Worship at Home - By Revd Hamilton

Welcome to Worship at Home with Middlesbrough Methodist Churches.

Worship this week is led by Revd Charity Hamilton

Hymn: StF 701 Heaven Shall Not Wait

https://youtu.be/VOHOmQ9LU1M?list=RDVOHOmQ9LU1M

Opening Prayer

God of deep places and distant shores,
we come to you today not with tidy prayers,
but with the scattered pieces of ourselves.

Some of us arrive full of doubt.
Some of us arrive exhausted by the news,
weary of war and helplessness,
not sure what to say anymore.

Some of us are holding grief we can't name,
and others have silenced parts of ourselves just to get through the week.

But still—here we are.
Gathered, like fragments pulled toward healing.
Listening, like the man in the tombs,
for a voice strong enough to quiet the noise inside.

So speak to us, Jesus.
Speak with kindness.
Speak with authority.
Name the lies we’ve believed,
and name us beloved in their place.

Let this time be a thin place—
between what is broken and what is being remade.
Between the ache of the world,
and the hope that still flickers beneath it all.

We pray this in your name,
the One who crosses every sea to find us.

Amen.

Readings  Psalms 42 & 43; Luke 8: 26-39  

Reflection

"What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?"- the man asked, naked among the tombs. And don't we all ask that question, in some way? What do you have to do with me, Jesus, when my life is full of ghosts I don't know how to name? When my hope is as brittle as glass in my throat, when the news from Gaza feels like it’s burning a hole in my spirit. And even as I pray for peace, I wonder: Do I really want it, if it costs me my illusions?

The Gerasene man is us. Not just one man, but a metaphor for a people - fragmented, tormented, possessed by a legion of voices that shout louder than truth. He lived among tombs. And we, too, sometimes set up home among the dead things: grievances we water daily, hatreds justified by the nightly news, and that odd comfort in despair that lets us avoid the pain of hope. "My tears have been my food day and night," says Psalm 42. In the occupied territories, where drones hum and children don’t sleep through the night, isn’t that prayer still being prayed? And from Rafah, from Sderot, from the ruins of towers and the hearts of grieving mothers, tears are still food. Grief is still daily bread. But here’s what unsettles me, what haunts: Jesus doesn't flinch. He doesn’t turn away. He crosses stormy seas for the sake of one tormented soul. He enters the land of the unclean, the enemy, the occupied, the disturbed.And maybe that’s the beginning of healing - someone crossing the sea toward your pain instead of away from it. The demons have names. Jesus asks for it. Legion. A word for military occupation. A word for how many voices we’ve let take over.
Racism. Cynicism. Consumerism. Exceptionalism. The inability to see the image of God in someone whose map looks different than ours. These are our demons.
And perhaps they don't froth at the mouth - they wear suits, craft policies, set algorithms. They whisper in boardrooms and on social media. And they tell us the lie that "some lives matter more." But Jesus sends them away. He doesn’t negotiate with them. He doesn’t let them stay.  

Healing starts when the lie loses its voice. The man is clothed, and in his right mind. And the townspeople? They're terrified. Because healing threatens the order we've grown used to.And still today, many would rather keep the world demon-possessed, as long as it stays predictable. But the Gospel won't allow it. Because the Kingdom of God is always a disruption. So maybe this week, we dare to name some demons. In our hearts, in our systems, in our history. We stop trying to manage them, and ask Jesus to do what he always does - cross the sea, enter the tombs, and speak peace where the noise was.

And then, maybe like the psalmist, we’ll pray not just with tears, but with hope: "Why are you cast down, O my soul? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God."

Amen.

Hymn: StF 655 We Cannot Measure How You Heal

https://youtu.be/OrNoQisGbDw

Prayers  

God of stormy seas and shores soaked in blood,
we cry out for Gaza.
For the mothers and fathers who bury children.
For the medics who treat wounds that never make the headlines.
For the prisoners—both those behind walls of concrete
and those behind ideologies too strong to crack.
Liberate us all.
Not just from the violence that bombs,
but the violence that forgets, that dehumanises, that justifies.
Christ, cross every sea.
Cast out every Legion.
Make us whole again.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

Jesus,
some of us are the man among the tombs.
And some of us are the villagers who are scared of the healing.
We are possessed by the need to be right,
by fear of the other,
by apathy so deep it feels like sleepwalking.

Call us into our right minds.
Clothe us with truth.
Send us back to tell how mercy has touched us,
so our stories might heal what violence has broken.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.

Amen.  

Hymn: StF 255 The Kingdom of God is Justice & Joy

https://youtu.be/KXZsAM4T7iU

Blessing

May you go from this place
not to forget, but to remember differently.
May your grief be honest.
May your rage be holy.
And may your hope be inconvenient enough to change the world.

And the blessing of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,  

Be with us, those we love & those we ought to love.

Amen.