Sunday Worship 19 October 2025

October 19, 2025 colind

Off

Today’s service is led by the Revd Phil Nevard

Introduction

I’m the Rev’d Phil Nevard, Minister in the Four Rivers Mission Partnership in Eastern Synod. This morning we meet two remarkable figures from Scripture — a nameless widow who refused to give up, and Jacob, who wrestled all night and would not let go. Both show us what it means to persist when the odds are against us, to hold on in the dark, and to come away changed. Their stories invite us to think about our own moments of clinging to God and speaking up for what is right. So let’s take a deep breath, set down what we’ve brought with us from the week, and prepare our hearts for worship.

Call to Worship

Come before the God who hears our prayers.
We come, trusting in God’s steadfast love.
Come before the God who welcomes our questions.
We come, bringing our doubts and our hopes.
Come before the God who never lets us go.
We come, ready to hold on to God’s promises.

Hymn God Who Stretched the Spangled Heavens
Catherine Cameron (born 1927) © Hope Publishing Company One Licence No. # A-734713
Sung by the choir and people of Westminster Presbyterian Church, Sacramento

God, who stretched the spangled heavens, infinite in time and place,
flung the suns in burning radiance through the silent fields of space,
we your children, in your likeness, share inventive powers with you.
Great Creator, still creating, show us what we yet may do.

Proudly rise our modern cities, stately buildings, row on row;
yet their windows, blank, unfeeling, stare on canyoned streets below,
where the lonely drift unnoticed in the city’s ebb and flow,
lost to purpose and to meaning, scarcely caring where they go.

We have ventured worlds undreamed of since the childhood of our race;
known the ecstasy of winging through untravelled realms of space;
probed the secrets of the atom, yielding unimagined power,
facing us with life’s destruction or our most triumphant hour.

As each far horizon beckons, may it challenge us anew,
children of creative purpose, serving others, honouring you.
May our dreams prove rich with promise, each endeavour, well begun.
Great Creator, give us guidance till our goals and yours are one.

Prayers of Approach, Confession & declaration of forgiveness

God of the dawn and the dark,
You meet us in quiet trust and in restless wrestling.
You are present in the prayers we whisper
and in the cries we can’t hold back.
Today we come to you with open hearts,
bringing our hopes, our questions, and our longing for justice.
Meet us in this place, and by your Spirit,
make us ready to listen, to speak, and to act,
until your kingdom comes on earth as in heaven. Amen.

Merciful God,
we confess that we have not always persevered in love.
We have turned away from the needs of our neighbours.
We have grown weary in doing good.
We have let the shadows of fear and doubt
keep us from holding on to your promises.
Forgive us when our prayers have grown faint
and our faith has fallen silent.
Renew in us the courage to keep coming to you,
trusting that you welcome us as we are.

Silence

Hear and embrace the good news: God is slow to anger and rich in mercy.
In Christ, grace has the final word —
stronger than our weariness, deeper than our doubts.
In him, we are forgiven, set free, and made new.
Thanks be to God. Amen.

Hymn 10,000 Reasons
Jonas Myrin and Matt Redman © 2010 Said and Done Music/Thankyou Music OneLicence No. # A-734713 Matt Redman and BBC Songs of Praise

Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul, worship His holy name.
Sing like never before, O my soul. I’ll worship your holy name.

The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning;
it’s time to sing Your song again.
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me,
let me be singing when the evening comes.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul, worship His holy name.
Sing like never before, O my soul. I’ll worship your holy name.

You’re rich in love and You’re slow to anger.
Your name is great, and Your heart is kind.
For all Your goodness, I will keep on singing;
ten thousand reasons for my heart to find.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul, worship His holy name.
Sing like never before, O my soul. I’ll worship your holy name.

And on that day when my strength is failing,
the end draws near, and my time has come;
still my soul will sing your praise unending:
Ten thousand years and then forevermore!

Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul, worship His holy name.
Sing like never before, O my soul. I’ll worship your holy name.

