McPhail Baptist Church
Sunday May 3rd, 2020
In lowly paths of service free;
Tell me thy secret: help me bear,
The strains of toil, the fret of care.
In hope that sends a shining ray,
Far down the future’s broadening way,
In peace that only thou canst give,
With thee, O Master, let me live.
"O Master Let Me Walk With Thee"
Sue Sparks
O Master, let me walk with thee,In lowly paths of service free;
Tell me thy secret: help me bear,
The strains of toil, the fret of care.
In hope that sends a shining ray,
Far down the future’s broadening way,
In peace that only thou canst give,
With thee, O Master, let me live.
Special Music: Be Still My Soul
Margot Lange (violin) and Ernie Cox (piano)
Meditation: Nothing Is Impossible
Rev. Steve Zink
"If you had trust no bigger than a mustard seed, you could tell this mulberry tree, 'Uproot yourself and plant yourself in the sea,' and it would obey you" (Lk 17:6)
Favourite Hymns
Ernie and Lynda Cox
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.
Refrain:
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Saviour all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praise my Saviour, all the day long.
Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Saviour am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with his goodness, lost in his love.
Make Me A Channel of Your Peace
Make me a channel of your peace:
Where there is hatred, let me bring your love,
Where there is injury, your healing power,
And where there’s doubt, true faith in you.
Refrain:
O Master, grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.
Make me a channel of your peace:
Where there’s despair in life, let me bring hope;
Where there is darkness, only light,
And where there’s sadness, every joy.
Make me a channel of your peace.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving to all that we receive,
And in dying that we’re born to eternal life.
O Sacred Head, Now Wounded
O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns Thine only crown:
How pale Thou art with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn,
How does that visage languish, which once was bright as morn!
What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest Friend,
For this, Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.
Various Hymns for 3 May 2020 from McPhail Baptist Church on Vimeo.
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John 4:4-18, 28-29 (NRSV)
4 But he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”
28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”
4 But he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”
28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”
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Message: Sacramental Moments
Rev. Ernie Cox
Today, if we were together in church, it would be a communion Sunday. Some churches refer to the taking of communion as a sacrament. A sacrament is commonly understood to be an outward form of an inward grace, or another way to put it: “A visible form of an invisible grace.”
Baptists don’t call the taking of communion a Sacrament, rather they call it an Ordinance. Baptists see the communion elements as encouragements to faith, but they disagree with those denominations that believe the taking of communion produces faith.
The issue is much more complicated than just that, and I think I understand the theological reasons for why Baptists use the word ordinance and not sacrament, but I’m not sure the difference is all that significant. And to be perfectly honest, I much prefer the use of the word Sacrament over the Baptist word, ordinance. Ordinance sounds like some kind of regulation from City Hall.
But perhaps the best definition of the word sacrament I’ve ever heard, comes from the Presbyterian preacher and writer Fred Buechner, who writes: “A sacrament is when something holy happens.” And in a fallen world like ours where so much happens that’s unholy, don’t we just long at times for something holy to happen, something sacramental that takes us out of the ordinary and into the extraordinary.
And let me tell you that I experienced a sacramental moment a few days ago while watching a movie where Mr. Rogers enters a subway car in New York city with a friend. Some school children noticed him, and they begin to sing the theme song from Mr. Rogers’ Neighbourhood.
You know what it’s usually like in a subway car or in a bus. People keep to themselves. They avoid looking at each other. In a subway car or a bus, you can be surrounded by a crowd of people, yet, feel completely alone.
But into that impersonal space, the school kids began to sing:
Let's make the most of this beautiful day,
Since we're together, we might as well say,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?
And in that moment on a subway car, something holy happened. A sacramental moment.
Since we're together, we might as well say,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?
And in that moment on a subway car, something holy happened. A sacramental moment.
But then, sacramental moments often come about through music, don’t they. I don’t know why it Is exactly, but as I get older, I find myself listening mainly to one kind of music, classical music. And there’s so much of it that’s out there, that I fear I shall pass on before I get to hear all the beautiful classical music that’s been written.
A few months ago, in what seems like a different world compared to the reality we’re in now, I was driving through the Italian countryside on my way to Rome to see family. I was listening to a music streaming service where one of the features of this streaming service is that they put together playlists of music based on the kind of music they think you would like.
