Web Morning Prayer 6/21/2020 - 3rd Sunday after Pentecost

This version of the Morning Prayer is adapted from the Episcopal Book of Prayer and the Ionia Prayerbook.

This is the same text, absent the lectionary reading, I use when I lead Morning Services at a Convention. 

There are references to "reader," "leader," and " people" within the text    this is for when the services are done "in person."   You are invited to read aloud those portions if you wish

(Image is "Christ Returning To His Parents," Simone Martini  )




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3rd Sunday after Pentecost   -

    (OPENING RESPONSES)

leader: The world belongs to God

all:      The earth and all its people

leader: How good it is, how wonderful,

all:      To live together in unity

leader: Love and faith come together,

all:      Justice and peace join hands

leader: If Christ's disciples keep silent

all:      These stones would shout aloud

leader: Open our lips, O God,

all:      And our mouths shall proclaim your praise

Leader: Holy God, Maker of all

all:      Have mercy on us

Leader: Jesus Christ, Servant of the poor

all:      Have mercy on us

leader: Holy Spirit, Breath of life

all:      Have Mercy on us

leader: Let us in silence confess our faults and admit our frailty

(A BRIEF PERIOD OF SILENCE IS KEPT)

Leader: Before God, with the people of God,

          I confess to my brokenness:

          to the ways I wound my life,

          the lives of others,

          and the life of the world.

ALL:   May God forgive you, Christ renew you,

          and the Spirit enable you to grow in love

Leader: Amen.

All:     Before God, with the people of God,

          we confess to our brokenness:

          to the ways we wound our lives,

          the lives of others,

          and the life of the world

Leader: May God forgive us, Christ Renew us,

          and the Spirit enable us to grow in love.

All:     Amen

(PRAYER FOR GOD'S HELP)

Leader: Move among us, O God; give us life:

All:     Let your people rejoice in you

Leader: Make our hearts clean within us:

All:     Renew us in mind and spirit.

Leader: Give us again the joy of your help:

All:     With your spirit of freedom sustain us.

Leader: And now, as Jesus taught us, we say:

ALL:   Our Father in heaven,

          Hallowed by Your name,

          Your Kingdom come,

          Your will be done on earth as in heaven,

          Give us today our daily bread,

          Forgive us our sins

          As we forgive those who sin against us,

          Save us in the time of trial

          And deliver us from evil,

          For the kingdom, the power

          And the glory are yours,

          Now and for ever. Amen.

(AFFIRMATION)

Leader: With the whole church

All:     We affirm

          That we are made in God's image,

          befriended by Christ, empowered by the Spirit.

Leader: With people everywhere

All:     We affirm

          God's goodness at the heart of humanity,

          Planted more deeply than all that is wrong.

Leader: With all creation

All:     We celebrate

          The miracle and wonder of life;

          The unfolding purposes of God,

          Forever at work in ourselves and the world.

Prayer for Thanksgiving

Blessed are you, Lord God of our salvation,
to you be praise and glory for ever.
As once you ransomed your people from Egypt
and led them to freedom in the promised land,
so now you have delivered us from the dominion of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of your risen Son.
May we, the first fruits of your new creation,
rejoice in this new day you have made,
and praise you for your mighty acts.
Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

All:  Blessed be God for ever.

Christ has been raised from the dead: •
the first fruits of those who sleep.
For as by man came death: •
by man has come also the resurrection of the dead;
for as in Adam all die: •
even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

(PSALM: said responsively - by one of the worshipers)

67 Deus misereatur

1 May God be merciful to us and bless us, *
show us the light of his countenance and come to us.

2 Let your ways be known upon earth, *
your saving health among all nations.

3 Let the peoples praise you, O God; *
let all the peoples praise you.

4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, *
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide all the nations upon earth.

