Printable services for those unable to attend St C

St Clement Church Community Sunday Service 23.7.23

Good morning to you all as we celebrate our 7th Sunday of Trinity service. This Service of the Word is for you to read at home if you’re unable to attend St Clement in person on Sunday.

Much love and may Christ’s love sustain you always.

Rev Di and family xx

Let us pray;

Almighty God, you have created the heavens and the earth and made us in your own image: teach us to discern your hand and in all your works and your likeness in all your children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Hymn: ‘Come Ye Thankful People Come’

Our prayers of Penitence

As we celebrate the grace and goodness of God, we remember our failings and weaknesses:

When we have lived by our own strength, and not by the power of your resurrection. In your mercy, forgive us and help us.

When we have lived by the light of our own eyes, as faithless and not believing. In your mercy, forgive us and help us.

When we have lived for this earthly life alone, and doubted our home in heaven. In your mercy, forgive us and help us.

May Almighty God have mercy upon us, forgive us our sins and failings, and bring us to everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Let us pray our Collect for the 7^th Sunday after Trinity

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things:

graft in our hearts the love of your name, increase in us true religion,

nourish us with all goodness, and of your great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever.

Amen.

Readings:

Isaiah 44. 6-8

Romans 8. 12-25

Hymn; ‘Alleluia Sing to Jesus’

Gospel: Matthew 13. 24-30, 36-43

(Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew

Response: ‘Glory to you O Lord.’)

Jesus put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’

Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.’ He answered, ‘The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

(This is the Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, O Christ.)

Reflection

I don’t know about you, but of all the parables Jesus tells, this one about the weeds growing among the wheat probably irritates me the most.

Because in all the problems of this world caused by evil humankind, I want to have happen what the farm hands in this story were ready to do; pull up the weeds, throw them out, see the world free from the latest set of evil doers, and do all this immediately.

But that’s not how the story goes, because the landowner won’t allow such direct action. So in the face of this, maybe we need to look at the story more carefully.

Two topics deserve more explanation than the parable is able to give them, the first is the weeds, the second is one of the landowner’s words; ‘Let.’

We’ll look at the weeds first. The weeds in the wheat field are an annual grass that looks very much like wheat, and telling one from another in the early stages of growth is nearly impossible. Then, as the plants mature, the roots of the weeds and wheat intertwine and become almost inseparable, but separating them is necessary, because unless the toxic weeds are removed the flour made from the wheat will be ruined.

The usual solution was to harvest the plants, spread them out on a flat surface, and then remove the weeds, which by this stage were a different colour than the wheat. So, it stands to reason that the weeds can be separated from the wheat only at the proper time, following the harvest.

Hence the landowner says; “Let both of them grow together until the harvest.”

Now, this parable may make sense to us in the context of growing wheat in a field where there are weeds, but where it dismays us is where we want to weed out the evildoers of the world, or at least expect God to do so.

So from that perspective, who are the weeds growing in the wheat field of the world? The plants we want to pull out by the roots? Perhaps they’re the people we want to lock up and then throw away the key.

The terrorists, murderers, pedophiles, rapists, warmongers, those cruel to animals, the list could be endless. And if we admit it, there are times when many of us, at least momentarily, see this as the obvious solution, lock them all up, and then throw away the key, because we want our world to flourish with wheat, and not be choked by weeds.

Or our despair may cause us to doubt God; why doesn’t God do something about those people (whoever they are?) Where is God when they commit their horrible crimes?

But, the landowner knows what’s happened; “An enemy has done this!”

Yes, he knows the world is a broken place, what is meant to be a wheat field is hosting countless weeds. And so we hear from him; “Let both of them grow together until the harvest.”

Now, this may baffle us, it sounds as if the landowner is resigned to letting his fertile field become little more than a weedy mess.

But, as we have looked carefully at the weeds, we now look just as carefully at the word; “Let” as in; “Let both of them grow together until the harvest.”

The translation from the original Greek is one with a wide range of meanings; “let,” in the sense of allow or permit, but another translation means; “pardon” or “forgive.” In that case, “Let both grow together until the harvest” carries in the original language a sense of forgiveness toward the enemy.

If so, then this parable means a costly discipleship for us, the evil that others do isn’t to be answered by pulling out the weeds, by attacking and destroying the people responsible, or by locking them up and throwing away the key, because doing so only adds to the harm.

Instead, our response is to be patience and forgiveness, and to trust in the purposes of God.

And even you and I folks, sometimes we are wheat and sometimes we are weeds.

St. Augustine, in commenting on this parable, makes the same point when he says;

“There is this difference between people, and real grain and real weeds.

For what was grain in the field is grain, and what were weeds are weeds.

But in the Lord’s field, which is the church, at times what was grain, turns into weeds. And at times, what were weeds turn into grain; and no one knows what they will be tomorrow.”

God gives everyone the amazing freedom to make choices, to do right, or to do wrong, even to the point of inflicting harm on others. And God doesn’t pull people out of the weedy field of their mistakes by condemning them, but by forgiving them.

It’s a strange way to run the world, I know, and sometimes it seems scandalous. Often we’d like the Lord to hurl thunderbolts, only at our enemies, of course, but God works differently than that, and the most convincing proof of this is the story of Jesus.

What does he teach? He goes around telling strange parables about patience and forgiveness, but he doesn’t rest there. When his enemies nail him to the cross, he forgives them, risen from the dead, he forgives those disciples who left him during his hour of need, and sends them out to spread his forgiveness to anybody who needs it, which is to say, everybody.

So it’s clear from this parable, clearer still from the cross, that patience and forgiveness are God’s way of working with a broken world. This approach may leave us profoundly uneasy, even at odds sometimes with God, but without it, not one of us stands a chance.

Our preoccupation with the weeds mustn’t prevent us from recognising the wondrous conclusion of the parable: how indeed the harvest happens, an abundance of wheat is gathered in, enough to make the landowner and farm hands rejoice together. The weeds in the field have no power to stop the fulfilment of this bounty, the seed was good, and it bore through adversity, a fruitful harvest.

Evil is real, but it isn’t ultimate, it will never have the last word. Greater by far are those who shine in their Father’s kingdom, those who mirror the bright light of divine patience and forgiveness.

Such was one person who, amid the horrors of the Ravensbruck concentration camp, in the Second World War found faith and hope enough to write a prayer, which points past the enemy’s evil action to the wonder of the harvest. It confirms that the landowner’s patience and forgiveness isn’t foolishness, but wisdom.

Let us now dare to pray this prayer.

“O Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will,
but also those who do evil.
But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted;
remember the fruits we have bought, thanks to this suffering — our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of all of this.
And when they come to judgment, let all the fruits which we have born be their forgiveness. Amen

Affirmation of our faith

Let us declare our faith in God:

We believe and trust in God the Father, source of all being and life, the one for whom we exist. We believe and trust in God the Son, who took our human nature, died for us and rose again.

We believe and trust in God the Holy Spirit, who gives life to the people of God and makes Christ known in the world.

This is the faith of the Church. This is our faith. We believe and trust in one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Hymn; ‘How Deep the Father’s Love for Us’

Our Intercessions this week are written by Liz Davies

Let us pray; Almighty God, as a church we daily pray that ‘Your Kingdom Come’ but most of the time we so often live in ways that prevent its coming. We spend too much of our time trying to build our own human kingdom, putting ourselves, rather than you, the centre of our lives. Send your Spirit to remind us that you are ‘First’ and others are ‘Second,’ and we are ‘Third.’