Prayer for Illumination

Faithful God,
you speak through stories of persistence and struggle,
through the cries of the vulnerable and the wrestling of the doubtful.
As we listen to your Word today,
give us ears to hear what you are saying,
minds that are open to your truth, and hearts ready to respond.
By your Spirit, add us into the light of your justice and love. Amen.

Reading Genesis 32:22–31

Jacob wrestles through the night with an unknown opponent, refusing to let go until he receives a blessing. This is a story of persistence in the dark — and of how the struggle can leave us changed.

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ The sun rose upon him as he passed Peniel, limping because of his hip.

Reading St Luke 18:1–8

Jesus tells the story of a widow who will not give up in her search for justice, showing us that prayer is not giving up — it is holding on.

Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’

Hymn Be Still, My Soul: The Lord is at Your Side
Stille, meine Willeidein Jesus hilft siegen, Katharina A D Von Schlegal (born 1697) translated by Jane L Borthwick (1813–1897)

Be still, my soul the Lord is on thy side!
Bear patiently, the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide,
in every change his faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul thy best, thy heav’nly friend,
through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul thy God doth undertake
to guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake,
all now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below

Be still, my soul, the hour is hast’ning on
when we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone.
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul, when change and tears are past,
all safe and blessed we shall meet at last

Sermon The widow who would not vanish

She has no name. No status. No protection. In Jesus’ parable, she is simply “a widow” — shorthand in the ancient world for the most vulnerable. Her husband is gone, and with him her legal standing, her income, and her safety. In those days, widows often had no voice in court; without a male relative to speak for you, your case could be ignored. But not this widow.
He is alone. No family beside him. No allies to shield him. In the darkness by the river, Jacob waits — a man carrying the weight of his past. He has tricked his brother, deceived his father, outmanoeuvred his uncle. And now, at dawn, he must face Esau, the brother he wronged and fears. Everything he owns has been sent ahead; there is nothing left between him and whatever comes next. But the night will not pass quietly — someone steps from the shadows, and Jacob is not alone anymore.

Both the un-named widow and Jacob are locked in struggles that will not let them go. Both refuse to back down. Both show us what it means to live with what Asian feminist theologians call survival wisdom — the ability to endure, adapt, and keep pressing forward when the powers that be would prefer you disappear.

Kwok Pui-lan, a Chinese feminist theologian, describes survival wisdom as the imaginative capacity to live into a better future, even when the structures around you insist it’s impossible. She writes, “Without the power of imagination, we cannot envision a different past, present, and future… What we cannot imagine, we cannot live into and struggle for.” Today, we’ll explore three things: Faith that clings in the dark; the God who welcomes the wrestler; transformation that follows persistence

Faith that clings in the dark…

Picture the widow again — her small figure standing before the imposing judge. His chamber is not welcoming. It smells of dust and power. She has no one to speak for her, so she speaks for herself. She knows the odds. She knows how often the powerful close ranks to keep the powerless in their place. But she comes back anyway. She is living what Wai-Ching Angela Wong calls the “unglamorous, strategic endurance of marginalised women” — refusing to vanish even when the system is designed to make you invisible.

You may remember news stories of Malala Yousafzai. Growing up in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, she spoke up for girls’ right to education under Taliban control — even though it was dangerous. At 15, she was shot in the head on her way home from school. Most people would have retreated into silence to stay safe. But Malala refused to vanish. She recovered, spoke at the United Nations, and now works globally for girls’ education. She is living into that survival wisdom — the art of imagining a future worth fighting for, and holding onto it in the dark.

The God who welcomes the wrestler…

Jacob, too, clings in the dark. His struggle is different, but the darkness is the same — uncertain, exhausting, threatening. Faith is sometimes exactly this: the grit to keep your hands locked around God’s ankle, even when you can’t see how the dawn will break.

I think we sometimes imagine God as a fragile monarch who must be approached politely, our prayers carefully phrased so as not to offend. But in none of these stories is persistence an offense to God. The widow keeps knocking, and in the story, God is contrasted with the unjust judge. If even the judge eventually acts, Jesus says, how much more will God — who loves justice — respond to those who cry out? Jacob clings to his mysterious opponent and refuses to let go. There’s no pious “Thy will be done” here — it’s “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And God doesn’t punish him for that. God honours it.

