Call to Worship – Psalm 46:1,5-7 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. God is within her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day. Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; he lifts his voice, the earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Hymn – 132 – O God, our help in ages past
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O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast,
and our eternal home.
Under the shadow of thy throne
thy saints have dwelt secure;
sufficient is thine arm alone,
and our defence is sure.
Before the hills in order stood
or earth received her frame,
from everlasting thou art God,
to endless years the same.
A thousand ages in thy sight
are like an evening gone,
short as the watch that ends the night
before the rising sun.
The busy tribes of flesh and blood,
with all their cares and fears,
are carried downward by the flood,
and lost in following years.
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
bears all its sons away;
they fly forgotten, as a dream
dies at the opening day.
O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
be thou our guard while life shall last,
and our eternal home.
Isaac Watts (1674-1748)
Prayer : God eternal, we gather here in humble worship and in joyful praise; On a day of mixed emotions and muddled remembering, Our voices may not always call for the same things But we are united in our response to your love.
God of history, through the long years of humanity’s existence, You have seen across the mess of battlefield,
You have seen into the horror of fear and heard the anguish of pain; You know all we suffer and have suffered it too.
We worship you, above it all and almighty; We adore you, your peace and calm held out, Olive branch like to people in turmoil Saying come to me, know and feel my love.
We come in humble confession of sin, Regrets, vain attempts to turn back and restart, Thwarted restarts and bungled beginnings, We repent and pray for your forgiveness. William Glasse
From our Methodist Prayer Handbook
We thank you, our Father and Mother, for teaching us the value of hope in the midst of the storm that accompany our lives. We thank you for being able to share with the poorest people the hunger and thirst for love that gives meaning to life. From our humble condition as your children, we pray that wars will end. We beg you to perform one of your miracles of love and wisdom so that armies may be transformed into Sowers of peace, justice and fraternity for their countries and our world.
Thank you for allowing us to be resurrected everyday thanks to the water of new life of the gospel. Amen.
Felix A Posada Rojas, Director of DEPALC, Columbia © The Methodist Church
Lord’s Prayer
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 forever Amen.
The Act of Remembrance
Resources are available at: Act of Remembrance | Royal British Legion
Hymn – 131 – By a monument of marble
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By a monument of marble,
or by a simple wooden cross,
here we gather to remember
sacrifice and tragic loss.
Blood-red poppy petals flutter,
each a symbol for a life,
drifting in a crimson curtain,
shadow of our constant strife.
Solemn silence now surrounds us
as we stand in memory.
Why should evil lead to conflict?
This eternal mystery
troubles hearts and stirs the conscience,
urges us to think again;
face the curse of confrontation,
yet reduce this searing pain.
For the sound of war still thunders
through our planet, on this day.
Every hour new victims suffer,
ever as we meet to pray.
God, beyond our understanding,
peace seems far beyond our reach;
move us on to new solutions
through that active love you teach.
Marjorie Dobson (born 1940) © 2006 Stainer & Bell Ltd
Reading – Revelation 22:1-5
Eden restored
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
Reading – John 5:9-17
At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, ‘It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.’
But he replied, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Pick up your mat and walk.”’
So they asked him, ‘Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?’
The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.’ The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
The authority of the Son
So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defence Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.’
Hymn – 698 – God! As with silent hearts we bring to mind
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God! As with silent hearts we bring to mind
how hate and war diminish humankind,
we pause – and seek in worship to increase
our knowledge of the things that make for peace.
Hallow our will as humbly we recall
the lives of those who gave and give their all.
We thank you, Lord, for women, children, men
who seek to serve in love, today as then.
Give us deep faith to comfort those who mourn,
high hope to share with all the newly born,
strong love in our pursuit of human worth:
‘lest we forget’ the future of this earth.
So, Prince of Peace, disarm our trust in power,
teach us to coax the plant of peace to flower.
May we, im-passioned by your living Word,
remember forward to a world restored.
Fred Kaan (1929-2009) © 1997 Stainer & Bell Ltd
Sermon – What shall we pray for (John 15:16)
So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.
Do you sometimes find yourself wondering what to think? If you do, by extension, the next question is what to pray for, or how to pray?
Today, for example, Remembrance Sunday, people have all sorts of baggage associated with this Sunday in the Year. Some of it is very recent and some is connected with family figures from an almost unrecognisable past. What passes through your mind when you stand in silence for two minutes to remember; or do you prefer to avoid the silence. Do you think, reflect or pray. There can be no ‘right answer’, can there?
Remembrance Sunday 2025. What is the real state of affairs between Russia and Ukraine? What shall we pray for…peace, but achieved how and with what further sacrifices? Peace requires give and take but when entrenched positions deny the opportunity for negotiation, how is a way through to be found?
In the Middle East, in the theatre of another notable conflict of this year, what is the prayer to be where there are confused and confusing cultural and religious overlays as well as messy human politics. It feels as though things are just happening.
The gospel reading today appears to be slightly different from some that we encounter. Jesus cured a lame man (recorded in the earlier portion of the passage) which is good news, or so it would seem. There is no discussion about faith as the point was whether or not a cure was wanted and the difficulty of getting into the water at the opportune moment without help. The cure given is quick and the man told to take his mat and walk away.
Later on the healed person was quizzed by friends and was not able to identify the healer, merely to recount the tale. Then, later still, Jesus found the lame man again and implied that if he was well again, and glad for it, then he should live his life without sin before something worse happened.
By reflecting on the story in this way we leave bits out and there is something of mystery, which is the point I want to make. This is a miracle about the power of Jesus to heal, and only obliquely about the life of the man being healed.
