Prayers of Approach
God, who makes all things new, we gather together today to bring you praise. We offer ourselves afresh in your service. We’re sorry for all the ways we have fallen short of your ideal over the last week. Make us new again this morning. The one seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Lord, sometimes we come to church feeling a little bit jaded, perhaps unsure why we feel the way we do. We need a burst of new life. Today, Lord, we come to you with open hearts and minds. Help us to understand your Word to us. Make us ready to experience and embrace your wonderful newness of life.
Lord God, you know every bone in our body, every ache and pain, every beat of our heart, every emotion. You know us inside out. You know when we are joyful, but also when we struggle. We take a moment now to pause and be aware of you. We breathe out our old life and breathe in the gloriousness of your new life. Amen.
Hymn Praise the Lord ye heavens adore him (R&S 116)
Readings: Revelation 21:1-6
Acts 11:1-18
John 13:31-35
Introduction
In his vision, John sees all things being renewed. The world of the creation story and the present day is replaced by a new world – heaven on earth. God lives among, and will be all things to, his people. It’s a story of excitement and hope. Knowing the past and living the present gives great hope to John’s view of the future. Peter recounts his vision and encounter with Cornelius to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, explaining that God is clearly working among the Gentiles, as evidenced by the work of the Holy Spirit. God is making all things new, and like Peter we discover that the old boundaries of Jew and Gentile, separation based on culture, race, food or language, are now obsolete and barriers to the new thing God is doing. In our gospel reading Jesus gives his followers a ‘new commandment’ to love one another, as he has loved them, a commandment which becomes reality in the powerful reading from Acts when Peter explains his love, even for Gentiles, based on his vision and encounter with Cornelius.
Hymn A new commandment I give unto you (R&S 745)
Sermon
We have just come to the end of Christian Aid week and it seems as if nothing has changed since last years’ appeals, or the year before, or the year before that, or… we could go on. And it’s the same in many other things and areas of life. In the news this week we have seen India and Pakistan exchanging military attacks on each other and Israel attacking Palestinians in Gaza. In both places, there are long-standing grudges and feelings of injustice. In both places, the other side are treated as different, not like us and not deserving compassion or mercy.
In todays’ reading from Acts however, Peter is shown that such barriers to acceptance are being pulled down. He is given a vision by God of all the food that a good Jew would never eat and is invited to tuck in. He refuses and is told, “Don’t call anything unclean that God has made clean”. God is removing the barrier that would stop Peter, a Jew, from talking to, eating with and sharing Jesus with everyone who wasn’t Jewish. The leaders of the church in Jerusalem were at first disapproving of Peter going to eat with gentiles but after hearing Peter’s account rejoiced that God was doing a new thing and that he had ‘poured out his spirit’ on them just as he had on the Jewish believers.
We often end up labelling people and giving ourselves reasons why it’s ok not to like them. They support a different team, they like different music, they are awkward in conversation. Yet God has made us – and everyone we see – in his own image. He’s calling us to take down the barriers that separate us from other people and to reach out to them in the same way he reached out to us.
One of the most popular programmes on BBC television is ‘The Repair Shop’, in which people are fascinated to see old and battered objects – usually well past their best – transformed by the skill and loving care of the craftspeople who work on them. They often speak about preserving as much as possible of the original. But it is hard to see how the thing can be restored because it seems so far gone! And yet…we inevitably see a remarkable transformation. ‘See, I am making things new’ could be the show’s catchphrase! What was tired and worn becomes something renewed, made new.
What if we applied that level of loving care to all aspects of life? In our gospel reading Jesus tells his disciples to do just that. The new commandment is subtly different to the old – instead of ‘love as you love yourself’, now it is ‘love as I have loved you’. The world still doesn’t understand this radical new commandment; it still makes no sense in human terms. The old saying that ‘charity begins at home’ is the exact opposite of Jesus’ new commandment. For charity to begin at home, it must start with me, and my own interests. Jesus instead calls his disciples to love without counting the cost, and to not worry about themselves in the process.
In the vision of Revelation, the writer, John, sees all things being renewed. The world of the past and the present day is replaced by a new world in which heaven comes to earth. God lives among his people. God will be present and provide all things to his people. Knowing the past and living the present gives great hope to John’s view of the future. But it isn’t all about the future. It is the same God who ‘was’ who ‘is’ now, who is with us in the present. It’s easy to assume that things won’t change. We might think people like politicians are incapable of keeping their promises. Or perhaps we don’t think we can achieve the goals we’ve set ourselves. There can be times for all of us when a better future seems like a nearly impossible task.
Revelation offers us a reminder that no matter how twisty or difficult our paths can be, when we follow Jesus they will eventually lead us to a better future. How would our lives look if we lived each day as if we really believed God’s promise “I’m making everything new” was true? What if every day we remembered that just because things are difficult today doesn’t mean things will always be hard?
Hymn God is love; his the care (R&S 274)
Prayers of Intercession
We thank you, Lord, for all we have heard today about making all things new. We thank you for Peter, who was brave enough to go forward in faith and do your will, however scary that might have been. We thank you that, in your strength, we can do that too.
And so we pray, dear God, for places where there is division and for countries in the grip of civil war… may your Holy Spirit bring peace; for countries where there is religious persecution… may your Holy Spirit bring unity; for towns and cities where gang warfare brings fear… may your Holy Spirit bring hope; for communities where there is inequality… may your Holy Spirit bring dignity; for workplaces where there is insecurity… may your Holy Spirit bring confidence; for homes where there is brokenness… may your Holy Spirit bring healing; for churches where there is dilemma… may your holy Spirit bring life: Amen.
Hymn In Christ there is no east or west (R&S 647)
Blessing
Life-giving God, Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, journey with us as we go from this place into our communities. As we look forward to the time when you will make all things new, enable us, by your Spirit, to bring your kingdom here on earth. Amen.
Prayers and other material (adapted) © Roots for Churches Ltd. Used by permission.