And on came a piece of music I had never heard before. It was so beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes. I played it ten times over. It was a piano prelude piece by Rachmaninoff, Opus 23. No. 4 in D major. For me, music like that with so much beauty in it, is one of the reasons for why I believe in God. For you see, I don’t believe that great and beautiful music comes from the composers alone. I believe it comes through the composers from somewhere else, that it comes from God.
There is a tendency from some in today’s times to blur the lines between animal and human. The evolutionary biologists sometimes give the impression that the differences are only differences in degree. But G.K. Chesterton points out that a monkey doesn’t draw in a clumsy manner, compared to a brilliant drawing from a human. Neither does a monkey begin to represent something in art and then a human completes it to perfection.
No! “A monkey doesn’t do it at all. A monkey doesn’t (even) begin to do it at all,” he writes. And why is this? Because, when it comes to the differences between animals and humans, I don’t believe as some seem to believe, that we’re simply talking about a difference in degree, rather, as Chesterton points out, we’re talking about a difference in kind.
And in a brilliant statement, he sums up the point in saying, that the reason for all of this, is because, “Art is the signature of man.” And so, the source and beauty of art, be it music, painting, or poetry, comes from Something beyond ourselves.
Fosdick, in a sermon, writes that great artists, whether it’s painting, music or literature, feel and believe “not so much that they are doing something, but that something is being done through them.” Emerson spoke of it in terms of a “flowing river” of which he was not the cause but the receptacle.
The Oxford dictionary defines “transcendence” as “Experience beyond the normal or physical level.” Great music helps us to transcend the “normal or physical level” not just because it’s great music, but because I believe it has its source in something beyond the composer.
I believe it comes from God, and as such, has the power to create sacramental moments.
But then, let’s think about experiencing sacramental moments in the act of forgiveness.
We go from God to God/So let the space between/Be filled with beauty/
Conquering things base and mean.
There’s so much in the world that’s unholy, and the desire for revenge, an unwillingness to forgive, the desire for condemnation instead of compassion often brings things down to a level of base and mean.
I think of the woman from a small town in Nebraska, who put an ad in the local newspaper in the For Sale column. It said: “For sale, one white wedding gown, size 14, never worn. Will trade for a 357 magnum.”
Now, there’s someone who is going to have to learn about forgiveness.
But, who ever said that forgiveness was easy? Yet, when true forgiveness and reconciliation takes place, something holy happens, it can be a sacramental moment.
And isn’t that what we saw when Nelson Mandela stepped out of prison, and refused to exact revenge and retribution on the White oppressors and racists in South Africa? In a sense it was sacramental, an infusion of holiness into a country torn apart from a long history of racism.
Jesus was perfectly aware of what was base and mean in the world, but everywhere He went and with everyone He met, He filled the space with beauty, and with love and compassion He conquered things base and mean.
One hot day, He stopped in Samaria to talk with a Samaritan woman at a well. The Jews and Samaritans had been at odds with each other for 400 years, and treated each other in the basest and meanest of ways. Jesus knew the woman has been married five times and was now with a man who was not her husband. Many preachers have preached that the Samaritan woman was promiscuous. But we don’t know that for sure.
Some of her husbands might have died. Some might have divorced her, as only men could do, for a woman couldn’t initiate a divorce in that society.
Of course, we only have the “Coles Notes’ to the entire conversation Jesus had with the woman, but notice that He didn’t condemn the woman, He didn’t urge her to repent or change her ways.
But something happened in her conversation with Jesus. She felt that He knew all about her, but even so, what she took from the conversation was not condemnation but compassion. “Come see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done,” said the woman to the townspeople.
We aren’t able to gather together for communion today, but one of the reasons for why we come to a communion table, is in part to look at our lives, and if need be, seek forgiveness and compassion from the One who knows everything we’ve ever done.
And so, in her meeting with Jesus at the well, the Samaritan woman experienced a sacramental moment. She was lifted out of the baseness and meanness she had experienced at the hands of others. But with Jesus, something holy happened.
And this can happen when anyone comes to meet Jesus.
I finish with this lovely story.
A woman who was born in Nigeria, was now a licensed physician in America. She attended a lecture one time, and following the lecture she introduced herself to the lecturer.
She introduced herself with her American name, but the lecturer said to her, “What’s your African name?” The woman gave the lecturer her Nigerian name which was several syllables long which the lecturer tried to pronounce but couldn't.
