大象传媒

St Patrick鈥檚 Church, Coleraine : www.stpats.co.uk/聽
This script cannot exactly reflect the transmission, as it was prepared before the service was broadcast.
It may include editorial notes prepared by the producer, and minor spelling and other errors that were corrected聽before the radio broadcast.
It may contain gaps to be filled in at the time so that prayers may reflect the needs of the world, and changes may also be made at the last minute for timing reasons, or to reflect current events.
大象传媒 Radio 4. At ten past eight, it鈥檚 time for Sunday Worship from St Patrick鈥檚 Church, Coleraine, (Co. Londonderry).聽
The preacher is the Reverend Stuart Reid. The service is led by the Reverend Emma Carson and introduced by the Reverend Ian Ballentine.

Good morning, and welcome to Coleraine. We鈥檙e just a few miles from Mountsandel, the site of one of the earliest human settlements in Ireland, over 7,000 years before St Patrick appeared on the scene to found a church聽
Nothing, of course, remains of Patrick鈥檚 foundation but a church was built on this present site in 1614, when Coleraine was being developed as a town. That building was replaced 270 years later by the present Victorian Gothic Church.
So, there is a long history of Christian worship in this town and we continue that with our first hymn this morning, How Great Thou Art.
Hymn 鈥淗ow Great Thou Art"


鈥淏lessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.鈥� Jeremiah 17:7-8
We gather this Sunday morning to worship God 鈥� Father, Son and Holy Spirit 鈥� in prayer, praise and worship, and on this, the third Sunday of Lent, we think of the example of St Patrick as we reflect on our Lenten theme of Caring For Creation.We continue in prayer 鈥揂lmighty Father,You have built up your Churchthrough the love and devotion of your saints:inspire us to follow the example of Patrick,whom we commemorate at this time,that we in our generation may rejoice with himin the vision of your glory;through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,who is alive and reigns with you,in the unity of the Holy Spirit,one God, now and forever. Amen.
Let us now confess our sins to God our Father:
Here is great injustice Lord:
Many in the world diet,others are hungry;
Many in the world are聽 housed comfortableothers are homeless; (is this true??)
Many in the world pursue profit,other sense loss.
Redeem our souls,Redeem our peoples,Redeem our times. Amen聽

Hear these words of absolution and assurance of God鈥檚 forgiveness:
Almighty God, who forgives all who truly repent,have mercy on us,pardon and deliver us from all our sins,confirm and strengthen us in all goodness,聽and keep us in eternal life,through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.聽
Merciful Lord,聽Grant your people grace to withstand the temptations聽of the world, the flesh and the devil聽and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God;聽through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

The story goes聽 that Patrick was offered a site for a church by a local chieftain. It was near the River Bann and was covered in ferns, so it was named C煤il Raithin or "nook of ferns", appropriate to today鈥檚 theme of Land and Plants.聽And our opening hymn spoke about wandering through woods and forest glades and hearing birds in the trees, an evocative picture that leads us to our first reading from Genesis chapter 1 beginning at verse 9.
And God said, 鈥淟et the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.鈥� And it was so. God called the dry ground 鈥渓and,鈥� and the gathered waters he called 鈥渟eas.鈥� And God saw that it was good.聽 Then God said, 鈥淟et the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.鈥� And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
HYMN The King Of Love My Shepherd Is" Which tune?聽I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.聽 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.聽 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.聽 This is to my Father鈥檚 glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.聽 鈥淎s the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.)

