Planting Seeds, Sharing Bread
Chapel of the Holy Apostles
Celebration of the Holy Eucharist
A Commemoration of World Food Day by PWRDF
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Celebrant: Rev. Dr. Eileen Scully
Please join us for a sharing of food following the service
Be a gardener, dig a ditch,
toil and sweat,
and turn the earth upside down
and seek the deepness and water the plants in time…
Take this food and drink
and carry it to God as your true worship.
—Julian of Norwich
Gathering
Welcome
Call to Worship
We gather together
to celebrate God’s bounty and blessing,
to proclaim God’s goodness and love,
to remember the many ways
in which God has provided for our needs,
and to offer ourselves in the work of God’s kingdom.
Praise the God of harvest and hope!
Let us worship together
(From Hope to Harvest – A Worship Service for World Food Day
Canadian Foodgrains Bank)
Apostolic Greeting and Collect for Purity
Hymn – All Things Bright and Beautiful (Common Praise 415)
Word
Collect of the Day
Loving God, with a handful of flour and a drop of oil the widow of Zarephath fed the
prophet Elijah before her child and herself.
God, teach us the joy of hospitality that welcomes friend and stranger, neighbour and
enemy, and so find You feasting among us.
(From Hope to Harvest – A Worship Service for World Food Day
Canadian Foodgrains Bank)
First Reading - Kings 4:42-44
A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing food from the first fruits to the man of God:
twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, "Give it to the
people and let them eat."
But his servant said, "How can I set this before a hundred people?" So he repeated,
"Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the LORD, 'They shall eat and
have some left.'"
He set it before them, they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the
LORD.
Second Reading – VII, 1996, from This Day, Collected and New Sabbath Poems, by
Wendell Berry
In spring we planted seed,
And by degrees the plants
Grew, flowered, and transformed
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The light to food, which we
Brought in, and ate, and lived.
The year grown old, we gathered
All that remained. We broke,
Manured, prepared the ground
For overwintering.
And thus at last made clear
Our little plot of time,
Tropical for a while,
Then temperate, then cold.
Gospel Reading – John 6:1-21
After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of
Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was
doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples.
Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a
large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread for
these people to eat?" He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going
to do. Philip answered him, "Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each
of them to get a little."
One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, "There is a boy here
who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?"
Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was a great deal of grass in the
place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and
when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the
fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, "Gather
up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost." So they gathered them up,
and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they
filled twelve baskets.
When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, "This is indeed the
prophet who is to come into the world."
Homily/Reflection
Prayers
Prayers of the People – Plant a seed, offer your petitions and prayers
Thanksgiving Prayer
God, we thank you for your harvest
which feeds us so many times each day
We are nourished with your forgiveness and hope
we are sustained with your strength and patience
we are filled with your grace and compassion
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God, we thank you for feeding us with a harvest of plenty
We are restored through your generosity and healing
we are replenished with your abundance and joy
we are reminded of your selfless abandon
God, we thank you for feeding us with the bread of heaven
Your gift of Christ sustains our lives
His presence restores the promise of your love
His life fills our hearts with your everlasting light
God, we thank you too for filling us with the water of life
May we drink deeply that our thirst may be quenched
may your river continue to flow
over us, in us, through us
and out into the world you love.
Amen.
(From Hope to Harvest – A Worship Service for World Food Day
Canadian Foodgrains Bank)
Prayer of Confession
You asked for my hands
that you might use them for your purposes.
I gave them for a moment
Then withdrew them for the work was hard.
You asked for my mouth
to speak out against injustice.
I gave you a whisper
that I might not be accused.
You asked for my eyes
to see the pain of poverty.
I closed them
for I did not want to see.
You asked for my life
that you might work through me.
I gave you a small part
that I might not get “too involved.”
Lord, forgive me for calculated efforts to serve you
only when it is convenient for me to do so,
and only in those places where it is safe to do so,
and only with those who make it easy to do so.
Lord, forgive me,
renew me,
send me out as a usable instrument,
that I may take seriously the meaning of your cross.
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(From Hope to Harvest – A Worship Service for World Food Day
Canadian Foodgrains Bank)
Assurance of Pardon and The Peace
Meal
Hymn – Song for the Environment
We must care for the environment and this lovely world of ours.
Planting trees in every valley, watch them grow up to the stars.
See the sun shine on clean rivers, as they flow down to the sea.
Every lake has its inhabitants, fishes swimming happily.
No more mining every mountain, no more poisons in the ground.
No more pesticides on farm fields, greener planting will abound.
When the animals roam freely, never kept away from light,
Then the meals at our own table will become a kinder sight.
We can practice better values, in the hurried life we lead.
Stop our rushing and our buying, take some time to think and read.
How to plant a little garden, how to care for every seed.
We’ll grow better as we learn how to live just with what we need.
Ethan Plecash, The Church of the Holy Trinity, April 2010
Tune: BEACH SPRING
(Ethan passed away in 2013 at age 17)
Prayer over the gifts
God of honey and harvest,
of grain and grape
of ocean and orchard:
This harvest time
may we both praise and pray;
praise you for the abundance
and pray that this harvest is not just shared,
but shared justly.
God of beehives and breadbaskets
of living webs and the weaving of life
of ecosystems and economy:
This harvest time
may we both praise and pray
praise you for the wealth of the harvest
and pray that this harvest is not just a promise
but is full of promise for all.
God of bumble bees and blue whales,
evolution and environment,
ice-field and star-field:
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This harvest time
may we both praise and pray:
praise you for the sheer wonder of the world
and pray that this harvest is not about our wealth
but the wealth of our generosity.
(From Hope to Harvest – A Worship Service for World Food Day
Canadian Foodgrains Bank)
Eucharistic Prayer
Breaking and Sharing of the Bread
Sending
Doxology
Sending Hymn – For the Fruit of All Creation (Common Praise 259)
Commissioning and Blessing
Go now, and invest your lives in the works of faith.
Make a name for yourselves for generosity and compassion.
Fulfill God’s holy law
by putting love into action as eagerly for others
as you would for yourselves.
And may God be your defender and provider;
May Christ Jesus dispel all that disturbs or disables you,
and may the Holy Spirit make you rich in faith,
and loving and merciful in action.
We go in peace to love and serve the Lord,
In the name of Christ. Amen.
(From Hope to Harvest – A Worship Service for World Food Day
Canadian Foodgrains Bank)
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