Sunday 2^ndAugust

Slide: Rev Eryl Parry

Video: Eryl’s Intro video

Bore da! Good morning! Croeso cynnes iawn; a very warm welcome to the Bro Celynnin Sunday service. We’re here in the vicarage garden, back at the plum tree where we recorded this service a few weeks ago. We have news! This is our first plum and there are hundreds more. It’s very appropriate because today we’re celebrating the abundant nature of God, that despite all of our lean times we still have the promise of His harvest, and His eternal life. So as we think today of His promises, let us pray.

We thank you Father for this new day, full of promise in You. And we thank You for Your invitation to come to You, to come into Your presence and to drink Your water of life. Amen.

Video: Opening song audio track

‘I Heard The Voice Of Jesus Say’

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15yq8x_L-XtIbqPzy8Xp-fqL7C3hHytod/view

Slide: Opening song slide 1

Slide: Opening song slide 2

Slide: Opening song slide 3

Slide: Opening song slide 4

Slide: Opening song slide 5

Slide: Opening song slide 6

Slide: Credits slide

Slide: Isaiah 55: 1-2, 6-12

Bible Reading: audio track by Sarah Swallow

Image: Pen-y-Gadair from Pen-y-Gaer

Ho, everyone who thirsts,
    come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
    and your labour for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
    and delight yourselves in rich food.

Seek the Lord while he may be found,
    call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way,
    and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
    and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

For you shall go out in joy,
    and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
    shall burst into song,
    and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Slide: Rev David Parry

Video: David’s talk

“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Delight yourselves in rich food.”

I love the extravagance of that invitation from God. But it might seem a bit ironic. Here I am speaking in St. Mary’s Conwy for the first time in 20 Sundays, and we’re still not yet at the point (though hopefully close) where this building can open for public worship: to share God’s Word and to share the Sacraments in the generosity that God intends.

But even though I can hear the life of the town of Conwy outside this building, children playing, visitors returning, and this building has been closed all through that time, God has been far from absent from the lives of the people here and in the valley. In fact, through the medium of these daily reflections and services we’ve made new connections with people all over the world. I keep discovering the ways that these videos are forwarded on to other people, and people that I have no connection with tell me about the services they’ve seen or the reflections that have helped them.

It’s an image of how God’s abundance hasn’t been thwarted by this lockdown. Indeed just as teachers have found new ways to reach their pupils if they can’t come to school, and new relationships have been made and deepened in families, like the grandchildren organising Zoom quizzes on a Friday night, the way we’ve reconnected with old friends and shared love with our neighbours is part of that abundance that God intends.

And of course, the idea of the food and the wine and the drink is also about, primarily about, God’s forgiveness. It’s an invitation not just to receive the material things we need but the spiritual things we need more than anything else. To come and receive God’s love. To turn to Him that He may “abundantly pardon.”

And I suppose most of all what it says to me is that the Church, you and I (if we are members of the Church) have far more ability than we realised to be part of God’s Kingdom outside of our buildings. That as we share our lives, quietly, publicly, as we speak of the Jesus who’s changed our lives, as we offer His forgiveness to the people around us, so we’re like the rain that falls on the Earth and makes things grow. We’re like that promise that what God speaks in us and to us will not return to Him without achieving what He intends but will “accomplish that for which he purposes” and “succeed in the thing for which he sent it.”

And I suppose, finally, there’s that trust in this passage that though we’ve had to leave our buildings for a time, actually we’ve left with joy, joy has been shared in the moments that have been consolation in this time. And even if we can’t all return at once we will be “led back in peace.” We will have discovered, we will have found, that God is with us. And His generous forgiveness and love is being poured out in a world that has never needed it more. Amen.

Video: Prayers video of Paul Clough

Dear Lord, in these difficult days we declare that all Your ways of mercy will end in our delight.

We bless You that You have given us the eye of faith,

To see You as a father,

To know You as a covenant God,

To welcome the Holy Spirit who reveals to us our future happiness and sustains us with the living fountain of life.

Image: water

Lord,

We thank You that we can come to You and draw water from the wells of Your forgiveness,

We thank You that we can look beyond this life, to an eternity where the work of redemption and perseverance is finished and perfected forever.

Image: sky

But Lord: in these days blighted by fear of infection; where so many know the reality of suffering may we take heart that You accepted the suffering of the Cross, to become the first-born of a new humanity and declare that our hope and our future awaits us in the Heavens.

We remember that Jesus commanded us to pray, “Your Kingdom Come” and it is as members of this kingdom that we look in faith for our salvation.

A kingdom available to all who respond to your call.

And whilst we enter this Kingdom in the trials and tribulations of this world,

Our sure and certain hope is of eternity in Your presence.

Image: mountains – pathway

There is no joy like the joy of heaven.

It is Your return to which we we look.

For then there will be no sadness, no suffering, no loss.

Yet, for a little while, we live by faith, and this is but a foretaste of that which is to come.

How great are the privileges we have in Christ Jesus,

Without You, we have no hope beyond this life.

With You, we shall share in the new creation.

Without You, we have no answer to the limitations and frailties of this life.

With you, we have been born again into service of the King.

Without you, our world has become an uncertain and dangerous place.

With you, we find meaning for both immediate and eternal needs.

Image: flower– laughter

Lord we thank You

For the comfort of Your word,

For the teaching of your Spirit,

For the communion of saints,

For Christian fellowship,

Lord, We praise You for this grace given,

Encourage us to share these wonderful realities with those around us,

So that we do not despair, but rejoice.

Video: back to prayers video of Paul Clough

In Jesus our Saviour and healer we encounter the God who is redeeming creation that it might be our home for eternity.

Amen.

Slide: Cross in landscape near Llangelynnin

Video: Eryl’s outro video

A final prayer:

I Dduw’r Tad, a’n carodd ni

To God the Father, who first loved us

a’n gwneud yn gymeradwy yn yr Anwylyd;

and made us accepted in the Beloved

I Dduw’r Mab, a’n carodd ni

To God the Son, who loved us

a’n golchi oddi wrth ein pechodau trwy ei waed ei hun

and washed from us our sins by his own blood;

I Dduw’r Ysbryd Glân

To God the Holy Spirit

sy’n tywallt cariad Duw ar led yn ein calonnau

who sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts;

I’r un gwir Dduw

To the one true God

y bo’r holl gariad a’r holl ogoniant

be all love and all glory

dros amser a thros dragwyddoldeb. Amen.

for time and for eternity. Amen

Thank you so much for joining us here online. We end with a glorious hymn of praise, recorded in St. Mary’s Conwy before lockdown. Join with us in singing ‘Thine be the glory’.

Sunday 2nd August

Share this:

Like this:

Sunday 2^ndAugust