prepared by Chris Hancock – 3rd August 2025
Singing the Faith 17 With Gladness We Worship
| 1 With gladness we worship, rejoice as we sing, free hearts and free voices how blessèd to bring; the old, thankful story shall scale thine abode, thou King of all glory, most bountiful God. 2 Thy right would we give thee true homage thy due, and honour eternal, the universe through, with all thy creation, earth, heaven and sea, in one acclamation we celebrate thee. | 3 Renewed by thy Spirit, redeemed by thy Son, thy children revere thee for all thou hast done. O Father! Returning to love and to light, thy children are yearning to praise thee aright. 4 We join with the angels, and so there is given from earth alleluia, in answer to heaven. Amen! Be thou glorious below and above, redeeming, victorious, and infinite Love! George Rawson (1807–1889) |
Prayers & Lord’s Prayer
Loving God, you reveal your presence to us in the blazing light and in gentle whispers,
on mountain tops and in deep valleys. In every part of our lives, you are there, in the quiet of nature and on our busy streets. Yours is the presence that calms us; yours is the love that transforms us. We come to worship you and offer you our praise and adoration.
God of mercy and forgiveness, we confess that many things keep us from trusting fully in your love. We are often distracted by our own desires and disappointments. We cling to anger and resentment. We are fearful of the future rather than seek signs of hope. In a few moments of quiet bring your own prayers for thigs done and left undone. We ask your forgiveness in the all powerful name of Jesus. Amen.
Please say the Lord’s Prayer in whichever version you prefer.
Singing the Faith 34 O worship the Lord.
| 1 O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, bow down before him, his glory proclaim; with gold of obedience and incense of lowliness, kneel and adore him: the Lord is his name. 2 Low at his feet lay your burden of carefulness, high on his heart he will bear it for you, comfort your sorrows, and answer your prayerfulness, showing the pathway your feet should pursue. 3 Fear not to enter his courts in the slenderness of the poor wealth you would count as your own; truth in its beauty, and love in its tenderness, these are the offerings to bring to his throne. | 4 These, though we bring them in trembling and fearfulness, he will accept for the name that is dear; mornings of joy give for evenings of tearfulness, trust for our trembling, and hope for our fear. 5 O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, bow down before him, his glory proclaim; with gold of obedience and incense of lowliness, kneel and adore him: the Lord is his name. John Samuel Bewley Monsell (1811–1875) |
Luke Chapter 12 Verses 13 – 21
The Parable of the Rich Fool
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
Reflection
The central focus of this week’s gospel story is possibly a problem a lot of us would like to have: what to do with too much. It is a story about a man who is so rich that he doesn’t know what to do with all that he possesses. It is also a very relevant parable for today’s world where the super rich strive through fair or foul means to become richer,
Jesus tells a story about a man whose land produced “abundantly”. Jesus simply tells us about a man whose land produced a bumper crop. However, this is not just any man, because the man was “rich” and had “land”. Jesus is emphasising the point. This is a man who is fabulously rich (for his day) to begin with; then, there is surplus everywhere.”
So much wheat that the barns he already has will not store what the land has produced. We are talking a once-in-a-life-time, barn-bursting harvest. Just how much wheat could good land yield that a rich man would not have enough barns to store it in? So, something out of the ordinary is happening here. If a rich man doesn’t have enough space for it, just how much is there?
So much, says Jesus, that the man takes the drastic step of tearing down the barns he already has and building new ones to house what is now “his”. A harvest well-beyond the man’s own wildest expectations – which, to Jesus listeners, could only mean one thing: a blessing, a miracle, a gift from God. This parable would have made his listeners recall two other stories in Israel’s history.
The first would have been the story of Joseph when he was made steward over all the land of Egypt. Where Joseph saves the day by predicting seven years of bounty and seven years of famine (Genesis 41.35-36). Surplus implies a barren future. Bounty is a reminder of times of need. Better do something with that surplus when it comes so that no one will be lacking.
The other story that Jesus’ listeners would have recalled would have been the time in the wilderness on their way out of Egypt when Israel gathered twice as much manna on the sixth day so that they could rest on the Sabbath (Exodus 16.22-27). Ever after, Israel called the practice of leaving the land “fallow” every seventh year as giving the land its “sabbath”, making use of the blessings of the sixth-year harvest to provide enough for all during the seventh (Leviticus 25.19-21).
In other words, great blessing implies responsibility to see that there will be enough to go around. Preparing for the future by preserving the bounty in this tradition means preparing not for one’s own future but for everyone’s.
