Welcome to Sunday Worship in Leesfield Parish on the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity, which is also our Parish Harvest Festival.
This morning there will be only one service in the parish, at 11.15 am at St Thomas' Church, and there will be no service at St Agnes'. The service will be followed by a 'Bring and Share Lunch', to which everyone is invited, whether you are able to bring anything or not - there is always an abundance of food!
We will also be most grateful for donations of non-perishable food items to share with the local community through Oldham Foodbank.
If you are unable to be with us in person, you will find resources below to worship at home.
Our first hymn this morning is "Morning Has Broken"
Today's Gospel
Luke 12:16-30The Parable of the Rich Fool
Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’
He said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them.
Reflection
In our reading today Jesus told a story about a rich man who owned land. The land grew lots of food crops and one year, the man’s harvest was bigger than ever before.
He had more food than he knew what to do with. He had so much food that it wouldn’t fit inside the barns on his farm. The man had to choose what to do with all those crops and all that food.
What he chose to do was to build even bigger barns and to keep all the food for himself, just in case.
Jesus’ story tells us that there are a few problems here.
Firstly, the rich man didn’t recognise that he already had more than enough, more than he needed. Indeed far more than he needed. He already had enough food to fill his barns to overflowing.
Secondly, the rich man focused only on himself; he didn’t think about other people.
And third, he forgot what it means to be really ‘rich’.
The rich man held on tight to what he had and by doing that he missed out on the chance to share with his neighbours. He missed out on the chance to see what sharing could do, the change and growth it could bring for his community. He failed to recognise the benefits and joys of giving - As Paul tells us that God loves a cheerful giver, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. [2 Corinthians 9].
When we share and help one another, that’s when we find real riches. Jesus tells us not to ‘store up treasures’ for ourselves but to be ‘rich towards God’.
But what does that mean? How do we do that? We do that by listening to God’s word and by being generous, loving, and open-hearted with one another.
Elsewhere in the Bible, Jesus says that everyone will know who his followers are by the love we show one another. That is what marks us out as Jesus’ disciples. We are ‘rich towards God’ when we follow God’s commandments to love God and to love each other.
We often think we don’t have enough, and sadly for some that is true. But as we celebrate harvest season, perhaps we need to challenge ourselves and think about whether instead we have more than enough, more than we need.
Perhaps also challenge what we do with our money, do we really need that big car that costs a fortune in fuel and insurance? Do we need so many TV channels when we have so much else to do in our lives? And do we need to stockpile things just in case we might need them?
What are we doing with the surplus, with the extra? Are we building bigger barns, holding on to things tightly, and keeping what we have to ourselves? Do we end up throwing food away as waste?
What could we do differently?
One step might be sharing our food [as we are doing through all the wonderful harvest offering which people donated at our Harvest Festival this week]. These gifts will be taken to Oldham Foodbank. Or it could be donating toys or clothes, sharing our time by, and love by, seeking out someone who needs support and kindness.
Or it could be by helping someone we don’t even know by making a donation to people across the world who really know what it’s like to have no food and who suffer malnutrition. If you wish to you can share your love and hope with our global neighbours by making an online donation to Christian Aid atcaid.org.uk/harvest .
As we celebrate Harvest today, and as we celebrate the bounty of God’s gifts and his grace, let’s remember those who do have so much less - and consider what we can do to be ‘rich towards God’ and one another. And let us give thanks for the gifts that have been donated today for families in need in our community, including those in and around our churches. Rev. Paul
Our Prayers
Heavenly Father and maker of all things,
We give thanks for your creation and all the things you provide.
We pray for those who are not so fortunate,
that we may recognise what we have,
and ungrudgingly share what we have with generosity and love.
And pray that as caring stewards, we may respect your creation
enabling the harvests of future generations.
Amen
Today's final hymn is "All Thing Bright and Beautiful"
Notices
Upcoming events and services can be seen in the posters below-
Welcome to Sunday Worship in Leesfield Parish on the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity. Our Church Services this morning are at the usual times of 9.15 at St Agnes' and 11.15 at St Thomas'.
If you are unable to be with us in person, you will find resources below to worship at home.
Our first hymn this morning is "Christ Triumphant, Ever Reigning"
Today's Gospel
Matthew 21:33-end The Parable of the Wicked Tenants
“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went away. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them in the same way. Then he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 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.”
