This week’s Readings and Sermon for the 18th Sunday after Trinity
The Collect for This Week
Faithful Lord, whose steadfast love never ceases and whose mercies never come to an end: grant us the grace to trust you and to receive the gifts of your love, new every morning, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
The Post Communion Prayer for this week
Holy and blessed God, you have fed us with the body and blood of your Son and filled us with your Holy Spirit: may we honour you, not only with our lips but in lives dedicated to the service of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Psalm 65
1 Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion; to you that answer prayer shall vows be paid. 2 To you shall all flesh come to confess their sins; when our misdeeds prevail against us, you will purge them away. 3 Happy are they whom you choose and draw to your courts to dwell there. We shall be satisfied with the blessings of your house, even of your holy temple. 4 With wonders you will answer us in your righteousness, O God of our salvation, O hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas. 5 In your strength you set fast the mountains and are girded about with might. 6 You still the raging of the seas, the roaring of their waves and the clamour of the peoples. 7 Those who dwell at the ends of the earth tremble at your marvels; the gates of the morning and evening sing your praise. 8 You visit the earth and water it; you make it very plenteous. 9 The river of God is full of water; you prepare grain for your people, for so you provide for the earth. 10 You drench the furrows and smooth out the ridges; you soften the ground with showers and bless its increase. 11 You crown the year with your goodness, and your paths overflow with plenty. 12 May the pastures of the wilderness flow with goodness and the hills be girded with joy. 13 May the meadows be clothed with flocks of sheep and the valleys stand so thick with corn that they shall laugh and sing.
Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and shall be forever. Amen
The Old Testament Reading for this Sunday is taken from the Book of the prophet Joel, Chapter 2, verse 23 to 32
23 O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God; for he has given the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before. 24 The threshing-floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. 25 I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent against you. 26 You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. 27 You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the Lord, am your God and there is no other. And my people shall never again be put to shame. 28 Then afterwards I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. 29 Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit. 30 I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. 32Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.
This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
The New Testament reading for this Sunday is taken from the Letter of St Paul to Timothy, Chapter 4 verses 6 to 8 and 16 to 18
6 As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
16 At my first defence no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them! 17 But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. 18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
The Gospel reading for this Sunday is taken from the Gospel of St Luke, Chapter 18, verses 9 to 14
Hear the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ, according to Luke Glory to You, o Lord !
9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: 10‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. 11The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” 13But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” 14I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’’
This is the Gospel of the Lord. Praise to You, o Christ !
Note :All readings are shared from the Church of England Lectionary App and are subject to copyright . © The Archbishop’s Council
The sermon this week is delivered by Rev. Samuel Hameem
“May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you O Lord my refuge and my redeemer amen.”
Today is the nineteenth Sunday after trinity, or in other words we could say that it is the last Sunday of trinity. It is also a very important Sunday, because today is the Bible Sunday in our churches. Bible Sunday is the Sunday when we celebrate the word of God, and at the same time to reflect on its importance in our personal, church, social, and family life, and this Sunday we just heart three readings from the Bible.
First one was from Joel, then the reading from 2 Timothy, and then the reading from the Gospel according to Luke. Regarding Paul’s second epistle to Timothy, this letter was written down by apostle Paul probably about 65 to 68 AD, and to highlight this letter’s importance in our lives, whether it be our personal lives or church, NIV Quest Study bibles say that,
“The last words of a dying person often have a significant impact on others. In a sense, 2 Timothy is like that. It contains advice from someone who knew he was going to the end of the life… His “dying words” are words for you to live by.”
NIV Quest Study Bible states this, because Paul wrote this letter when he was imprisoned for the second time in Rome, and he knew he is not going to make it, and we can see a hint of this in today's recitation where it is written in 2 Timothy 4:6-7 that,
“As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.”
