大象传媒

Radio 4 CONTINUITY: Time now for Sunday Worship which comes today from Cardiff.

ITEM 1: RJ聽 INTRO聽
Good morning and welcome. I鈥檓 the Rev Roy Jenkins and on this week which includes St. David鈥檚 Day we鈥檙e in the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff Bay with the 大象传媒 National Chorus of Wales.聽 All kinds of events in this daffodil-bedecked season, from classical聽 concerts to skittles evenings, can get the patron鈥檚 name attached 鈥� though what the teetotal vegan sixth century monk would have made of it all, we鈥檙e left to guess.聽 聽No matter.聽 It鈥檚 a celebration of being Welsh, and as ever it raises a question: what might it mean to love your country 鈥� any country?聽

Words, music or both for all today鈥檚 hymns come from composers who are either Welsh or who鈥檝e lived here.聽 聽But wherever in the world you call home, we hope you鈥檒l feel part of our worship today - our first hymn from the poet-priest George Herbert calls on the whole earth, and the heavens beyond, to share the praise of God:聽 鈥楲et all the world in every corner sing My God and King.鈥櫬�

ITEM 2: CHOIR聽 聽Let all the world in every corner sing

ITEM 3: PRAYER- READER (DAVID)
Eternal God, Father of all humankind, you have created men and women of every race and nationality, every culture and colour, to bear your likeness.聽 聽Especially this week we give you thanks for your servant David, for his life of faith, for his zeal in spreading your word, for his model of perseverance.聽 May we, too, live day by day committed to your way of love, drawn on by a hope in Christ which even death cannot touch.聽 聽 聽
And in the words Jesus taught us, we say together:

ITEM 4: LORD鈥橲 PRAYER - READER and CHOIR聽
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. For ever and ever. Amen

ITEM 5: RJ聽
There are many different ways of expressing love for a country and its people, and we begin by glimpsing just a few.聽 聽This morning we鈥檙e on the waterfront at Cardiff Bay right opposite the Senedd or Parliament building.聽 What was once the biggest coal-exporting port in the world has been largely redeveloped, but still here 鈥� literally the other side of the tracks - is Butetown the most diverse and among the most deprived communities in the city: we鈥檙e joined by the pastor of one of its smaller churches.聽 We鈥檒l hear from a long-serving member of today鈥檚 choir.聽 And we start literally next door in this Millennium Centre complex.

ITEM 6: PACKAGE听听[Ceren Roberts, Urdd / Vanessa John-Hall, 大象传媒 NCW/ Lester Freckleton, Pastor, Living Hope]

ITEM 7: CHOIR聽 聽We turn to you, O God of every nation

ITEM 8: BIBLE READINGS

READER 1 (ROLAND)
From the gospel of Luke, we read two sections of his account of Jesus making his way to Jerusalem.聽 They reflect something of his mind as he prepares for the ordeal he is about to endure out of love for the world. We read from chapters 13 and 19, and conclude with an acclamation of praise, Diolch iti yr hollalluog Dduw am yr efengyl sanctaidd - Thanks be to you Almighty God for the holy gospel.聽
听听
READER 2 (RHIAN) Luke 13.31-35 GNB31
At that same time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, 鈥淵ou must get out of here and go somewhere else, because Herod wants to kill you.鈥� 32 Jesus answered them, 鈥淕o and tell that fox: 鈥業 am driving out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I shall finish my work.鈥� 33 Yet I must be on my way today, tomorrow, and the next day; it is not right for a prophet to be killed anywhere except in Jerusalem. 34 "Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You kill the prophets, you stone the messengers God has sent you! How many times have I wanted to put my arms round all your people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me! 35 And so your Temple will be abandoned. I assure you that you will not see me until the time comes when you say, 鈥楪od bless him who comes in the name of the Lord.鈥� 鈥�

READER 1 (ROLAND)聽 Luke 19.41-44聽 GNB41
He came closer to the city, and when he saw it, he wept over it, 42saying, 鈥淚f you only knew today what is needed for peace! But now you cannot see it! 43 The time will come when your enemies will surround you with barricades, blockade you, and close in on you from every side. 44 They will completely destroy you and the people within your walls; not a single stone will they leave in its place, because you did not recognise the time when God came to save you!鈥澨�听

