Year
C
Proper 13
Sunday
4 August 2013
Eucharistic Preface
Let
us lift up our hearts.
........We
lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our
God.
........It is right to
give our thanks and praise.
It is indeed right to give
you our thanks and praise, O God,
for you gather us up in your
arms
and hold us like a child to your cheek,
healing us, even
before we know it.
You created the earth and chose yourself a
people,
snatching them from danger
and leading them to a land
where they could settle.
When disobedience and idolatrous
greed
were our only response to your loving call,
your heart
was still warm and compassionate towards us
and you recoiled from
punishing your children.
You came to us in love and mercy
in
Christ — the Holy One in our midst —
showing us the
path to renewal in your image.
When he was put to death,
you
raised him in glory,
and now our lives are hidden in his,
ready
to be revealed in glory
when all is fulfilled and Christ is all
and in all!
Therefore with .....
©2001
Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net
Short
Preface
(for insertion into Eucharistic prayers with
fixed prefaces)
We thank you for gathering us up in your
arms
snatching us from danger and hiding our lives in
Christ,
ready to be revealed in glory
when all is fulfilled and
Christ is all and in all!
©2001 Nathan
Nettleton LaughingBird.net
General
Prayer of Thanksgiving
(Preface reformatted for use
apart from communion)
We give you all
thanks and praise, O God,
for you gather us up in your arms
and
hold us like a child to your cheek,
healing us, even before we
know it.
You created the earth and chose yourself a
people,
snatching them from danger
and leading them to a land
where they could settle.
When disobedience and idolatrous
greed
were our only response to your loving call,
your heart
was still warm and compassionate towards us
and you recoiled from
punishing your children.
You came to us in love and mercy
in
Christ — the Holy One in our midst —
showing us the
path to renewal in your image.
When he was put to death,
you
raised him in glory,
and now our lives are hidden in his,
ready
to be revealed in glory
when all is fulfilled and Christ is all
and in all!
Therefore, with our hearts lifted high,
we
offer you thanks and praise at all times
through Jesus Christ our
Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
©2001
Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net
Declaration
of Grace / Absolution
God has heard you cry out
and has snatched you from danger.
God’s compassion for
you is warm and tender.
Your life is hidden with Christ in
God.
Sisters and Brothers,
........your
sins are forgiven;
................be
at peace.
©2001 Nathan
Nettleton LaughingBird.net
Commission
& Benediction
Go now as those raised
with Christ,
wondering at God’s great love
and telling
the story of your salvation.
Be on your guard against all kinds of
greed
and set your minds on the ways of heaven.
And may God
reach out to you and nourish you;
May Christ Jesus renew you in
the image of your creator;
And may the Holy Spirit lead you with
cords of kindness and love.
We go in peace to love and serve
the Lord,
........In the name
of Christ. Amen.
©2001 Nathan
Nettleton LaughingBird.net
Paraphrases
of the Scripture
Lections
for Proper 13 - Year
C - Sunday 4 August 2013
Lections from The
Revised Common Lectionary.
Copyright 1992 by the Consultation on
Common Texts (CCT)
P. O. Box 340003, Room 381, Nashville, TN
37203-0003, USA. Used with Permission.
* Hosea 11: 1-11
I, the LORD,
once loved a little tacker called Israel.
........I
called, “Come to me, my child, leave the land of slavery.”
But
I was wasting my breath;
........the
more I called, the further they ran.
They kept offering themselves
to other gods
........and giving
their devotion to things they owned.
They did this even though
I had raised them;
........even
though I hugged them and guided their first steps.
They were blind
to all I’d done for them;
........they
forgot how often I had nursed them back to health.
I had
secured them with kindness, not ropes;
........I
had led them in love, not chains.
I doted on them like a parent
cuddling a baby;
........I got down
to play with them and feed them.
They will end up in slavery
again.
........They will be under the
thumb of foreign powers.
I begged them to come back to me for
safety,
........but they thumbed
their nose at my offer.
