Sunday Service 7th December

alvaparishchurch
16 hours ago
9 min read

Announcements and Challenges

7/12/25

Call to worship

Hymn 287: No wind at the window

Time for all John

Hymn 284: Hope is a candle

Reading: Luke 1: 5-22 Elaine

Prayer

Reading: Luke 1: 26-38

Hymn 285: The Angel Gabriel from heaven came

Sermon

Prayer

Hymn 291: When out of poverty is born

Benediction

Welcome to our meditation for 7^th of December.

We celebrate the second week in Advent, the time of preparation before Christmas. And this week we hear of the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus.

But what does that mean to us 2000 years later?

We will find out after the readings and prayers from Elaine.

Sermon

In the past there was a moment when I hated being a minister.

It was when I was forced to wait.

I think the turning point was 2006.

I had been in Alva for nearly 10 years, I had done everything that I had planned to do, the church was reasonably strong, and if I was to leave then all the things I had done in Alva made my CV look attractive to most churches.

And I was stuck.

Did I leave and do all the successful stuff that I had done in Alva elsewhere,

or did I try to work out what new thing God wanted me to do?

I just didn’t know.

Eventually I decided to go to India to work on sabbatical for a couple of months, see life from a different perspective, more importantly, get away from everyone to just spend time with God.

That is where the people were at this time in history.

They were stuck between the Roman Empire and their vassal king Herod. This was very far from the ideals of the prophets of the Old Testament that had said that the people would return from exile to a new homeland.

They thought that they would have a new empire headed by a descendant of David. But it hadn’t turned out that way.

First Alexander the Great had conquered them, then the Roman Empire, and these new empires seemed too vast for a Jewish Empire to overcome.

And they didn’t know what to do.

Should they integrate with the new empires?

Should they cut themselves off and isolate themselves in tiny religious communities?

And then God speaks, and everyone is afraid.

I know this sounds strange for a minister to say, ‘But it is very difficult to second guess God.’

Zechariah was struck dumb by the news that his wife Elizabeth would be pregnant.

Think about this, Zechariah is performing maybe the most important act of religion at that time,

giving prayers directly to God on behalf of the people,

and God,

in his actions,

causes this most religious of events NOT to happen.

If God isn’t making sure that the religion is looked after, then what is God about?

Maybe showing us that God isn’t really all that interested in religion.

And then there is poor Mary, engaged to a semi-celebrity called Joseph, a descendant of King David, no less. And an angel comes to Mary and tells her she will get pregnant out of wedlock. That’s a stone-able offence.

Even today there are women who have been killed, by their own families, sometimes by their own fathers and brothers, because they have brought shame to their families.

And in those days and in that place they were a lot more conservative.

And it wasn’t as if there was anywhere she could hide, Nazareth had about six homes in it, everyone knew everyone, and everyone knew everyone’s, business.

It was only a time before she showed, and when she did, and Joseph walked away, as he would do, then she was in trouble.

Think about this, Mary has lived in a traditional home with traditional values, living the life expected of her at that time,

and God,

in his actions,

causes this most traditional marriage to be under threat.

If God isn’t making sure that the traditional family values are being looked after, then what is God about?

As I said, ‘it is really hard to second guess God’.

I think that is why we get frightened with the idea of God actually speaking to us, guiding us.

Because we don’t know what is going on in his mind.

Or maybe it is that we, deep down, do know some certain things and that frightens us.

We know that God isn’t interested in, say, our career, or our finances, or anything that matters to us.

.

India was a weird time for me.

How I even got there was weird.

If anyone knows me they know I am such a fussy eater, so sending me to a place where the food is very different than I am used to was never going to be attractive.

There was this day I bought a fresh loaf of bread, straight out of the oven, and when I got home and opened it up there was a nearly dead moth in the middle of it.

I know what I should have done, as a minister I should have gone off on retreat in Scotland, should have had a spiritual mentor guide me through reflections, recharged the spiritual batteries and come back in complete control mentally, physically, spiritually, with new vision for myself and the people.

But this guy that hardly goes to church, if ever, I had met in Stirling Uni when I was playing squash there, selling trinkets from India, where he did a lot of volunteer work, suggested I leave my family for a few months and work in an orphanage.

And for some reason the idea stuck.

It was emotionally, physically, spiritually hard work.

As well as working in the orphanage I somehow got involved with religious students over there, did a couple of mentoring courses for them

I was shattered when I got back.

Now don’t get me wrong...