ITEM 9: CHOIR聽 Diolch i ti yr hollalluog Dduw

ITEM 10 ADDRESS PT 1 - RJ
There is a love for one鈥檚 own people which is entirely natural, healthy.聽 It鈥檚 an extension of love for the closest members of our families, expressing gratitude for gifts received, tradition inherited, individuals and communities who have shaped us.聽 It can result in a shared commitment to the place and its people: we want them to flourish, to be cared for, protected.听听

We might seem to have little in common.聽 Yet like it or not, geography and roots force us together.聽 And across the nations of these islands, too, we have obligations 鈥� as we do indeed to the worldwide family of human beings made like us in the image of God, for whom that same God has loving purposes.

For Jesus, it was intense passion for this vision that kept him on that journey to Calvary.聽 聽His offering of himself was for his own people, for sure 鈥� 鈥楬ow many times I have wanted to put my arms around all your people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me鈥�.聽 But it was also for the fulfilment of ancient promises that one day the whole of humanity would realise that they were included within the same divine love.聽 He was to die for all, without exception.聽

Love of nation can inspire great acts of courage.聽 Two years on from the start of the war, fresh memorials across Ukraine bear witness to sacrifices still being made every day; in Gaza, many families have nowhere to even to mark the deaths of their loved ones - unlike almost every village, town and city in the United Kingdom with their solid reminders of two world wars and other conflicts.聽 Here we know that while many volunteered with enthusiasm, others did so weighed down by foreboding and uncertainty, yet convinced that somehow duty demanded it.聽 聽And much smaller numbers, clinging to religious and political beliefs, chose the disgrace of the conscientious objector and confronted different agonies for the country they also loved.

Political nationalism might or might not be where our patriotism takes us: it鈥檚 one legitimate option among many.聽 聽But loudly trumpeted love for one鈥檚 own country can easily be exploited, distorted into hostility to those who are different.聽 聽And aggressive nationalisms, bent on re-writing history, can provoke brutal atrocities.聽

Jesus blazed at the way the very people who saw themselves as guardians of the nation and its traditions corrupted those traditions for their own benefit 鈥� going through the motions of religion but missing its heart in faith and love and integrity.聽 聽 听听

In one story, he presents, as his model of how to care for a stranger in need, an anonymous traveller, from a group distrusted, looked down on and usually avoided 鈥� a Samaritan.聽 He accepts an invitation to the table of a cheat who collaborates with the despised Roman occupiers.聽 聽He risks scandal by dealing mercifully with a woman of dubious reputation.聽 聽 听听

The uncritical, excluding, patriotism which demonises the different, is always alien to his way, and never more so than when it claims to be 鈥榙efending Christian civilisation 鈥� or indeed any civilisation rooted in religious or humanitarian principle.Not 鈥榤y country right or wrong,鈥� for sure: nearer the prayer written by a Baptist minister whose activities for his understanding of love for country put him in Wormwood Scrubs for nine months in the 1930s.聽 It asks that Wales may be formed in the image of God, bearing fruit for Christ鈥� 鈥� a goal as worthy for any other nation: 鈥榝or Wales our land鈥�/country. Dros Gymru鈥檔 Gwlad.鈥�

ITEM 11: CHOIR聽 聽Dros Gymru鈥檔 Gwlad

ITEM 12: ADDRESS PT 2 鈥� RJ

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the pastor and theologian hanged for his part in a plot against Hitler, would have understood that hymn writer.聽 聽To the dismay of many friends, when war was imminent, he insisted on returning home from the United States.聽 聽He could not, he said, remain out of the country when his fellow-Christians faced such momentous choices.聽 The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is being mourned at the moment because he made a similar choice when friends failed to dissuade him from getting back to Russia to promote his vision for the country.

Jesus made his final journey to Jerusalem knowing that he faced an ordeal which would lead to his suffering and death.聽 The city itself was also in peril, and the nation it represented.聽 聽For generations, it had rejected the prophets sent to draw it back to God, and now it was about to do the same with him.聽 聽Its leaders had failed to recognise that God wanted to rescue them from inevitable disaster.聽 聽Little wonder that Luke reports that as he looked over the city, Jesus wept.聽 He didn鈥檛 condemn its people, he lamented for them: 鈥測ou would not let me.鈥�.

