Unitarians in Edinburgh

Our Programme of Worship

Sermon Subjects for July & August 2008

All sermons conducted as noted

06.07.08	Spiritual Bridges: Poetry - Music played by Heather and Leon Coates
13.07.08	Spiritual Bridges: Nature
20.07.08	Spiritual Bridges: Solitude - Music played by Todd Soutar
27.07.08	Service by candidating minister
03.08.08	A Crown of Splendour: Service by Joan Cook Looking at growing old in our society; with input from a member of the team at St Bernard's Club, a day centre offering care and support to those suffering from dementia, and to their families
10.08.08	Longing: Service by Rev Kate Atchley. Saint Augustine said: ’the continuance of your longing is the continuance of your prayer.’ Let us ask ourselves what it is we long for; what do we intend by prayer? Without longing, would we gather to worship together
17.08.08	Robert Owen: Service by Rev John Clifford In the enduring debate between idealists and pragmatists, occasionally history throws up champions who manage to straddle these schools. One way this has been done is to establish or run idealistic communities with real people. Scotland had its 19th century champion in a Welshman, Robert Owen, in a place, New Lanark. Some reflections on Owen’s work and legacy: was he a practical idealist or a high-minded pragmatist?
24.08.08	St Satnav - Recalculating: Service by Martin Gienke. Modern technology has given us the satellite navigation (SATNAV) device to find our way around the roads of the world. The system provides us with a possible model for God and also an excellent example of how we should deal with people and how we should deal with change in our lives. These issues will be explored in this celebration of 'St. Satnav - Recalculating'?
31.08.08	Peace – what kind?: Service by Rev Professor Frank Whaling Peace at one level is absence of war – outward peace – as in the Pax Romana. But although helpful, it could be brutal! Peace at a more positive communal level can be seen as ‘shalom’ - wholeness and well-being. But if narrow, it can be excluding. Peace at a third level can mean inward spiritual peace - ‘shanti’. Total peace includes all?

A Typical Sunday Service at 11.00 am

Musical Prelude

Greeting

Good morning and welcome to St. Mark's the home of Unitarians in Edinburgh.

Lighting Of The Peace Candle

The candle is lit by a member of the congregation for whatever they choose to light it for. Among those for whom the candle has been lit have been:

people in the news for whom the candle lighter has a special concern
people of other faith traditions who are celebrating a major festival
concerns and causes in which the lighter has a special interest

Hymn 1

1) Down the ages we have trod
Many paths in search of God,
Seeking ever to define
The Eternal and Divine.

2) Some have seen eternal good
Pictured best in Parenthood,
And a Being throned above
Ruling over us in love.

3) There are others who proclaim
God and Nature are the same,
And the present Godhead own
Where Creation's laws are known.

4) There are eyes which best can see
God within humanity,
And God's countenance there trace
Written in the human face.

5) Where compassion is most found
Is for some the hallowed ground,
And these paths they upward plod
Teaching us that love is God.

6) Though the truth we can't perceive,
This at least we must believe,
What we take most earnestly
Is our living Deity.

7) Our true God we there shall find
In what claims our heart and mind,
And our hidden thoughts enshrine
That which for us is Divine.

Opening Words

Love is the spirit of this church,
and service is its law.

This is our great covenant:

to dwell together in peace
to seek the truth in love,
and to help one another.

Prayer/Meditation

This prayer uses words from the
Buddhist Metta Sutta and from the
Khasi (North East India) Unitarian tradition

Let us cultivate boundless goodwill.
Let none deceive another, or despise any being in any state.
Let none in anger or ill-will wish another harm.
Even as a mother watches over her child, so with boundless mind should one
cherish all living being, radiating friendliness over the whole world,
above, below, and all around, without limit.

O God, root and source of body and soul, we ask for boldness in confronting evil.
When you are within us, we have the power to countenance all that is untrue.
O Father and Mother of all humankind, may we redeem our failings by
the good work that we do. In the name of the one, the only God.

Church News & Announcements

The Month's Good Cause, chosen by a church member, and for which a collection bowl is put out every Sunday;
Intimations of events during the coming week;
Who the flowers are going to - someone sick, or housebound, or celebrating, or deserving our thanks;
Other notices which people may wish to share
Announcement of the collection

Collection and Musical Interlude

The organist usually plays whilst the collection is taken.

Readings

There are usually three readings. These three were used in a service centering on the theme of forgiveness:

SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN Matthew 18:21-22

Peter asked Jesus: "How many times can a companion wrong me and still expect my forgiveness? As many as seven times?"

Jesus replied to him
"My advice is not seven times, but seventy times seven"

FORGIVENESS Greta W Crosby Tree & Jubilee P54

"Forgiveness" is one word, but not one act alone. Forgiveness is the process we live through in order to restore a relationship. Forgiveness is the process of coming back together again with another, or with oneself, after a separation based on wrong doing, or grievous shortcoming. Sometimes the wrongdoing is the separation. Forgiveness involves the acknowledgement and, where possible, the mutual recognition of what went wrong, of what we are doing to right the balance, and especially of the meaning and importance of the relationship. Forgiving is not forgetting. Forgiving is anchoring a wrong in its own time, letting it recede into the past as we live and move toward the future.

THE FINAL FORM OF LOVE by Reinold Niebuhr

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime;
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Hymn 2

Hymn Board Mother Sprit, Father Spirit, Where are you?
In the skysong, In the forest, Sounds your cry.
What to give you, What to call you, What am I?

Many drops are, In the ocean, Deep and wide.
Sunlight bounces, Off the ripples To the sky.
What to give you, What to call you, Who am I?

I am empty, Time flies from me; What is time?
Dreams eternal, Fear infernal, Haunt my heart.
What to give you, What to call you, O, my God?

Mother Spirit, Father Spirit, Take our hearts.
Take our breath and Let our voices, Sing our parts.
Take our hands and Let us work to Shape our art.

Norbert F. Capek 1870-1942
[Unitarian martyr who died in Dachau Concentration Camp]
English version by Richard Frederick Boeke (b. 1931)
from translation of Paul and Anita Munk

Sermon

The sermon may be about any number of issues but among them will be:

questions of personal faith
matters of current ethical concern
topics about the Unitarian way in religion

Offerings

of Music this may be organ, piano or other music
of Silence a brief time for your own thoughts and prayers or simply time to rest in the quiet
of Words these words may relate to the sermon, may be prayer, mediation or reading.

This is one set of words appreciated by many people:

If recognising the interdependence of all life, we strive to build community,
the strength we gather will be our salvation.
If you are black and I am white,
it will not matter.
If you are female and I am male,
it will not matter
If you are older and I am younger,
it will not matter
If you are progressive and I am conservative,
it will not matter
If you are straight and I am gay,
it will not matter
If you are Christian and I am Jewish,
it will not matter
If we join spirits as brothers and sisters, the pain of our aloneness will be lessened,
and that does matter.
In this spirit, we build community and move toward restoration.

Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley

Hymn 3

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for lands afar and mine;
This is my home, the country where my heart is,
Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
But other hearts in other lands are beating
With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine;
But other lands have sunlight, too, and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.

Closing Words

May the compassion which was in Jesus and in Gautama be in us also enabling us to be healers, reconcilers and compassionate friends.
Amen