Milk and honey

Download the pdf at the bottom of this page for the full service. The text of prayers and scripts is given here to print out for ease of use.

Call to worship

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.
His love endures for ever.
Sing to the Lord.
We shall sing praises to the Lord our God.

A B-line to Creation Time

A    This is the creation celebration
B    the living harvest.
A    The circle of life
B    pouring out its labour of love
A    witnessed in the apple, the almond
B    the orchid, the brazil nut,
A    the kiwi fruit, the celery,
B    the strawberry, the pawpaw,
A    the mustard, the rapeseed
B    the broccoli and cauliflower,
A    the cabbage, the coconut
B    the cola nut, the caraway,
A    the coriander and macadamia
B    whose existence depends on one insect:
Both    the bee.

B    Talking of bees: What does a queen bee do when she hiccups?
A    She issues a royal pardon!
B    Why do bees hum?
A    Because they’ve forgotten the words!
B    What kind of bee drops things?
A    A fumble bee!
B    There are ants and beetles,
A    and wasps and humming birds,
B    and crane flies and fruit flies,
A    and blow flies and hover flies
B    who pollinate many things,
A    but in all of God’s creation none of them is a patch on one pollinator,
B    on whose busyness the fragile and tender web of life, including us, depends:
Both    the bee.

B    Talking of bees: What’s a bee-line?
A    The shortest distance between two buzz-stops!
B    What are the cleverest bees?
A    Spelling bees!
B    God has evolved a world that would be without
A    the mulberry and blueberry,
B    strawberry and loganberry,
A    raspberry and blackberry,
B    bilberry and cranberry,
A    huckleberry and gooseberry,
B    wolfberry and buffaloberry,
A    bayberry, dewberry,
B    elderberry, rowanberry,
A    if it wasn’t for God’s greatest pollinator,
B    who brings life to all these fruits
A    which sustain all those, including us, who eat them:
Both    the bee.

B    Talking of bees: What do you get if you cross a bee with a doorbell?
A    A hum dinger!
B    What kind of bee can’t be understood?
A    A mumble bee!
B    This is the creation celebration;
A    the circle of life pouring out its labour of love,
A    the harvest for the world.
B    Let us celebrate and praise,
B    let us worship.
A    Let us bee here and bee-lieve
A    the maker, the sustainer,
Both    Creator of us all.

A creation time prayer

God of honey and halleluiah,
of grain and grape, of ocean and orchard,
this Creation Time
we praise you for the abundance of life,
and pray that the gifts of the world are not just shared, but shared justly.
God of beehives and breadbaskets,
of living webs and the weaving of life,
of ecosystems and economy,
this Creation Time we praise you for the wealth of the planet, and pray that this wealth 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, this Creation Time
we praise you for the sheer wonder of the world and pray that this wonder is not about our wealth, but the wealth of our generosity.
Hear us, O God of hope,
O God of promise, so be it.
Amen.

A reading litany

> During this the three readers spread toast with honey and eat it, speaking between mouthfuls.

Voice 1     The Bible loves honey, speaks of it often, and sees it as a picture of God’s good things.
Voice 2     My child, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste. Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, you will find a future, and your hope will not be cut off. Prov. 24
Voice 3     Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold: sweeter also than honey, and the drippings of the honeycomb. How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Prov. 16; Ps. 19; Ps. 119
Voice 1     Poet and prophet both speak of it. Honey is the promise, the image of a land rich in colour and nourishment, hope and promise.
Voice 2     Then the Lord said, ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ Ex. 3
Voice 3     You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey; a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity. Lev. 20; Deut. 8
Voice 1     And in the Book of Revelation, which offers strange words of comfort and hope to persecuted Christians in the time of the Early Church, we read of honey once more.
Voice 2     So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll; and he said to me, ‘Take it, and eat; it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth.’ So I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth. Rev. 10

Spelling it out, a statement of faith

We believe in spelling it out:
we believe faith is spelled R.I.S.K. ;
we believe harvest is spelled J.U.S.T.I.C.E. ;
we believe creation is spelled C.A.R.E. ;
we believe God is spelled L.O.V.E. ;
we believe life is spelled S.H.A.R.E. ;
we believe bread is spelled J.E.S.U.S.

We believe in spelling it out:
that people of faith are risk takers ;
that God’s creation is founded on justice ;
that environment is a way of caring for each other ;
that God is love and love is God ;
that life is richer when shared together ;
that the bread we share is simply Jesus Christ.

We believe in spelling it out:
godly living is C hrist centred;
heaven’s justice is always R esponsible;
a loving community is about E veryone;
God’s creation is A bundant;
where neighbourhoods work T ogether
and life on this planet I nspires,
offering us all a generous O pportunity
creation Now, justice Now, together N ow
We believe in spelling it out: C.R.E.A.T.I.O.N.

A prayer of blessing

May we taste justice at our tables.
May we sense hope in our land.
May we savour the sweetness
of all we have been given.
May we journey towards
renewal in our living and may God direct us, challenge us and be our companion on the way.
Amen.