These are resources for the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity (Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost) on Sunday, September 6, 2020. The resources are gathered from a variety of sources and, while assembled mainly for The Anglican Church of St Thomas the Apostle, Kefalas, on the island of Crete in Greece, others may find them useful.

It would be very helpful to me to get a sense of whether there are people who actually use these resources, and would miss them if I did not do them (like last week). If you do appreciate my weekly collection of these resources, would you be so kind as to either leave a comment below or email me at bbryantscott AT gmail.com?

Read

The readings appointed for this Sunday are Exodus 12:1-14, Psalm 149, Romans 13:8-14, and Matthew 18:15-20. As we have been doing all summer, we will omit the reading from Romans and my sermon will focus on an aspect of the reading from the Torah.

Share

If you are in Crete, you will already know that in the Prefecture of Chania (which includes Apokoronas and Kefalas), gatherings of more than nine (9) persons are forbidden for at least another two weeks. In theory, we could meet for worship, but we would have to restrict attendance and turn people away. Rather than refuse anybody entry to the service, or do three in a row to accommodate everyone, or tell everyone to meet in a field just over the border in the Prefecture of Rethymno we have decided to suspend the service.

BUT, you can join us via Zoom!

Click this link, or enter the information at right into your Zoom app: Meeting ID: 850 4483 9927 Password: 010209. My thanks to Jan Lovell for being the Zoom host last Sunday, and to the Reverends Julia Bradshaw and Ruth Wooster for leading the service.

If you do not want to join us via Zoom, then you can simply do it all yourself – read the lessons and pray the prayers below, as well as listen to the recorded sermon, and intersperse it all by clicking on the links to the hymns.

Reflect

I will do my best to post the sermon promptly after I preach it on Sunday.

Fr Leonard Doolan of St Paul’s Anglican Church, Athens, has  once again sent me  a recording of the sermon he will preach on Sunday.

Pray

Collect

Almighty God,
who called your Church to bear witness
that you were in Christ reconciling the world to yourself:
help us to proclaim the good news of your love,
that all who hear it may be drawn to you;
through him who was lifted up on the cross,
and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

(or)

Almighty God,
you search us and know us:
may we rely on you in strength
and rest on you in weakness,
now and in all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Let us pray to God the Father,
who has reconciled all things to himself in Christ:

For peace among the nations,
that God may rid the world of violence
and let peoples grow in justice and harmony,
remembering the peoples of Yemen and Syria,
for peace between Turkey and Greece,
between Israelis and Palestinians;
your kingdom come, your will be done.

For those who serve in public office,
that they may work for the common good;
remembering especially

• Katerini Sakellaropoulou, President of Greece, and
  • Kyriakos Mitsotakis the Prime Minister of Greece;
• Elizabeth, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and her other realms, and also Governor of the Church of England;
  • and Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of her British government;

your kingdom come, your will be done.

For Christian people everywhere,
that we may joyfully proclaim and live our faith in Jesus Christ;

• for Robert Innes & David Hamid, our bishops;
• for Justin Welby our archbishop, Stephen Cottrell the Archbishop of York, and the General Synod of the Church of England;
• for the churches and peoples of Ghana and Nigeria; (World Council of Churches Ecumenical Prayer Cycle);
• for for the Anglican Church of Southern Africa and The Most Revd Thabo Makgoba, Archbishop of Capetown and Primate of Southern Africa (Anglican Cycle of Prayer); and
• (from the Prayer Diary of the Diocese in Europe) give thanks for:
  • our fellowship with the German Protestant Churches (Evangelische Kirche Deutschland) (Meissen Declaration),
  • and in the Diocesan Office in London, the Locum Ministry Administrator, Emma Biaggi; and the Retirement Officer, John Marvell;

your kingdom come, your will be done.

For those who suffer from hunger, sickness or loneliness,
that the presence of Christ may bring them health and wholeness;

• those who travel by land, air, or water,
  and for all medical staff testing and tracing tourists;
• the sick and the suffering,
  remembering the over 7 million active cases of the novel coronavirus, and mourning with the families of the 880,000 who have died in the pandemic;
  and also remembering those ill with other diseases, and those whose operations have been postponed;
• the over 79.5 million refugees and nearly 4 million stateless person, remembering especially the crucial situation of Greece;
• the peoples of Belarus and Hong Kong, as they demonstrate for democracy; for the people across the world marching for fair treatment from security forces and police; for advocates of Indigenous rights and the adoption and implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
• prisoners and captives,
  especially the over one million Uigers being held in detention in China; and
• the people of Lebanon, as they recover from the massive explosion in Beirut and the collapse of the government in that country;

your kingdom come, your will be done.

Let us commend ourselves, and all for whom we pray,
to the mercy and protection of God;
your kingdom come, your will be done.

Sing

This first piece seems to go with the reading from Exodus, as the people of Israel prepare to march out of Egypt. It comes out of South Africa, and, of course, it was one of many anthems associated with the long walk to freedom in that country.

This piece by John Bell comes from the Iona Community in Scotland, and is particularly well suited to be sung before gospel readings.

Where is the church?

I must have first heard this piece thirty years ago. It was written by Paul Halley, a English-born Canadian musician and organist when he was working at the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York City. If you do not know where it is going, hang on, because, like the Holy Spirit, it will take you to unexpected places! The latin lyrics Ubi caritas et amor Deus ibi est. Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor means: “Where there is charity and love, God is there. The love of Christ has gathered us together.”