This week’s Prayers and Readings for the 6th Sunday after Epiphany.
The Collect for the 6th Sunday after Epiphany.
O God, you know us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers, that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright: grant to us such strength and protection as may support us in all dangers and carry us through all temptations; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
The Post Communion Prayer for this Sunday
The Psalm for this Sunday is Psalm 1
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; 2 but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night. 3 They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper. 4 The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 6 for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
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 Lesson for this Sunday is taken from the Book of the prophet Jeremiah, Chapter 17, verses 5 to 10
Thus says the Lord:
Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. 6 They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. 7 Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. 8 They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.
9 The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse— who can understand it? 10 I the Lord test the mind and give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.
This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
The New Testament reading for this Sunday is taken from the First Letter of St Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 15, verses 12 to 20
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; 14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. 17 If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. 19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. 20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.
This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
The Gospel reading for this Sunday is taken from the Gospel according to St Luke, Chapter 6, verses 17 to 26
He (Jesus) came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. 18 They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. 19 And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.
20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 ‘Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. ‘Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 ‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
24 ‘But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 ‘Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. ‘Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 ‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.
This is the Word of the Lord Thanks be to God
The sermon this Sunday is delivered by Mike Black
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be now and always acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.
Ouch !
Those are three tough readings this morning. As I read (and re-read) them, it was as though an evangelical Baptist minister was preaching hellfire and damnation to me, and possibly to some others as well.
I’ll pass on the reading from Jeremiah and start with the reading from St Paul, which comes towards the end of his first letter to the young church in Corinth. He is addressing the Sadducees among the Jewish community in Corinth. (For those of you, who can’t remember or don’t know who the Sadducees were, they were a Jewish sect which existed at the time of Jesus. Someone once told me many years ago that “they didn’t believe in the resurrection or life after death, so they were sad, you see.”)
When you think about it, Paul’s words from so long ago are really a great encouragement for Christians living in our materialistic society today. In this country, in our own town and our own community, so many people do not seem to have a belief in God or in Christ Jesus. If they are right, and there is no God, then we, above all people, are nothing more than pitiful fools.
If there is a God, but if Christ did not rise from the dead, then we are barking up the wrong tree. The Jews and, possibly, the Muslims are right. Not only that, but, in Paul’s words, “We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.”
If Christ was not raised from the dead, then we, worshipping together here in Goodshaw, are nothing more than a Sunday morning club, who come along, hear nice words and sing some catchy tunes. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if there aren’t people out there, in our community, who think exactly that.
However, we share in the faith which St Paul held. It is through this faith, which we express at each service, in the words of the Creed – either the Nicene Creed at Holy Communion or the Apostles’ Creed, which we say at Morning Prayer – and in the middle of the Eucharistic Prayer at Holy Communion service, that we express our belief in Christ, who died, rose and will come again. In Germany, in the Eucharistic Prayer those three declarations are introduced with the words “Geheimnis des Glaubens”, which mean “The Secret of Faith”. They are the three basic truths of our faith, which bind us to all Christians across the world.
As St Paul rightly says, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.”
Today’s reading from St Luke’s Gospel might sound familiar in part. It’s actually from a passage which is known as “The Sermon on the Plain”, in contrast to a similar passage in Chapters 5 and 6 of St Matthew’s Gospel, which is, of course, the Sermon on the Mount. Unfortunately, since our readings next week move to the weeks before Lent, we won’t hear the end of the Sermon on the Plain, but I would recommend reading the rest of it at home.
As in Matthew’s Gospel, Luke starts off with a crowd of people who have come to Jesus to hear him preach, but, one suspects, primarily to be healed by him from whatever was ailing them. Jesus has come onto a piece of level ground and starts his sermon with some beatitudes (the attitudes we should be at). They’re not exactly the same as in Matthew, perhaps because the audience is different.
This Sermon on the Plain contains not just the blessings of the beatitudes, but also a series of woes in verses 24 to 27, which we don’t find in the Sermon on the Mount,
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 ‘Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. ‘Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 ‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.
In pronouncing these woes, Jesus is turning on its head the worldly way of looking at things. In our materialistic, carefree and often hedonistic world, people tend to yearn for wealth, immediate satisfaction, fleeting happiness and popularity. He reminds us that the values of God’s kingdom are very different from these and cautions us all from getting caught up in the world’s way of ranking things.
Taking these words in, I can’t help but picture myself trying to get the plank out of my own eye before trying to get the speck out of anyone else’s. I became acutely aware of many of the faults I have – and I question why or how I can possibly speak about those of others.
The four “woes” stand in direct contrast to the four blessings of the previous verses. They remind us that, when we have a comfortable life, it is very easy to turn our backs on God, trusting in our own control over our lives. This, of course, is often the way to come a cropper. The Old Testament is full of instances where life became comfortable for the people of Israel and Judah. Countless times they turned their backs on God and fell into the ways of the world which God had warned them, in His covenant with them, to avoid.
Who are the rich?
Unfortunately, I have to say that almost all of our “western” society could be classed as being rich in material terms, certainly when compared to the vast majority of people in the developing world. Our wealth (and arrogance) has reached such a level that we believe that we can even change the long-term climate of the planet by reducing carbon dioxide emissions here. How do we do this ? We do it by damaging God’s creation in other parts of the world which are out of sight from our daily TV screens and by keeping people who once depended on their local environment for a living in a state of poverty.
Who are those who are full now?
Again, the answer today is primarily the people of the western, developed, world. I don’t simply mean “full” in the sense of having had enough to eat. We live in a society where just about everybody takes for granted not only having food to eat, but also having the material trappings of our society such as mobile phones, large colour televisions, cars, holidays away from home, etc..
Who are those who are laughing now?
On this, I struggle. It is true, if we watch TV or read the newspapers, that there are large numbers of people who seem to have a lifestyle of going from one party to another. I do wonder, however, just how many of these people are really laughing, or whether the laughter is just a façade. Is the laughter coming from those who have turned their backs on God and who mock those who do believe and worship Him? I don’t know. What I do know, though, is that there is nothing more desolate than attending the funeral of someone who has no belief in God or in Christ our Saviour. The atmosphere at such gatherings is one of utter pathos. The funeral marks the end. It is without any hope of eternal life.
Who are those of whom people speak well today?
Think about that one for a moment.
Who comes to mind, when we think of people who are popular today in politics, religion or world affairs?
I think we all know that the media is managed, and that the populus is fed story lines, which suit those with the power to drive them. Jesus gives us a reminder that, in the Old Testament, there were many occasions where the “popular view” was not the right one. Think of Elijah and the 450 prophets of Baal in the First Book of Kings. Think of Jeremiah, who was largely ignored and even imprisoned and thrown into a cistern.
What would Jesus say about the world in which we live today? It’s a world which, in every sense, is centred, not on God, but on Self. We have a generation (or maybe several generations, by today’s measurements), where Self rules, and where the question is no longer “what can I do to serve God, to help my community or my neighbour?”, but “why does nobody respect My truth?”. It’s all about Me, when it should be all about God.
As Christians, we share a privileged life. We have the company of the Holy Spirit to give us strength in all circumstances and to speak through us, when we ask (or allow Him) to. We have the knowledge of Salvation through the resurrection of God the Son, who took away our sins in dying on the cross and rising to new life.
None of us are perfect. None of us a guiltless, when it comes to examining ourselves inwardly or measuring ourselves against the “woes” which Christ pronounced. However, in putting our faith into practice in our daily lives, we have the true and everlasting victory in Christ.
In a world which ignores God and where some people mock those who believe in Him, it is our duty to show and tell this wondrous news to others.
Nobody else is going to do it for us.