A worship service was held at 10.30am in the church building on Sunday 12 July.  The service was simultaneously broadcast on the Church Facebook page.  For the next four weeks you can catch up here.

The Bible passages are Isaiah 55 v10-13 and Matthew 13 v1-9, 18-23 and Duncan led the service and preached.   The sermon starts at 39:45 on the catch-up.

Do listen to the sermon: Duncan focussed on the fact that ‘God is active in creation and in the world’; that God generously spreads the seed of the good news with the extravagant largesse of the famer in Jesus’ parable; that ‘the destiny of all our hopes is joy’, a joy which we can experience now, even in the dark times, the joy of which Jesus said ‘I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete’ (John 15:11);  that we are called now to be generous in sharing this good news with our lips and in our lives; that the ultimate fulfilment of Isaiah 55:12 still lies in the future:

You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.

John writes:  As Duncan said, there is much in life which brings sadness and anxiety. And for some of us with mental health issues actually feeling joyful, actually joining in as the trees of the field clap their hands is rare, though in my experience at least there are always glimpses, whispers of joy.  Duncan quoted Jesus’ words ‘I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete’.

It reminds me of words from Hebrews 12:2 ‘For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross’.  Jesus did not experience joy the night before his crucifixion, the branches of trees in the Garden of Gethsemane hung their hands in despair.  And yet Jesus held on to faith that what he had agreed to do was necessary, and that beyond the night of darkness and pain, dawn was coming.  A dawn which would lead to the liberation of the whole of humanity, set free through his sacrifice.

There was not joy experienced, but joy in prospect; not joy as emotion, but joy as an absolute theological conviction.  I often mention living my life as an experience of ‘choosing joy’. Frequently for some of us, more rarely for others, times come when there is only numbness, grief, tears, pain. And we acknowledge these feelings. We don’t pretend to ourselves or others that we’re really Ok; we don’t blame ourselves for these feelings; we don’t apply proof texts glibly.

But what we can do, having fully acknowledged the pain, is to remind ourselves that we are loved, that ultimately ‘all will be well, and all manner of thing shall be well’, and we choose to live in the light of the joy that is set before us, a sharing in the joy that was set before him.  That is what I mean by ‘choosing joy’, and in this we are following Jesus.

And this is not for us glib theologising. It is much more costly than that. It is a deep-seated, stubborn resolve to hold on the joy who is Jesus.

And to all of us who have known what it is to choose joy in times of darkness, comes the privilege of walking with those who suffer. For we believe, despite everything, that Jesus walks with us, still bearing the wounds of crucifixion, sowing the seeds of joy in the most unpromising of soils,  assuring us that he delights in us, that we are joy’s daughters and sons and that all will be well.

(See here for the Bible Project video on the Bible’s take on Joy which Duncan showed us this morning.)