This week’s Readings and Sermon for the 17th Sunday after Trinity
The Collect for This Week
Almighty God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you: pour your love into our hearts and draw us to yourself, and so bring us at last to your heavenly city where we shall see you face to face; 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
The Post Communion Prayer for this week
Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Psalm 66, verses 1 - 11
1 Be joyful in God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; sing the glory of his praise. 2 Say to God, ‘How awesome are your deeds! Because of your great strength your enemies shall bow before you. 3 ‘All the earth shall worship you, sing to you, sing praise to your name.’ 4 Come now and behold the works of God, how wonderful he is in his dealings with humankind. 5 He turned the sea into dry land; the river they passed through on foot; there we rejoiced in him. 6 In his might he rules for ever; his eyes keep watch over the nations; let no rebel rise up against him. 7 Bless our God, O you peoples; make the voice of his praise to be heard, 8 Who holds our souls in life and suffers not our feet to slip. 9 For you, O God, have proved us; you have tried us as silver is tried. 10 You brought us into the snare; you laid heavy burdens upon our backs. 11 You let enemies ride over our heads; we went through fire and water; but you brought us out into a place of liberty.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and shall be forever. Amen
The Old Testament Reading for this Sunday is taken from the Book of the prophet Jeremiah, Chapter 29, verses 1 and 4 to 7
1These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. 4Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
The New Testament reading for this Sunday is taken from the Letter of St Paul to Timothy, Chapter 2 verses 8 to 15
8 Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel, 9for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. 10Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. 11The saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.
14 Remind them of this, and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening. 15Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth.
This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
The Gospel reading for this Sunday is taken from the Gospel of St Luke, Chapter 17, verses 11 to 19
Hear the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ, according to Luke Glory to You, o Lord !
11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ 14When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean. 15Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17Then Jesus asked, ‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ 19Then he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’
This is the Gospel of the Lord. Praise to You, o Christ !
Note :All readings are shared from the Church of England Lectionary App and are subject to copyright . © The Archbishop’s Council
The sermon this week is delivered by Lorraine Ashworth
How many times a day do we say 'Thank You'? Can you have a guess? Once? Twice? Ten times?
When do we say Thank You?
Who do we say Thank You to?
The Gospel reading that we've just heard ends with somebody saying thank you. Lets think about that story.
There are ten people who are really sick, and the disease that they have can be given to other people, so they are not allowed to live in town with all the other people. The disease is horrible and one symptom of the disease is that the person suffering loses their sense of touch.
That means they no longer feel pain. That doesn't sound so bad but it is devastating.
Pain is really our friend because it tells us that something is wrong. Imagine touching a hot surface and instead of puling your hand away, you leave it there. Or breaking a bone in your foot and continuing to walk on it because it doesn't hurt. People with leprosy are without this friend. They can become horribly disfigured and diseased because pain is not there to warn them of danger. Leprosy still exists today and there is treatment but in the days when Jesus was on Earth things were different.
In Biblical days, a person with leprosy or any other skin disease was an outcast. In the Old Testament in the Bible we read this rule,
“The person with such an infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ As long as he has the infection he remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp. (Lev. 17:45, 46)
Everywhere lepers went, people stayed away from them. They could not hug their husband, wife or children. They could not shake hands with someone. They could not go to the temple to worship. This is why there were 10 lepers because all they had was each other, and why there were Samaritans and Jews in the group. It is also why we read that "they stood at a distance."
When Jesus saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” Can you imagine the scene? I suspect people were startled that Jesus even bothered to say anything to these men. But Jesus saw them as men trapped inside diseased and unclean bodies. The conversation isn't long. Jesus just tells them to go and show themselves to the priest. He sent them to the priest because the priest was the only one who could declare them "clean" again and free them to return to normal existence. Jesus was basically telling the men they were healed already and that they should go and get the healing confirmed.
This of course, takes a great deal of faith because at first, there is no immediate evidence of healing. It was as they were going to the priest that one, and then others, noticed that the leprosy is gone. I imagine them stopping and checking each other to see if they had all been healed.
