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Almighty and everlasting God, increase in us your gift of faith that, forsaking what lies behind and reaching out to that which is before, we may run the way of your commandments and win the crown of everlasting joy; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

First Bible Reading Genesis Chapter 15:1-6

Ecclesiastes 1: 2, 12-14, 2: 18-23
Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless. I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labour under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labours under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless. (Reader: This is the word of the Lord—All: Thanks be to God)

Second Reading Colossians Chapter 3:1-11
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
(Reader: This is the word of the Lord - All: Thanks be to God)

Gospel Reading Luke Chapter 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'
"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.".
(Reader: This is the word of the Lord - All: Thanks be to God)

Post Communion Prayer

We praise and thank you, O Christ, for this sacred feast: for here we receive you, here the memory of your passion is renewed, here our minds are filled with grace, and here a pledge of future glory is given, when we shall feast at that table where you reign with all your saints for ever. Amen.

Commentary

Balancing Values
Jesus was teaching His disciples when He was interrupted by someone who wanted him to resolve a family dispute over inheritance. He was not really asking for advice. He wanted Jesus to stand on his side and "tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." He wanted Jesus to get the money for him, but Jesus saw the true problem in his heart - greed. And He uses the opportunity to warn the people of the danger of greed and placing one’s confidence in earthly possessions. Ultimately Jesus did act as judge for the family member; He pointed out to him the danger in his request to settle the family dispute!

Ancestral inheritance was one of Judaism’s central symbols and getting it right was part of obedience to God’s will. The nation of Israel too had traditionally prided itself on national identity and security, claiming for itself more and more ‘ancestral’ territory. But all the time God was calling both individuals and the nation back, not to be a people with great wealth and land but to be a holy community who could be a light to the world. It’s a task that the Jews never come to fulfil and one which according to Luke in the Nunc Dimitus, is passed to Jesus who is ‘a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory to your people Israel’. Israel had lost the true focus of their inheritance; an inheritance which was based on a covenant relationship with God, not just in promised lands and possessions.

The gospel reading forces us to think about our values and the balance we need to maintain between our earthly and our heavenly inheritance and birthrights. A balance between seeing wealth as evil and seeing it useful to fulfil the purpose of God. Indeed, Luke doesn’t say that money is sinful, but rather that greed is the problem. What do we do with our worldly riches and, in particular, what do we do with the surplus each one of us enjoys? Do we keep the surplus for ourselves, storing it up for a rainy day, or do we share our wealth openly and generously with others, especially those in need? Do we focus on our ‘lands and possessions’ or do we focus on our covenant relationship with a generous God who calls us through Christ to be lights to the world and to be rich towards God? Selfishness in God’s communal world is destructive to all, leading to violence and to war, in families, communities and even nature itself. Jesus reminds us that He wants us to invest in things that have eternal value not just earthy possessions.

God wants us to enjoy life, but not without a relationship with Him. In the epistle reading Paul exhorts all followers of Christ to ‘set your minds on things above, not on earthly things’. And it’s as we set our minds on Him that we achieve the balance between current and future needs and using our money, and all that God has given us, wisely. And in so doing we come into our ultimate inheritance, the promise of eternal life. Sam Cappleman

Meditation

In one of his books Leo Tolstoy tells the story of a young Russian who inherits his father’s small farm. He immediately starts dreaming of how to expand his property when one morning a well-dressed stranger visits him and makes him an offer that is too good to be true - he could have free of charge all the property he could walk around in one day. The only condition was that he returns to the same spot from which he started, the grave of his father, before the sun went down. Seeing the rich fields in the distance, he sets out without taking any provisions or saying goodbye to his family. He figured he could cover six square miles in a day. After a short while he decided to make it nine, then twelve and finally fifteen square miles. By noon he makes it to the halfway point. Though hungry with his legs aching he continues. He was near the point of exhaustion but the obsession to own the land drives him on. With only a few minutes left before the sun went down, he gathers all his strength, stumbles across the line, the new owner of fifteen square miles of land, and then collapses on the ground, dead.
The stranger smiles and said, "I offered him all the land he could cover. Now you see what that is, six feet long by two feet wide, and I thought he would like to have the land close to his father’s grave, rather than to have it anywhere else." Having said that, the stranger whose name is Death vanishes, saying "I have kept my pledge." Sam Cappleman

Hymns

All creatures of our God and King, 7
Jubilate everybody, 394
All people that on earth do dwell, 20
As the deer pants for the water, 37
Immortal, Invisible, God only wise, 327

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

representation of prayer as seed growing

"Prayer is a plant, the seed of which is sown in the heart of every Christian.
If it is well cultivated and nourished it will produce fruit, but if it is neglected, it will wither and die."

