COLLECT - Trinity 2
Lord, you have taught us that all our doings without love are nothing worth,
send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son 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.
OLD TESTAMENT - 2 Samuel 11, verse 26 - 12, verse 10 & 13-15
When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him.
After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.
The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.
The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle,
but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb that he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
"Now a traveller came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveller who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him."
David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die!
He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity."
Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.
I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.
Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’
Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." Nathan replied, "The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.
But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the Lord show utter contempt, the son born to you will die."
After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill.
NEW TESTAMENT - Galatians 2, verses 15 - end
"We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’
know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no-one will be justified.
"If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!
If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a law-breaker.
For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"
POST-COMMUNION PRAYER
Loving Father,
we thank you for feeding us at the supper of your Son:
sustain us by your Spirit,
that we may serve your here on earth until out joy is complete in heaven,
and we share in the eternal banquet with Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