I also imagine that at this point the men cried out with joy. They may have wept, or laughed, or done a little dance. Don't make the mistake of thinking that they weren't grateful that they no longer had leprosy. They were more grateful than you and I could understand.
However, only one returned to Jesus who had healed them to say thank-you. And that is the point of the story: it is right to say “Thank You” to the people who help you and also to say thank you to God.
Now, before you shake your head at how these 9 men could be so ungrateful . . . ask yourself . . . have you ever done the same thing?
How many of God's blessings do you and I forget to thank Him for? How many times have we received blessings – good things, but not believed any of it was from God? How many times have we thanked our "lucky stars" rather than the Lord? How many times have we thought that we have "earned" the good things we have?
You see, when you think about it, we are really not much different from the lepers. We receive blessings on every side and often take them, enjoy them, and never give God thanks for them.
Last week was our harvest festival. Harvest is a time we say thank you especially for food. We bring food into church and then send it out to people who don't have a lot of food at home. It's a time to say thank you for the food we have.
But who should we say thank you to?
Think about a humble tin of baked beans. To get these beans, there is quite a long journey and a lot of people to say thank you to.
The people who work on the land, growing the beans, so we need to say thank you to the farmers.
The beans are then taken to a factory where they are cooked, and once the food is cooked it has to be put into cans and a label stuck on. We really need to be grateful to these workers otherwise we'd just have plain beans.
Then there are lorry drivers who deliver the beans from the factory to the warehouse and then to the shops. So we need to say thank you to lorry drivers, even though sometimes those of us in our cars might not like them in front of us on the roads.
Lastly I have to say thank you to the people who work in the supermarket. They store the trays of beans in the back of the store, bring them out and fill the shelves, and the cashier scans the barcode when we go to pay.
But wait a minute – surely I have missed out somebody to say thank you to for this tin of beans... Who is that?
We need to say thank you to God. God created the world, he gave us seasons, days, nights, the perfect conditions with sun and rain to help the plants grow.
And don't just think about beans, think of what is in your cupboard at home. So many people getting involved in making everything we eat and drink. Thanking them and remembering to say thank you to God.
And it isn't just for food that we should say thank you to God. Look around you. Notice all we have. We have friends here, we have clothes to wear, we have been able to come from a home where there is food and shelter - we have much much more. We can say thank you for mums, dads, sons, daughters, grandparents and grandchildren, brothers, sisters, friends. We can say thank you for our bodies, our eyes, ears, hands and feet. We can say thank you every time something goes right for us, if the lights change to green just as we get to them, if we are picked for a game, if we get an unexpected bag of sweets or a knitting project.
Looking back at the Gospel reading about the lepers, we think of all those we know who are ill, who have medical problems or mental health issues and we thank the people who look after us, whether they work in hospitals, in the community, the pharmacists, the people who make the medicines that keep us alive. That's a whole lot of people that I need to say thank you to after my recent hospital stay. And of course a big thank you to all my friends here who have prayed so steadfastly for my recovery. And I especially need to say thank you to God for working through all these people.
Now an advert. Tomorrow at St Mary's Rawtenstall is Renew for women - 7.15 for a 7.45 start and the theme is healing. There are also healing services in other places in the diocese this month. Thursday 16th October, 7.30pm at All Saints Stretford and Wednesday 22nd October, 7pm at St Luke's Heywood. If you are suffering in any way, I encourage you to attend one of these services, to ask for healing and to thank God for healings in the past and trusting in God's healing power for the future.
Ginger Harrington, A Christian author writes: “The Bible tells us in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
God is not asking us to pretend that everything is fine. This passage isn’t suggesting we should discount our problems or ignore our challenges. Instead, it encourages us to anchor our hearts in gratitude, shifting our focus from our problems to God’s faithfulness.
God invites us to be grateful not for every situation but in every situation. This passage expresses God’s will for believers, and it’s not just about circumstances, but how we respond to them.
God invites us to anchor our hearts in thankfulness because it realigns our focus from our problems to His presence and provision.”
So let's give thanks to God, to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit for all we have and in all we experience. Amen.