Trinity 18 Holy Communion at St John’s

Hymn – I Watched the Sunrise (Close to Me)

1, I watch the sunrise
Lighting the sky
Casting its shadows near
And on this morning
Bright though it be
I feel those shadows
Near me

But you are always close to me
Following all my ways
May I be always close to youFollowing all your ways, Lord

I watch the sunlight
Shine through the clouds
Warming the earth below
And at the mid-day
Life seems to say
I feel your brightness
Near me

For you are always close to me
Following all my ways
May I be always close to you
Following all your ways, Lord

I watch the sunset fading away
Lighting the clouds with sleep
And as the evening closes its eyes
I feel your brightness near me

For you are always close to me
Following all my ways
May I be always close to you
Following all your ways, Lord

I watch the moonlight
Guarding the night
Waiting ’til morning comes
The air is silent
Earth is at rest
Only your peace is near me

Yes, you are always close to me
Following all my ways
May I be always close to you
Following all your ways, Lord

Yes, you are always close to me
Following all my ways
May I be always close to you
Following all your ways, Lord (by Kathryn Crosweller)

The Greeting

Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

All: And also with you

The Peace

We are the body of Christ.

In the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body

Let us then pursue all that makes for peace

and builds up our common life.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

All: And also with you.

Let us offer one another a sign of peace.

(Please turn to those around you, offering your hand, and say

‘The peace of the Lord be with you’)

Prayer of Preparation

All: Almighty God,

to whom all hearts are open,

all desires known,

and from whom no secrets are hidden:

cleanse the thoughts of our hearts

by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,

that we may perfectly love you,

and worthily magnify your holy name;

through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Prayer of Penitence

Our Lord Jesus Christ said: The first commandment is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our Cod is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your Cod with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’

The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

All: Amen. Lord, have mercy.

God so loved the world

that he gave his only Son Jesus Christ

to save us from our sins,

to be our advocate in heaven,

and to bring us to eternal life.

Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith,

firmly resolved to keep God’s commandments

and to live in love and peace with all.

All: Father eternal, giver of light and grace,

we have sinned against you and against our neighbour,

in what we have thought,

in what we have said and done,

through ignorance, through weakness,

through our own deliberate fault.

We have wounded your love

and marred your image in us.

We are sorry and ashamed

and repent of all our sins.

For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,

who died for us,

forgive us all that is past

and lead us out from darkness

to walk as children of light.

Amen.

Almighty God,

who forgives all who truly repent, have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and keep you in life eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

All: Amen.

Collect for the Eighteenth Sunday of Trinity –

Almighty and everlasting God,

increase in us your gift of faith

that, forsaking what lies behind

and reaching out to that which is before,

we may run the way of your commandments

and win the crown of everlasting joy;

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 for ever.

All: Amen

Our First Reading is – Philippians Chap: 3

4 I could, of course, put my trust in such things. If any of you think you can trust in external ceremonies, I have even more reason to feel that way.

5 I was circumcised when I was a week old. I am an Israelite by birth, of the tribe of Benjamin, a pure-blooded Hebrew. As far as keeping the Jewish Law is concerned, I was a Pharisee,

6 and I was so zealous that I persecuted the church. As far as a person can be righteous by obeying the commands of the Law, I was without fault.

7 But all those things that I might count as profit I now reckon as loss for Christ’s sake.

8 Not only those things; I reckon everything as complete loss for the sake of what is so much more valuable, the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have thrown everything away; I consider it all as mere garbage, so that I may gain Christ

9 and be completely united with him. I no longer have a righteousness of my own, the kind that is gained by obeying the Law. I now have the righteousness that is given through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is based on faith.

10 All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death,

11 in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to life.

12 I do not claim that I have already succeeded or have already become perfect. I keep striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won me to himself.

13 Of course, my friends, I really do not think that I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead.

14 So I run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize, which is God’s call through Christ Jesus to the life above.

This is the word of the Lord

All: Thanks be to God.

Hymn – Seek Ye First

Here the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Matthew Chap: 21

33 “Listen to another parable,” Jesus said. “There was once a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a hole for the wine press, and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to tenants and left home on a trip.

34 When the time came to gather the grapes, he sent his slaves to the tenants to receive his share of the harvest.

35 The tenants grabbed his slaves, beat one, killed another, and stoned another.

36 Again the man sent other slaves, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way.

37 Last of all he sent his son to them. “Surely they will respect my son,’ he said.

38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the owner’s son. Come on, let’s kill him, and we will get his property!’

39 So they grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

40 “Now, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” Jesus asked.

41 “He will certainly kill those evil men,” they answered, “and rent the vineyard out to other tenants, who will give him his share of the harvest at the right time.”

42 Jesus said to them, “Haven’t you ever read what the Scriptures say? “The stone which the builders rejected as worthless turned out to be the most important of all. This was done by the Lord; what a wonderful sight it is!’

