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Saturday, January 29, 2022

Collect

Almighty God, your Son revealed in signs and miracles the wonder of your saving love.  Renew your people with your heavenly grace, and in all our weakness sustain us by your mighty power; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  AMEN.Come, let us worship.  

The Proclamation of the Word

1st Reading:  Isaiah 51:1-8 (NRSV)

Blessings in Store for God’s People

Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the Lord.  Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.  Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, but I blessed him and made him many.  For the Lord will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation; for a teaching will go out from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples.  I will bring near my deliverance swiftly, my salvation has gone out and my arms will rule the peoples; the coastlands wait for me, and for my arm they hope.  Lift up your eyes to the heavens and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats; but my salvation will be for ever, and my deliverance will never be ended.Listen to me, you who know righteousness, you people who have my teaching in your hearts; do not fear the reproach of others, and do not be dismayed when they revile you.  For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool; but my deliverance will be for ever, and my salvation to all generations.

Psalm 55 (Book of Alternative Services page 774):   1  Hear my prayer, O God; * do not hide yourself from my petition.   2  Listen to me and answer me; * I have no peace, because of my cares.   3  I am shaken by the noise of the enemy * and by the pressure of the wicked;   4  For they have cast an evil spell upon me * and are set against me in fury.   5  My heart quakes within me, * and the terrors of death have fallen upon me.   6  Fear and trembling have come over me, * and horror overwhelms me.   7  And I said, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! * I would fly away and be at rest.   8  I would flee to a far-off place * and make my lodging in the wilderness.   9   I would hasten to escape * from the stormy wind and tempest.”   10  Swallow them up, O Lord; confound their speech; * for I have seen violence and strife in the city.   11  Day and night the watchmen make their rounds upon her walls, * but trouble and misery are in the midst of her.   12  There is corruption at her heart; * her streets are never free of oppression and deceit.   13  For had it been an adversary who taunted me, then I could have borne it; * or had it been an enemy who vaunted himself against me, then I could have hidden from him.   14    But it was you, a man after my own heart, * my companion, my own familiar friend.   15   We took sweet counsel together, * and walked with the throng in the house of God.   16   Let death come upon them suddenly; let them go down alive into the grave; * for wickedness is in their dwellings, in their very midst.   17  But I will call upon God, * and the Lord will deliver me.   18  In the evening, in the morning, and at noonday, I will complain and lament, * and he will hear my voice.   19  He will bring me safely back from the battle waged against me; * for there are many who fight me.   20   God, who is enthroned of old, will hear me and bring them down; * they never change; they do not fear God.   21       My companion stretched forth his hand against his comrade; * he has broken his covenant.   22   His speech is softer than butter, * but war is in his heart.   23  His words are smoother than oil, * but they are drawn swords.   24  Cast your burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain you; * he will never let the righteous stumble.   25   For you will bring the bloodthirsty and deceitful * down to the pit of destruction, O God.   26  They shall not live out half their days, * but I will put my trust in you. 

God of grace, when we are frightened and alone, help us to trust you and cast our burdens upon you, that we may be upheld by your saving strength. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ.  Amen. 

2nd Reading:  Galatians 3:23-29

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed.  Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. s many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.  And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise. 

Gospel Reading:  Mark 7:1-23 (NRSV)

The Tradition of the Elders

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them.  (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.)  So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’  He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.”  You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! For Moses said, “Honour your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.”  But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban” (that is, an offering to God)— then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on.  And you do many things like this.’Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable.  He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’  (Thus he declared all foods clean.)  And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles.  For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.  All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’ 

The Lord’s PrayerOur Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.  For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever.  Amen.

Closing Prayer

God our Father, remembering your covenant you graciously pardoned those who rebelled against you.  Grant that where sin abounds, grace may abound more, through Jesus Christ our Lord. May the grace of God uphold you, the peace of God surround you, the love of God flow from you and the strength of God protect and bring you safely through this day.  Amen.