O God, the King of Righteousness, lead us we pray, in the way of justice and of peace. Inspire us to break down all oppression and wrong, to gain for everyone their reward, and from every one their due service; that each may live for all, and all may care for each, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our needs before we ask, and our ignorance in our asking; have compassion on our weakness, and give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask, for the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Lord, Jesus Christ, let me seek you by desiring you, and let me desire you by seeking you. Let me find you by loving you, and love you in finding you. Amen. St Anselm

The God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the eternal covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen

Additional Resources

A reading from Peter Abelard
From somewhere near them in the woods a cry rose, a thin cry, of such intolerable anguish that Abelard turned dizzy on his feet, and caught at the wall of the hut. ’It’s a child’s voice,’ he said.Thibault had gone outside. The cry came again. ‘A rabbit,’ said Thibault. He listened. ‘It’ll be in the trap. Hugh told me he was putting them down.’ ‘O God,’ Abelard muttered. ‘Let it die quickly.’ But the cry came yet again. He plunged through a thicket of hornbeam. ‘Watch out,’ said Thibault, thrusting past him. ’The trap might take the hand off you.’ The rabbit stopped shrieking when they stooped over it, either from exhaustion, or in some last extremity of fear. Thibault held the teeth of the trap apart, and Abelard gathered up the little creature in his hands. It lay for a moment breathing quickly, then in some blind recognition of the kindness that had met it at the last, the small head thrust and nestled against his arm, and it died. It was that last confiding thrust that broke Abelard’s heart. He looked down at the little draggled body, his mouth shaking. ’Thibault,’ he said , ’do you think there is a God at all? Whatever has come to me, I earned it. But what did this one do?’ Thibault nodded. ’I know,’ he said. ’Only I think God is in it too.’ Abelard looked up sharply. ’In it? Do you mean that it makes him suffer, the way it does us?' Again Thibault nodded. ’Then why doesn’t he stop it?’ ’I don’t know,’ said Thibault. ’Unless it’s like the prodigal son. I suppose the father could have kept him at home against his will. But what would have been the use? All this,’ he stroked the limp body, ‘ is because of us. But all the time God suffers. More than we do.’ Abelard looked at him, perplexed. ‘Thibault, do you mean Calvary?’ Thibault shook his head. ‘That was only a piece of it - the piece that we saw - in time. Like that.’ He pointed to a fallen tree beside them, sawn through the middle. ’That dark ring there, it goes up and down the whole length of the tree. But you only see it where it is cut across. That is what Christ’s life was; the bit of God that we saw. And we think God is like that, because Christ was like that, kind and forgiving sins and healing people. We think God is like that forever, because it happened once, with Christ. But not the pain. Not the agony at the last. We think that stopped.’ Abelard looked at him, the blunt nose and the wide mouth, the honest troubled eyes. He could have knelt before him. ’Then, Thibault,’ he said slowly, ‘you think that all this,’ he looked down at the little quiet body in his arms, ’all the pain of the world, was Christ’s cross?’ ‘God’s cross,’ said Thibault. ‘And it goes on.’

Opening Verse of Scripture Colossians Chapter 3:1

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

Collect Prayer for the Day-Before we read we pray

Almighty Lord and everlasting God, we beseech you to direct, sanctify and govern both our hearts and bodies in the ways of your laws and the works of your commandments; that through your most mighty protection, both here and ever, we may be preserved in body and soul; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

First Bible Reading, Hosea Chapter 11:1

"When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realise it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them. "Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans. My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, he will by no means exalt them. "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused. I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man-- the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath. They will follow the LORD; he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west. They will come trembling like birds from Egypt, like doves from Assyria. I will settle them in their homes," declares the LORD. (This is the word of the Lord —Thanks be to God) (This is the word of the Lord—Thanks be to God)

Second Bible Reading, Luke 12:13-21

Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' "Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."' "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?' "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God." (This is the word of the Lord—Thanks be to God)

Post Communion Prayer

Strengthen for service, Lord, the hands that have taken holy things; may the ears which have heard your word be deaf to clamour and dispute; may the tongues which have sung your praise be free from deceit; may the eyes which have seen the tokens of your love shine with the light of hope; and may the bodies which have been fed with your body be refreshed with the fullness of your life; glory to you for ever. Amen.