And yet, as our text reminds us, the Jewish leaders began to persecute Jesus, because it was the Sabbath. The rules of the sabbath were doubly broken. Jesus healed and the healed person did the work of carrying a mat on the day when no work should be done.
On this day when we remember terrible things happening, seemingly without constraint, and certainly without concern for the day of the week, it feels almost mindless that the leaders worried about carrying a mat when a lifelong disability was at stake. Let us hold that thought.
There are two points to make from this.
Things happen
All around us and always, stuff is happening. For those people caught up in the horrors of war whom we remember today that stuff is unimaginable for most of us most of the time. The tide of a conflict will ebb and flow, sometimes due to strategic decisions and sometimes just because…
In our lives and those of people around us things happen. Sometimes cause and effect are in plain sight, sometimes they are hidden and coincidence appears to be having an outing…
Whether we can always follow and analyse everything is one thing, but it is another thing to dismiss overall direction and development just because things seem to be happening and we cannot see a pattern.
The miracle was about the power of God to heal, and in that sense, the power of God is exercised in theatres of war and in people’s lives, doing what God wills and not necessarily what we think is the answer.
Motives are misunderstood
It is simplistic to dismiss the healing as wilful abuse of the Sabbath by Jesus or the man carrying his mat. It is wrong to break the Sabbath by fighting wars on Sabbath days; but put like that, is it not an abuse of life every day for someone to suffer who could be healed, and it is an aberration whenever a way is fought, regardless of the day of the week.
If the lame person had been your friend, you would have asked who helped, but I would be surprised if you went on to find fault and say the healing should not have happened.
Motives can be understood, but there are occasions for taking at face value what is at risk of becoming over complicated.
Geopolitics are complex too but there is a time to call for sense and a stop…the problem is that those needing to heed the call can take a long time for it to sink in and know what is being called for.
The leaders understood the rules of the sabbath, so did Jesus. What Jesus wanted them to understand as well, and what still would transform human affairs, would be for God’s power to be recognised universally.
What is the way ahead?
The Psalmist with whose words we began reflected on what the past looked like and how secure things were when God was allowed be the strong protector he wanted to be.
The vision for the future in the Revelation was of the permanence of Jesus in the eternal Kingdom where the way of life will be of healing, peace and worship.
In the world, things happen and there are many things we cannot understand but what shall we pray for?
When all our short-term needs are poured out, inevitably the coalesce around one thing, our need for the power of God to bring peace and healing to the nations of the earth. The rest is important but it is detail beside overarching, desperate human yearning that can only be met in God.
Amen.
Hymn – 381 – Holy Spirit, breath of heaven
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Holy Spirit, Breath of heaven,
Holy Spirit, breathe on us.
Breathe us to a quiet stillness
where we trust your love for us.
Holy Spirit, Breath of heaven,
Holy Spirit, breathe on us.
Breathe us to a quiet stillness
where we find your place for us.
Holy Spirit, Breath of heaven,
Holy Spirit, breathe on us.
Breathe us to a quiet stillness
where we know that you are God.
Geraldine Latty (born 1963) © 2005 Thankyou Music/admin. by worshiptogether.com songs excluding UK & Europe, admin. by Kingswaysongs, a division of David C Cook, www.kingswayworship.co.uk Used by permission
Dedication of Offering
We bring gifts, We bring lives, We bring time, We bring all we are. God in heaven, take these people and these offerings for the work of your Kingdom now and for time to come. We pray for Jesus Christ’s sake, Amen.
Prayers of Intercession
I offer you this hymn by Sue Gilmurray to use as you intercessory prayers, or as a framework for them. On this Remembrance Sunday.
Lord, help us to remember the victims of past wars: the ones who fell in combat believing in the cause, the ones pressed into service who fought against their will, the ones who suffered torment, the ones who suffer still.
Lord, help us to acknowledge the reasons why they died: the leaders who chose warfare through prejudice or pride,
the patriotic fervour, the failure to foresee how vast and how appalling the loss of life would be.
Lord, help us to consider the conflicts of our day: the cruel and complex struggles, the games the powerful play, and, by your Holy Spirit, enable us to stand for justice in all nations and peace in every land.
For when you lived among us, our true, incarnate Lord, you fought the powers of evil with love, and not the sword.
You lived and died to save us, and worked your Father’s will: to show your power through mercy, to heal and not to kill.
Lord, give us grace and courage to live by your commands, to love our fellow-humans with all that love demands; and may we truly honour the fallen of the past by working now for justice, to build your peace at last.
Sue Gilmurray words © Sue Gilmurray / Jubilate, administered by Jubilate Hymns Ltd Copyrightmanager@jubilatehymns.co.uk CCL# 7119533
Hymn – 696 – For the healing of the nations
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For the healing of the nations,
Lord, we pray with one accord,
for a just and equal sharing
of the things that earth affords.
To a life of love in action
help us rise and pledge our word.
Lead us forward into freedom,
from despair your world release,
that, redeemed from war and hatred,
all may come and go in peace.
Show us how through care and goodness
fear will die and hope increase.
All that kills abundant living,
let it from the earth be banned:
pride of status, race or schooling,
dogmas that obscure your plan.
In our common quest for justice
may we hallow life’s brief span.
You, Creator-God, have written
your great name on humankind;
for our growing in your likeness
bring the life of Christ to mind;
that by our response and service
earth its destiny may find.
Fred Kaan (1929-2009) © 1968 Stainer & Bell Ltd
Dismissal
Let us love the constancy of your light, O Lord, and rejoice in it. Let us walk in brightness of your light, O Lord, and be blessed by it. Let us live in the glory of your light, O Lord, and be judged for it.
Margaret Fox (1614-1702) © The Methodist Church
Benediction
May the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be upon us and remain with us now and for evermore. Amen.