St Clement Church Community 7th Sunday after Trinity Service

St Clement Church

Seventh Sunday after Trinity Community Service

Good morning

It is ‘parable’ time again – a time that should be a challenge to all of us … it is to me.

Why? These are stories I know so well and yet, how often do I really think about what they are telling me?

My love to you all

Liz

Father God, we gather here today under your care and protection. Thank you for your loving kindness that never fails us. We thank you for those with us, that you would guide our thoughts and actions to bring you glory. Strengthen us and fill us with your peace. May we love and serve each other as Jesus has shown us. Fill us with the Holy Spirit to do your good work on earth. Amen

We say together:

Into your presence we come, God of Grace and Peace, who was, and is and ever shall be the Eternal One. Into fellowship we come, bound together in the love that died and rose again for us, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

Hymn: 473 When morning gilds the skies (omit verses 2, 3, 4, 5)

Our Prayer of Penitence:

God of healing, God of wholeness, we bring our brokenness, our sinfulness, our fears, and despair, and lay them at your feet.

God of healing, God of wholeness, we hold out our hearts and hands, minds, and souls to feel your touch, and know the peace that only you can bring.

God of healing, God of wholeness, in this precious moment in your presence and power, grant us faith and confidence that here broken lives are made whole. Amen

The Collect for Trinity Seven

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:

Ecclesiastes 1. 2, 12 – 14, 2. 18 - 23 Colossians 3. 1 - 11

Hymn: 360 Firmly I believe and truly

Gospel: Luke 12. 13 - 21 (Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke. Response: ‘Glory to you O Lord.’)

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 the crowd, ‘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 and 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.’

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

Reflection

I wonder, do you have a lot of boxes? You know, the smart plastic or polythene boxes (we have them here at church to keep the Christmas and Easter decorations in) or maybe good cardboard boxes. If so, why? What do you use them for? Storage? Well, yes, but storage for what?

I remember when Martin and I were ‘downsizing’ and I walked into our roof space, (we could in our old house.) I was faced with boxes and boxes and boxes and bags … of what? There was no way we could take it all with us and anyway, what was in those boxes and bags?

How often do we buy these boxes because they look good and they’ll be useful to store things in one day, because when we buy something new, we need to store the old things … we do, don’t we?

Container stores and storage businesses thrive on that kind of thinking.

“Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.”

Have you been so envious of or wishful for another person’s life that you were unable or unwilling to celebrate his or her successes, abilities, or good fortune? You look at them and say to yourself, “What about me? That’s not fair. Why isn’t that me?” “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.”

Has the grammar of your life ever been predominately in the first-person singular, I? I want, I need, I hope, I achieved, I accomplished, I will, I, I, I. “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.”

Have you ever bought something to make yourself feel better? Maybe because you were sad, lonely, angry, scared. You wanted a new life or a new feeling more than a new thing, but you bought it anyway. Oh dear, that sounds rather close to home! “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.”

If any of this sounds familiar, or if you answered yes, or even if you didn’t but you understand what I’m talking about, then you just might know something about greed in your own life. That is not a judgement or a criticism but an acknowledgement that I, and maybe you too, can be just as much of a barn builder as the man in the parable Jesus tells us about in today’s gospel reading.

As Jesus warns, there are all kinds of greed. It might be books, shoes, or any other tangible thing. It might be amassing money, land, or other wealth. But greed can also be about time, attention, approval, love, knowledge, power, control, being right, being in charge, or a thousand other things.

Ultimately, though, greed is not about any of these things. They are just the symptoms or pointers to the deeper issue. The issue is not about quantity but a condition of the heart. Greed is really just a way of dealing with our own feelings of deficit and emptiness. It’s not so much about having enough but being enough. When we believe ourselves to be deficient, when we lose belief in ourselves, when we feel we are not enough, then we get greedy. We use things and other people to fill the hole inside us.

Greed deceives and convinces us that if we just have more ……… then we’ll be …….. Fill in the blanks with whatever it might be for you. For example:

If I have more money then I will have a more secure future. The real issue, however, might be fear, uncertainty, or the unpredictability of life.
If I get more books then I’ll have more knowledge and answers. People will see me as studious and intelligent.
If I can get more of your time and attention then I’ll feel accepted, important, and relevant.
If I can gain more power and control then I’ll be safe and respected. No one can hurt me.

