Harvest Thanksgiving Week beginning: Sunday 27th Sept 2020

1 st Reading: Deuteronomy 8:7-18 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9 a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. 10 You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you. 11 Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. 12 When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, 13 and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, 14 then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15 who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid waste-land with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, 16 and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. 17 Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’ 18 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. Gospel: Luke 12:21-30 21 So   it   is   with   those   who   store   up   treasures for    themselves    but    are    not    rich    towards God.’ Do Not Worry 22 He   said   to   his   disciples,   ‘Therefore   I   tell you,   do   not   worry   about   your   life,   what   you will   eat,   or   about   your   body,   what   you   will wear. 23 For   life   is   more   than   food,   and   the body    more    than    clothing. 24 Consider    the ravens:   they   neither   sow   nor   reap,   they   have neither    storehouse    nor    barn,    and    yet    God feeds   them.   Of   how   much   more   value   are you   than   the   birds! 25 And   can   any   of   you   by worrying   add   a   single   hour   to   your   span   of life? 26 If   then   you   are   not   able   to   do   so   small a   thing   as   that,   why   do   you   worry   about   the rest? 27 Consider   the   lilies,   how   they   grow: they   neither   toil   nor   spin;   yet   I   tell   you,   even Solomon   in   all   his   glory   was   not   clothed   like one    of    these. 28 But    if    God    so    clothes    the grass   of   the   field,   which   is   alive   today   and tomorrow   is   thrown   into   the   oven,   how   much more   will   he   clothe   you—you   of   little   faith! 29 And   do   not   keep   striving   for   what   you   are to   eat   and   what   you   are   to   drink,   and   do   not keep   worrying. 30 For   it   is   the   nations   of   the world   that   strive   after   all   these   things,   and your Father knows that you need them .

Prayers in a time of Coronavirus Keep   us,   good   Lord,   under   the   shadow   of your    mercy    in    this    time    of    uncertainty and    distress.    Sustain    and    support    the anxious   and   fearful,   and   lift   up   all   who are   brought   low;   that   we   may   rejoice   in your   comfort   knowing   that   nothing   can separate   us   from   your   love   in   Christ   Jesus our Lord. Amen.