Morning Worship for Sunday 4 October 2020

by Peter Blount 4 October 2020

Greetings in the name of Jesus – Joy and peace to you all.

Today is Harvest Festival - Please share in our celebrations  (Due to the restrictions placed upon us we are not making practical gifts this year but supporting our usual charity by monitory gifts. See notices for details) 

Call to Worship Luke ch 10 v 2 

The Harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out the workers into the harvest field.

Prayer 

Father, as we celebrate this season of thanksgiving we give thanks for the blessings of food, provision and nourishment. 

Please grow in us a harvest for the world. 

Come sow a seed of hope within our souls Lord, that we might yield goodness, patience and kindness in abundance. 

Sow a seed of peace in our lives Lord, that we might bear the fruits of forgiveness, compassion and righteousness. 

Come sow a seed of love in our hearts Lord, that others would reap the blessings of family, friendship and community. 

May each seed of hope, peace and love grow within us into a harvest that can be feasted on by all. 

Amen.

This song is just to ‘set the scene’ so you make want to just listen to the first minute or so:-

Reading – Luke Ch 12 v 13 – 21   The Parable of the Rich Fool

¹³ Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

¹⁴ Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” ¹⁵ Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

¹⁶ And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. ¹⁷ He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

¹⁸ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. ¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

²⁰ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

²¹ “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Reflection

From our reading a picture forms in our mind, but compare that with today’s harvesting. There are vast fields and huge mechanical harvesting machines producing tons and tons of grain. Can you then picture a barn big enough to hold it all and what a very small amount the individual farmer could hope to use before the next harvest was due.  The majority of his harvested effort would either be wasted or it would simply rot and be spoiled.

So, the most sensible and productive thing to do is, firstly convert the grain to flour which instantly makes it more useful, easier to store and transport. But most importantly – shareable!  So from the harvest of grain we get one of the most staple items of our diet – Bread.  

Clearly, the flour has many other uses too, just look in the baker’s shop window or the laden supermarket shelves for an almost limitless selection of basic and luxury items. 

Bread and fresh cakes, although they are lovely at the time do not last long – soon becoming stale and inedible.  So in our wisdom we develop products with a longer shelf life - packets, tins even frozen products. Giving the best chance for food to be transported, distributed and consumed before it is useless. 

So what does all that have to do with harvest and today’s reading.

In these unprecedented times we are thinking differently for our harvest festival by donating money rather than produce – fresh or processed items.

So, I thought we would try a different approach to this reading. 

Within this portion of scripture, as with all the scriptures we read, we can take it at face value, read it as a story of greed and selfishness or we can try and relate what was happening in Jesus’ time, when it was written, to our lives today. 

So, the farmers harvest – what if that related to the joy, blessing, encouragement and challenge we get within our Christian life from those bible verses – in other words our spiritual harvest – Gods Gift To Us?

As we read more scripture, so we get more blessing and we long for a greater capacity of both mind and spirit to store up increasing amounts of understanding, grace and spiritual gifts. 

Clearly we cannot do that, so as we harvest more and more of God’s gifts to us, we must think about converting this wealth of blessing into practical ways of sharing our personal harvest.  (As scripture tells us we are all blessed in different ways) so, some may be able to write books, stories and poems.  Some act out the scriptures, some paint, some make art in all its forms. Some share the word with young people. Some train to preach and teach God’s word. Still others seek to help and support the needy. 

I leave you with a thought – as we gather a personal harvest of God’s word, blessings and gifts. 

Is it time to use your Gift? To convert your unlimited experiences into something lasting, practical and sharable so that you can rejoice in the promise that no matter how much of God’s gifts we give away – we will never run out ourselves 

Prayer 

Heavenly Father, thank you that once again, through your word you prompt us into action. Give us the ability to recognise your calling, strength to respond and grace to see you at work in and through us. 

As we ponder these words, help us to pray for all those we know who have needs that only your love and grace meet. 

A few moments for silent prayer followed by the Lord’s Prayer. 

Our final hymn for Harvest – We Plough the Fields and Scatter    

The Blessing