Greed uses external things to deal with internal matters and it rarely works. It leaves us wanting more, always seeking the next pound, the next book, the next word of approval. The thing is that greed steals and deprives us of what we want most. Greed steals our lives from us.

That doesn’t mean that possessions are inherently bad or wrong. The antidote to greed is not necessarily in cleaning out the cupboard, throwing away books, or giving away our belongings, though in some cases that might be a beginning point. (I have to say, my daughter would be delighted if I did a ‘lot’ of that) The real work is the interior work. Greed shows us to be living in poverty towards God. The antidote to greed then is to be rich toward God.

That means that we invest in ourselves, each other, and the world, in the same ways that Jesus invested himself; through love, mercy, compassion, justice, hope, courage, acceptance, truth, beauty, generosity. This is the wealth of God. This is the life God shares and invests in us through Jesus Christ. So, to be rich toward God begins with knowing that we are already God’s beloved treasure. There is freedom in that. It is the freedom to live rich towards others and the world. It reveals that there is enough. It declares my life to be as important and valuable as yours. It eliminates the need for comparison with and judgement of myself and others. Being takes precedence over having.

Perhaps it is greed that is at the core of today’s problems, the violence in the world and the disfunction and hurt in our relationships. To the degree greed is present, it steals away God’s wealth to us. The boxes, shelves and cupboards of our lives are already full. We have no need of, no desire, no room for God. It isolates us from self, others, and God. Greed works its deception and turns us back on ourselves and the grammar of our life soon becomes the first-person singular.

I know what I will do.

I will pull down my barns.

I will build larger barns.

I will store my stuff in my new barns.

I will relax. I will eat.

I will drink.

I will be merry.

When that happens, greed has stolen me from you and the possibility of us. There is no second or third person. There is only me, a “fool” Jesus says in the parable; a fool who closes the barn door after the thief has escaped with my life.

“Life doesn’t consist in the abundance of possessions,” Jesus says. Somewhere deep down we already know this. We really do. This is not new for us.

Think about the day you held your child or grandchild for the very first time. Think about the times you pulled him or her close and whispered your dreams for them into tiny ears. Recall the last child you saw baptised. Recall the day a friend introduced you to his or her new-born child.

What were your greatest hopes and dreams for that child? What were your sincerest prayers for his or her life? What did you desire more than anything else for that little one?

I bet it wasn’t a big fancy house, a shelf of books, a cupboard full of shoes and posh clothes; that they would be rich and wealthy; they would be first in their class or that they would be more powerful, important, or successful than everyone else. No. Why not? Because something inside you knew that “Life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” And, if you know that to be true for them you know it to be true for yourselves.

I’m betting you prayed that child would find meaning and purpose in their life. You hoped their life would be filled with joy. You wished them a world of peace. You prayed that they would look in a mirror and see their own beauty, that they would trust their own goodness, and that they discover their own holiness. You prayed that they would find that special one and know what it is like to love and be loved unconditionally. You wished them to imagine all the possibilities for their life.

The reason those things were your prayers, hopes and wishes is because somewhere deep within, you know and want those same things for your life. You touched your own richness toward God. You caught a glimpse of the treasure that you are and want to be, the treasure God knows you to be already.

What if we lived that way? How would our life be different? What possibilities would that create in our relationships? Ourselves as God’s treasure, to be rich toward God?

“Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.”

Amen

Let us declare our faith in God

We believe in God the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.

We believe in God the Son, who lives in our hearts through faith, and fills us with his love. We believe in God the Holy Spirit, who strengthens us with the power from on high. We believe in one God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

Hymn: 334 All people that on earth do dwell

Our Intercessions

Dear Father, as we bow our heads here in the little church of St Clement, we still the turmoil of our minds, and calm the busyness of our lives. We bring before you the needs of friends and loved ones. So, loving our neighbours as ourselves, we offer our thanksgivings and our petitions on behalf of the Church and the world.