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Sunday Worship from the United Reformed Church for Sunday 5 October 2025
Today’s service is led by the Revd Andy Braunston
Welcome
Hello and welcome to worship. Today we hear of faith in hard times; poems of lament in the face of disaster and eager disciples asking for more faith – only to be told by Jesus they have enough to move mountains. We too live in hard times with life’s complexity worrying and confusing us; climate change, rising prices, the emergence of new political parties, and new incarnations of older ones, people offering easy answers to complex questions, the rise of artificial intelligence, and the ever present danger of war might make us lament and cry for more faith; yet Jesus tells us, too, that we have enough to move mountains. My name is Andy Braunston and I serve as the URC’s Minister for Digital Worship; I’m leading worship today from my study in the beautiful island county of Orkney where I live and work. So, with our faith, and our doubts, our certainties and our complexities, we come to worship.
Call To Worship
We meet in the presence of the Most High, who knows us better than we know ourselves, who satisfies our ancient hungers in the silent music of praise, and who calls us to action. So we cry: increase our faith!
We meet in the presence of the Risen Lord, who knows from first-hand experience what human life is like, who feeds us with His very self, and who calls us to follow Him. So we cry: increase our faith!
We meet in the presence of the Most Holy Spirit, who knows our strengths and weaknesses, and fills us with eagerness and energy, and who inspires us to draw close as we worship. So we cry: increase our faith!
HymnLet All the World in Every Corner Sing George Herbert (1593–1633) Public Domain BBC Songs of Praise
Let all the world in every corner sing: my God and King! The heavens are not too high, His praise may thither fly; the earth is not too low, His praises there may grow. Let all the world in every corner sing: my God and King!
Let all the world in every corner sing: my God and King! The Church with Psalms must shout, no door can keep them out; but above all, the heart must bear the longest part. Let all the world in every corner sing: my God and King!
Prayers of Approach, Confession, & Grace
We draw close to you, Eternal Trinity, and praise You for Your great love. You give us all we need, You allow us to puzzle over Your word and deeds, You inspire us to work out faith in action. For this we praise You. For this we thank You.
Yet there are times when we have doubted Your love, trusted in other things, journeyed other ways, and followed other gods, believing You punish, not love, us. We have demanded faith yet not used the seeds You gave us. We have doubted what You can achieve through us. We have behaved as if we are living in exile; despising the world as it is and dreaming it could be remade in our image.
Forgive us, O God, and give us time to come to our senses. Reclothe us in a rightful mind and let us return to You, that we may sing Your songs in strange and familiar lands, find the faith You have given sufficient for the work You call us to, that we may not forget You are our highest joy; our life itself. Amen
Prayer for Illumination
You, O Maker, call us to sing Your praises in lands both strange and familiar. You, O Christ, call us to embody Your love to both friend and stranger. You, O Spirit, work in our hearts and minds inspiring and challenging us. Bless us now, O Trinity of Love, as we listen to Your word read and proclaimed, strange and familiar, friendly and difficult, that we may hear, understand, and respond. Amen.
ReadingLamentations 1: 1-6
How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become subject to forced labour. She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers, she has no one to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies. Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude; she lives now among the nations; she finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress. The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the festivals; all her gates are desolate; her priests groan; her young girls grieve, and her lot is bitter. Her foes have become the masters; her enemies prosper because the LORD has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe. From daughter Zion has departed all her majesty. Her princes have become like stags that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer.
ReadingPsalm 137
By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down, and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy. Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem’s fall, how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down! Down to its foundations!”
O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!
By the Babylonian rivers we sat down in grief and wept; hung our harps upon a willow, mourned for Zion while we slept.
There our captors, in derision, did require of us a song; so we sat with staring vision and the days were hard and long.
How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange and bitter land; can our voices veil the sorrow? Lord God, hear your lonely band.
Let your Cross be benediction for those found in tyranny. By the pow’r of resurrection loose them from captivity.
ReadingSt Luke 17:5-10
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from ploughing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me; put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!'”