A Reading from Ephesians chapter 2 beginning at verse 13:
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God鈥檚 people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Hymn Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind聽 (
Sermon聽 Father, may these fragile words be faithful to the written word and lead us to the living Word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
You聽 might be surprised to hear an English person speaking about St Patrick鈥檚 day from a church in Northern Ireland, and I was certainly surprised to be asked! But, it鈥檚 not really so out of place. We often forget that St Patrick was from somewhere else originally. He would have had a different accent, different use of language, a different culture, different customs, and when he first arrived, he had a different religion from most of those he came across. Patrick was an outsider on this Island, what is called a 鈥榖low-in鈥� in these parts, and yet he is now considered to be an ancient ambassador for this place, a unifying representative who is celebrated far beyond these shores.
I can identify with St Patrick. My perception of Northern Ireland before I first came here was that it was where the bombs came from. But having lived here for ten years I now have an entirely different opinion. My experience is that this land is largely full of thoughtful, generous, gracious and loving people, and like Patrick, I now feel like I am part of the furniture. For me, in the language of our reading from Ephesians, a dividing wall of hostility has come down. I am thankful for the grace shown to me when I have said insensitive things either through ignorance or jest, and I am grateful for those who have set me straight with love.
Our Ephesians passage is prefaced by a couple of verses which set out two groups of enemies, and the racial slurs they used to describe each other. These words have lost their power over the last couple of millennia, but we can easily think of modern equivalents. Maybe, we鈥檝e been at the raw end of them. Maybe we鈥檝e used them. This passage is for both sets of people. Paul tells us that Jesus brings peace between former enemies by putting their former hostility to death on the cross. The cross of Jesus is a symbol of all humanity鈥檚 rejection of God. But God鈥檚 response, of gracious love to his former enemies, of peace offered to the haters, means that those of us who recognise our complicity in his death, have to give up the high moral ground that we so often cling to, and recognise that his peace reaches far beyond the barriers that we put up to try and contain it. We were all enemies of God, and we can now all be his friends. When we reconcile with our Father, we find that we are part of a family that extends beyond our echo chambers, our familiar stomping grounds, and our kind of people.
During lent, we鈥檝e been using the Archbishop of Canterbury鈥檚 Livelent series to help focus our thoughts, and this week we鈥檙e thinking about what land and plants can reveal about Christian faith. One of the hallmarks of Celtic Christianity is the relationship of our Christian faith to the land that we live in, and it is well known that Patrick used earthly nature to demonstrate the nature of God, like the famous story that he used the shamrock to demonstrate the Trinity. In recent years there have been remarkable studies that show that what goes on beneath the ground of a forest is far more complex than we once imagined. In what is now often referred to as the Wood Wide Web (I didn鈥檛 make up the phrase), trees interact with fungi to create networks that spread over large areas. Trees that on the surface look to be solitary are for more interconnected and interdependent than they appear, and it seems to me, that once again we can see something of our nature and the nature of God in the nature that surrounds us. On the surface, we often appear to be independent people and communities, but as the coronavirus has shown us, we are far more connected than we realise. It can be easy to make enemies of each other when we consider ourselves to be independent, but when we realise that an attack on another human, is an attack on another part of our human network, we all suffer.
Anyone who was living here in Coleraine in 1992 can tell you where they were on 13th November. A large bomb tore the centre of the town apart, and people heard it for miles around. The damage was extensive, and in this church building the roof literally lifted, causing the church community here to move out whilst extensive repairs were done. In the middle of these repairs, the foundations of an earlier 14th century church building were discovered, and anyone who visits can still look down on them through a glass window in the North aisle. In my time here, whenever I鈥檝e walked over those foundations, I鈥檓 reminded that there was a church here long before there was any protestant/catholic divide, and that the roots of our worshipping communities are far more interwoven than we often care to think about.
Right now, we live in a country suffering from division. Of course, Brexit is a big part of that. But Brexit is only one part of the story. Social division, gender pay gaps, income inequality, geographical differences and racism are all reasons given for division in our culture, but I suspect we鈥檝e also seen a rise in tribalism, the belief that our group of people are the only ones worth listening to. Christians in Politics, a group that seeks to bring politicians of all parties together to recognise common cause has as聽 one of their mantras, born out of having to navigate the polarities of political opposition the phrase 鈥淜ingdom above Tribe鈥�, the recognition that God鈥檚 call on聽 their lives is more important than their differing political convictions.
Again, we see this demonstrated in Patrick, who could have stayed with his own people, but instead, responding to God鈥檚 call set out to live among those who had previously done him harm when he鈥檇 first been brought to Ireland as a slave. Patrick left his tribe to belong to another, and if we are truly Christians we find ourselves often compelled to do the same. Of course, those issues that divide us should certainly not be ignored. A belief in justice requires us to engage with these difficult issues rather than paper over the cracks and pretend that we all just get along fine. But we should engage with our opponents driven by love, not hateThere are countless reasons we can cite as to why our enemies should be excluded from God鈥榮 love, but they don鈥檛 wash. The soil we Christians grow in is the love of God, and that soil connects us all more than we are often comfortable with. The measure of God鈥檚 peace is not in how friends club together but that former enemies break bread. Driven by God鈥檚 love, the dividing wall of hostility comes down. Are we prepared to follow Patrick鈥檚 example and cross to the other side?聽
Amen