Interestingly, the Gospel passage we just heard are also the last words of Jesus, because if we see main context of this passage, we could come to know that Jesus spoke these words to his disciples when he was on his way to Jerusalem. And we all know that the Jerusalem is the city where Jesus was crucified and it is the city where he rose from the dead and gave a new and living hope to the whole world. So, while going towards that city, Jesus spoke these words to his disciples.
Today’s Gospel reading is taken from the Gospel according to Luke, and this Gospel was penned down by Luke who was a doctor by profession. Regarding the date of this Gospel account, American Theologian, teacher and author William McDonald states that,
“The Gospel of Luke would have been written in the early 60 AD during the first century. Some scholars date it to 75-85 AD (or rather, the second century). One reason for this is that it is denied that Jesus could have predicted the destruction of Jerusalem so accurately. The city was destroyed in 70 AD, so the Lord’s prophecy must have been written before that year.”
If we see the immediate context of today’s Gospel reading, we could see that from the beginning of this chapter, Jesus is teaching his disciples that they should always pray and never give up, and like the preceding passage or parable, where Jesus is talking about the widow and the unjust judge, today's Gospel reading is also about prayer, but if we could dig a bit deeper into it, it is dealing with it on a wider level. Two different prayers in today’s Gospel reading reflect two different types of character.
On one hand there is a Pharisee, who looks like he is a pious and devout Jews, who is living an honest, righteous and upright life. He fasted twice a week, he gave his tithes, and living is life in accordance with the scriptures, or we could say that he is doing more than the law required, but if we recall his prayer we could clearly see that he commended himself for his own righteousness and piety, and his prayer was all about ‘I’. I am giving tithe, I am fasting, I am better than the others.
We need to keep that in minds, the Pharisees were the group of Jewish scholars who believed that they had great knowledge of religion and the Word, and they were the ones who showed it to people by practicing it. Therefore, if we consider the prayer of this Pharisee, it becomes very clear to us what the thinking and approach of the Pharisees was like.
But on the other hand, there was a tac collector. Tax collectors were a group of Jews despised by other Jews for collaborating with the Roman government that ruled over them. Tax collectors were the people who paid the authorities for the privilege of collecting taxes; then they overcharged the people, skimming money off the top to line their own pockets. As a result, other Jews saw Jewish tax collectors as both traitors and thieves. That is why the tax collector prayed like that is why this tax collector prayed as mentioned in today's Gospel passage.
By contrast, this tax collector praying totally differently from the Pharisee. He stood far away form the holy place, his eyes were down, and he open his heart to God by confession his weaknesses, his sinfulness, and asked God to have mercy on him. Now Jesus is telling this parable to his disciples, who Jews as well, and maybe their attitude and their thoughts were the same for tax collector as that Pharisee. But through this parable, Jesus, who was teaching his disciples, may be teaching us the same idol somewhere. According to Catherine Okoronkwo who is a Vicar of All Saints and St Barnabas churches in Swindon, and in the Adviser on Racial Justice to the Bishop of Bristol, wrote in The Canterbury Preacher’s Companion 2025 that,
“Jesus’ parable causes us to face the truth of who we are in Christ, the reality of our life and relationship as believers.”
Sometimes as human we also believe that what we are doing is right, what we are thinking is right, what we are doing is the only way, but the reality is completely opposite. Because what is in our mind is not right. To be perfectly frank, somewhere or other we too behave like this Pharisee in our personal, family, social, and church lives, whether openly or privately with others.
We too may sometimes consider ourselves superior to others, through our status, our abilities, our thinking, our way of doing things, our wealth, our religion, or our inspired book, but remember that God's way of working and seeing things is completely different from ours.
Therefore, it is important that whenever we go to God personally, as a family, or as a church, we go emptying ourselves so that He will listen to and answer our prayers, not looking at our status or wealth or anything else, but at our heart and our thoughts.
Let us reflect on our own lives and see who we stand with, are we like the Pharisee who thinks he is better than others or are we like the tax collector who humbled himself and come to God with true heart and mind.
I pray that God will give us the strength to examine our lives in such a way that may live our lives according to His Word.
May God bless you all. Amen.