Epiphany 2
18/01/2026
SENTENCE FROM SCRIPTURE:
I love to do your will, O Lord; your law is in my heart. (Psalm 40)
HYMN-
GREETING
Grace and peace to you from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
COLLECT FOR PURITY
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.
SUMMARY OF THE LAW
Our Lord Jesus Christ said: The first commandment is this:
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your God 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. Amen. Lord, have mercy.
CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION
God is love and we are God’s children. There is no room for fear in love. We love because God loved us first.
Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith.
SILENCE
God our Father,
we confess to you
and to our fellow members in the Body of Christ
that we have sinned in thought, word and deed,
and in what we have failed to do.
We are truly sorry.
Forgive us our sins,
and deliver us from the power of evil,
for the sake of your Son who died for us, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
ABSOLUTION
God, who is both power and love,
forgive you and free you from your sins,
heal and strengthen you by the Holy Spirit,
and raise you to new life in Christ our Lord. Amen.
GLORIA sung by Sue St Joseph
COLLECT
Almighty and eternal God,
ruler of heaven and earth;
mercifully hear the prayers of your people
and grant your peace to our times:
through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, world without end. Amen
PROCLAIMING & RECEIVING GOD’S WORD
FIRST READING: , Isaiah 49.1–7, read by Robyn Brotherston
1 Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away! The LORD called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. 2 He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. 3 And he said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’ 4 But I said, ‘I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the LORD, and my reward with my God.’
5 And now the LORD says, who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honoured in the sight of the LORD, and my God has become my strength. 6 The LORD says, ‘It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.’ 7 Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations, the slave of rulers, ‘Kings shall see and stand up, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves, because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.’
SECOND READING 1 Corinthians 1.1–9 , read by Mark Toner
1From Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, 2To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 3Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, 5for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind – 6just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you –
7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8 He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
GRADUAL HYMN
GOSPEL John 1.29–42, read by Kay Solaja
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to St John, chapter 1 beginning at verse 29
Glory to Christ our Saviour
29John the Baptist saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” 31I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ 32And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” 34And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’ 35The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples,
36 and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’
39 He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). 42 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).
Give thanks to the Lord for his glorious Gospel
Praise to Christ our Lord.
SERMON
One reading which is often wheeled out at this time during the Octave for Christian Unity is the 17th chapter of John’s Gospel, often known as ‘the High Priestly Prayer’ of Jesus. In that prayer, Jesus prays that his disciples ‘may be one, so that the world may believe’.
Part of my duties before I ‘sat down’ [Methodist description of ‘retirement’ – Ed] in 2002 was to attend numerous Conferences and Committees on behalf of the Methodist Church. So it happened that I was at a Conference of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland at Swanwick, and the daily devotions through the week were led by one of the most colourful Catholic priests in Scotland at the time, Father John Fitzsimmons. He very sadly died at a comparatively young age in 2008. But he was a man after my own heart, a formidable scholar, and was something of a thorn in the flesh of the late Cardinal Archbishop Tom Winning, as he was rather inclined to be a critic of the church.
At the time I encountered him at Swanwick, he was a humble parish priest in Erskine. One morning he was leading the conference in studying that verse from John 17:21. He read it out, paused, looked at the gathering and said ‘If I had a pound for every time I have heard this used on ecumenical occasions, I wouldnae be standing here talking to the likes of you – I’d be on a beach in the Bahamas’.
So, I am not going down that road. It is a verse which I have just about worn out, I think. I have been an ecumenist since my boyhood, when our village Rector was Father Joe Williamson. He later became famous in the East End of London, and was also the inspiration for the TV series ‘Call the Midwife’. He used to work together with our small village Methodist congregation ‘for the good of the village’, as he used to say. Then in 1962 as an embryonic Local Preacher I sat on a working group in Nairobi in the East African Church Unity talks where we discussed baptism. I have to say that those talks came to nought – not my fault, I hasten to add! Then we were into the Anglican Methodist Conversations in the mid 1960s, which also failed, and so it has continued until the present day, stopping and starting, stopping and starting.