This is where the crunch comes in the story. From our perspective the man is doing nothing wrong. There’s been no graft or theft, no mistreatment of workers. The man is not a criminal. He is simply a very fortunate man who has become even more fortunate and who is now being very careful and conservative so as not to lose everything he has gained.
But from Jesus’ point of view and, no doubt, from that of a good number of his listeners, the man has one fault and it is a big one. He begins to think that the blessing he has been given is his.
“… And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
This farmer is no Joseph preparing to steward the land for the welfare of others. He is hoarding this miracle that has happened to him through no merit of his own for his own pleasure and security. He refuses to share it with his neighbours. He has missed the meaning of what has happened. He assumes that the harvest is his to reap for his own benefit so that he will have more than enough for himself and himself alone.
It is at this point that something unusual, for a Jesus’ parable, happens. God steps in to do two things. First, he tells the man that he is a fool, a powerful insult which implies that the man has turned his back on the way existence is ordered; for surplus is granted to some for the sole purpose that there will always be enough to go around for everyone. Hoarding for oneself goes against this natural order of creation. It is a denial of creation. It is a denial of God.
The second thing God does is to restore things to those for whom they were originally intended; for that night the man dies in his sleep. This is no divine punishment, for Jesus never even hints that God is getting even. The man just dies inopportunely the same way rich people die every day, even the ones with all the prudential insurance that money can buy.
Jesus asks – what happens next. “And the things you have prepared, whose will they be now?”
Jesus doesn’t say. But it is not hard to imagine the man’s neighbours, who know nothing about the meaning of the man’s death nor his plans to keep everything to himself, giving him an honourable burial as befitting such a patron to his community since the man has no one else to leave his riches. The story tells us that one way or another, God’s gift will be managed, not hoarded, for the benefit of all.
As Bernard Brandon Scott point us in his book “Here Then The Parable” , this is not one of Jesus’ more radical parables. It is a parable that builds heavily on a tradition which taught that the land (meaning everything) belongs to God and must be managed for all; for that is a tradition that is radical enough for people who come to assume that the things they possess are theirs.
It interesting to note that Luke sets this story in a context where Jesus is approached by someone who is concerned about how a family inheritance is to be divided, one who wants to make sure he gets his fair share. The problem of someone wanting to make sure they get what is rightfully theirs? How many family squabbles, how many broken relationships, how many terrible hurts have been caused by that family argument?
And all because we begin to assume that what is essentially a gift is something that is ours – without reference to anyone else, without regard for human need.
There is another way. It is the only way by which both creation and God are honoured; and that is to recognise that there is no mine or yours, anymore than there is just you or just me. We are in this together; and if we ever hope to learn what it truly means to belong to one another, then it will happen not by seeing how much we can continue to store up for ourselves and ourselves alone but how we need to distribute the abundance with which we have been blessed with all who have less. And if that sounds radical, then you are hearing the scriptures clearly today; because in God’s domain there are no arguments over what belongs to whom.
Prayers of Intercession
Loving God, we pray that you will keep our churches strong and growing and help us draw others into your presence through our worship and social events.
Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer.
Creator God, in a world of greed and selfish desires may we see that we are sustained only by your wonderful provision. May our eagerness to acquire material possessions pale in comparison to our joy in the wonderful gift of Your Son to be our Saviour.
Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer.
Peaceful God, in a world full of conflict and violence we pray for all who live in fear. In the silence we remember those countries where war is a reality. We especially think of Gaza and Ukraine at this time. Raise up peacemakers who will find solutions to seemingly irreconcilable differences. Let your peace return to the world you created.
Healing God, we pray for those we know who are not well at this time. Whether in body, mind or spirit. In a moment of silence please bring before God those on your hearts at this moment. We pray that in their need they will know your healing arms gently holding them.
Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer.
Singing the Faith 94 To God be the Glory
| 1 To God be the glory, great things he has done! So loved he the world that he gave us his Son, who yielded his life in atonement for sin, and opened the life-gate that all may go in: Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the earth hear his voice! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Let the people rejoice! O come to the Father, through Jesus the Son; and give him the glory — great things he has done! | 2 O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood, to every believer the promise of God! And every offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives: 3 Great things he has taught us, great things he has done, and great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son; but purer, and higher, and greater will be our wonder, our rapture, when Jesus we see: Frances Jane van Alstyne, (Fanny Crosby) (1820–1915) |
Blessing
May the generosity of God go before us as we leave this time of worship. We go in peace, joy and love. As we meet others in our daily lives, help us be ready and willing to share the good news of the salvation Jesus brings. Amen
