Sunday Worship 23 March 2025
Today’s service is led by the Revd Dr Lance Stone
Welcome
Hello and welcome to our service of worship. My name is Lance Stone. I’m a retired United Reformed Church minister. I’ve served the URC in London and in Cambridge. I’ve also served the Church of Scotland in Aberdeen and Amsterdam. Let us begin with a word of prayer, let us pray.
Living God, open our ears and our hearts to your Word, that it may become flesh in our lives, and to the glory of your holy name. Amen,
Call to Worship
My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.
Hymn For the Fruit of All Creation
Fred Pratt Green © 1970 Hope Publishing Company OneLicence. Performed by Ruth and Joy Everingham and used with their kind permission.
For the fruits of all creation, thanks be to God;
for the gifts of every nation, thanks be to God;
for the ploughing, sowing, reaping, silent growth while we are sleeping,
future needs in earth’s safe-keeping, thanks be to God.
In the just reward of labour, God’s will is done;
in the help we give our neighbour, God’s will is done;
in our world-wide task of caring for the hungry and despairing,
in the harvests we are sharing, God’s will is done.
For the harvests of the Spirit, thanks be to God;
for the good we all inherit, thanks be to God;
for the wonders that astound us, for the truths that still confound us,
most of all that love has found us, thanks be to God.
Opening Prayer
Holy and gracious God, creator of the world and giver of life we praise and bless your holy name. You are the God who made us, you are the God who freed your people from slavery in Egypt, the God who fed them in the wilderness. And you are the God who has come among us in Jesus Christ, the bread of life, who feeds our very souls. You nourish us with your word, and you quench our thirst with your Spirit.
Confession and Pardon
O God we come to you, spiritually hungry. We confess that we turn from you, seeking fulfilment elsewhere, spending our money for that which is not bread, and labouring for that which does not satisfy. We pray together for your grace and your pardon. Forgive in us what has gone wrong, repair is us what is wasted, reveal in us what is good. And nourish us with better food than we could ever purchase: your Word, your love, your daily bread for life’s journey in the company of Jesus Christ our Lord. In his name and in his words we pray together, saying…Our Father…
Reading Isaiah 55:1-9
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. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. 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.
Hymn Break Thou the Bread of Life
Mary A. Lathbury (1877) Public Domain Sung by Michael Eldridge acapeldridge.com
Break Thou the Bread of Life, dear Lord, to me,
as Thou didst break the loaves beside the sea;
beyond the sacred page I seek Thee, Lord;
my spirit pants for Thee, O Living Word.
Bless Thou the truth, dear Lord, to me, to me,
as Thou didst bless the bread by Galilee;
then shall all bondage cease, all fetters fall,
and I shall find my peace, my All in all.
Thou art the Bread of Life, O Lord, to me,
Thy holy Word the truth that saveth me;
give me to eat and live with Thee above;
teach me to love Thy truth, for Thou art Love.
Reading 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness. Now these things occurred as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not become idolaters as some of them did; as it is written, ‘The people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play.’ We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents. And do not complain as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come. So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.
Sermon Rich food.
I don’t know if it is deliberate, but given our setting today in this season of Lent, traditionally a time commemorating Jesus’ time of fasting in the wilderness, it seems very appropriate that our two readings both contain references to food and drink. And this is a good opportunity for us to consider for a while the topic of diet and how we eat and drink. With the world tottering on the edge of ecological collapse it is clear that the way we eat contributes radically to the wellbeing or otherwise of the planet, and the subject of food is therefore urgent and demands our attention.
So with this is mind we turn first to our reading, from Isaiah 55 which opens with the words:
‘Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;
and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost…
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
And your soul will delight in the richest fare.
The image is of a kind of beggars’ banquet, a feast offered to those without money, a rich feast that will satisfy and leave us nourished, where other food leaves us hungry and craving more. Now Isaiah, of course, is not speaking of a literal feast or banquet. Isaiah is talking about salvation, about God’s gift to us of life that comes through knowing God and honouring God and belonging to God. But our relationship with God is depicted over and over again in the Bible by the image of food. So Jesus pictured God’s Kingdom, God’s realm, as a wedding feast. And when we celebrate the Lord’s supper we take bread and wine and they symbolise Jesus’ body broken and his blood shed for our salvation. Salvation is a beggar’s banquet to which all are invited. And this explains Isaiah’s use of this image of food and drink here in this passage.