To preach about Christian Unity to you, the congregation here at St John’s is, I have to say, for the most part preaching to the converted. For almost 29 years (yes, it was 1997) you have accepted this Methodist minister among you, and the current ‘Priest in Charge’, Jim Booth, is also a Methodist! How about that for commitment? For my part, I have to say, that I have found you to be a warm, accepting and supportive bunch of Christians, good-humoured (well, again, for the most part) and deeply committed to living out the gospel. For me, it has been both a delight and a privilege, and I applaud you all.
St John’s is an official Ecumenical Partnership in Scotland. There is the Methodist logo etched into one of the glass doors, designed by the late and much missed David Gulland, and the partnership is sealed by a Covenant. This has been the situation for these last 25 or so years. Our new Rector, will be offered the opportunity to be recognised by the Methodist Church in Great Britain, in such a way that he is authorised to act as a minister in the Methodist Church. So our connections are very strong, but I wonder sometimes whether everyone appreciates that.
‘Why does this matter?’, you may ask. Let me say briefly why I believe that it does matter. I wonder if you remember my four words, all beginning wit the letters ‘C-O’, which chart the way churches have looked at one another over the years? Once upon a time, churches were in Conflict, and here in South West Scotland we are acutely aware of that, as Jim reminded us last Sunday Then they were in Competition. Then there was Co-operation. And then, finally, there is Commitment, which also about Communion. You can look around the churches in Dumfries and ask ‘which letter C are we on, are they on?’ For us here at St John’s, with regard to the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Methodist Church, we have moved decisively from ‘co-operation’ to ‘commitment’, and, indeed, Communion.
So why does it matter? I have purposely stayed with this morning’s gospel to search for an answer. This passage is at the very start of the mission of Jesus. In St Mark’s account, he tells all and sundry, that he is about to start a new life, proclaiming what was to be at the heart of the gospel, the good news of the Kingdom of God. Here in St John, he calls two un-named men, together with two fishermen, Andrew and Peter. And so it continued, until he had the 12, and his mission was under way.
As we know all too well, we, as followers of Jesus have struggled to get this message across, but we have been plagued on all sides with all sorts of weights and sins which beset us. Still we wrestle with God’s mission while the world either ignores us or treats us with contempt as argumentative and awkward people, who have dismally failed to do the things Jesus gave us to do. People still live in poverty, of body, mind and spirit; are still bound by so many things which weigh them down, still stumbling around blindly trying to find direction for their lives, and are still oppressed by all the things which clutter their lives and deny them fulfilment.
We as Christians claim to have the solution. ‘Follow Jesus’ we say, ‘Hold to Christ!’, But most of the time it falls on deaf ears. What the world sees is the Christ of the Episcopal Church, or the Christ of the Methodist Church, or the Christ of the River of Life, or the Presbyterians, or the Catholics, or the Quakers. That is how the world sees us, that is if they take the trouble to look. Most of the time we are an irrelevance, and the world passes us by. Yet it was ever thus. Paul had the same problem with the Christians in Corinth. There were factions. ‘I belong to Paul.’ ‘I belong to Apollos.’ ‘I belong to Cephas.’ ‘I belong to Christ.’ Forgive the pun, but Paul – was appalled! ‘Is Christ divided? he asked, expecting the answer ‘No!’ Later he suggests that they are not quite yet grown-up as far as the Christian faith was concerned. Have we not yet moved on?
I cannot claim that bringing together Episcopalians and Methodists has somehow transformed even Dumfries at a stroke, let alone Scotland, or, indeed, the whole wide world. But I am sure, absolutely sure, that this was a step change, and a step in the right direction – yes, so that the world may believe.
So there it is – the big picture, we as the church carrying on with the manifesto of Jesus himself, the good news of the Kingdom. Then there is the situation here at St John’s, which demonstrates the patient laying of the foundation for a degree of unity over the past 29 years – Episcopalian and Methodist – to enable the Body of Christ to proclaim that Good News more effectively. Let me try to pull that together and contextualise it, in closing, with this.
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC
Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was murdered in El Salvador in 1980, said something which resonates with what I have just been trying to say. This is what he said:
“This is what we are about.
