starts.

Refrain: Every death brings hope of birthing,
every birth enfolds life’s end,
for the seasons of our living
mirror patterns nature penned.

2. Autumn gives us time for choosing
seeds which bear the richest fruits,
fragile life which we can nurture
into just or vain pursuits. Refrain

3. Buried in autumnal endings
lies the shoot that bursts the tomb,
for the letting go in autumn
sows the seed that births the bloom. Refrain
WELCOME
Kia ora tatou.
Kia ora.
PRAYER
JESUS’ PRAYER Jim Cotter paraphrase

Eternal Spirit
Life-Giver, Pain-Bearer, Love-Maker,
source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
loving God, in whom is heaven:
the hallowing of your name
echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed
by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done
by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test,
strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory
of the power that is love, now and for ever.
Amen.
LIGHTING THE RAINBOW CANDLE
TIME WITH THE CHILDREN Cam Smart
BLESSING THE CHILDREN (All stand)
We send you to the Rainbow Room to hear stories, ask questions and have fun together.
We bless you. Amen.
HYMN ‘A Man of Ancient Time and Place’
Words: Brian Wren ©1991 Hope Publishing Company
Tune: Tallis’ Canon WOV 468

1. A man of ancient time and place
with foreign speech and foreign face,
reveals the glory, power and grace
of costly, unexpected love.

2. A rabbi, schooled in Moses’ Law,
a male, amending Herod’s flaw,
arouses wonder, rage and awe
with costly, unexpected love.

3. By teasing word and healing deed,
a leper touched, an outcast freed,
he bears the fruit and plants the seed
of costly, unexpected love.

4. The cost we barely can surmise
when, lifted up before our eyes,
the face of God we recognize
in crucified, unfathomed love.

5. May faith and hope within us grow,
the way of Christ to tell and show,
and may the Spirit breathe and blow
in costly, unexpected love.

THE WORD IN TEXTS Gillian Feist
Introduction

Gospel Mark 11: 1-11
Entry into Jerusalem

Mark 12: 13-17
The Question about Paying Taxes

Mark 14: 22-25
The Last Supper

RESPONSE
For the Word in scripture,
for the Word among us,
for the Word within us,
we give thanks.

REFLECTION The Last Week Part 1 Jim Cunningham
OFFERING HYMN FOR LENT Tune: Duke Street WOV 24
Willing hands, to lead the blind,
heal the wounded, feed the poor.
Love embracing all our kind,
charity with liberal store.
OFFERING PRAYER

We recognise and bless the gifts brought to the table, and those which wing
their way electronically from our banks to the church’s account.

LIFE IN THE COMMUNITY OF ST ANDREW’S
People share notices and visitors are welcomed. If you have a notice, please move to the front row, ready to speak briefly from the lectern.
For the benefit of newcomers, please introduce yourself before you begin.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE Pat Booth
CIRCLE OF PRAYER
We think today of the people of Timor Leste and Christian World Service Partners in Timor Leste providing youth vocational training, sustainable agriculture, water supply and emergency relief. We hold all refugees in our hearts. We pray in particular for those detained for many years in Papua New Guinea & Nauru. We give thanks for progress that has been made and pray that their calls for justice might yet find a compassionate response. In New Zealand, we remember those in Parliament, and today we name Gerry Brownlee and Mark Cameron, list MPs. Here in the Central Presbytery, we pray for the leaders and people of Ngaio Union Church.
PRAYER FOR ST ANDREW’S

Renew your people, God,
and renew our life in this place.
Give us a new spirit of unity
with all who follow the Way of Jesus
and new bonds of love
with people of other faiths.

Bless the city in which we live
that it may be a place
where honest dealing,
good government,
the desire for beauty,
and the care for others flourish.

Bless this church
that what we know of your will
may become what we do,
and what we believe
the strong impulse
of our worship and work.

