A worship service was held at 10.30am in the church building on Sunday 11 May. The service was simultaneously broadcast on the Church Facebook page.  You can catch up here, or by following the link below.  The sermon starts at 55:15 in.

The Bible passages are Acts 9:36-43  and John 10:22-30, and Gillean Maclean led and preached.  Here’s a link which you can use to donate to Christian Aid Week.

Gillean’s sermon was thoughtful, and challenging. This is the start of Christian Aid week, so the passage from Acts 9:36-43 was particularly relevant. There we read about Dorcas, who ‘was always doing good and helped the poor’, ‘who had made robes and other clothing’ for those in need. She is an example to us of showing love and care to others. Gillean shared  poem by George Macdonald about Dorcas:

Dorcas

by George MacDonald

If I might guess, then guess I would
That, mid the gathered folk,
This gentle Dorcas one day stood,
And heard when Jesus spoke.

She saw the woven seamless coat-
Half envious, for his sake:
‘Oh, happy hands,’ she said, ‘that wrought
The honoured thing to make!’

Her eyes with longing tears grow dim:
She never can come nigh
To work one service poor for him
For whom she glad would die!

But, hark, he speaks! Oh, precious word!
And she has heard indeed!
‘When did we see thee naked, Lord,
And clothed thee in thy need?’

‘The King shall answer, Inasmuch
As to my brethren ye
Did it-even to the least of such-
Ye did it unto me.’

In the other passage, from John 10:22-30 Jesus makes the astonishing declaration ‘I and the Father are one.’ And he describes himself as a Shepherd. ‘My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.’  These are wonderful words of comfort, but they also challenge us, Gillean said.  Because who are these people of whom Jesus says that they ‘are not my sheep’?

As Christians we need to think through the relationship between people with Christian belief  and those who have a different faith, or no faith, or who sign up to different Christian denomination.  There’s lots of room for discussion here, but Gillean made two main points:  firstly, it is not for us to judge anyone – that’s God’s business, and secondly that there is an extravagant wideness and generosity in the love and mercy of God.  She quoted the old chorus:

Wide, wide as the ocean, high as the heaven above
Deep, deep as the deepest sea is my Savior’s love
I, though so unworthy, still am a child of His care
For His Word teaches me that His love reaches me everywhere.

Gillean asked us to consider the language we use in talking about the church’s mission to share the Christian good news.  To talk of ‘outreach’ suggests duality – those who are ‘in’ and those who are ‘out’. To talk about someone who doesn’t sign up to certain points of doctrine as being ‘on the fringe’ begs the question ‘the fringe of what?’ We talk about being ‘wordly’ – but what exactly do we mean by that, for didn’t God create the whole world and everything in it? Gillean didn’t suggest answers to these questions, but she did – and this is very important – give us permission to discuss them.

So, we are not to judge, but to focus on expressing the love of Jesus.  But how, when talking about your faith is not today encouraged in many social contexts. Show love practically, in the name of Jesus, said Gillean.  Be in your community and in our world as Dorcas was – make a difference, in the name of Jesus.

And we should aim for inclusivity in our expression of love. Gillean shared a teenage memory which had a great impact on her. She was a young nurse in Glasgow Royal Infirmary, and nursed two men in the stroke ward over a six week period.  Both were unable to speak because of their illness, both were dressed in clothes from the hospital’s ‘Dorcas Room’, where donations of items to make patients more comfortable were stored.  Both these men were treated identically by the care team on the ward. They learned to communicate non-verbally, and became friends.

It was only when the time came for them to be discharged from the hospital that Gillean realised that while one of the men went off with a social worker, because he had been living rough before his stroke; while the other was taken home by a caring family in the company of a private nurse. The point was that, in their anonymity, both men were cared for identically.

Jesus cares for human being, regardless of their social status or wealth or beliefs. And we too are challenged to love with a similar self-giving love, focussed  not on any benefits that might accrue to ourselves from loving, but simply by the needs of the person in front of us.