5 Let the peoples praise you, O God; *
let all the peoples praise you.

6 The earth has brought forth her increase; *
may God, our own God, give us his blessing.

7 May God give us his blessing, *
and may all the ends of the earth stand in awe of him.

(Old Testament: Read by one of the worshipers)

Numbers 14:26-45 Revised Standard Version (RSV)

An Attempted Invasion is Repulsed

²⁶ And the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron, ²⁷ “How long shall this wicked congregation murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the people of Israel, which they murmur against me. ²⁸ Say to them, ‘As I live, says the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: ²⁹ your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and of all your number, numbered from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me, ³⁰ not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephun′neh and Joshua the son of Nun. ³¹ But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised. ³² But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. ³³ And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years, and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. ³⁴ According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day a year, you shall bear your iniquity, forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ ³⁵ I, the Lord, have spoken; surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”
³⁶ And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, and who returned and made all the congregation to murmur against him by bringing up an evil report against the land, ³⁷ the men who brought up an evil report of the land, died by plague before the Lord. ³⁸ But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephun′neh remained alive, of those men who went to spy out the land.
³⁹ And Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, and the people mourned greatly. ⁴⁰ And they rose early in the morning, and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, “See, we are here, we will go up to the place which the Lord has promised; for we have sinned.” ⁴¹ But Moses said, “Why now are you transgressing the command of the Lord, for that will not succeed? ⁴² Do not go up lest you be struck down before your enemies, for the Lord is not among you. ⁴³ For there the Amal′ekites and the Canaanites are before you, and you shall fall by the sword; because you have turned back from following the Lord, the Lord will not be with you.” ⁴⁴ But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country, although neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord, nor Moses, departed out of the camp. ⁴⁵ Then the Amal′ekites and the Canaanites who dwelt in that hill country came down, and defeated them and pursued them, even to Hormah.

The Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Epistle 

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Acts 15:1-12 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
The Council at Jerusalem
15 But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brethren, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” ² And when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. ³ So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoeni′cia and Samar′ia, reporting the conversion of the Gentiles, and they gave great joy to all the brethren. ⁴ When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. ⁵ But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up, and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to charge them to keep the law of Moses.”
⁶ The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. ⁷ And after there had been much debate, Peter rose and said to them, “Brethren, you know that in the early days God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. ⁸ And God who knows the heart bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us; ⁹ and he made no distinction between us and them, but cleansed their hearts by faith. ¹⁰ Now therefore why do you make trial of God by putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? ¹¹ But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”
¹² And all the assembly kept silence; and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.
The Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

(READING FOR THE DAY)

Leader: This morning's reading comes from the Gospel of Luke
          Listen now for the Word of God.

Luke 12:49-56

⁴⁹ “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled! ⁵⁰ I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained until it is accomplished! ⁵¹ Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division; ⁵² for henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three; ⁵³ they will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against her mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

Interpreting the Time

⁵⁴ He also said to the multitudes, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming’; and so it happens. ⁵⁵ And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. ⁵⁶ You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky; but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

The Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

(a period of silence is kept)

Leader: For the Word of God in Scripture,

          for the Word of God among us,

          for the Word of God within us

ALL:   Thanks be to God.

(Homily by leader)

(PRAYERS OF GRATITUDE AND CONCERN)

Leader. Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;

All:     Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.

Leader: Create in us clean hearts, O God;

All:     And sustain us with your Holy Spirit.

Leader: For each of our prayers, please add, aloud or silently,

           your own concerns

Leader: Give guidance and care for the needs of the world at large,

          and for the life of Your church

          God, in your mercy,

All:     Hear our prayer

Leader: For the concerns of our cities, towns and nations,

          give guidance to our leaders and care for their people

          God, in Your mercy,

All:     Hear our prayer

Leader: For the concerns and comfort of those of us here, our families,

          for those absent or those who are ill,

          and in remembrance of those who are gone,

          God in your mercy,

All:     Hear our prayer.

Leader: Remember all those the world has forgotten,

          Those without family, or those on the streets,

          Those who are damaged by drugs, alcohol or their own minds.

          Remember the unemployed, the widow, the orphan,

          and the prisoner.

          God in your mercy,

All:     Hear our prayer.

Leader: Living God, may we not fail you,

All:     Nor we fail them

Leader: O God, set Your blessing on us

          as we begin this day together.

          Confirm us in the truth by which we rightly live;

          confront us with the truth from which we wrongly turn.

          We ask not for what we want,

          but for what You know we need,

          as we offer this day and ourselves for You and to You,

          Through Jesus Christ, our Savior.

ALL:   Amen

A Prayer of St. Chrysostom

Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.

(CLOSING)

Leader: This is the day that God has made;

All:     We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Leader: We will not offer to God

All:     Offerings that cost us nothing.

Leader: Go in peace to love and to serve;

All:     We will seek peace and pursue it.

Leader: In the name of the Trinity of Love,

All:     God in community, holy and One.

          Amen