Music as We Prepare for Worship
Words of Welcome & Announcements
Happy Father’s Day!
Welcome back to this sacred space where we have not been able to meet, in person, for worship since Sunday March 8th – the second Sunday in Lent.
Thank you for your willingness to adapt to our “new normal” keeping a safe distance between yourself and your neighbours on entering, during the Service, and as you exit. Thanks too for wearing a mask.
If you are a visitor among us, the washrooms are close-by should need arise.
There won’t be any singing in our Service today. Neither will we be joining in responsive prayers or a Responsive Psalm.
All hard surfaces have been sanitized for your protection. Despite the strangeness of these measures, we may be assured that God is with us as we worship.
Special thanks to Debra Marshall and the Board Executive for their extra work and planning. Thanks to Brian, our Caretaker, and Deb, our Office Administrator for their extra efforts.
Lighting of the Christ Candle
Invitation to Worship
In the Gospel of Matthew, we read Jesus’ words: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”
This is the day that our God has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
Acapella Quartet – “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” Acapeldridge – Youtube
Opening Prayer
Gracious God whose very name is Love, we gather this morning after many weeks of being apart. We gather with grateful hearts. On this Father’s Day we gather to honour the men who have had greatest influence on our lives – some known to us as Dad. Encounter us here, now: in the music, in the words from the Bible, in the preaching, in the praying, in the silence. By your Presence empower and enable us to be faithful disciples, to love the world in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Bible Reading
Genesis 12.1-4a – “God’s call to Abram & Sarai”
12.1 Now the LORD gave to Abram this invitation with a promise: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. . .3 . . .in you all the families of earth shall be blessed. 4 So Abram went, as the LORD had invited him, and Sarai his wife went with him along with his nephew, Lot, and many others. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left behind all the familiarity of home, and set out on his journey.
“The Pilgrimage of Fatherhood”
From the Book of Genesis, the very first book in the Bible, we read a paraphrase of the story of God’s invitation and promise to Abram and Sarai. (The text doesn’t mention Sarai – but since Abram was to be made into “a great nation” through whom “all the families of earth will be blessed” – I think it is an important detail. Biology being as it is – Sarai’s participation with Abram was obviously needed!
This elderly couple made the decision to respond to God’s invitation – to leave behind sisters and brothers, to leave behind all that was familiar about home, and to go out not knowing their ultimate destination. They trusted God who gave the invitation and the promise. This would certainly have taken both strength and courage.
On this Father’s Day I want to offer this story of the patriarch and matriarch of our faith, as a metaphor for what I’m terming “The Pilgrimage of Fatherhood”.
Each of us here this morning had a father. I dare say that most of us can remember our fathers. Some of us have been and are fathers. For all fathers, life is a pilgrimage – a journey – a trip upon which we launch, not knowing the ending.
I share with you, briefly, the pilgrimage of my Dad, Frank Hobbs. I invite you to remember and reflect on the journey of your own father.
Frank’s excursion began in a log house on a subsistence farm on the edge of the wilderness near Massey, Ontario, in the middle year of World War One. The voyage took him to the life of a labourer during the Great Depression, to Bible School and later University & Seminary, and more than four decades of Ministry in congregations across Ontario. The journey took him to marriage to Florence Allen, and then to the parenting of nine children. I’m sure when they married – when they set off on the pilgrimage – they had no idea what lay ahead.
Today I honour and pay tribute to my Dad. Having raised two daughters, of whom I am proud, I can simply not imagine what it would have been like to have two additional daughters, and five sons!
My best memories of Dad are of the many Sunday afternoon trips acting as his chauffeur on two four-point rural pastoral charges in Simcoe & Grey Counties, south of Midland and Owen Sound respectively. Of course, as well as driving (and what teen wouldn’t enjoy that?) I also attended each Service. I must have heard Dad preach close to 1,000 times. I’m sure the best efforts of the faculty of the Vancouver School of Theology did not influence me or impact my ministry practice as much as did my father!
I also remember his laughter and his love of Irish ballads, gospel songs and the hymns of the faith. This too is part of my legacy.
May God grant you also good memories of all that your father meant to you.
May God grant us the strength and courage as men in 2020 to freely offer our love and guidance especially to the boys in our families and communities – that they may, in their turn, be good men – caring, gentle, wise, brothers, husbands, Dads and Grandads.
We cannot know the final destination of this Pilgrimage of Fatherhood. We can, though, be confident of God’s Presence with us on the journey. We can be assured that, as we do our part, God will do God’s part and we will be a blessing to all those whose lives we touch.
May it be so!
Thanks be to God. Happy Father’s Day. Amen.
Prayer of Gratitude and Concern
We give you thanks, gracious God, Source of every good and perfect gift, that all of life is a gift from you. We present our offerings this morning, not withholding ourselves, but asking that you accept both gift and giver and use us and our offerings for the extension of your reign here and everywhere.
God of steadfast love, we live in a violent world. Nations are at war. There is conflict in cities, towns and villages – even families are afflicted by abuse. Racism distorts and destroys the lives of many – based on hatred and malice.
We grieve for lives lost to violence – for the lives cut short, for broken relationships, for dreams destroyed.
We often feel powerless against such great evil. Come among us now, O God, surround us with an awareness of your Presence. Work within us and within our world to nurture tenderness, forgiveness, caring, and peace,
Show us your truth. Redeem us and all the world. In Jesus’ name we pray this. In our hearts we offer the words of the Lord’s Prayer as John McDermott sings.
