REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY 09/11/2025

OPENING SENTENCE OF SCRIPTURE –

The Lord comes to judge the earth and the peoples with equity (Psalm 98)

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 Dougie Byers

COLLECT

O God whose will it is

to hold heaven and earth in a single peace:

let the design of your great love

shine on the waste of our wraths and sorrows;

and give peace to your Church,

peace among the nations,

peace in our homes,

and peace in our hearts;

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 Haggai 1.15b – 2.9,read by David Kerr

¹⁵ In the second year of King Darius, ¹ in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying: ² Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say, ³ Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? ⁴ Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the LORD; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts,

⁵ according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. ⁶ For thus says the LORD of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; ⁷ and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendour, says the LORD of hosts. ⁸ The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts.

⁹ The latter splendour of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the LORD of hosts.

SECOND READING
2 Thessalonians 2.1–5, 13–17,
read by Amie Byers

¹ As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, ² not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here. ³ Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction. ⁴ He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. ⁵ Do you not remember that I told you these things when I was still with you? ¹³ But we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth. ¹⁴ For this purpose he called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

¹⁵ So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by our letter. ¹⁶ Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and through grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope, ¹⁷ comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.

GRADUAL HYMN

GOSPEL
Luke 20.27–38,
read by Rev Chris Wren

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke, Chapter 20, beginning at verse 27

Glory to Christ our Saviour

²⁷ Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus, and asked him a question,

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

²⁸ ‘Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. ²⁹ Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; ³⁰ then the second ³¹ and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. ³² Finally the woman also died. ³³ In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.’ ³⁴ Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; ³⁵ but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. ³⁶ Indeed they cannot die any more, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. ³⁷ And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

³⁸ Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.’

Give thanks to the Lord for his glorious Gospel
Praise to Christ our Lord.

SERMON

At St John’s last Sunday morning, at the beginning of our morning worship and to lead us into our worship, a group of us gathered outside the Church and, joining with those who remained seated inside, we offered a prayer of blessing for a beautiful, knitted poppy installation. This poignant and wonderful visual work of art, the work of many skilled hands, comprised of many, many knitted poppies, forms and frames the words “Lest We Forget”. So it is that, today on this Remembrance Sunday, lest we forget, once more we gather together to remember.

To remember – memory – is a vital part of who we are as human beings, as individuals, as communities, as nations. Memory – remembering – roots us in our past, who we are, where we have come from and what has brought us to this moment in time. If we stop remembering or lose the capacity to remember – as so many who themselves suffer from, or experience in others, the ravages of dementia know only too well – we lose our sense of self, our identity. Quite literally, we no longer know who we are. And part of who we are as a nation and as individuals within this nation, our journey from our past to our present, is conflict, war and suffering. Today we remember all who have given their lives in war and conflict, especially perhaps in the two World Wars of the last century; but also all those who have suffered, and who continue to suffer, as a result of conflict and war. Today, in our nation, we give thanks for the freedoms that we enjoy today because of the sacrifice of so many. And today, also, we pray for peace – peace with justice – in those parts of our world where, still, there is conflict and suffering.

This morning’s reading from the 2^nd letter to the Thessalonians reminds us that the journey we are on is towards the Kingdom of God, the ultimate completion of all things in God, a Kingdom of peace, hope, justice and life for all. The passage we have read from the prophet Haggai, similarly, tells of new beginning – a new Temple – growing out of a time of conflict, exile, suffering and separation from home. These are passages which speak of hope in the future, journeying with God into a future which grows out of the past we have experienced, but which is neither defined nor limited by that past.

www.bing.com (Creative Commons)

The poppy, of course, has become a symbol of life beyond the death and destruction of war, of the possibility of hope and new beginning where before there was only desolation, despair and destruction. Life beyond death – resurrection – is at the heart of our faith. Without the fact of resurrection, we have no faith. And the truth, the fact, the reality of resurrection is affirmed by Jesus Himself in our Gospel reading in his dispute with those who would deny resurrection. And Jesus Himself is raised. He is the One who shows God’s love for all and for the whole creation in His life, death and the reality of His resurrection.

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

Every time we share in the Eucharist, as we share the bread and wine, we hear again the words of Jesus to us: “Do this in memory of me”. As we remember Him, so we take into our lives the hope to which He gives birth. We journey into our future with Him, our companion and friend.

And so, today, we remember and give thanks,

Amen.

NATIONAL ANTHEM:

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.

Almighty God,

You rule over all creation with wisdom and love. Encourage us to be strong in faith and to walk with You out of the wilderness into the light.

Lord, in your mercy

Hear our prayer.

Loving living God, we pray for all who are affected by natural disasters, for those places where flooding, earthquakes and severe weather causes damaging effects to the lives of so many.

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

We pray for all of those affected by the devastation of climate change, for those affected by the monsoon in India, earthquakes in Afghanistan and Myanmar and landslides in Sudan and South Korea.

Give us strength to restore what is broken and hope to carry light through the storm.

Lord, in your mercy

Hear our prayer.

Loving god 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 take a moment to 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.

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

Lord, please bring healing to those lands—where there is destruction, let there be rebuilding; where there is hatred, bring reconciliation; where there is despair, restore hope.

Lord, in your mercy

Hear our prayer.

Lord of peace and justice, on this day 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.

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC

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, Lord, 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 in us a deep commitment to build a world where all may live in safety and dignity.

Lord, in your mercy

Hear our prayer.

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 in helping us to continue worshipping and walking together in faith.

We pray for the vacancy committee as they seek discernment and unity in their work to find a new rector to lead us into the next chapter of our journey.

Lord, in your mercy

Hear our prayer.

Gracious and loving God,

We give You thanks for the children and young people of our church family. We celebrate their joy, energy, and the promise of their future.

Bless them as they grow in faith, wisdom, and love.

Bless all who offer their time, gifts, and energy, for the leaders, volunteers, and helpers. 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, in your mercy

Hear our prayer.

We pray for all who face daily struggles—for those who are burdened with pain, grief, or loneliness. We remember those suffering in body, mind, or spirit.

In our congregation we pray for

We pray for all of those on our own minds and in our hearts.

In a moment of silence, we remember those who have departed this life, and those whose anniversary falls at this time.

We give thanks for those we knew well and loved deeply, for those we only met 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.

We pray for the lives of those who 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.

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