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’?
“Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruits. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
Reflection
To understand the parable that forms the Gospel reading today, we really have to look at the Old Testament reading that precedes it from ‘The Book of Isaiah 5.1-7’. This is written in the form of a love song from God to his people. It is often called ‘The Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard’. In this, the prophet sings of a vineyard (Israel), planted on a fertile hill and tended with great care (by the people of Judah) cleared of stones, planted with choice vines, equipped with a watchtower and wine vat.
Despite this care, the vineyard produces wild or rotten grapes instead of good fruit.
God gives the people every opportunity to flourish and to thrive, but instead, time and again they produce only sour fruit – violence, bloodshed and exploitation. Therefore, God declares He will remove its hedge, break down its wall, and let it become a wasteland, unpruned, overgrown, and deprived of rain. God expected justice and righteousness but instead found horror and cries of distress.
Jesus is speaking this parable to his disciples and the crowds gathered. We must understand that he knew exactly who he was speaking to, and not least, who he was speaking about - the religious leaders, the pharisees and the scribes, and the people would have no doubt that he was drawing examples from the book of Isaiah, and relating to them in a round-about way that the leaders of this day, who were every bit as bad as those vineyards that Isaiah sang about! Jesus is warning them that the power and the privilege they enjoy as God’s chosen people is in dangerous waters – it can be removed easily if God wanted to do so. We might wonder why he is being so provocative, why so outspoken? Maybe he could have landed the parable more subtly, without the stark comparisons being made? But here, Jesus is still in grave dispute with ‘those in charge’ over the loss of his cousin and his friend, John the Baptist, and whether they accepted he was a prophet. He has launched at them the parable of the Two Sons, and then goes straight into this parable, just in case they have not quite grasped the concept in the first place.
In the parable, the prophets are sent (as the servants of the tenants) and are repeatedly killed by the tenants, (the Old Testament tells us that God’s prophets - including John the Baptist, are killed time and again by the people God has sent them to), until God sends his own Son, and then sure enough, they plot and plan to kill him too, (which of course they go on and succeed with also).
On first reading this parable, it can feel a little bleak – where is the hope as the story builds? But then, of course, comes the crux of the matter, as Jesus quotes Psalm 118: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” Even though the tenants kill the Son, the parable points beyond death to resurrection: The rejected stone becomes the cornerstone and the Son’s death leads to the kingdom being opened to new people who will bear fruit.
The hope is that God’s love, patience, justice, and kingdom cannot be stopped — not by corrupt leaders, not by violence, not even by the killing of His Son.
In times gone by, people sometimes mistakenly thought that when Jesus says the vineyard will be given to “others who will produce fruit,” this was a rejection of his chosen ‘people’ Israel, and at this point, promotes Christianity to the theological ‘number one’. However, this is a dangerous path to tread. At no point does God reject his chosen people – they were chosen, they remain chosen. He is not talking about replacing Jews with Christians. He means that the covenant is open to all nations, that those who respond to Jesus will be welcomed and become a faithful community of fruit bearers. Christianity does not replace Judaism; it teaches that God entrusts His kingdom to all who respond faithfully — an invitation open to Jews, Gentiles, and anyone who bears fruit. In Romans, Paul explains this beautifully – he explains that God does not plant a new tree. He says there is one tree, the covenant people of God, rooted in the patriarchs. Christians are not a new tree, we are wild branches grafted in. The simple truth is the original tree remains beloved, chosen, and alive. But the new branches keep it thriving.
What was rejected becomes the foundation, what was wild is now welcome, what was broken is now healed. What hope can be found here, what love is demonstrated and what inclusion we receive.
As we journey through this next week or so, let us check that we have our hearts and minds on being the good and robust fruit bearers Jesus called us to be. As the parable states, ‘this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’ Rev Kirsten x
Our Prayers
Father God, thank you that your love is wider than our boundaries and your mercy deeper than our understanding.
You have tended one tree through all generations, welcoming all who turn to you, grafting all by grace. May the rejected stone become our cornerstone, and may your kingdom bear fruit in us, in justice, kindness, and courage, for the healing of the world you love.
Amen.
Today's final hymn is "I, The Lord of Sea and Sky"
Notices
Next Sunday is our Harvest Festival, and there will only be one service in our parish, at 11.15 at St Thomas' Church.