Sermon
We live in difficult times. Wars seem nearer than ever before. Political extremists seem to be doing very well winning elected office leaving their opponent disorganised and unsure. Wages and pensions don’t keep up with rising prices; for many the dream of home ownership is a cruel illusion. Despite knowing the damage they cause, we’ve not weaned ourselves off fossil fuels. We still fight a war on drugs instead of working out how best to help those addicted. We might watch the news and cry “increase our faith!” There again the good Lord calls us to be Church in difficult times. We’re called to believe despite a secular indifferent society; Lord, increase our faith! We must adapt to a changing climate which will bring huge difficulties; Lord, increase our faith! Artificial intelligence engines do increasingly more allowing greater ingenuity puzzling so many of us (and infuriating university teachers); Lord, increase our faith! Despite ever more cruel strategies, people fleeing war, poverty, and climate change still wish to come and make new lives in an ever more fortress-like Europe; Lord, increase our faith! Despite great wealth in our society, more and more use foodbanks; Lord, increase our faith! Despite the most amazing technology allowing us to be in contact with so many people, there’s an epidemic of loneliness, Lord, increase our faith!
The disciples’ cry “increase our faith” is explained by the four verses before today’s reading. Jesus had warned against causing marginalised people to stumble, stressed the need to rebuke those who falter on the journey of discipleship whilst, at the same time, told his followers to offer radical forgiveness to those who offended them. No wonder they cried “increase our faith!” Jesus had already noted the difficult, counter cultural, demands of discipleship when he challenged family norms, called people to carry their crosses, and commanded the giving away of possessions. No wonder the disciples were bemused. Again, we want to agree with them and their cry “increase our faith!”
The powerful words in our first reading use the image of a woman weeping bitterly, her people in exile, nowhere left to rest, grieving and groaning filled the air and her foes became her masters. This was the plight of Jerusalem after the Babylonians invaded and carted off the religious and political elite into the bitter years of exile in 586 BC. We can’t begin to imagine the pain of that invasion and exile. We can’t imagine the pain, the bereavement, nor the theological problems caused by this bitter defeat. The people may have cried “increase our faith” in order to make sense of the world they found themselves in.
Like Jeremiah, the unknown prophet of Lamentation has the answer to why this happened – the people’s sins. The kings and people trusted that God would not let bad things happen, the prophets warned that a covenant needs, at least, two parties and the promises of one are conditional on the behaviour of another. The prophets warned, again and again, that rulers were ignoring God and the poor. For them, the disaster that befell the Jewish people was God’s punishment on a sinful people, or at least a sinful elite. Whilst this theology tried to make sense of that disaster that we should take care in applying it elsewhere. It is all too easy for smug Christians to see causes which are not there when people suffer. Billy Graham’s son, Franklin, for example, suggested Hurricane Katrina targeted New Orleans due to that city’s supposed iniquities. Such a simplistic view takes no account of how policies of successive governments ignored the damage done by climate change nor the spectacular damage the rich do to our world through the consumption of excessive resources. It is, of course, clear there’s cause and effect between the damage climate change is causing and the damage humanity does to the earth but there’s no direct correlation between people causing damage and those who are directly harmed. Often it’s the poorest and least polluting who suffer the most. O Lord, increase our faith!
The writer of Lamentations had a high view of sin, not just the faults and failings of people but the character of nations – what we might call structural sin. We don’t have, however, the voices of the theologians who would have argued with the writer of Lamentations. Might they have said it was too harsh to say God punished the people through defeat, invasion, and exile? Might they have had other theologies which offered different interpretations to what went on? Might the meaning be found in the imperial ambitions of the Babylonians rather than the moral failings of the Jewish leadership? Jeremiah, after all, was clear the Babylonian regime was also wicked. It is clear the Jewish kings of Judah failed but might it be too harsh to believe that God willed the destruction of the state and its leadership because of those failings? Earthly rulers often seek vengeance but the divine ruler?
Perhaps we are best seeing this text as something which shows that sin and failure have consequences, that dreadful things do befall peoples and that it’s natural to find meaning and purpose in those events; but that our discernment might not always be right. Disaster beckons for our world; species are going extinct, sea levels rise, populations are on the move due to sinful human structures and systems but those who suffer the most are the ones who’ve polluted the least. How might our faith help us respond to disaster?