43 “And so I tell you,” added Jesus, “the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce the proper fruits.”

45 The chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables and knew that he was talking about them,

46 so they tried to arrest him. But they were afraid of the crowds, who considered Jesus to be a prophet.

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

All: Praise to you, O Christ.

Sermon

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where Douglas Adams sets his story “nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change.”
It’s a cynical joke, and it massively undersells what Jesus did — the cross was God taking on the cost of our sin, not someone getting executed for good manners.
But Adams has stumbled onto something true.
Underneath all our theology, there’s a heartbeat to the gospel that never changes: o God has loved us, and that love is supposed to change how we treat each other.
Two passages this morning make that really practical:

Romans 13:8-14, and Matthew 18:15-20.

Paul says, “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another” (v. 8).
Normal debt gets paid off and disappears.

o Love doesn’t.

It flows from what God has already given us, so there’s no point where we get to say, “I’ve loved enough, I’m done.”
Then Paul takes the commandments — don’t cheat, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t covet — and says they all boil down to one thing: “love your neighbour as yourself”.
“Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law” (v. 10).
Love was never a soft add-on to real theology — it’s what the whole gospel is for.
Matthew 18 shows us what that looks like when someone’s actually wronged you.
Jesus doesn’t pretend it won’t happen — the gospel was never a promise of a conflict-free church, just a completely different way of handling conflict.

Notice the order:

Verse 15 — go to them, just the two of you, not the group chat.
Verse 16 — if that fails, bring one or two others.
Verse 17 — if that still fails, bring it to the church, and even then keep the door open rather than writing them off.
Every step protects the other person from public humiliation and protects you from acting alone on hurt rather than truth.
Then verses 19-20: “Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
That’s not just about prayer meetings — it’s about that hard first conversation.
When two people at odds sit down together, God is in the room.
And when God’s in the room, only one thing should win: love, not being right.

Bringing It Together

We’re going to get things wrong and sin against each other — that’s part of being human, part of being church.
The good news isn’t a community where nobody hurts anybody.
It’s that we’ve been forgiven, and because of that, we’re able to forgive too.
Where harm’s been done, love looks for reconciliation, not payback o which is not how our culture works, with its instinct to escalate, sue, and demand compensation the moment we’re wronged.
That matters especially for the younger people watching us.
They’ll learn far more from how we actually handle conflict than from anything we say up front.
If they see us go privately to someone who’s hurt us, seek reconciliation instead of victory, and forgive as we’ve been forgiven — they’ll see something the world just doesn’t have.

To Finish

Douglas Adams wasn’t wrong that love sits at the centre of what Jesus was doing o he just massively undersold it.
So, here’s the question for this week: is there a debt of love you’re holding back on?

o A conversation you’ve been avoiding o one that love, and Christ’s presence with you, is actually asking you to have?

Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Owe nobody anything — except this: love one another.
Because the one who loves has fulfilled the law.

Amen.

Prayers of Intercession

During the intercession this response is used:

Lord, m your mercy

All: Hear our prayer.

Prayers for King Charles

Through this tritium of prayer we ask God’s continuing blessing on our new King Charles

Prayer

O God, to whom every human power is subject,
grant to your servant our sovereign Charles
success in the exercise of his high office,
so that, always revering you and striving to please you,
he may constantly secure and preserve
for the people entrusted to his care
the freedom that comes from civil peace.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

All: Amen

Prayer for the Royal

Almighty God, the fountain of all goodness,

we humbly beseech thee to bless

Queen Camilla, William Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, and all the

Royal Family:

Endue them with thy Holy Spirit; enrich them with thy heavenly

grace; prosper them with all happiness;

and bring them to thine everlasting

kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

All: Amen.

In the power of the Spirit and in union with Christ, let us pray to the Father.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father,

you promised through your Son Jesus Christ

to hear us when we pray in faith.

Strengthen Sophie our bishop and all your Church in the service of Christ, that those who confess your name may be united in your truth, live together in your love, and reveal your glory in the world.

All: Amen.

Strengthen all your Church in the service of Christ, that those who confess your name may be united in your truth, live together in your love, and reveal your glory in the world.

Bless and guide Charles our King; give wisdom to all in authority; and direct this and every nation in the ways of justice and of peace; that we may honour one another, and seek the common good.

Give grace to us, our families and friends, and to all our neighbours, that we may serve Christ in one another, and love as he loves us.

Comfort and heal all those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit; give them courage and hope in their troubles and bring them the joy of your salvation.

Hear us as we remember those who have died in the faith of

Christ……; according to your promises,

grant us with them a share in your eternal kingdom.

Rejoicing in the fellowship of St. Laurence, St. John, St. Wilfred, St. Michel and all your saints, we commend ourselves and the whole creation to your unfailing love.

