Sunday readings and prayers

The collect for the FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that with you as our ruler and guide we may so pass through things temporal that we lose not our hold on things eternal; grant this, heavenly Father, for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

A reading from Jeremiah 28: 5-9

The prophet Jeremiah spoke to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the Lord; and the prophet Jeremiah said, “Amen! May the Lord do so; may the Lord fulfill the words that you have prophesied, and bring back to this place from Babylon the vessels of the house of the Lord, and all the exiles. But listen now to this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes true, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet.”

In popular culture a Jeremiah is a person who never stops complaining or who is a doom monger. This is not the Jeremiah of our OT reading. This Jeremiah is a prophet of peace. Deep rooted peace is a gift we too can enjoy and share with others.

Psalm 89:1-4,15-18

Your love, O Lord, for ever will I sing; from age to age my mouth will proclaim your faithfulness.

For I am persuaded that your love is established for ever;  you have set your faithfulness firmly in the heavens.

"I have made a covenant with my chosen one;  I have sworn an oath to David my servant:

 'I will establish your line for ever, and preserve your throne for all generations.'"

Happy are the people who know the festal shout! they walk, O Lord, in the light of your presence. They rejoice daily in your Name; they are jubilant in your righteousness.

For you are the glory of their strength, and by your favour our might is exalted.

Truly, the Lord is our ruler; the Holy One of Israel is our King.

The reference to slavery in the epistle is a powerful one for us today but it would have been so too when Paul was writing: he was addressing people who had been or were still slaves. Paul wanted to get the message home that what he was saying was not just abstract thought but a reality that would impact the way we lead our everyday lives! As “slaves of righteousness” we can experience the gift of true freedom bestowed upon us by a loving God and Heavenly Father.

Romans 6:12-23

Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Hospitality of Abraham

  who unknowingly welcomed angels into his  home

Gospel: Matthew 10:40-42

Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever 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; and 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.”

 “There are no strangers here, only friends whom we have not met”. This is an inspiring principle that may be easy to embrace when we are in church but possibly more of a challenge in our everyday life. Yet it is through our encounters with other people, whether we are giving or receiving the welcoming smile or act of kindness, that the liberating presence of God is revealed.  Sometimes it is easy to forget that we are called to receive as well as to give! 

29^th June is the feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul, the first leaders of the Church. St. Petertide is a time when the ordination of new priests to the ministry takes place.

St. Peter and St. Paul       El Greco. 

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the leaders of the Church who, with the inspiration  of the Holy Spirit, have down the ages guided and directed it as it has grown and spread across the world. We pray for all who are undergoing training for the ministry and all who are being ordained this year. We pray too for all who are involved in their training, especially at this time when the Church is being called to adapt to new ways of being.

We continue to pray for those living in war torn countries, thinking especially of Ukraine and the Middle East. We pray for peace and for a spirit of generosity as we seek compassionate ways of welcoming those who have fled their homeland for safety. We pray too for the people of Venezuela and those who have joined the rescue parties.

We pray for justice, peace and reconciliation in our own land where deprivation and gang culture blight the lives of young and old alike. Father, we ask for your blessing on church teams  and social workers striving to give new hope and purpose to those living in conditions that fall short of what we consider acceptable in the twenty-first century.  

Heavenly Father, we pray for those in need, asking you to heal the sick,  strengthen the fearful, befriend the lonely and guide the perplexed.   We pray in particular at this time for .................................. We pray for the repose of the souls of those who have recently departed this world & for strength & reassurance for those they have left behind.

We pray that each day we may reflect the love of Christ in our lives and never fail to see the image of Christ in those that we encounter along the way.