Slide: Sul y Drindod / Trinity Sunday
Slide: Rev David Parry
Video: David’s introduction
Croeso cynnes i bawb, a warm welcome to everyone on this Trinity Sunday. It’s also good to welcome our guest preacher, Mary Stallard. Mary is the Archdeacon of Bangor which means she gives invaluable support and leadership to all of our local Ministry Areas (Anglican parishes). I’m so grateful to Mary for her friendship and wisdom, especially at the moment.
I was tempted to start this service standing outside one of our closed churches, holding a Bible. But outraged as I was – perhaps you were too – by President Trump and his behaviour this week, it also struck me that he’s not the first person to seek to use our symbols in an empty way to legitimise human power. To hold a Bible instead of opening it and reading it.
It made me think about the ways in which we use our symbols to buttress power without changing the injustice of the world. And after all, a world that is still full of Racism is a world that hasn’t really heard the Gospel.
With that in mind, let’s begin by a prayer of confession:
Am inni gefnu ar ein gilydd ac arnat ti,
when we have turned away from each other and from you. Forgive us.
When we have allowed our differences to divide us. Forgive us.
When we have preferred to think small, and limited your love. Forgive us.
When we have heard your Word and not acted upon it. Forgive us.
When we have put ourselves before the greater good. Maddau inni, forgive us.
Lord Jesus Christ you said to us,
“A new commandment I give you: as I have loved you, you must love one another.
People will know that you are my disciples when you love one another.”
Teach us to love and forgive us our failures.
Renew us by your grace and teach us to be your people.
Yn enw’r Tad, a’r Mab, a’r Ysbryd Glân, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Now Cass Meurig, a Welsh Pioneer Minister, has written her setting of the Venite (Psalm 95) words that invite us into worship.
Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSfhJg4y7Ik
Slide: Matthew 28:16-20
Video: readings by Canon Phil Hughes
Darlleniad o Efengyl Mathew:
Dyma’r un deg un disgybl yn mynd i Galilea, i’r mynydd lle roedd Iesu wedi dweud wrthyn nhw am fynd.
Pan welon nhw Iesu, dyma nhw’n ei addoli – ond roedd gan rai amheuon. Wedyn dyma Iesu’n mynd atyn nhw ac yn dweud, “Dw i wedi cael awdurdod llwyr i reoli popeth yn y nefoedd ac ar y ddaear. Felly ewch i wneud pobl o bob gwlad yn ddisgyblion i mi, a’u bedyddio nhw fel arwydd eu bod nhw wedi dod i berthynas â’r Tad, a’r Mab a’r Ysbryd Glân. A dysgwch nhw i wneud popeth dw i wedi’i ddweud wrthoch chi. Gallwch chi fod yn siŵr y bydda i gyda chi bob amser, nes bydd diwedd y byd wedi dod.”
A reading from Matthew’s Gospel:
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’
This is the Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you O Christ.
Slide: Archdeacon Mary Stallard
Video: talk by Archdeacon Mary Stallard
Last Sunday was Pentecost which some people call the birthday of the Church; and with every birthday comes a gift. And on the Sunday after Pentecost we look at the gift of God’s presence: the way God shows God’s self to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That mysterious presence we call Trinity.
During these times of the pandemic it’s been sobering to think about how God is present to us. Here in this beautiful part of North Wales, God the Creator can seem really present. Lots of people in their prayers have been praying for healing and maybe the person of Christ the healer, the teacher, the one who shows us the way is easy to think about.
Much more mysterious is God the Holy Spirit: the breath of God which we hear about in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, the one who breathed life into all creation; the one Jesus tells us is the Comforter, the inspirer; the one who points us towards God speaking perhaps in the quietness of our hearts, the still small voice that inspires us, that maybe prompts us to explore new things.
It’s so hard thinking about who we are called to be, who we might be, how we can begin to explore and uncover the mystery of God. Something really helpful in today’s Gospel, I find, is the way that Jesus talks about those first disciples. They go to the mountain where Jesus had told them in Galilee and Matthew tells us they worshipped but some doubted. Some of them had questions. They were unsure. But the beautiful part of the Gospel is that all of them, the doubters and the believers, hear the voice of God. And all of them are called to go out and do God’s work.
There’s a prayer that sums up this calling, written by Janet Morley especially for Trinity Sunday:
God our mystery,
you bring us to life, you call us to freedom,
you move between us with love.
May we so participate in the dance of your Trinity
that our lives may resonate with you
now and for ever.
Amen.
Video: prayers by Reverend Tom and Angela Saunders
O God, maker of our world and of each one of us…
Image: blue tit
Show us how to live in harmony with all of your creation: let us rejoice in its beauty, enjoy its good gifts, and learn to use all that you have given us more gently and more sustainably.
Video: prayers by Reverend Tom and Angela Saunders
O Christ, our healer and our comforter…
Image: stained glass window
Help us to see all things and all people as you do: through eyes of love and care. Heal the divisions between individuals, between communities and between nations, and show us your path of peace and justice.
Video: prayers by Reverend Tom and Angela Saunders
O Spirit of truth, of creativity, and of unity…
Image: Celtic cross with mountain range, bird in flight and water
Show your church how to live and to thrive in these difficult times. May each one of us witness to the overflowing love of the Trinity which gives life and joy to the world.
Image of candles
God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit… We place into your hands all the people we love, and all those who we know are suffering, naming them in the silence of our hearts.
Lord, hear us.
Lord graciously hear us.
Video: David’s final video
Diolch yn fawr i chi, thank you for being part of this service.
Online worship still feels very new to some of us but not to the Deaf members of our community for whom this kind of visual communication has been their way of worshipping for a very long time. We end today with a beautiful blessing in Makaton. And as I see those Christians who communicate in that way it reminds me how much our Church family is beautiful and diverse and yet at the same time united, one. Just as God the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is both three and one.
Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va048-XxFTI
Slide: Yr Eglwys yng Nghymru / The Church in Wales, caruconwy.com and Bro Celynnin logo
caruconwy.com 