Sunday Worship 20th September
St Thomas' Church welcomes you to a Parish Eucharist at 10 am. Presiding and preaching today is Revd John Faraday, a retired Priest living in our parish.
We follow all of the advice from the Government, the Church of England and Manchester Diocese to ensure your safety. The wearing of face coverings is mandatory unless you are exempt from this requirement. Please do bring your own if you can, but we do have a limited supply of disposable face masks if you need one - so don't let that stop you from joining us.
The latest restrictions do not affect the numbers of people we are able to seat at our service, as we already have enough space to allow safe distancing. Please do remember though that socialising with people from outside your household before and after the service is not permitted at present.
Your own home is still the safest place to worship, particularly if you are shielding or in a vulnerable group, and you'll find everything you need here on this page.
This morning's first hymn is "Will You Let Me Be Your Servant" -
Today's Gospel Reading:
Reflection:
That’s not fair!! At first glance this is what many would say when looking at this Gospel passage. I guess we can all relate to the workers who have been paid the minimum wage of 1 denarius for a full day’s work whilst the next man gets the same for 1 hour. Would you be happy if you found out that your colleague was paid ten times more that you for doing exactly the same job?
How relevant is this to our present circumstances where we have people working full time on reduced wages, whilst others have been paid to stay at home on a furlough scheme? Or the person who toils long and hard for a modest wage whilst the CEO gets paid millions. Is it unfair or are we just being envious? What about all the people in our community who gladly volunteer and give their time for free?
When you are unemployed and looking for a job what motivates you? For most of us it’s a basic need to earn enough to look after our loved ones and provide for our future. Provided we can meet our essential needs and the rate of pay is deemed to be reasonable we are genuinely grateful that we have a job. So, when the workers who were employed at early in the morning got a job, did they cry out, ‘that’s not fair” because not everyone has a job. I suspect not, the instinct of every man for himself might have played a part.
Once our basic needs are met, we look for other things, what will make us more comfortable in life, the bigger house, the nicer car, holidays or meals out. How many of us put the need to help others and give to charities at the top of that list? How many of us would happily go to the government and suggest they put taxes up to pay the nurses and carers more money? Do we think we are worth more?
It could be argued that the owner of the vineyard was not being unfair to the earlier workers but that he was showing compassion for the families of the later worker that needed to be fed. He had the resources to be generous and did what he thought was right. So why should the earlier workers feel aggrieved – is there truly injustice in what has been done? Or is it their own jealousy and selfishness.
God gives his love, all of his love, to every person without exception if they open themselves to this love. It does not matter whether that happens early or late in life as this love can never be earned, only accepted. The fact that the latecomers were only employed at the last hour does not make their needs any less than those who came earlier. How big is my need for God today?
Today's Prayers:
And our final hymn for today is "O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing" -
