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Preparation
O Lord, open our lips
and our mouth shall proclaim your praise.
Praise
Faithful Lord,
whose steadfast love never ceases
and whose mercies never come to an end:
grant us the grace to trust you
and to receive the gifts of your love,
new every morning,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Psalm 100
O be joyful in the Lord, all the earth;
serve the Lord with gladness
and come before his presence with a song.
Know that the Lord is God;
it is he that has made us and we are his;
we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and bless his name.
For the Lord is gracious; his steadfast love is everlasting,
and his faithfulness endures from generation to generation.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning, is now and shall be for ever. Amen.
Reading: Luke 12.13-21
Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’ And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’
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.’
Reflection
It is a sad fact that our lives are dominated by worry. We worry about money and time; clothing and food; family and friends; we even worry about what complete strangers might think about us. We set ever higher goals for ourselves, and then we worry about how (and if) we are ever going to reach those, often unattainable, goals. Worry! Worry! Worry! Surely there must be a better way of living.
How and why we worry is different for everyone. If your income is limited your worries may focus around money, food and shelter. Those who commute on a daily basis may find their worries centred around issues of timekeeping and transport. No matter who or what we are, we will have worries, and there will be times when those worries will drive all other thoughts from our minds.
Thanks to the diagnostic skills of modern medicine we know that worrying, whether we call it worry, stress or anxiety, can shorten our lives. Both our physical and our mental health can soon deteriorate and collapse if we spend every moment of every day worrying. So why do we do it?
In today’s reading we encounter a far from typical worrier. Instead of worrying about shortage, this man is worrying about abundance. Like some who have won large sums of money on the various high-prize lotteries, the rich man in Jesus’ parable simply does not know how to cope with his riches. He worried about how to store up that bumper harvest so that he could live a life of self-indulgent extravagance. This man’s worry is associated with another issue that confronts both the rich and the poor, the problem of our greed. We like to gather ‘things’ around ourselves without any thought of others.
Greed lies at the heart of Jesus’ rich man’s hopes, expressed in the well-known phrase: relax, eat, drink, be merry. Let us pray that we might not fall into this trap of selfishness. Let us pray that we might not be overwhelmed by greed. Let us pray that we might exercise our Christian calling by sharing with and caring for those who are worse off than ourselves. Let us pray that we might never dream of a time when we can close our doors to the needs of those around us and wallow in self-indulgence.
Prayers of Intercession
Let us pray to God, who gives us the everlasting treasures of his love.
Keep your Church free from all that would harm her witness. Grant that all Christian people, being risen with Christ, may grow in holiness.
Break through the greed and complacency that are damaging the lives of many. Where there is strife for material possession, bring generosity and concern for the needs of others.
Keep us, our families and friends, in the way of peace, free from selfish quarrels. Make us more ready to share our good things with those in our community who are in need.
Have mercy on families divided by quarrels over inheritance and ownership. Bring healing where angry words and unjust deeds have separated those who should be close in love.
Have mercy on all who have died suddenly and unprepared. Grant them pardon and peace through the power of the Resurrection.
We offer our prayers through Christ, that they may be pure and free from the taint of sin.
Prayer for the week
Most merciful God, we pray
for those who doubt your love;
for those who find it difficult to believe or to pray;
for those who have lost a faith they once possessed.
May the Holy Spirit enlighten their minds
and lead them into all truth,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
Let us pray with confidence as our Saviour has taught us
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
thy will be done;
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
The Grace
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
be with us all evermore. Amen.
Hymn
Give thanks with a grateful heart.
Give thanks to the Holy One.
Give thanks because he’s given Jesus Christ, his Son.
Give thanks with a grateful heart.
Give thanks to the Holy One.
Give thanks because he’s given Jesus Christ, his Son.
And now let the weak say, ‘I am strong!’
Let the poor say, ‘I am rich!’
because of what the Lord has done for us.
And now let the weak say, ‘I am strong!’
Let the poor say, ‘I am rich!’
because of what the Lord has done for us.
Give thanks.
Henry Smith (b. 1952)