Isaiah is addressing the Jewish people when they are in captivity, exiled in Babylon. And as exiles they face a dilemma: are they going to stray true to their Jewish faith and identity? Are they going to remain Jews? Or are they going to be seduced into becoming Babylonians, worshipping Babylonian gods and adopting Babylonian customs? And at the end of this chapter there are beautiful verses depicting Israel leaving Babylon and returning home to Jerusalem, leaving exile and captivity:
‘You shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace;
and the mountains and hills before you will burst into song…’
Here is the great return to Jerusalem, the homecoming from Babylon. But the question is, will you come? Will you come out, will you depart and return, or has Babylon become your home? And the temptation to go Babylonian must have been great. After all the first generation of captives might have pined for Jerusalem, for home, but subsequent generations could begin to feel at home in exile. And no doubt there were inducements: no doubt the exiles could benefit from full participation in the life of Babylon and in letting go of their Jewish identity. And Isaiah is pleading with them: ‘don’t sell out!’ Don’t be fooled! Babylon and its gods may have superficial appeal but they cannot satisfy the soul: Babylon is thin gruel. Babylon is junk food – instant gratification but with no real nourishment. So,
‘Why spend your money on what is not bread,
and your labour on what does not satisfy?’
Stay true to God. Keep the faith and delight in God’s rich feast which is free for all. And we have in the Bible the story of one Jew in Babylon who was faithful. His name was Daniel and he did very well in Babylon and rose to a high position in the king’s court. But he remained true to the God of Israel. He flourished in Babylon but kept his faith – and how did he demonstrate that? How did he show his loyalty to the living God and to his Jewish identity? Well, he refused to eat the food of the king’s court. He declined the impure, unclean diet of Babylon. He ate only vegetables and drank only water. In other words Daniel demonstrated which God he served by his diet, how he ate. And so Isaiah takes the image of food to depict the choice that the Jews in Babylon must make:
‘Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.’
Given the choice between the junk-food rations of the empire and the abundant bread of life which God offers there is no contest.
We find similar themes in our reading from Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians. Called to stand out as a contrast to the decadent culture of Corinth, things were evidently going awry in the church and members were settling back into old ways. Old habits and behaviour were resurfacing. And like the Jews in exile the church in Corinth has a choice, in their case between conformity to Corinth and conformity to Jesus. And just as with Isaiah, that choice is depicted in terms of food and drink. Paul reminds the church of the Israelites in the wilderness eating and drinking, eating manna from heaven and drinking water from the rock, and he recalls the lure of Egypt, the temptation to return back to captivity – and now that was happening again. The church in Corinth was being seduced back to Egypt. And if we had read on we would have found where it was all coming to a head. And where was that? Why, at the Lord’s table! Around food! To Paul’s utter dismay he discovered that at the Lord’s Table the rich were feasting while the poor were going without. It was no longer a beggars’ banquet. It had succumbed to wealth and status and it was there, around the table, that the choices between Corinth and Jesus, between Egypt and God’s new realm found expression.
You see, it’s all about food. Food becomes a symbol, food becomes an expression of how we live, the choices that we make, the habits that we follow, the gods we serve. And so today it’s vital for us to think about how we eat and what it reveals about us, what it says about the world we live in. At the very simplest level, we are told that one distinct feature of modern living is that families no longer sit down and eat together. Food is consumed more often than not in front of TVs and computer screens in different rooms and at different times. When I ministered in Cambridge I heard of a Cambridge College where students had to be stopped from coming and going during College dinners – apparently the whole idea of sitting down together and ending the meal together was lost on our educational elite. But this is more than about mere table manners. Our eating practices reveal the breakdown in community and our compulsive attachment to our screens. The table becomes a symbol of our whole understanding of human intercourse and community.
Take another example. My wife and I have for sometime have been doing our best to give up plastic. There has recently been such heightened awareness of the untold damage being done to the planet by plastic, not least its effect on marine life. So we are trying to eliminate plastic from our lives, but the food industry makes it hard. Try buying mushrooms that do not come in a plastic case. Try avoiding plastic in a supermarket! In some cases each and every aubergine, or pepper is individually wrapped in plastic – presumably because we don’t like our fruit and vegetables bruised. But at what price, and are there not other less destructive ways of doing this? The food industry discloses our cavalier attitude to creation and nature which is killing us. And speaking of our relationship to creation and nature, consider the meat industry and its appalling treatment of animals. And we know that the level of meat production required to satisfy demand is a major factor in environmental destruction – think methane gas and global warming, and think of the destruction of rain forests for the growing of soya to feed cattle to produce beef to produce burgers. And we know that the level of meat production required to satisfy demand results in antibiotics being less effective, and is a major cause of swine and avian flu. And our food production of course results in vast food waste – huge quantities of food thrown away, while great swathes of humanity struggle to feed themselves every day. And don’t forget that the great symbol of globalisation, the towering symbol of the great god of capitalism is what? Well, think of that great global image of McDonald’s, looking like golden angels’ wings! Yes, there is hardly a corner of the world where human beings are not gathered under McDonald’s sacred sign. The world unites around fast-food burgers. The spread of capitalism is measured by the spread of McDonald’s. It all comes down to food.