In survival wisdom, wrestling is not rebellion — it is relationship. It is bringing your whole self — your anger, your questions, your hope — into the encounter.

Kim Bok-dong was a Korean woman who, as a teenager during World War II, was forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military. For decades she lived in silence, carrying the wounds of what she had endured. But in her sixties she began to speak out, travelling internationally to tell her story and demand justice. Week after week, she joined protests outside the Japanese embassy. Like Jacob, she wrestled through the long night — not with God’s reluctance, but with the world’s refusal to face the truth.

Jacob does receive a blessing, but he also receives a limp. He walks into the sunrise marked forever by the struggle. The widow finally wins her case, but only after a long campaign that must have worn her thin.
Transformation that follows persistence…

Persistence may not always change our circumstances immediately — and it may not “change God’s mind” — but it will change us. It will give us a new name, as it did for Jacob. It will deepen our compassion, strengthen our courage, and leave us with the kind of scars that are proof of love.

Kwok Pui-lan reminds us that persistence and imagination are themselves transformative: the very act of holding on reshapes the one who holds. In survival wisdom, the wounds we carry from the struggle are not shameful. They are holy reminders that we stayed, that we showed up, that we did not vanish.

Jesus ends his parable with his trademark searching question which always turns the spotlight on the listener, or the reader: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” That faith may not look like serene belief. It may look like a widow who will not stop knocking, like a man wrestling on the banks of a river, like a young girl from Pakistan who refuses to stop speaking, like an elderly woman from Korea who never stopped telling her story.

So may we be people of that kind of faith — the kind that clings in the dark, wrestles with God, and walks away transformed. And may we, with survival wisdom, be the ones who refuse to vanish.

Prayer

God of the widow who would not vanish,
teach us to pray with persistence,
to wrestle without fear,
to hold on through the night until your dawn breaks.
May we limp with grace,
carry the marks of your blessing,
and never lose heart.
Amen.

Hymn The Right Hand of God
Patrick Prescod (1932-2013) © 1998, Antilles Episcopal Conference Text OneLicence # A-734713. Sung by Paul Coleman.

The right hand of God is writing in our land,
writing with power and with love,
our conflicts and our fears, our triumphs and our tears
are recorded by the right hand of God.

The right hand of God is pointing in our land,
pointing the way we must go,
so clouded is the way, so easily we stray,
but we’re guided by the right hand of God.

The right hand of God is striking in our land,
striking out at envy, hate, and greed.
Our selfishness and lust, our pride and deeds unjust,
are destroyed by the right hand of God.

The right hand of God, is lifting in our land,
lifting the fallen one by one;
each one is known by name, and lifted now from shame,
by lifting the right hand of God.

The right hand of God is healing in our land,
healing broken bodies, minds, and souls,
so wondrous is its touch with love that means so much,
when we’re healed by the right hand of God.

The right hand of God is planting in our land,
planting seeds of freedom, hope, and love.
In these many-peopled lands, let His children all join hands,
and be one with the right hand of God.

An Affirmation of Faith

We believe in God,
who meets us in the light of day and in the darkness of night;
who invites us to bring our whole selves —
our joy and our struggle — into God’s presence.

We believe in Jesus Christ,
who listened to the cries of the poor,
who welcomed the questions of the seeking,
and who wrestled with the powers of this world
so that love and justice might prevail.

We believe in the Holy Spirit,
our comfort in weakness,
our strength in persistence,
our breath when we feel we have nothing left.

We commit ourselves to walk in faith,
to seek justice, to love mercy, and to cling to God’s promises,
until all creation is made new. Amen.

Prayers of Intercession

God of justice and mercy,
You hear the cries of your people day and night.
You welcome the prayers that rise from the heart,
whether they come in whispers or in shouts.
Today we bring before you the needs of the world,
trusting that you are already at work.