Further Thoughts on the Readings

Further Thoughts on the Readings

Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity

In the maelstrom of credit cards and power bills and tax credits and parking tickets and cholesterol counts and acid rain and nuclear fall out, and all the rest, how lovely it is to consider the birds and the lilies. They toil not, neither do they spin, yet even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed as one of these. It is simple, and direct, and appealing; but is it possible? Could it be possible? It is simple, no doubt, for sentiment, but Oh, so immensely difficult in actuality. "O ye of little faith," says Jesus. "Seek ye first God's kingdom, and all these things shall be added unto you."…

What Jesus intends is a direct and eminently practical lesson about life here and now. And that portion of his sermon [Sermon on the Mount] which is today's Gospel lesson is an eminently practical lesson about our involvement with this world's concerns and this world's goods. We are so easily seduced into regarding these things as ends in themselves. That is what it means to serve Mammon. Today's Gospel would remind us that the things of this world, however good, are not ends--but means: means towards an end which is spiritual and eternal--the knowledge and love of God, God's kingdom and his righteousness.

Mammon is a false God, and the service of Mammon is idolatry. And it is the essence of idolatry to trust the things of the world as though they were a final and ultimate significance. Idolatry is the worship of worldly things, and it is a subtle, but constant, ever-present danger to the spiritual lives of all of us. …

The point is not that we should forge or escape from the toils and the satisfactions and the trials of life in this world, but that we should see all these things in their limitations, in the perspective of the spiritual end they serve. Who by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature? Life is more than reaping and gathering into barns. The point is that we should see our life and our labours in the context of the Providence of God--that "perpetual mercy" of which today's Collect speaks--that Providence which moves all things firmly and sweetly to their divinely appointed end. And in that perspective, how foolish is all our anxiety.

Seek first God's kingdom, and in his eternal Providence, his perpetual mercy, all will be well.

Robert Crouse

from A Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity

Parish Announcements

Prayer

Daily offices are prayed in the churches Tuesdays to Saturdays ‘til the end of September:

8:00am Morning Prayer at St. James’ LaHave;

5:00pm Evening Prayer at St. Mary’s Crousetown

Please remember the following persons in your prayers this week:

The Sick: Anson Conrad; Marjorie Edwards, Maurice Finney, Andrea Lee, Albert Parsons,

Juanita Smith, Richard Zinck, Margaret Whynacht.

Grieving: Families of Edwin Sperry, Barbara Joyce, Lester Teal, David Chance.

Anglican Cycle of Prayer: Anglican Church of the Southern Cone – Abp Gregory Venables

Diocesan Cycle of Prayer:

The Staff and Students at the Atlantic School of Theology, Halifax;

Rev. Canon Eric Beresford, President, and Janet Marshall

Rev Dr. Jody Clarke and Beth; Rev Dr. Brian Spence, Anglican Formation Director;

Staff and Students at the University of King’s College, Halifax;

Dr. William Baker, President, and Elizabeth; Rev Dr Gary Thorne, Chaplain

Staff and Students at Kings-Edgehill School, Windsor. Rev. David Curry, Chaplain

The programmes of Discernment, Training and Formation for Ordained Ministry

All the Church School Teachers and Pupils in our Dioceses.

All our Children and their Teachers in our Day Schools.

Diocese of Moosonee: St. John the Evangelist, Mistissini, QC Rev Iris Montague & Don

Moosonee Diocesan Clericus – Camp Bickell, Timmins, September 2nd – 5th.

The 10th anniversary of the Swissair flight 111 disaster, September 2nd

This Week’s Daily Bible Readings

Coming Soon

A quarterly JOINT PARISHES MEETING is being planned for 7pm on Wednesday, September 17 at St. James’ LaHave. This is for Parish and Church wardens, treasurers, secretaries and anyone else who is interested.

Welcome to Worship

The Anglican Parishes of Petite Riviere & New Dublin

THE EPISTLE. The Sarum Missal(from the Middle Ages) appoints the following Epistle:

Gal. 5. 25 – 6.10.

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden. Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

TRINITY xv

CHRIST gives himself to you under the signs of bread and wine. The food is assimilated, it loses its own nature and takes on yours. So with the life of Christ bestowed on you: it takes on the forms of your life and action, not (at first sight) the forms of Christ’s. People nourished on the life of Christ are more fully themselves for the gift; their personal quality is stronger, freer, more characteristic. Christ’s self-giving is self-effacing, he does not impose himself, he studies his disciples. But with what effect? Not that he is moulded to them, but that they are moulded to him. The strongest influence is exercised by the person who gives himself entirely away and does not think of himself. So it is with the love of God. He becomes as we, that he may make us as himself. Austin Farrer

The Crown of the Year