Harvest Round Up + Ps 37

After the lazy days of summer, (remember them?), then the flurry of book deadlines and then a pause for the Queen’s funeral, we are finally back to the normal format of The Reflectionary – to whit, a reflection on one of the lectionary passages which, this week, features Michelangelo, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Ready Brek – can you work out how they fit together? Plus, as is the new normal, your liturgy resources (at the bottom). This week we also have lots of links to Harvest resources (just below). Dive in!

Oh, and don’t forget the free book giveaway (details here) – send your name in now!

Harvest Resources

Other Lectionary Resources

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Reflection – Psalm 37

I’m sure you’ve heard the apocryphal account of Michelangelo sculpting his statue of David. “It’s easy,” he reputedly said. “You simply take a block of marble and chip away everything that doesn’t look like David.”

Hmmn. Some things are easier said than done.

I find cooking the same. I have a bread-maker. Apparently, you simply add the ingredients in the correct order, press ’Go’ and out pops a perfect, steaming loaf. This was my result. Even the birds wouldn’t eat it (probably a blessing, because they’d never have got airborne if they had).

Some things are easier said than done.

And so we come to our psalm. It has some lovely tea-towel-worthy sound bites. Sit back and bathe in their warm and fuzzy comfort:

Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him.

Aw, lovely. Can we end the sermon there, please? And everyone can go home in that warm glow you get when you eat a certain brand of porridge.

But let’s read on: “Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong.” Hmmn. “Do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.” Some things are easier said than done.

It’s easy to get riled when we see cheats prospering like, oooh, I dunno, like the Prime Minister having a booze-up in the grounds of Number 10 in the middle of lockdown and he gets away with a slapped wrist. Stuff like that.

It’s easy to get riled. More than that, it’s good to get riled. Justice is important. But don’t let it eat you up, is what the psalmist is saying. Yes, rubbish stuff happens. The boss’s nephew gets promoted over you. Rich people with expensive lawyers get let off while the poor go to gaol. The voiceless are exploited and the Good News is preached to those who can’t hear it over the engine of their Lamborghini.

Ultimately, say the psalmist, God will see to justice. To quote The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’s Sonny Patel, “Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it is not yet the end.” We live in these ‘between’ times where everything is not yet all right because we know it is not yet the end. But this isn’t blind optimism, it’s the hope of Christians everywhere and everywhen. It’s what kept the early disciples going in the face of persecution. It’s what spread the Good News throughout the Roman Empire. It’s what feeds our persecuted sisters and brothers today.

As Christians, we are called to that delicate tightrope between “I can’t fix it, so I’ll say a little prayer and leave it to God” and “God clearly isn’t doing anything about it, so it’s all down to me.” James was very hot on getting this balance right. “What kind of faith sees a beggar and says, ‘Go, I wish you warm and well-fed’, but does nothing about it?” he said. “I will show you my faith by my deeds.”

We need to work for the world of justice that God keeps banging on about (see Amos, for example) while remembering that ultimate justice is in God’s hands. And most of all, says the psalmist, there’s no need to fret.

Reading

Psalm 37:1-9
Do not fret because of those who are evil
or be envious of those who do wrong;
for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away.

Trust in the Lord and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him and he will do this:
He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn,
your vindication like the noonday sun.

Be still before the Lord
and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.

Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.
For those who are evil will be destroyed,
but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.

NIV

Liturgy Resources for Proper 22C

Lamentations 3:19-26, 2 Timothy 1:1-14

Confession and Absolution

We come before God in sorrowfulness of heart,
in the knowledge that we have sinned.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end.

We have not love God with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbour as ourselves.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end.

We turn to God for mercy,
and for strength to amend our ways.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end.

May God forgive and renew us,
and fill us with grace and mercy.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
His mercies never come to an end.
They are new every morning.
Great is your faithfulness, O Lord.

Blessing and Dismissal

Grace, mercy, and peace to you
from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
May God, who saved you and called you to a holy life,
rekindle the gift of God that is within you,
that you may know the one in whom you have put your trust
by the Holy Spirit, who lives in you.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you
Grace, mercy, and peace.

Go with a spirit of power and of love,
fan into flame the gift of God
and be not ashamed.
Amen.