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds that are already planted,
knowing that they will hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything,
and there is a liberation in that.
This enables us to do something
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete
but it is a beginning, a step along the way.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder
and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders;
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future which is not our own.”
The master builder is our living Lord. We are privileged to be his labourers. May we seek to fulfil that task together with our fellow-Christians here in Dumfries. It is time for us all to move from co-operation to commitment.
THE CREED
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
God from God,
Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one substance with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father.
With the Father and the Son,
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
PRAYERS
Let us pray for the Church and for the world.
As we prepare for the coming of Christ, let us lift our hearts in hope and turn to the Lord who brings light to our darkness. Come, Lord Jesus, and hear our prayer.
We pray for the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Methodist church in Scotland as we work together in union, in this holy Place.
Encourage us to be strong in faith and to walk with You out of the wilderness into the light.
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
Loving, living God,
We pray for all who are affected by natural disasters—
for places where flooding, earthquakes, and severe weather bring destruction and fear.
Give us strength to restore what is broken,
and hope to carry Your light through every storm.
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
Loving God,
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC
We pray for all who are affected by acts of terrorism.
At this time, when many parts of our world are not at peace,
we gather our thoughts and lift our prayers to You.
We pray for Israel, Palestine, Iran, Ukraine, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, Syria,
and all places where conflict, fear, and division prevail.
Bring healing to those lands:
where there is destruction, may there be rebuilding;
where there is hatred, bring reconciliation;
where there is despair, restore hope.
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
Lord of peace and justice,
We remember with gratitude those who gave their lives in the service of others.
We recall the courage of men and women who faced hardship, danger, and loss
so that peace and freedom might prevail.
We pray for all who still bear the scars of war—in body, mind, or spirit—
and for all who mourn loved ones lost.
Grant them healing, comfort, and the hope of Your eternal peace.
As we remember the cost of conflict,
teach us to be peacemakers in our time.
May we honour the past not only with our words,
but with lives dedicated to justice, mercy, and reconciliation.
Let the memory of the fallen inspire us to build a world
where all may live in safety and dignity.
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
We pray for our church during this time of interregnum.
We give thanks for Jim, our priest-in-charge,
and for all who support him as we continue worshipping
and walking together in faith.
We pray for the vacancy committee:
grant them discernment, unity, and wisdom
as they seek a new rector to lead us into the next chapter of our journey.
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
www.bing.com (Creative Commons)
Gracious and loving God,
We give You thanks for the children and young people of our church family.
We celebrate their joy, energy, and promise.
Bless them as they grow in faith, wisdom, and love.
Guide and strengthen our leaders, volunteers, and helpers in all they do.
Let their service be fruitful and life-giving.
Help us to be a church that nurtures, supports, and celebrates our young people.
May everything we do point them toward Your grace and love.
Lord, hear us.
Lord, graciously hear us.
We pray for all who face daily struggles:
those burdened by pain, grief, anxiety, or loneliness;
those suffering in body, mind, or spirit.
And we pray for all those on our minds and in our hearts.
In a moment of silence,
we remember those who have departed this life
and those whose anniversary of death falls at this time.
We give thanks for those we knew well and loved deeply,
for those we met only briefly,
and for those we never had the chance to know.
Loving Father, take away the sting of grief
and hold in Your care all who mourn.
Though they have departed this life,
they live on in our hearts
and in Your eternal kingdom.
May they rest in peace and rise in glory.
Loving, living God,
Help us to live daily in Your service—
to do good for others,
to walk humbly with You,
and to be lights in Your world.
Lord God, as we await the birth of your Son, strengthen our faith, deepen our hope, and fill us with your peace. Bring to completion the good work you have begun in us. Through Christ our Lord.
Merciful Father accept these prayers for the sake of your Son,
our Saviour Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those
who sin against us.
Do not bring us
to the time of trial
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power
and the glory are yours,
now and forever. Amen.
BLESSING
Christ the Son of God gladden your hearts with the good news of his kingdom; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.
HYMN –
DISMISSAL
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord
In the name of Christ. Amen