The lecturer asked the woman what did the name mean? She answered, “It means ‘Child who takes the anger away.’” The lecturer wanted to know why she had been given that name, and she said:
“My parents were forbidden by their parents to marry. But my parents loved each other so much that they defied family opinions and married anyway.
For several years they were completely shut out from both their families. But then my mother became pregnant with me. My grandparents on both sides of the family wanted desperately to see their new grandchild.
And when they held me in their arms for the first time, they found themselves crying, and the walls of hostility came down. I became the one who swept the anger away. And that’s the name my mother and father gave me—‘Child who takes the anger away.’” And in that act of reconciliation and forgiveness, a sacramental moment occurred.
When the woman at the well asked Jesus to give her the water He spoke of, He didn’t give her the water she thought she would get. Instead, He offered Himself.
And in a world where all too often we search hard and long for something sacramental to happen, the holiest of things can happen when we give our hearts and lives over to Him.
Coping with the Corona Crisis
(A series of responses from our McPhail congregants)
Sarian Shah and Family
All of us are confined to our homes. How are you spending your time?
My family has been watching a lot of TV and especially YouTube. My parents have been watching a lot of Thai dramas on YouTube now that they have more time. We try to go for walks a few times a week at the Experimental Farm since it’s very close to our house but we still practice social distancing. My younger sister, Marian, is still working once or twice a week at Harveys. She watches a lot of movies on Netflix during her free time, which means that sometimes she forgets to do her online assignments! My parents and I still have to go to our cleaning job in the evening since some of the places that we clean are still operating. We try to keep our distance and wear proper equipment to keep ourselves safe and others safe. As for me, I’m currently not working and just staying home but I’ll be back to work as soon as I can, especially around this time when a lot of healthcare workers are needed.
How are you staying connected?
We do a lot of phone and video calls to check up on everyone. We also pray through Zoom calls whenever we can with other family members. In fact, some of my older relatives are now learning how to operate phone calls and Facebook messenger. I’m sure they are pros on using Facebook now. We also do a lot of texting and I noticed that my mom is getting better and better at texting.
Some people have stopped following the Coronavirus news, suffering from an overload of information, much of it not encouraging. How are you handling all the news?
My parents watch a lot of news on TV to keep themselves updated with the corona virus news. I don’t personally keep up with the news anymore but I get notifications on my phone or my friends text me about it so that’s how I keep myself updated. It’s just heartbreaking hearing about all the corona virus cases, not only in North America but all over the world. I love seeing videos or clips on social media of how people are uplifting one another. I also love how people are supporting and encouraging healthcare workers to do their best. That makes me very happy.
Have you been able to find a silver lining in the current situation?
My family and I are thankful that we are able to spend more time together and going through this difficult time together, as a family. My parents work a lot and I’m just happy that they get to rest a lot more now. We thank God for many things in our lives but most importantly for keeping our family safe.
What things do you especially miss?
I especially miss interacting with people and my old routine. My family and I miss visiting my grandparents and we really miss seeing the little ones. I also miss going to church but the blog is also good. My sister misses going to school and my brother misses going to work. We all miss something I’m sure but we are just hoping that it will all be over soon. I just pray that everyone is safe and has someone to lean on at a time like this.
"Vater unser in Himmelreich (The Lord's Prayer)"
Sue Sparks
The chorale setting by J.S. Bach is based on one of the nine verses of a hymn by Martin Luther. Our Father, Thou in heaven above, Who biddest us to dwell in love, As brethren of one family, And cry for all we need to Thee; Teach us to mean the words we say, And from the inmost heart to pray.
Benediction
Ernie and Lynda Cox
Along with the Favourite Hymns requests, today’s Benediction, is also a request.
May The Good Lord Bless and Keep You
May the good Lord bless and keep you, whether near or far away.
May you find that long awaited golden day today.
May your troubles all be small ones, and your fortune ten times ten.
May the good Lord bless and keep you till we meet again.
May you walk with sunlight shining, and a bluebird in every tree.
May there be a silver lining back of every cloud you see.
Fill your dreams with sweet tomorrows, never mind what might have been.
May the good Lord bless and keep you till we meet again.
May the good Lord bless and keep you till we meet, till we meet again.
Did you know you can mail in your regular financial contributions to McPhail? Faith communities, along with cultural institutions and many businesses have had to close temporarily. Nevertheless, normal operational expenses continue as usual. In the light of this, do please consider continuing your support of McPhail by mailing your offering to: 249 Bronson Ave, Ottawa, ON. K1R 6H6
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