I have never done this job for the money, or for the prestige, but maybe somewhere along the line I had got it into my head that I was a decent minister, and that was the aim of the game...for the world to recognise that I was a decent minister.

It’s not a big ambition, but it is an ambition, and God isn’t interested in ambition.

I think maybe something similar happened to Zechariah and Mary.

I am sure Zechariah would have been so proud of finally performing the burning of the incense at the altar, some priests never got that privilege,

this was a sign of respect, this was a sign that God was blessing him.

And then to find out that God didn’t care about that.

There was Mary, a small girl in a small village, her one aim in life was to get married and have as many children as she could have. Never rock the boat, never cause anyone, especially the men, any distress, always do what was expected of her.

And then to find out that God wasn’t interested in how insignificant she thought she was,

It’s difficult to second guess God.

Or maybe it isn’t.

Maybe the problem is that God isn’t that complicated.

That’s why we are frightened of him.

You see God is in the ‘greater good’ business.

He is going to do something for the greater good.

In this case he is arranging for the Saviour of the world to come to earth.

And because that Saviour is his son, his son will work towards the greater good.

He will show God’s love, teach God’s love, and live Gods love.

He will live for the greater good, die for the greater good, be resurrected for the greater good;

the good of teaching us about God’s love and inviting us to accept that same love.

I think that maybe a definition of faith should be, ‘Trusting just now that at some point we will look back and realise that we did the right thing.’

Because sometimes it feels that God is asking us to trust him, and we don’t know if it will work or not.

So with me, I got back from India and decided that God was asking me to stay, and not concentrate on what I had been doing or wanted to do, but encourage the church as a whole to seek what it wanted to do in God’s name, and encourage them to go forward in faith, develop their own skills and leadership.

So Aid of Aides started then, with their own wee group.

The Number 140 shop started then with its own wee group.

God allowed me to have Zones so that I was kept busy and not tempted to just help out –interfere- with the other groups.

The worship group started then.

For a while we developed eldership classes for those that wanted to stretch their experience.

I think, looking back, God was saying to me, ‘Forget about the career, it’s not that important anyway. I am going to be working for the greater good; I invite you to join me.’

So to Zechariah God was saying, ‘Forget about religion, I am going to be working for the greater good, I invite you to join me in that work.’

So to Mary God was saying, ‘Forget about tradition or your expectations, I am going to be working for the greater good, I invite you to join me in that work.’

I think that why God is so frightening; his constant and cinsistant message is to all of us.

‘Forget about what is distracting you. Forget about what is worrying you. Forget about all your hopes and dreams and fears and doubts.

I am going to be working for the greater good; I invite you to join me in that work.’

Like next week...

Next week sees our lest attended service, the Blue Christmas service.

This is a service for those who have lost something or someone over the last year and may be struggling to cope with it over the Christmas season.

It doesn’t make any sense to heat the church and light up the church for 4-5 people.

At a time when the church is rationalising everything having such a service for so small a group doesn’t make sense.

But anyone who has been to the service will realise just how important that service is to those people...so for the greater good we keep it going, no matter how few folk attend.

I think the question God may be asking many of us is, ‘What are we meant to be doing, whether it makes sense or not, whether it seems to make a big difference or not. But what God is asking us to do for the greater good?’

Let us pray

Wonderful counsellor,

we thank you for our time together in worship,

time to hear the familiar passages of scripture and to recall how you became involved in the lives of others.

We thank you for the knowledge that you hear our prayers

and that prayer is one aspect of how you communicate with us.

Today we bring our prayers for others, seeking your counsel as to how we should go forward in our interactions with all of those who you put into our lives..

Mighty God,

we look for justice and righteousness in our world and so often we are disappointed by what we see and how our leaders act.

We witness human greed, and too often political decisions are made in ignorance, guided more by focus groups and polls rather than what is right.

And at an individual level we see adverts convincing us that our wants are greater than our needs, and we turn our attention to self and to self-fulfilment.

In this season of advent,

open our hearts to others’ needs.

Help us to speak up for the poor and the refugee.

Remind us that you are the light that shines in the darkness, and you call us to reflect that light in our lives by the way we treat others.

Everlasting Father,

we love this creation of yours...even in the increased darkness of the winter season.

We invite the light of your love into our daily interactions.

And we love the body that is your church.

we ask that you give us the collective passion to communicate the awesome wonder

of this miracle birth, and its significance, to others that your church may renew.

We pray that young children and their families are captivated by this story and they learn of the chance of a relationship with you.

Prince of Peace,