Trinity 18 / Pentecost 19 / Harvest Festival

04/10/2026

SENTENCE FROM SCRIPTURE:

You crown the year with goodness (Psalm 65)

HYMN

GREETING

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

COLLECT FOR PURITY

Almighty God,
to whom all hearts are open,
all desires known,
and from whom no secrets are hidden:
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love you,
and worthily magnify your holy name;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

SUMMARY OF THE LAW

Our Lord Jesus Christ said: The first commandment is this:

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.”

The second is this: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these. Amen. Lord, have mercy.

CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION

God is love and we are God’s children. There is no room for fear in love. We love because God loved us first.

Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith.

SILENCE

God our Father,
we confess to you
and to our fellow members in the Body of Christ
that we have sinned in thought, word and deed,
and in what we have failed to do.
We are truly sorry.
Forgive us our sins,
and deliver us from the power of evil,
for the sake of your Son who died for us, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

ABSOLUTION

God, who is both power and love,
forgive you and free you from your sins,
heal and strengthen you by the Holy Spirit,
and raise you to new life in Christ our Lord. Amen.

GLORIA
sung by Sue Turner

COLLECT (for the Season of Creation)

God, in whom all things are possible,
you crown the year with your goodness
and give us the fruits of the earth in their season:
grant that we may use them to your glory,
so that none may hunger, none may thirst,
and all may cherish the gifts of your creation,
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

PROCLAIMING & RECEIVING GOD’S WORD

FIRST READING
Exodus 20.1–4, 7–9, 12–20
read by Jess Fergusson

¹ Then God spoke all these words: ² I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery;

³ you shall have no other gods before me. ⁴ You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁷ You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. ⁸ Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labour and do all your work. ¹² Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. ^{✝ 13} You shall not murder. ¹⁴ You shall not commit adultery. ¹⁵ You shall not steal. ¹⁶ You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. ¹⁷ You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour. ¹⁸ When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, ¹⁹ and said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.’

²⁰ Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.’

SECOND READING
Philippians 3.4b–14
read by Amie Byers

⁴ If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. ⁷ Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸ More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, ⁹ not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. ¹² Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

¹³ Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

GRADUAL HYMN

GOSPEL
Matthew 21.33–46
read by Kay Solaja

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew Chapter 2, beginning at verse 33.

Glory to Christ our Saviour

Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people:

³³ ‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. ³⁴ When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. ³⁵ But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. ³⁶ Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. ³⁷ Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” ³⁸ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” ³⁹ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰ Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ ⁴¹ They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’

⁴² Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes”? ⁴³ Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. ⁴⁴ The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’ ⁴⁵ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. 46 They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

Give thanks to the Lord for his glorious Gospel
Praise to Christ our Lord.

SERMON

Thinking Points for Sunday, 04/10/2026

Harvest:

It’s not just farmers and horticulturalists who hope for a harvest:

Our whole way of life depends on there being food available. Whilst there can be shortages, and things can, often temporarily, become more expensive, most of us have enough. We need to remember those, whether near at hand, or further afield, who don’t have enough to sustain them, or to take enjoyment from what they eat or drink. What can we do to address that?

Some hae meat and cannae eat;

Some wad eat that want it

We hae meat and we can eat

Sae let the Lord be thankit.

Other kinds of harvests are prepared for, and hoped for, and enjoyed, by those who work on long term projects; those who train for things, who acquire, and use, skills, who plan, and who wait patiently. In amongst the skill, the diligence and the patience, we should also acknowledge that it is God who provides, and without him, we are, and have, nothing.

Unless the Lord builds the house,
The builders labour in vain
Unless the Lord guards the city,
The watchmen guard it in vain
In vain, you rise early, stay up late…

The Ten Commandments:

Often casually thought of as a series of ‘Thou Shalt Nots’, but, in fact, upon deeper consideration, are more akin to manufacturer’s instructions. We can, of course, decide not to take the advice not to steal, to put water in the kettle before boiling it, but there are usually consequences.

The Tenants in the Vineyard

This slightly follows on from the previous point about ‘Obey the Manufacturer’s Instructions’. The parable was told largely to illustrate people’s unwillingness to heed communication from the vineyard owner (God), sent by messengers (prophets) and even when brought by the owner’s own son (Jesus). But, taken in the context of our present day concerns about the environment, and today’s focus on Harvest, should we perhaps pay more attention to the risk of losing what we have, and take for granted?

THE CREED

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
God from God,
Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one substance with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father.
With the Father and the Son,
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

PRAYERS

Merciful Father accept these prayers for the sake of your Son,
our Saviour Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those
who sin against us.
Do not bring us
to the time of trial
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power
and the glory are yours,
now and forever. Amen.

BLESSING

Christ the Son of God gladden your hearts with the good news of his kingdom; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

HYMN

[This is not the Recessional Hymn we will be singing in church this morning. Unfortunately that one – We Live in God’s Great Garden – is not available on video. We hope this will be an adequate replacement.]

DISMISSAL

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord
In the name of Christ. Amen