Welcome to Sunday Worship in Leesfield Parish on the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity. Our Church Services this morning are at the usual times of 9.15 at St Agnes' and 11.15 at St Thomas'.
If you are unable to be with us in person, you will find resources below to worship at home.
Our first hymn this morning is "At the Name of Jesus"
Today's Gospel
Matthew 21:23-32The Authority of Jesus Questioned
When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.”
Reflection
In today’s gospel passage we hear Matthew’s account of Jesus’ authority being challenged. So before we go any further it is perhaps useful to think about who was challenging him and why.
The people who were challenging Jesus’ authority were the Pharisees, Scribes and elders of the temple. They were the leaders.
The Chief Priests could trace their spiritual connections back to Moses. The Scribes were the most learned theologians in Jewish society. The Elders had many years of experience and had the unquestioning respect of the people.
They had significant religious and political power and did not want to give that up to anyone else. They not only wanted the power but they craved the recognition and the prestige. So much so that some of them showed no compassion for the poor and the sick and they despised those they judged to be sinners.
So, why did they challenge Jesus?
They have no doubt heard the stories of the prophet John the Baptist who was baptising thousands and thousand of people in the River Jordan – a baptism of repentance and encouraging them to turn away from their sinful ways.
Then along comes Jesus. The, so called, prophet from Nazareth – the one who John the Baptist referred to as the Lamb of God. The one who has healed the sick, cured the lame and brought the dead back to life. The one who when he entered Jerusalem on a donkey was celebrated and acclaimed as the Messiah – the anointed one who will save the world.
Then, the first thing Jesus does when he enters the courts of the Temple is to cause havoc – overturning the tables of the money changers and the traders who were exploiting the worshippers with the complicit approval of the leaders. He then proceeds to cure the lame and sick within the Temple, thereby blatantly demonstrating his divine power to heal human brokenness and associated with the marginalised and outsiders. He was challenging the power of the leaders.
But not with might or wealth, he was challenging them with compassion and love. He was challenging them about their own neglect. Their inability to lead by example and to follow God’s will. He was challenging their inability to care for the people of God because of their own corruptness and love of power.
Everything Jesus said and did was confrontational; and a challenge to their status and power.
So they in turn challenged Jesus and asked, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”
But Jesus has absolutely no intention of getting engaged in some abstract debate about the nature of his authority. He didn’t need to show off to prove that his authority is greater than theirs. He had already demonstrated his authority.
The authority of Jesus was worked out in his welcoming of sinners and prostitutes. The authority of Jesus was worked out in his welcoming of little children. The authority of Jesus was worked out in his welcoming of the outcasts and those on the margins.
So instead, he asks them a question that will cause them to struggle and be forced to reflect on the true nature of authority itself. Jesus asks, “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”
They are flummoxed and unable to answer, because as Matthew rightly explains, no matter what they said, the answer was bound to cause upset to someone or other. If they agreed that John the Baptist’s ministry came from God, then Jesus would say, “So why didn’t you listen to him and follow him?” But if they said that his ministry was not from God, then the crowds would have turned on them because they loved John the Baptist and believed he was a prophet.
So they are forced to concede and reply that they cannot answer. In doing so, they exposed themselves for who they really were….. their chief concern was to protect their standing in society and to protect their reputations. They didn’t give an answer because they were frightened they would lose that privilege.
We might therefore ask - In a fractured world full of conflict both international and local, how does this apply to us today?
The lessons of this Gospel reading have intense messages for all leaders, and people in authority, be that at national government level, in our church, or even a local football team. The key to how we respond is always to address the question, are we going to put God’s will or our own first?
Are we prepared to stand up for what is true and right in the eyes of God and to live out our ministries by the standards of Jesus? Are we prepared to show spiritual and political leadership do what we know is right? Are we willing to make personal and even courageous sacrifices to do what is right - even at the expense of personal gain and popularity.
Are we doing God’s will in the things we do and say, and are we, like Jesus, putting others first and loving one another? Rev. Paul
Our Prayers
Heavenly Father, We pray for leaders and people in power.
For those who lead countries, organisations and churches
to those who lead local voluntary groups and societies.
Help us all to work for the benefit and good of everyone
