THE EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 1ST OCTOBER 2023
SENTENCE FROM SCRIPTURE
“Give thanks to the Lord for He is good”
OPENING 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
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.
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
by Billy Dewar Riddick
COLLECT
Eternal God, you crown the year with your goodness
and you give us the fruits of the earth in their season:
grant that we may use them to your glory,
for the relief of those in need
and for our own well- being;
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 forever. Amen.
PROCLAIMING & RECEIVING GOD’S WORD
FIRST READING
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
read by Amie Byers
First Fruits and Tithes
“When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess and you possess it and settle in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ‘Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.’ When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, you shall make this response before the Lord your God: ‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.
When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.’ You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.
SECOND READING
2 Corinthians 9:6-15
read by Gill Swales
The point is this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. As it is written,
“He scatters abroad, he gives to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”
He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. Through the testing of this ministry you glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ and by the generosity of your sharing with them and with all others, while they long for you and pray for you because of the surpassing grace of God that he has given you. Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
GRADUAL HYMN
GOSPEL READING
LUKE 17:11-19
read by Rev James Clark Maxwell
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to St Luke chapter 17 beginning at verse 11
Glory to Christ our Saviour
Jesus Cleanses Ten Lepers
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’] feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? as none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”
Give thanks to the Lord for his glorious gospel.
Praise to Christ our Lord
REFLECTION
Gifts are something that we all like to receive. I received some time ago an amazing gift which I have mentioned before, but I feel that it is worth repeating. When I left Scotland about twenty years ago to minister in Southern Ireland, I received a gift from an elderly lady with whom I had become very well acquainted. This lady would have everything she needed but she would not have had much in the way of luxuries. I was reluctant to accept the gift but she insisted. When I opened the gift, I was surprised to find two cups, with matching saucers and plates. This kind lady had split her Denby set into two. She had given me half the set and retained the other half for herself. I protested to her that I couldn’t possibly take this gift and split up her set. But she replied ‘Janice, you have to! When you use these cups, saucers and plates I want you to remember me and pray for me and when I use mine, I will remember you and pray for you. Such gifts are precious because they are all about love, generosity and thankfulness.
Love, generosity, and thankfulness are central to what harvest is all about. Harvest is that wonderful time of the year when we stop, pause, and consider how great God is and when we take the opportunity to thank him for his great love and kindness to us. You know that moment when you hand a gift offer to someone, and you wait. You wait to see their reaction, you wait to hear their words of gratitude, you wait for the words to be uttered ‘Thank-you. Thank you so much! Your gift is just great. It’s what I wanted! So, harvest is like that for God. Throughout the year God showers us with great gifts and now at the harvest he waits, he watches our reaction, and he waits to hear our lips utter those heartfelt words of gratitude ‘thank you so much’.
Thankfulness is about remembering God. It is not forgetting all the blessings he showers upon us in this wonderful world, that he has made. And what a world it is! Did you know that there are 3,500 different frog species? Did you know that underneath the Pacific Ocean there are more than 14,000 mountains? Did you know that there are at least 100,000 million stars in the Milky Way? Did you know that Saguaros cacti can live for 200 years and reach 15m tall? Did you know that polar bears can swim 100 miles without stopping! What a wonderful world we live in and what marvellous gifts surround us day by day!
A lady in a developing country heard that every household in Scotland has as much water as it needs from a tap. She was astonished and exclaimed ‘how happy the people in that country must be! Are we happy? Or are we in danger of forgetting to count our blessings, and offer God our gratitude? In Deuteronomy reading we were reminded ‘be careful that you do not forget the Lord, and remember it is He who gives you all the blessings.
God gives us in Scotland many blessings-if you own just one Bible, you are abundantly blessed for one third of the world does not have access to even one. If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than one million you will not survive the week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people around the world. If you attend a church meeting without fear or harassment, arrest, torture, or death you are more blessed than almost 3 billion people around the world. If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet and spare change in a dish someplace you are among the top 8%of the world’s wealthy. Whether rich or poor if you can hold up your head with a smile on your face and be truly thankful, you are greatly blessed! God’s blessings and gifts abound! We need to stop more often and consider and appreciate his goodness to us.
Not only are we not to forget the Lord but we are to be attentive to the way he packages his gifts to us. His love and care come in all sorts of packaging and sadly at times his gifts are cast aside because they do not come in the packaging we expect! There was a young man getting ready to graduate from college. For many months he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealer’s showroom and knowing his father could well afford it, he told him that was all he wanted. As graduation day approached the young man watched for signs that his father had purchased the car. Finally on the morning of his graduation his father called him into his private study. His father told him how proud he was to have such a fine son, and told him how much he loved him. He handed his son a beautiful wrapped gift box.
Curious but somewhat disappointed the young man found a lovely leather- bound Bible with the young man’s name embossed in gold. Angrily he raised his voice to his father and said ‘with all your money you give me a Bible? And he stormed out of the house, leaving the Bible. Many years passed since the graduation day. He was very successful in business, had a nice home and family. Since his father was very old, he thought he should go to him. He had not seen him since that graduation day. But he was too late, his father died and he was sent a telegram asking him to take care of things. When he arrived at his father’s house, a sudden sadness and regret filled his heart. He began to search for his father’s important papers and saw still the new Bible, just as he had left it years ago. With tears he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages. His father had carefully underlined a verse’ if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more shall your heavenly Father in heaven’ as he read those words a car key dropped from the back of the Bible. It had a tag with the dealer’s name, the same dealer who had the sport’s car he desired. On the tag was the date of his graduation and the words ‘paid in full’. How many times do we miss God’s gifts because they are not packaged as we expected? His gifts are ever present before us we need to stop, open our eyes, see and appreciate.
