UPDATE Regarding Physical Services from 9 July, 2020, indefinitely
- In accordance with State Laws and Regulations, our physical services will be suspended until further notice.
- The Church buildings will remain closed to all parish groups and tenants.
- While the building is closed, please remember that Church is alive.
- Our Online Sunday Services and Children's Ministry Resources including a weekly All Age Video will continue to be made available throughout the lockdown period.
Sunday Service of Holy Communion.
20 September, 2020, Pentecost 16.
20 September, 2020, Pentecost 16.
- The Service is available on Our Online Sunday Services page.
- Please carefully read the instructions provided in order to maximise your experience.
- The next Sunday's Service will be available on Saturday evening.
From the Vicar, 20 September, 2020
Today’s sermon is preached by our Family Minister, Sam White.
Reflection
‘Are you envious because I am so generous? So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’
Matthew 20:15b-16. (from The Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, Matthew 20:1-16).
Most who read this parable would at least think to themselves, this isn’t fair. It is not fair that workers who only worked the last hour of the day were paid the same as those who worked all day from early morning. Why would the landowner do such a thing?
Reading the parable carefully, the landowner goes out numerous times during the day, even at 5pm to see if there are more workers looking for work. He says to them, Why are you standing here idle all day? And they reply, Because no one has hired us.
Stop there and think about that response. A priest described such a scene on the edge of a shanty town where many were gathered at the side of the road waiting for some farmer or builder to come along and hire them for the day. Some had been there since sunrise, some, the priest heard, had even been there overnight. They were totally exposed, on display as many eyes scanned them with eyes that were indifferent, curious, hostile. Their value depended upon on what people wanted from them. They had no value in themselves. They would settle for the minimum wage.
As the day wore on, a look of dejection began to settle on their furrowed faces, and hope faded. For most of them, there would be no eleventh-hour reprieve. They would go home to their shacks and their families empty handed. The idea that any employer would take these people on at the eleventh hour and pay them a full day’s wage, was unthinkable.*
If the landowner is an image for God in this parable, then God is out in the marketplace looking for those who have been left out or ignored, and is ready to welcome them in with the same grace as extended to those who have been ‘in’ all along. God is not content with an ‘inner circle’, but pushes such boundaries outwards, such is the divine love for all people.
This parable also challenges us in our ways of the world and particularly the fallout emerging from COVID-19’s crisis. Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘Our world has enough for everyone’s needs but not enough for everyone’s greed.’ We are not in a world that is crippled by scarcity; we are in a world that is crippled by an attitude of scarcity.
In this parable, everyone received a denarius for his work, the equivalent of what a family needed to live on for one day. It was a just wage, ‘just’ in that the whole community was provided for. Let us pray and where we can, act, for such justice in our country and across the world.
God be with you.
Jennie
*Flor McCarthy. ‘New Sunday & Holy Day Liturgies Year A’. Dominican Publications, 1998
Today’s sermon is preached by our Family Minister, Sam White.
Reflection
‘Are you envious because I am so generous? So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’
Matthew 20:15b-16. (from The Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard, Matthew 20:1-16).
Most who read this parable would at least think to themselves, this isn’t fair. It is not fair that workers who only worked the last hour of the day were paid the same as those who worked all day from early morning. Why would the landowner do such a thing?
Reading the parable carefully, the landowner goes out numerous times during the day, even at 5pm to see if there are more workers looking for work. He says to them, Why are you standing here idle all day? And they reply, Because no one has hired us.
Stop there and think about that response. A priest described such a scene on the edge of a shanty town where many were gathered at the side of the road waiting for some farmer or builder to come along and hire them for the day. Some had been there since sunrise, some, the priest heard, had even been there overnight. They were totally exposed, on display as many eyes scanned them with eyes that were indifferent, curious, hostile. Their value depended upon on what people wanted from them. They had no value in themselves. They would settle for the minimum wage.
As the day wore on, a look of dejection began to settle on their furrowed faces, and hope faded. For most of them, there would be no eleventh-hour reprieve. They would go home to their shacks and their families empty handed. The idea that any employer would take these people on at the eleventh hour and pay them a full day’s wage, was unthinkable.*
If the landowner is an image for God in this parable, then God is out in the marketplace looking for those who have been left out or ignored, and is ready to welcome them in with the same grace as extended to those who have been ‘in’ all along. God is not content with an ‘inner circle’, but pushes such boundaries outwards, such is the divine love for all people.
This parable also challenges us in our ways of the world and particularly the fallout emerging from COVID-19’s crisis. Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘Our world has enough for everyone’s needs but not enough for everyone’s greed.’ We are not in a world that is crippled by scarcity; we are in a world that is crippled by an attitude of scarcity.
In this parable, everyone received a denarius for his work, the equivalent of what a family needed to live on for one day. It was a just wage, ‘just’ in that the whole community was provided for. Let us pray and where we can, act, for such justice in our country and across the world.
God be with you.
Jennie
*Flor McCarthy. ‘New Sunday & Holy Day Liturgies Year A’. Dominican Publications, 1998
Each week, in addition to the VIDEO of Rev Jennie doing Opening Prayers and Holy Communion, Sam and Sav work hard putting together a short All Age video.
This week, in Part 11 of Where is God? we discover that we can find God even when we are SAD.
The weekly video can be accessed on the Children's Ministry Page, or for them all, on our YouTube page where all of our videos to date are available to view, including the Sunday Service Opening Prayers and Holy Communion videos that have been done to date!
This week, in Part 11 of Where is God? we discover that we can find God even when we are SAD.
The weekly video can be accessed on the Children's Ministry Page, or for them all, on our YouTube page where all of our videos to date are available to view, including the Sunday Service Opening Prayers and Holy Communion videos that have been done to date!