Our Psalmist had to find faith to respond to the disaster of exile. This Psalm, probably composed back in Jerusalem after the exile (it seems to look back), dwells on the bitterness of the dislocation. The tears echo the rivers of Babylon. Captors, knowing the musician was skilled wanted music composed and songs sung. Yet, the poet asked, “how can the Lord’s praises be sung in such a situation?” How might faith respond to such a disaster? Of course, the Lord’s praises could, and would, be sung in foreign lands. The fate of the Jewish people was to be dispersed amongst the nations – the earliest Christians preached first, after all, to the Synagogues around the Empire. Judaism learned to become a faith centred around Synagogue not Temple (after the Temple was destroyed it had no choice) and the Lord’s praises were sung throughout the known world. Faith did respond and founded something new within the Jewish tradition.
The Church has not had the same sense of connection with places and, whilst Christians go on pilgrimage to holy sites, our faith isn’t grounded in place in the same way as it was, and perhaps is, for the Jewish people. The Psalm, however, dwells on the human response to despair and dislocation. The vicious desire at the end to harm babies – lines which don’t make it into our sung versions – are an all too human response to debilitating disaster. Faith, here, was struggling to adapt to a new reality.
Bearing in mind the devastation of Lamentations, the anger and pain in the Psalm and the disciples’ confusion we have a little more context for Jesus correcting the disciples in saying that if they had faith the size of the tiny mustard seed that would be enough. Perhaps he was suggesting they were asking for the wrong thing. Faith does not increase like magic, you can’t do a course to end up with more, it isn’t given as a prize for doing well. Instead, Jesus suggests we don’t need more faith, just the right kind of faith; the faith that can move mountains!
Faith that can move mountains is the faith that helps with desperate asylum claims, and wins.
Faith that can move mountains is the faith that takes our few loaves and fishes and feeds hungry people.
Faith that can move mountains is the faith that raises hundreds of pounds for charity from tiny congregations which are often written off by the “successful” ones.
Faith that can move mountains is the faith that writes to supermarket bosses telling them to improve their environmental credentials, or shares with the local MP issues of concern.
Faith that moves mountains is practice; a faith that does things.
Faith isn’t about the sum of what we believe or give intellectual consent to. Instead, faith is about what we do. That troubling allusion to slaves having to expect to be treated as slaves in our Gospel reading is a reminder that in doing these things we’re not to seek our own glory but simply to respond “well, this is what we do.” Mother Theresa offended a Catholic group I knew of who had raised money for a minibus for one of her centres in India. She thanked them and asked for another one! Those self-satisfied middle-class folk were very cross; they’d expected the living saint to thank and praise them; instead, she disturbed them, reminding them that this was, indeed, what their faith demanded, what they were to do, to move another mountain!
We find ourselves, as part of the Church in the West, continuing to struggle with new realities. Some try to deny those realities and find refuge in ancient traditions, others try to offer certainty in an uncertain world, others still think the game’s up and live as functional atheists thinking nothing can be done. There are always choices in how we respond to the times we live in. The writer of Lamentations used faith to try and understand the disaster which befell the nation of Judah seeing disaster and defeat as divine displeasure. The Psalmist saw faith challenged in exile. Jesus, however, seems to suggest faith is about action – in this case moving mountains.
The faith we have achieves amazing things. When we pray “increase our faith” we are not praying for more knowledge, an inner strength, or more determination to believe impossible things but, instead, we’re asking for more ways to show God’s loving kindness in action. Faith in the time of Lamentations meant dreaming of rebuilding from the ruins, faith for the Psalmist, ironically, meant learning to sing the Lord’s song in a new place, and faith for the disciples meant changing the world. What might that kind of faith mean for you? Which huge plants will come from the mustard seed of faith found in your life and your church?
As thoughtful Christians we need to acknowledge the state the Church finds itself in, find ways to creatively respond to the world as it is, and strongly believe God isn’t finished with us yet! The Lord’s songs must be sung, even in landscapes which feel strange to us; landscapes we inhabit and know. Landscapes where mountains can move! Let’s pray.
Faithful God, You give us faith that can move mountains, if only we trust and act. Help us to sing Your songs in a land familiar yet strange, to remember Your blessings, and serve Your people. Amen.
HymnHeaven Shall Not Wait John L Bell (born 1949) and Graham Maule (1958-2019) 1987 WGRG OneLicence # A-734713. Performed by Ruth and Joy Everingham and used with their kind permission.