Anthem 鈥淏e Still For The Presence Of The Lord"聽 (Evams)
滨苍迟别谤肠别蝉蝉颈辞苍蝉听
In our intercessions this morning we pray for our world using the words of Jesus Christ in the Beatitudes.聽
Let us pray: Voice 1聽 Blessed are the poor,聽 Voice 2聽 聽We pray for those who suffer from Coronovirus and all who are anxiousALL聽 聽 for theirs is the Kingdom of God theirs is the kingdom of God.聽
Voice 1聽 Blessed are the hungry,聽 Voice 2 We pray for those whose lives are blighted by hunger and povertyALL聽 聽 for they shall be filled Voice 1聽 Blessed are the meek,聽 Voice 2 We pray for the oppressed and downtroddenALL聽 聽 for they shall inherit the earth.
Voice 1聽 Blessed are the pure in heart,聽 Voice 2 We pray that for all who seek to live better lives聽 ALL聽 聽 聽 聽for they shall see God.聽 聽 聽 Voice 1聽 Blessed are those who mourn,聽 Voice 2聽 We pray for those who have lost loved onesALL聽 聽 for they shall be comforted.
Voice 1 Blessed are the merciful, Voice 2 We pray that forgiveness and kindness may grow聽 ALL聽 聽 for they shall be shown mercy. Voice 1聽 Blessed are the peacemakers,聽Voice 2聽 聽We pray for all who seek to reduce tension and divisionALL聽 聽 聽 聽 for they are the children of God.
Voice 1聽 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness and justice,聽Voice 2聽 We pray for all who suffer for their beliefsALL聽 聽 for great is their reward. Amen.聽鈥� Emma et al
As our Saviour taught us, so we pray, Our Father in Heaven
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 sinsas we forgive those who sin against us.Lead us not into temptationbut deliver us from evil.For the kingdom, the power,and the glory are yoursnow and for ever.Amen.
Hymn Love Divine, All Loves Excelling聽


As we reach the end of our service here this morning, we comfort each other with the words of St Patrick鈥檚 Breastplate:
Christ be with me,聽Christ within me,聽Christ behind me,聽Christ before me,Christ beside me,聽Christ to comfort and restore me,
BlessingAnthem Gaelic Blessing (Rutter)
Today鈥檚 Sunday Worship came from St Patrick鈥檚 Church, Coleraine, (Co. Londonderry). It was led by the Reverend Emma Carson and the preacher was the Reverend Stuart Reid.聽鈥淐antemus鈥� was directed聽 by Tony Morrison and the organist was Ben McGonigle. The producer was Bert Tosh.Next week is Mothering Sunday when Environmentalist Ruth Valerio will be the preacher on Sunday Worship at the usual time of ten past eight.聽And a link to the Live Lent resources can be found on the Sunday Worship home page.