A prayer Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your Church; and, because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Commentary

We have today from the Old Testament a reading from the Book of the prophet Hosea. Throughout the writing Hosea uses symbolism to tell of the way the people of the northern kingdom of Israel have forsaken God's ways: they have deserted God and their covenant with him. Much of the book of Hosea warns of the consequences they will suffer for their waywardness. They have insisted on worshipping pagan gods ("kept sacrificing for the Baals", v. 2). (Baal was a god in the religions of both Canaan and Tyre.)

Hosea knew about waywardness, he was married to a woman who went off with other men and through the bitterness of his own disappointment was able to see how God too would have felt betrayed.

Hosea recalls the Exodus from Egypt (vv. 1-4). He compares God's loving leadership of the Israelites with a parent nurturing a child. Off worshipping other gods, they are unaware that God cared for them, healed them, and fed them. ( "Ephraim", v. 3, means Israel: this tribal territory was a particularly important part of the north.) Verses 5-7 tell of the punishment which the people will suffer for their rebellion, they will be exiled to "Assyria." Since they did not return to God, they will be in bondage, as they were in "Egypt". There will be fighting "in their cities" (v. 6); their priests will be killed. Even though they will call upon God for help, he will not hear them (v. 7).

Characteristically however the later part of the passage in verses 8-9 is in a very different tone. God speaks in a human, emotional way, his anger (unlike human anger) does not last; he will again be compassionate. He will not cause the utter destruction of the cities and their inhabitants. Many commentators find it hard to reconcile the messages of doom and destruction found in the prophets alongside the messages of hope and reconciliation. This is however a recurring theme, God loves his people and cannot desert or punish them ultimately, no matter how much they deserve it. God will forgive and does always love, just as Hosea forgave and took back his wife in spite of her waywardness. If Hosea found it in his heart to overlook the sin and forgive, how much greater was the compassion and grace of God.

Meditation

Lord, our God and King, your greatness is seen throughout the earth. When I gaze at the heavens which your fingers have formed, and look at the moon and the stars which you have set there, I realise how small we are in the magnificence of your creation. Yet you treasure us above all that you have made, and you give us control over all the works of your hand - animals both wild and tame, birds in the air, and the creatures of the sea. Lord, our God and King, your greatness is seen throughout the earth.

Prayer

Father of everlasting goodness, our Creator and Guide, be close to us and hear our prayers. Forgive us when we forget to trust You to provide us with every blessing in this life. Giver of all good gifts, help us not to seek things for ourselves, but to seek ways in which we might be of service to others

Teach us to treasure Christ and His grace above all earthly possessions. Help us to continually cast our lot with life and not with death; with grace and not with judgement, with love and not with hate, with giving and not with receiving, with praising and not being praised., with trusting and not with fear

As we pray for ourselves, we pray also for blessing to be upon others, bring to pass that which they most need in their lives right now:

Lord, I pray for all who suffer from hatred and prejudice, from abuse and ill-treatment, and for all who are victims of what others do. I pray, too, for the people of violence, that they may change their ways and learn to respect others. I pray for myself, that when I face what is negative or evil I may have the courage and generosity to break the cycle of violence, hatred, fear or distrust, and make my own choices and take responsibility for the direction in which I want my life to go. I pray that I may always do to others as I would wish them to do to me. Amen.

Hymns (Mission Praise)

1. Stand up and bless the Lord 513 Mission Praise (Tune i), 2. Sing of the Lord's goodness 26 Glory to God, 3. Now thank we all our God 486 Mission Praise, 4. Love divine 449 Mission Praise 5. Sing to God new songs of worship 600 Mission praise

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