Heaven shall not wait for the poor to lose their patience, the scorned to smile, the despised to find a friend: Jesus is Lord; he has championed the unwanted; in him injustice confronts its timely end.
Heaven shall not wait for the rich to share their fortunes, the proud to fall, the elite to tend the least: Jesus is Lord; he has shown the master’s privilege to kneel and wash servants’ feet before they feast.
Heaven shall not wait for the dawn of great ideas, thoughts of compassion divorced from cries of pain: Jesus is Lord; he has married word and action; his Cross and company make his purpose plain.
Heaven shall not wait for triumphant hallelujahs, when earth has passed and we reach another shore: Jesus is Lord; in our present imperfection: his power and love are for now and then for evermore.
Affirmation of Faith
As followers of Jesus Christ, living in this world – which some seek to control, and others view with despair – we declare with joy and trust: Our world belongs to God!
From the beginning, through all the crises of our times, until the Kingdom fully comes, God keeps covenant forever: and we declare with joy and trust: Our world belongs to God!
God formed sky, land, and sea; stars above, moon and sun, making a world of colour, beauty, and variety – a fitting home for plants and animals, and us – a place to work and play, worship and wonder, love and laugh. God rested and gave us rest and we declare with joy and trust: Our world belongs to God!
When humans deface God’s image, the whole world suffers: we abuse the creation or idolize it; we are estranged from our Creator, from our neighbour, from our true selves, and from all that God has made. Yet we declare with joy and trust: Our world belongs to God!
Standing in our place, Jesus suffered during his years on earth, especially in the tortures of the Cross. He carried God’s judgment on our sin – his sacrifice removed our guilt. God raised him from the dead: he walked out of the grave, conqueror of sin and death – Lord of Life! We are set right with God, given new life, and called to walk with him in freedom from sin’s dominion. And we declare with joy and trust: Our world belongs to God!
The Holy Spirit renews our hearts and moves us to faith, leads us into truth, and helps us to pray, stands by us in our need, and makes our obedience fresh and vibrant. God the Spirit lavishes gifts on the Church in astonishing variety – prophecy, encouragement, healing, teaching, service, tongues, discernment – equipping each member to build up the body of Christ and to serve our neighbours. And we declare with joy and trust: Our world belongs to God!
We long for that day when our bodies are raised, the Lord wipes away our tears, and we dwell forever in the presence of God. We will take our place in the new creation, where there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, and the Lord will be our light. And so we declare with joy and trust: Our world belongs to God!
Intercessions
As we sit weeping by the rivers of our world, we bring our petitions to God, knowing, through prayer, we are heard, loved, held, and inspired to change.
Eternal Majesty, You call us to be the Church in dangerous and difficult times, facing wars, famine, extremism, and intolerance all around us, and as we weep, we long for peace. We live in expensive times with prices rising faster than benefits, wages, and pensions, and as we weep, we long for stability. We live in changing times, with our climate producing more storms, rising sea levels, and crazy temperatures, and as we weep, we long for security.
We yearn for more faith, yet know, deep down, You have given us all we need; help us, Eternal One, to use the faith we’ve found.
Enfleshed Word, You call us to be the Church in difficult and dangerous times, asking us to believe despite a secular age, and as we weep we long for Your presence. We live in confusing times with the rise of artificial intelligence and cannot see if it is a help or hinderance to abundant life and as we weep, we long for clarity. We live in frightening times with our borders becoming more like fortress gates, and hearts hardening against those fleeing war, poverty, persecution and climate change, and, as we weep, we long for compassion.
We yearn for more faith, yet know, deep down, You have given us all we need; help us, Lord Jesus, to use the faith we’ve found.
Energising Spirit, You call us to be the Church in dangerous and difficult times, calling us to feed the hungry, befriend the lonely, and love the unlovely, and as we weep, we long for inspiration. We live in desperate times and see need in our world, and in the community around us, and puzzle about how best to respond, and as we weep, we long for vision. Yet we also live in exciting times, with change, hope, and visions of a better world abounding, so, dry our tears, as we long for the Kingdom to come.
We yearn for more faith, yet know, deep down, You have given us all we need; help us, Lord Jesus, to use the faith we’ve found.