So why do we collude with it all? Why do we spend our money for that which is not bread?’ Why do we do it? Could it be that the way the food industry functions constitutes another Babylon that holds us in captivity? And just as the Jews allegiance to God and their resistance to Babylon was expressed in dietary terms – ‘why spend your money on what is not bread?’ – so with us. Our commitment to Christ finds expression in the food we eat. I am not trying to make vegetarians or vegans of us all, though a reduction in meat consumption would undoubtedly benefit the planet. But we need to see that food is profoundly symbolic. It discloses to us profound truths about who we are and who we serve. And just as in Isaiah’s day we are tempted to make choices which offer life but which do not satisfy – which in fact destroy us.
This season of Lent is traditionally a time of fasting, but if it is not your practice to fast perhaps it could at least be a time to think about food and the choices we make and what they disclose.
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Amen.
Hymn As Pants the Hart
Nahum Tate 1696, Public Domain, sung by Maddy Prior
As pants the hart for cooling streams
when heated in the chase,
so longs my soul, O God, for Thee,
and Thy refreshing grace.
For Thee, my God, the living God,
my thirsty soul doth pine;
Oh, when shall I behold Thy face,
Thou Majesty Divine?
God of my strength, how long shall I,
like one forgotten, mourn,
forlorn, forsaken, and exposed
to my oppressor’s scorn?
Why restless, why cast down, my soul?
hope still, and thou shalt sing
the praise of Him who is thy God,
thy health’s eternal spring.
Prayers of Intercession
O God, you tell us that we do not live by bread alone, for our souls need satisfying as well as our bodies. Yet we need to eat, and food can be one of the great joys of life.
And so today we pray firstly for those who go hungry today, those who are threatened with food shortages and famine – in places like Gaza and Sudan, where food is in short supply because of conflict, or greed, or incompetence.
O God we pray for fair and wise distribution of the world’s resources.
And we pray for charities and NGOs that work to bring relief to places where food is short: for the World Food Programme, for Christian Aid, TEAR Fund and Oxfam and others.
O God bless their work and bring food to those threatened with starvation.
And God, we pray to day for the food industry, for those whose business is to provide our needs. May they act in ways that are responsible, ways that are just, ways that are conducive to the wellbeing of the environment, ways that do not wreak undue pain and suffering on our fellow creatures. Guide the meat industry, we pray, and our participation in it, in ways that are humane and sustainable.
And God we pray once again for peace in our world – and especially in Gaza, and the middle east. And we pray for displaced people, for people who have lost loved ones, who have lost their homes and possessions.
And God we pray again for your church in the midst of a suffering world – that it might be a light, a place of hope and of humanity. Help us to offer to the world the true living bread, the rich food of the Gospel. And show us we pray, especially in this season of Lent, what it means to live out the feast of the Kingdom.
We ask you now to hear these prayers, for we pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen.
Offertory Prayer
For all that blesses and enriches our lives,
not least the food that we enjoy and that gives us strength,
we give you thanks and praise.
Take us and all that you have given us
and use us in the service of your Kingdom. Amen
Hymn Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer
William Williams (1745) translator Peter Williams (1771) Public Domain, BBC Songs of Praise
Guide me, O my great Redeemer, pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but you are mighty; hold me with your powerful hand.
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, feed me now and evermore,
feed me now and evermore.
Open now the crystal fountain, where the healing waters flow.
Let the fire and cloudy pillar lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer, strong Deliverer, ever be my strength and shield,
ever be my strength and shield.
When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside.
Death of death, and hell’s Destruction, land me safe on Canaan’s side.
Songs of praises, songs of praises I will ever give to Thee,
I will ever give to Thee.
Blessing
May God be above you and God beside you,
and heaven all around you as you journey on;
and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy spirit, be with you all, today and always. Amen