In Full Communion

Anglicans and Lutherans working together in Canada

A message from Anglican, Lutheran leaders for World Food Day 2022

October 11, 2022

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Dear friends in Christ

On World Food Day, October 16, we invite you to pray, give, learn, and advocate for food security everywhere. World Food Day highlights the shared goal of freeing humanity from hunger and malnutrition, and of effectively managing the global food system. In 2022, we have been reminded how food security is affected by an ongoing pandemic, conflicts & wars, a climate that won’t stop warming, rising prices, and international tensions.

Day by day, Canadian Lutheran World Relief (CLWR) and The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF) are engaged in the work of addressing hunger and promoting food security. To help you and your faith community engage in prayer and taking action against global hunger, you can review CLWR resources for Sunday October 16, 2022 and PWRDF resources on Food Security. PWRDF and CLWR are members of Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB), whose goal is a world without hunger.

We give thanks for the Holy Spirit’s work among you, for your heart of concern for those in need, and for your ongoing discernment of how to act in accordance with God’s will. We commend to you this prayer from the CLWR resources¹:

Holy God,
You come to us in Jesus, the Bread of Life.
You promise us that to feast is to know your presence and to grow in community.
You teach us to pray for daily bread.
You call us to hunger for justice and peace.
We pray for a world where everyone lives in peace, where no one is hungry, no one needs to flee their home, and no one is denied their rights.
We pray for the equitable distribution of food, for generosity, and for cooperation in managing food systems.
Give us courage, wisdom, and love to challenge the root causes of injustice and poverty.
We give you thanks for the gift of food, the wonder of flavour, the ongoing opportunities to feed each other, and the call to humbly trust in your grace.
Make yourself known to us in the breaking of the bread.
Inspire us to pray that everyone will receive their daily bread.
Lead us to walk in your ways.
Fill us with your Spirit of Love.
In Jesus name we pray, Amen.

Yours in Christ

The Most Reverend Linda Nicholls
Archbishop and Primate, Anglican Church of Canada

Rev. Susan C. Johnson
National Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada

¹ A Prayer for World Food Day, Rev. Paul Gehrs, Assistant to the Bishop for Justice and Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, ELCIC National Office

Matthew 10:40-42

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Rewards

40 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous, ⁴²and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

John 15:12-17

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. ¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. ¹⁷I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

John 21:15-19

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Jesus and Peter

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” ¹⁶A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” ¹⁷He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. ¹⁸Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” ¹⁹(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

Luke 11:33-36

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

The Light of the Body

33 “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a bushel basket; rather, one puts it on the lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. ³⁴Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but if it is unhealthy, your body is full of darkness. ³⁵Therefore consider whether the light in you is not darkness. ³⁶But if your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its rays.”

Matthew 8:1-4

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Jesus Cleanses a Man

8 When Jesus had come down from the mountain, great crowds followed him, ²and there was a man with a skin disease who came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” ³He stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing. Be made clean!” Immediately his skin disease was cleansed. ⁴Then Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”