There is so much any of us might feel the need to lament over: personal issues to do with health, family, work, poverty, failures, sheer exhaustion.聽 It might be fears of what could be ahead for the country we love, and the threats to services which we see as part of its very identity.聽 聽It might be the crushing sadness of every day鈥檚 news from Gaza, Israel, Ukraine, Yemen, or wherever.聽 听听

Lament is no soft-centred self-indulgent cop-out.聽 If Jesus wept, there should be no shame, no embarrassment in our tears of helplessness. 鈥楾here are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried鈥� - words attributed to El Salvador鈥檚 saint and martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero, who paid the ultimate price for denouncing the powerful making life a misery for the poorest.聽

Eyes that have cried can sometimes see with an insight denied to the dispassionate.聽 They can help us affirm that what鈥檚 happening is just wrong, that the wrecking of lives through war, violence, greed is never part of what God intends, that there can be hope for something so much better.聽 聽They can fire our resistance, feed our protest.聽 They can help us enter the suffering, seek to be God鈥檚 agents for practical change.听听

They can be an important part of what it means to love our country, and are never meant to leave us as we are.聽 聽

We don鈥檛 need to pretend that we understand every human tragedy. But all our lament at what seems, so unjust, can feed into our praying for what God wants to be accomplished - and doing whatever is close at hand, however apparently trivial, to make some kind of difference.聽 聽The Jesus who shed tears weeps with us still 鈥� and promises: 鈥楤lessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

As he鈥檚 already reached out to us with mercy and grace, he invites us to reach out to him, to trust him, share our lives with him 鈥� the joys and celebrations certainly, and also the bleakest hours of despair.聽鈥橶hen human hearts are aching under sorrow鈥檚 iron rod, all the sorrow all the aching, wrings with pain the heart of God鈥� - words from our next hymn, God is love let heaven adore him.听听

ITEM 13: CHOIR God is love, let heaven adore him聽

ITEM 14: Intercessions

READER 3 (VANESSA)
Lord Jesus Christ, you have given yourself to make peace, to restore us to friendship with God and to live as one with others.聽 We pray for all who strive for justice and peace: for leaders wrestling with decisions which mean life or death for thousands, and for all who deliver practical care to desperate and frightened people.聽 聽And help us to be peacemakers where we are.聽 聽

READER 4 (DAVID)
Lord of new beginnings, we remember all who feel strangers among us 鈥� those who have fled here for sanctuary, and the trafficked treated as mere commodities.聽 聽We hold before you those who might never have moved from our shores, but still feel left outside, crippled by poverty or ill-health, poorly housed, trapped in abusive relationships; or falsely accused and wrongly imprisoned.聽 May the day of their liberation come soon.聽

READER 3 (VANESSA)
聽Lord of hope, we pray for all who grieve over the world鈥檚 wrongs, and their own failings, all who mourn after recent bereavement, or whose pain of loss remains raw after many years.聽 聽Grant them good friends, and revived hope in the assurance that you weep with them, and hold them securely.

READER 4 (DAVID)
Lord of the nations, we ask your blessing on all who pursue a vision of their country as you intend it to be: those engaged in medicine and health care, in education and community building, in politics or in speaking truth to power.聽 聽May they know much joy in their service, and when they grow tired in their serving, refresh them with your love.聽 聽In Jesus鈥� name we pray.聽 Amen听听

ITEM 15 LINK - RJ聽 聽
One of the best loved hymns of Wales to close: Cwm Rhondda 鈥� Guide me, O Thou great Redeemer.

ITEM 16 CHOIR聽 聽Guide me O thou great Redeemer聽 聽CWM RHONDDA聽

ITEM 17 BLESSINGS - RJ听听

A: Lord of light, shine on us, that we may see your way clearly and walk in it courageously.Lord of life, flow through us, that we may bring hope and healing to our world.Lord of love, live in us, that by humble service and open-hearted forgiveness we may be agents of your grace.听听

B: The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord聽

C: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us now and always.聽

ITEM 18: PIANO PLAYOUT 鈥� DEREK HARRIS
Agnus Dei from The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace, Karl Jenkins