Now their cities are torn apart by
violence
........and those who think
they have the answers
................are
destroyed along with their plans.
My people are hell-bent on
replacing me.
........They go
flocking to the latest trendy messiah,
................but
he is powerless to help them.
Israel, O Israel; I can’t
give up hope;
........I can’t
walk away and abandon you to your fate.
I can’t bring myself
to treat you as you deserve;
........to
wipe you out like Sodom and Gomorrah.
My gut knots up just
thinking about it;
........my heart
melts and warm tears flow.
So I will not let my anger
explode;
........I will not destroy
you, Israel.
If I were just a human being, I would have
snapped,
........but I am God, the
one and only;
................I am
among you, but not in rage.
My people will return to me, the
LORD.
........I
will roar like a lion, and when they hear me
roar
................they will come
trembling out of their hiding places.
They will come fearfully
— unsure of what awaits them —
........trembling
like birds lifted from their cage;
but they will come en masse,
like migratory birds
........returning
from their lands of exile,
................and
I will welcome them back into their own homes.
I, the LORD,
have given my word.
©2001 Nathan
Nettleton LaughingBird.net
*
Psalm 107: 1-9, 43
Thank you, LORD!
Thank you for being so good.
........Your
rock-solid love will never end.
LORD, we
freely and openly acknowledge
........that
it was you who got us out of trouble;
................you
who put us back on the right track.
You gathered us from the four
corners of the globe,
........from
wherever we had been lost or exiled.
Some of us were lost in
pitiless deserts,
........desperate
to find shelter and company.
Without food or water,
........our
courage dried up and our steps grew weak.
In sheer despair, we
cried out to you, LORD,
........and
in a flash, you came to our rescue.
You guided us back to the main
road
........and got us safely to the
nearest town.
So let us tell you how grateful we are,
LORD.
........Thank
you for your rock-solid love
................and
for the great things you do for everyone;
........for
you quench our thirst
................and
feed us generously when we hunger.
Desiring wisdom, we take
note of all you do, LORD,
........and
focus our thoughts on your rock-solid love.
©2001
Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net
*
Colossians 3: 1-11
........If
you are fair dinkum when you say you have been raised to new life
with Christ, then commit yourself to the things that belong to such a
life. Look to Christ — God’s right hand man — and
take your cues from him. Concentrate on the things that matter to
Christ, and don’t let yourselves get hooked into the agendas
that preoccupy the world around you. Your old life is behind you —
dead and buried — and your new life is intimately bound up with
Christ, and lived in God. The full reality of this new life is not
visible to the general public yet, but it will be. Because your life
is now bound to Christ, when Christ makes his triumphant return to
the public stage, you will be there with him, in all your glory, for
all to see.
........So, since your
old life has been extinguished, make sure you stamp out any remnants
of it that might spark up within you and set it off again. Don’t
char your sexuality with trivialised, loveless flings. Expel the
fumes of moral contamination. Douse smouldering compulsions. Remove
anything that might fuel greed, because after all, greed is just
another form of idolatry. God is getting ready to deal with those who
have been defiantly allowing these sorts of things to burn out of
control. You were once implicated in all this, because those things
were all part the kind of life you used to live. But now you must
purge yourselves of all such things — bitterness, vengefulness,
spite, slander, and any tendency to mouth off in ways that insult and
humiliate others. And don’t lie to one another. Dishonesty may
have been a natural part of the old persona you all once wore, but
you’ve stripped all that off, along with all its accessories,
and decked yourselves out in a whole new persona. The new you is
becoming more and more like your creator as your minds are
reconstructed and your understanding grows. In this renewed life, we
are no longer divided up into factions based on our backgrounds. It
no longer makes any difference at all whether you were from this
ethnic group or that, one religious tradition or another; whether you
were educated or illiterate, refined or rough-nut, welfare dependent
or money-to-burn. Every possible distinction among you is rendered
irrelevant, because now Christ is in all of you and all of you are in
Christ.