Sometimes we don’t appreciate God’s gifts and we end up taking them for granted. A true story is told of a shipwreck off the coast of Evanston, Illinois many years ago. The students of Northwestern University came to the rescue. In 1860, a ship went aground on the shore of Lake Michigan near Evanston, and Edward Spencer, a ministerial student waded again and again into the frigid waters to rescue 17 passengers. In the process, his health was permanently damaged, and he became an invalid. Years later, a reporter was writing a follow up story of the event, and went to interview the now elderly Spenser. When asked what was the one thing that stood out about the incident in his mind? Spenser replied: “I remember that of the seventeen people I saved that day, not one of them ever thanked me. That story reflects well our gospel story of the nine lepers who never thanked Jesus.
These lepers had much to give thanks for. Their life till that moment was miserable. This terrible disease had robbed them of the sense of feeling, then the loss of hair, feet, hands, nose, eyes, etc. Their own family treated them as some grotesque monster. They subsisted on alms given by strangers. From time to time, they would cry out, “Unclean, unclean,” to warn away the unsuspecting. They were probably grouped together for that was the only companionship they had. Then they cry to Jesus’ Master have pity on us’ Jesus pauses a moment on his journey. He turns to them with a compassionate expression on his face and says simply, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” As they go, they are surprised to see that their ugly sores are disappearing and that their skin is clean and whole. They are overjoyed and rush off to see the priests and then their families. However, one stops and comes back to thank Jesus. Inside he has a deep sense of gratitude for what Jesus has done and he thanks him for this wonderful gift of healing. Were the others ungrateful? Maybe or perhaps, they were like young children, overawed by the enormity of the gift that they had received, that they forgot their manners! Either way it is interesting to note that Jesus was disappointed in their failure to give thanks!
Today is our opportunity not to disappoint Jesus and not to forget to thank him for the blessings that he has given us. Oh, maybe life this year has been tough but truly we still have so much to give thanks for. All we have is gift from God. Gift and thanksgiving are central to harvest.
The word harvest spells the word earth. The earth is full of God’s gifts. God does not want us to forget his goodness, his amazing creativity and imagination, and so he entrusts the earth to our careful stewarding. Harvest spells the word tears. Tears shed during the course of this year. Tears that God sees and takes to heart. God cares for us and he will not forsake us. He is with us in our difficulties. He journeys with us- Emmanuel – God with us.
The word harvest spells the word starve. We are to be conscious and alert to those in our world who struggle because of the lack of food and basic necessities. We are not only to be alert, but rather we are called as the next word of harvest indicates to share. We are to generously give of our riches to others. Harvest spells the word heart. We are to have a heart of thanksgiving and praise to God. Our heart is a heart that does not forget the Lord. It is a heart that is full of thanksgiving and gratitude. May indeed our hearts be lifted in thanks and praise to God for all his blessings to us this harvest. AMEN.
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
Creator God,
we pray for those to whom we owe our harvest,
all whose labour and dedication enables us
to share in the riches of this world’s resources.
Lord you have blessed us richly:
teach us to remember others.
We pray for our farmers,
thanking you for their gifts and abilities
and for their adaptability to the weather and seasons.
We ask that you will help and strengthen them,
in these times of uncertainty and concern.
Lord you have blessed us richly:
teach us to remember others.
We pray for farmers in other lands-
denied the resources they need to cultivate the land,
overwhelmed by drought, flood or other catastrophe,
oppressed by exploitative regimes
or economic systems loaded against them,
both they and their people unable to enjoy
the due fruits of their labours.
We pray for new governance and positive change.
Lord you have blessed us richly:
teach us to remember others.
We pray for those who bring in the harvest or earth and sea-
minerals, oil, gas, fish-
a harvest often involving danger to life and limb.
Grant them skill and protection.
Lord you have blessed us richly:
teach us to remember others.
We pray for those especially in those recent months
who make possible the harvest of technology,
scientists, technicians, computer programmers and engineers-
their skills opening up new worlds and untold horizons,
capable of so much good.
Grant them wisdom, ingenuity, and a due sense of responsibility.
Lord you have blessed us richly:
teach us to remember others.
We pray for our leaders in government,
trying to make good and wise decisions
regarding the nation’s health and economy.
Grant them the wisdom and insight they need.
Help them in their deliberations about climate change,
peace negotiations, immigrant support and financial matters.
Lord you have blessed us richly:
teach us to remember others.
We pray for those in the caring professions,
thinking especially of doctors, nurses,
and all hospital staff, that they might be appreciated for what they do.
We pray for all today who are sick in body, mind or spirit,
and lift them to you for your divine healing touch.
Lord you have blessed us richly:
teach us to remember others.
We pray for those who help reap the harvest of minds-
teachers, professors, researchers and scholars,
each striving to expand our knowledge,
and enlarge our understanding.
Give them patience, dedication, and integrity.
Lord you have blessed us richly:
teach us to remember others.
Creator God,
hear our prayer for all who make available,
the innumerable and diverse riches of your creation.
Equip, inspire, and guide them in their work,
so that they may steward your gifts
wisely for the good of all.
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.
HYMN
BLESSING
The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God and of His son Jesus Christ our Lord: and the blessing of God almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen
