McPhail Baptist Church

Sunday July 5th, 2020

Prelude: "Largo"

Sue Sparks

In loving memory of Betty Eady

Favourite Hymns 

Ernie and Lynda Cox 

May Jesus Christ Be Praised

When morning gilds the skies, my heart awaking cries,

May Jesus Christ be praised!

Alike at work and prayer to Jesus I repair,

May Jesus Christ be praised!

Does sadness fill my mind? A solace here I find,

May Jesus Christ be praised!

Or fades my earthly bliss? My comfort still is this,

May Jesus Christ be praised!

Be this, while life is mine, my canticle divine,

May Jesus Christ be praised! 

Be this th’eternal song through all the ages long,
May Jesus Christ be praised!

Because He Lives

God sent His son, they called Him Jesus,

He came to love, heal and forgive;

He lived and died to buy my pardon,

An empty grave is there to prove my Saviour lives.

Refrain:
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow

Because He lives, all fear is gone;

Because I know He holds the future,

And life is worth the living, just because He lives.

And then one day I'll cross the river,

I'll fight life's final war with pain;

And then as death gives way to victory,
I
'll see the lights of glory and I'll know He lives.

Lift Every Voice and Sing

Lift ev'ry voice and sing, ‘til earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise high as the list'ning skies

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on 'til victory is won.

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,

Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who has by Thy might led us into the light,

Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,

Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;

Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand,

True to our God, true to our native land.

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Luke 4:14-30 (NRSV)

14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. 16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   
 and recovery of sight to the blind,
        
to let the oppressed go free,

19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” 23 He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” 24 And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. 25 But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26 yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27 There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

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"The Colour Line" 

Rev. Ernie Cox

Special Music: "His Eye is on the Sparrow"

Rennatha Bernardin and Ernie Cox

"Where Does the Time Go?"

Rev. Steve Zink

“But my child!…You’re with me always, and everything I have is yours” (Lk. 15:31 TIB)

We have an expression. “Where does the time go?” We say this when hours pass like seconds, when years pass like days. But what if we were to take the expression as a serious spiritual question? Where does the time go? Where does the past go? The rich moments of life, the great adventures of youth, where is all that life, that whole world of things now? Is it simply gone? We have a tendency to think of our present experience as a marble rolling on an uneven table. The past is represented by the marble’s swift drop into “nothingness,” as it crosses the table edge and descends out of view.

Think about that for a moment. This would mean that every biography is about nothing actual. The events described therein might as well be total fiction (sometimes they are!), for it has the same status of unreality. Every eulogy is about a person now as insubstantial as a nightmare, something “just in our heads.” Do we really believe this? Do we really believe we eulogize a non-existent thing? 

Such thoughts has a power of withering our world. Is reality merely the razor’s edge of “now,” before which stands the non-reality of the future, after which stands the non-reality of the past? If this is so, what we call reality is as slender as a sliver. The world would be far smaller than I ever thought and felt it to be. But before we get too depressed over such thoughts, perhaps we can tap into the resources of faith and find another possible point of view. 

Our text is drawn from the parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk.15). In the story, the father cries out in love to his child, “You’re with me always.” The idea that we are ever-present to God is one of the tremendous benefits of faith in the divine. As Charles Hartshorne wrote, “One of some six reasons I have for belief in God is that it makes intelligible, as nothing else does, how there can be historical truth.” In God, what to us is past abides as an enduring thing. Only in God can the past be said to have a lasting reality. 

I personally don’t believe the past is simply “gone.” It is preserved in the reality of God. Where is my happy childhood? “You’re with me always.” Where is the greatest of my experiences? “You’re with me always.” My father died eight years ago. Where are those fondly remembered times? “You’re with me always.” All that constitutes my life, my journey, is preserved in God. 

I find it somewhat helpful to move away from thinking in terms of a timeline and to visualize things geographically instead. The past seasons of beauty are not behind me but around me. While they are not now in reach, they are not unreal. That special time of life that meant so much is a neighbouring village, just over the rise. Every sweet moment of recollection is like an echo of activity from that village reaching my present location. It’s so close! That recalled loved one is found just “over there,” that city beyond the trees to the east. Each moment of recollection is like the wind-carried smell of cooking from that nearby place. Those experienced moments of beauty and power have not fallen into “nothing.” They are as real and contemporaneous to God as is the present moment. And insofar as I am in God, they are contemporaneous to me. 

The comfort that the past is vitally real, as real or even more real than the intensity of my feelings suggest, is not the only good news. There is also a pledge. Assurance now passes into promise. “You’re with me always, and everything I have is yours.” All that was beautiful and vivifying in my past still abides on the divine branch. But we are promised the higher branches as well. “Everything I have is yours.” A great exchange: I give my past in trust to the divine reality, while it gives the divine future to me. We are now able to sympathize with the view of Paul, that what has passed away and what has not yet come to pass fully belongs to us (1Cor. 3:22)

It is here that we find the true benefit of faith. When we can hold, however precariously, however filled with trembling, to an all-encompassing love as the foundation of the world, the more we can overcome despair. No matter how dark and down we may feel, this faith pulls back the curtain. Light comes in. Warmth comes in.

We don’t live in a narrow little thing, that razor’s edge we call the present. Rather, our past is preserved and our future, full and free, lay before us. We are not standing on a floating rock in space, surrounded by a vacuum of darkness, nothing before, nothing after. Rather, we are like one who stands on a rise and surveys the remembered valleys behind. We are no longer in those valleys, but we see them still, their reality undiminished. We then turn around to the lofty mountains to come. The route is not fixed. The story is never complete. But we are assured that the entire mountain range is for us to explore in freedom. “Everything I have is yours.” The whole scene, the whole journey is real, for in God it always abides. And we abide in God. Our life can never be shrunk to a mere “present,” for it is in nothing less than the divine reality itself that “we live, move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

Hymn: "Holy, Holy, Holy"

Sue Sparks

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!

Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee.

Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty!

God in three persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore thee,

Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;

Cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,

Which were and art, and evermore shalt be.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!

All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth, and sky, and sea;

Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty! 

God in three persons, blessed Trinity!

Announcements

-Service of Remembrance. Yesterday, in the Horton Cemetery, family and friends totalling 50 persons gathered to remember the life of Betty Eady who passed into God’s nearer presence Sunday, June 28.  A recent relaxing of restrictions for outdoor funeral gatherings allowed for up to 50 persons to be in attendance, and many Eady relatives, friends and McPhail congregants were not able to attend due to the limitation of 50 persons. 

Ernie Cox officiated. Blake Eady and Rob Eady offered remembrances of their mom, Betty. Long-time family friend Jan Abson read a poem.  

The family has expressed a desire to hold a service of remembrance in our church whenever we are able to gather there once again. 

We continue to keep Bob and family in our thoughts and prayers. 


-Weblog Holiday Shutdown. Steve and Ernie are taking a two week break from the McPhail weblog beginning July 20. This means there’s won’t be a blog for two Sundays,  July 26, and August 2nd.  

-We are excited to now offer an e-transfer option for McPhail offerings. If you would like to make use of this option, offerings can be sent via online banking to offerings@mcphailbaptist.ca If possible, please include your envelope number in the memo line. A special thanks to Steve Sparks and Samantha Helman for setting this up for us! For those who would prefer mailing in their offering, funds can be sent via post to: McPhail Baptist Church, 249 Bronson Ave, Ottawa, ON. K1R 6H6 We are deeply thankful for your ongoing support of this ministry! 

Benediction

Ernie and Lynda Cox

Postlude: "All Hail The Power of Jesus' Name"

Sue Sparks