©2001 Nathan
Nettleton LaughingBird.net
*
Luke 12: 13-21
........Someone
called out to Jesus from the crowd, saying, “Teacher, tell my
brother to give me my fair share of the family
inheritance.”
........But Jesus
replied, “Come on, mate. What makes you think I’m in the
business of family mediation?”
........And
turning to the crowd, he said:
“Keep a close eye on your values! Greed has all sorts of ways of getting under your guard if you don’t take care. Don’t get sucked into thinking that life is all about how much stuff you own. Let me illustrate. A certain rich man had an absolutely bumper year. His business interests and investments all went through the roof and at the end of the year, he had so much money he didn’t know what to do with it all. So he said to himself, ‘I’m going to put it all away for myself and live off the interest. I’ll never need to work again, so I’ll surround myself with the best of everything and just put my feet up, pat myself on the back, and eat and drink to my heart’s content.’
“But God said to him, ‘You mindless twit! Your number’s up. Tonight you’ll kick the bucket, and what will you be remembered for? Nothing but a stockpile of goodies heading for the tax office!’
“That is the way it goes for all those who accumulate wealth for their own selfish pleasure and have nothing invested in anything that God values.”
©2001
Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net
Alternative
Hebrew Bible Lections themed to the Gospel Lection
*
Ecclesiastes 1: 2, 12-14; 2: 18-23
(If
anyone can suggest a better Aussie phrase to translate ‘vanity
of vanities’, please email
me and let me know. I
realise that this one may offend some people, but I haven’t
thought of anything that captures it as thoroughly.)
........It’s
a big wank, I say.
................It’s
all a big wank, the lot of it!
........When
I was the king of Israel, living in Jerusalem, I was known as a
teacher of wisdom. I put a lot of work into study and reflection,
trying to get my head around the way things work out here on earth.
God has given people a hunger to understand such things, but what a
frustrating quest it is! It is as futile as chasing the wind. I have
carefully observed all that goes on in the world, and so far as I can
see, it is all a big wank.
........One
thing I did come to understand is why people hate their work so much.
The harder we work, the less we are able to enjoy the fruits of our
labours. Instead it is the next generation who really benefit from
our efforts, and there is no guarantee that they won’t be a
bunch of no-hopers who squander the lot. They could be a pack of
complete drongos, but they are still going to inherit control of
everything we created with all our careful planning and hard yakka.
What a wank!
........The more I
thought about it, the more depressed I got. All my hard work felt
like a complete waste of effort. Some people apply themselves to
their work with extraordinary vision, knowledge and expertise, but
everything they create must be left to someone who hasn’t
lifted a finger to earn it. This is all a big wank, not to mention a
crime! So what do people gain from their own efforts, from all the
hard yakka they put in through the long hot days? Nothing but tired
bones, headaches, and enough anxieties to keep them awake at night.
It is all a horrible big wank!
©2001 Nathan
Nettleton LaughingBird.net
*
Psalm 49: 1-12
Listen up, folks.
........All
of you, everywhere, tune in to this.
Whether you be kings or
commoners,
........battlers or
silvertails,
........I have wisdom to
share with you.
I have thought deeply and made sense of
things;
........I have listened to
the deep truths
................and
will uncover mysteries in my song.
There is no need to be
afraid in tough times,
........even
when enemies are out to get us;
even though they are rich and
arrogant,
........and confident in
wielding power.
The fact is, money does not sure up your
life;
........no one can stave off
death by bribing God.
No one has the means to save
themselves;
........to buy immunity
from death.
It is not possible to live forever
........and
avoid the grave.
Brilliant, high-achievers die,
........and
bludging morons die,
and neither can take anything with
them;
........whatever they had is
left to others.
The cemetery will be their final resting
place
........and it is a permanent
address for both,
........whether
their legacy is remembered or not.
Death cuts everyone down to
size;
........in the grave, a man and
his dog are equals.
©2001 Nathan
Nettleton LaughingBird.net