Amen
WELCOME
We welcome Michael Parker as, this morning, he becomes a full member of St Andrew’s on The Terrace.
PASSING THE PEACE
Traditionally we shake hands to pass the peace and say “peace be with you. Now that Covid is here
we ask that you pass the peace without shaking hands.
INVITATION TO COMMUNION
St Andrew’s is an open community and all are invited to Christ’s table.
Wherever you are on your faith journey, wherever you have come from and wherever you are going to, whatever you believe, whatever you do not believe, you are welcome to participate in the communion. This is God’s meal for all people.

WELCOME TO THE TABLE

At this Table we give thanks for justice, love, peace and freedom.
At this Table we give thanks for friends and strangers together
in community in this safe place.
For everyone born a place at the Table.
We are all invited.

HYMN ‘Crowded table, urgent faces’
Words: Andrew Pratt
Music: WOV 92 Hymn to Joy
1. Crowded table, urgent faces,
people longing for the bread,
bread of life and bread for living,
bread for rising from the dead.
Young and old, both men and women,
those for whom this life is hard,
those who live in warmth and comfort,
those whose life is stained or tarred.

2. All are welcome, wise or foolish,
at this table all are fed,
sharing wine in celebration,
eating Christ’s communion bread.
Then in costly life and giving
we will share what we receive,
demonstrate in daily living
all that we affirm, believe.
THE STORY...

We remember the stories from our tradition....

How on many occasions Jesus would share a meal with friends.
Bread and wine, the very basics of life, shared in community.
How bread would be taken, a blessing offered, and then shared amongst them. And all ate.

How some wine would be poured out, a blessing offered, and then passed amongst them. All of them drank.

When they gathered in this way it was a time of concern,
conversation and celebration.
The bread and the wine symbolised
human lives interconnected
with other human lives,
and the power of giving and receiving.

We remember that on the night before his death
he shared the Passover Meal with his disciples
and gave the meal a new significance and purpose.

May the passion for life as seen in Jesus
and in the lives and struggles
of many other committed and faithful people then and now,
enable us to dream and to risk....

Together may we re-imagine the world.

Together may we work to make all things new.

Together may we celebrate the possibilities and hope
we each have and are called to share.

For everyone born, a place at the Table.
THE BREAD IS BROKEN

We break the bread for the broken Earth,
ravaged and plundered for greed.

May there be healing for our beautiful blue and green planet.

We break the bread for our broken humanity,
for the powerful and the powerless
trapped by exploitation and oppression.
May there be healing for humanity.

We break the bread for those who follow other paths;
who travel on a different road from us;
those who think and act differently;
those whose belief system is different to ours;
those who see our world through different eyes
of ethnicity and culture.

May there be healing where there is pain and woundedness.

We break this bread for the unhealed hurts and wounds
that lie within us all.

May we, too, be healed.
THE WINE IS POURED

This is the cup of peace and of new life for all.
A sign of love for the community of hope.

A reminder of the call
to live life fully,
to love wastefully,
and to be all that we can be.

Come then, life-giving Spirit of our God,
brood over these bodily things,
and make us one body with Christ;
that we may no longer be in bondage
to the principalities and powers that enslave creation,
but may know your liberating peace
such as the world cannot give.
THE BREAD AND THE WINE ARE SHARED
CALL TO SERVICE standing

You are sent in the daring of God,
to bless the world with JUSTICE.
You are sent in the intent of God,
to bless the world with PROMISE.
You are sent in the longing of God,
to bless the world with HOPE.
You are sent in the love of God,
to bless the world with GOOD NEWS.
You are sent in the reign of peace,
to bless the world with SHALOM.
HYMN ‘This love, this life, this enterprise’
Music: WOV 453 O Waly, Waly.
Words: Andrew Pratt
Reprinted with permission under One License A-623996. All rights reserved

1. This love, this life, this enterprise
is that by which we will arise
affirmed, up-raised, to live again
when we have suffered death or pain.

2. Our practical adventure here
involves both urgency and care;
compelled by shared humanity
to offer love, set people free.

3. And if the task enlarges sight
to wider visions, greater height
than those which we can reach on earth,
then know that God has come to birth.
BLESSING
SUNG AMEN
POSTLUDE