Merciful Father,

All: Accept these prayers

for the sake of your Son,

our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Heavenly Father,

you have promised through your Son Jesus Christ, that when we meet in his name, and pray according to his mind, he will be among us and hear our prayer: m your love and mercy fulfil our desires, and give us your greatest gift, which is to know you, the only true God, and your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

All: Amen.

Hymn – Farther I Place Into Your Hands

The Eucharistic Prayer

The Lord is here.

All: His Spirit is with us.

Lift up your hearts,

All: We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

All: It is right to give thanks and praise.

It is indeed right,

it is our duty and our joy,

at all times and in all places

to give you thanks and praise,

holy Father, heavenly King,

almighty and eternal God,

through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.

For he is your living Word;

through him you have created all things from the beginning, and formed us in your own image.

All: To you be glory and praise for ever.

Through him you have freed us from the slavery of sin, giving him to be born of a woman and to die upon the cross;

You raised him from the dead and exalted him to your right hand on high.

All: To you be glory and praise for ever.

Through him you nave sent upon us your holy and life-giving Spirit, and made us a people for your own possession.

All: To you be glory and praise for ever.

Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we proclaim your great and glorious name, for ever praising you and saying:

All: Holy, holy, holy Lord,

God of power and might,

heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

Accept our praises, heavenly Father,

through your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,

and as we follow his example and obey his command,

grant that by the power of your Holy Spirit

these gifts of bread and wine

may be to us his body and his blood;

who, in the same night that he was betrayed,

took bread and gave you thanks;

he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying:

Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you;

do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way, after supper he took the cup and gave you thanks; he gave it to them, saying: Drink this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.

All: To you be glory and praise for ever.

Therefore, heavenly Father, we remember his offering of himself made once for all upon the cross; we proclaim his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension; we look for the coming of your kingdom, and with this bread and this cup

we make the memorial of Christ your Son our Lord.

All: Christ has died: Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Accept through him, our great high priest, this our sacrifice of thanks and praise, and as we eat and drink these holy gifts in the presence of your divine majesty, renew us by your Spirit, inspire us with your love and unite us in the body of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

All: To you be glory and praise for ever.

Through him, and with him, and in him, m the unity of the Holy Spirit,

with all who stand before you in earth and heaven, we worship you, Father almighty, in songs of everlasting praise;

All: Blessing and honour and glory and power be yours for ever and ever.

Amen.

Let us pray with confidence as our Saviour has taught us

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name;

Thy kingdom come;

Thy will be done; on earth as it is 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.

Breaking of the Bread

We break this bread to share in the body of Christ.

All: Though we are many, we are one body, because we all share in one bread.

All: Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world.

Have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world,

Have mercy on us.

Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world,

Grant us peace.

Giving of Communion

Draw near with faith

Receive the body of our Lord Jesus Christ

which he gave for you,

and his blood which he shed for you-

Eat and drink

in remembrance that he died for you,

and feed on him in your hearts

by faith with thanksgiving.

Amen

Post Communion Prayer

All: We praise and thank you, O Christ, for this sacred feast:

for here we receive you,

here the memory of your passion is renewed,

here our minds are filled with grace,

and here a pledge of future glory is given,

when we shall feast at that table where you reign

with all your saints for ever.

Amen

The Blessing

May the Father who created you in love,

the Son who redeemed you by grace,

and the Holy Spirit who empowers you with truth,

go with you into the world.

Walk in unity, live in peace,

and bear witness to the love that holds all things together.

All: Amen.

Hymn – I Stand Amazed in the Presence of Jesus the Nazarene

I stand amazed in the presence
Of Jesus the Nazarene,
And wonder how He could love me,
A sinner condemned, unclean.

Chorus – How marvellous! How wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvellous! How wonderful!
Is my Saviour’s love for me!

For me it was in the garden,
He prayed: “Not my will, but Thine.”
He had no tears for His own grief’s,
But sweat-drops of blood for mine.

Chorus – How marvellous! How wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvellous! How wonderful!
Is my Saviour’s love for me!

In pity angels beheld Him,
And came from the world of light
To strengthen Him in the sorrows
He bore for my soul that night.

Chorus – How marvellous! How wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvellous! How wonderful!
Is my Saviour’s love for me!

He took my sins and my sorrows,
He made them His very own;
He bore the burden to Calvary,
And suffered, and died alone.

Chorus – How marvellous! How wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvellous! How wonderful!
Is my Saviour’s love for me!

When with the ransomed in glory
His face I at last shall see,
’Twill be my joy through the ages
To sing of His love for me.

Chorus – How marvellous! How wonderful!
And my song shall ever be:
How marvellous! How wonderful!
Is my Saviour’s love for me! (by Charles Hutchinson Gabriel – 1856 to 1932)

Final Prayers and the Dismissal

Go in faith to love the Lord.

All: In the Name of Christ

Amen