Sunday Worship - Harvest
Everyone is most welcome to join us for our Parish Harvest Eucharist at St Thomas' Church at 10 am, where Reverend David Halford will be preaching and presiding.
Some of our Covid precautions remain in place to keep everybody safe, but we'll be singing a couple of hymns and offering refreshments after the service, and Sunday School is now back at St Thomas'.
Donations of non-perishable food items will be gratefully received, and will be passed on to Impact Community Church
If you're not able to be with us in person, you can find the Bible Reading, reflection and prayers below.
Our first hymn today is "For the Beauty of the Earth"
Today's Reading -
Genesis 2:18-24 Creation
The Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
and flesh of my flesh;
Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Reflection -
Harvest Thanksgiving is a time when we take stock of our blessings and a time when we think of others as ourselves. It can be thought of as an attitude that is sometimes expressed in prayers and hymns. The Christian writer Ann Lamott has written that the best prayers she knows are “Help Prayers” or Thank you Prayers”. I am sure we all recognise that a great many prayers do express those feelings.
In everyday use a great many prayers are born out of urgency and it may well be that there are more “Help me” prayers than “Thank You prayers” – but that is wide open to debate. What we can say is that might be an interesting debate.
The Israelites, in their time, certainly appear to have been fearful on a number of occasions – but then, there would always have been a place for gratitude because it can sometimes make us feel vulnerable having been freed from slavery in Egypt.
Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we, as a people often resist gratitude because there is often an element of vulnerability in that. It may be tempting to say that we have nothing to learn from the Exodus story. But we do know that we have a God who hears our prayers and often chooses mercy.
It is often said that we have a God who can be trusted in every sense. Our God is about Creation, Life, Freedom, Renewal. These are all feelings really appropriate to this Season of the Year. It is a real time of Thanksgiving. Real Gratitude is challenging because it can sometimes make us feel vulnerable – but it can take us away from ourselves and towards our God – which is why our Prayerbooks frequently contain Hymns and prayers of thanks and praise.
Real Gratitude means we are grateful for the things we hold in common with everyone especially the ability to Love and be Loved. Creatures who all bear the image of God and who all deserve equal dignity. This Harvest Time, may our Gratitude be properly placed with thanks and praise in our Living God who rescues us from sin. May our prayers of “help me” be answered as we need – not as we deserve, and may our prayers of ‘Thank You’ be born out of real gratitude – which sees the Love of God for all His Creation – and which compels us to love and share with our neighbours.
David
Our Prayers -