And so, with dry eyes, we pray, as Jesus taught saying, Our Father…
Offertory
The disciples wanted their faith to increase; Jesus implied they had enough but just had to use it! Often in our church life we worry about money, anxious we don’t have enough to pay our bills and save some for that rainy day. But God has given the Church all it needs for its mission. We have been given a vast array of gifts – time, talent, and treasure to fulfil the mission God gives us. So, we give thanks for all those gifts present here in this congregation. Let us pray:
Gracious God, we thank You for all You have given us, for the joys and challenges of life, for this community and the mission you give us. Bless all that is given in this place, that we may use Your gifts wisely in Your service, through Christ our Lord, Amen.
Holy Communion
Invitation
Jesus invites us, his saints, to gather at this table where he is both host and stranger, food and drink, majesty and mystery. Jesus invites all to receive him as we eat bread and drink wine putting up no restrictions or barriers. Jesus welcomes us just as he accepted Peter who denied him, Judas who betrayed him, and frightened disciples who deserted him. We are all are invited to come, but also to examine ourselves, and only then to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgement against themselves. So come, apprehend the mystery of life, meet the Risen and Ascended Lord here as we show forth his sacrifice on the Cross through bread broken and wine poured. Come and feast on the Lord who gives himself for our spiritual nourishment and growth in grace. Eat, drink, and be united with the Church through time and space and offer here your sacrifice of thanksgiving as you await his coming in glory.
Let us pray.
We thank You, Everlasting One for Your nurturing, sustaining, love by which You held and guided Your people throughout the ages. You led them from slavery to freedom, from nomadic to settled existence, from lose confederation to unified kingdom, through expansion, contraction, civil war, and division. You sustained Your people through the bitter years of defeat and exile, and reformed them as they again found freedom.
We thank You, Lord Jesus, that in the years of imperial oppression, You came to us and lived as one of us, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, embodying the nurturing sustaining love of the Most High, teaching through story and scripture, healing the sick, releasing the captive, and challenging the powerful. On the Cross You stretched Your hands between heaven and earth, breaking down all barriers, yet dying a shameful death engineered by evil. But death could not hold You and You were raised again, revealing the power of the Everlasting One!
We thank you, Most Holy Spirit, that, as on the day of Pentecost, You come to us now, setting aside this bread and wine from all common use, that it may be, for us, the body and blood of Christ, and that we may be for You, Christ’s body and blood in the world. As we eat and drink these gifts unite us with Christ and with all who have gone before us and who are still to come, that we may sing Your praises for ever and ever:
The Sanctus Traditional liturgical text, unknown composer
Holy, holy, holy, Santo, santo, santo, my heart, my heart adores you! mi corazón te adora! My heart is glad to say the words: Mi corazón te sabe decir: You are holy, Lord! santo eres Señor!
Institution
We hear again the words of the Apostle Paul in the earliest account of the Lord’s Supper. Paul wrote: For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said,
‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’
In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying,
‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
Sharing
And so, we share this bread and wine, knowing that our lives are forever changed as we feed on Jesus Christ, the bread of heaven. The body and blood of Christ, given for us! Amen.
Living Lord, we thank You for meeting and feeding us here. Bless us as we journey on. Lift our spirits when in exile, gladden our hearts when at home. Increase our compassion to the poor and our outspokenness to the oppressor. Enlarge our vision that we may use the faith you have given us to change the world. Amen.
HymnO For a Thousand Tongues to Sing Charles Wesley (1707-1788) Public Domain 250 Voice Mass Choir from various Church of South India Choirs and used with their kind permission.
O for a thousand tongues to sing my great redeemer’s praise, the glories of my God and king, the triumphs of his grace!
My gracious master and my God, assist me to proclaim, to spread through all the earth abroad the honours of thy name.
Jesus – the name that charms our fears, That bids our sorrows cease; ‘Tis music in the sinner’s ears, ‘Tis life, and health, and peace.
He breaks the power of cancelled sin, He sets the prisoner free; His blood can make the foulest clean, His blood availed for me.
Blessing
May the One who inspired songs in strange lands, the One who taught us to love enemies, and the One who leads us in faith, inspire, teach, and lead You, that Your faith will change the world! And the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be with you all, evermore, Amen.
Where words are copyright reproduced and streamed under the terms of ONE LICENSE A-734713 PRS Limited Online Music Licence LE-0019762
