Year
C
Proper 12
Sunday
28 July 2013
Eucharistic Preface
Let
us lift up our hearts.
........We
lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our
God.
........It is right to
give our thanks and praise.
It is indeed right to give
you our thanks and praise, O God,
and hallow your name throughout
the earth,
for in you love and fidelity embrace,
peace and
justice kiss.
When you created the earth and poured out your
riches
the land sprang to life with good gifts for all.
When we
prostituted ourselves
to the ruling spirits of the world,
you
loved us still, and sent your prophets to call us back.
In
your child, Jesus,
your divine nature has indwelt humanity.
Nailed
to the cross, he cancelled the record of our sin,
and when we were
buried with him in baptism,
you raised us with him
through
faith in your active power.
Now to all who seek and ask,
you
give the gift of life,
holding us together in Christ’s
body,
nourishing us daily with the bread of life
and calling us
“Children of the living God.”
Therefore with
.....
©2001 Nathan
Nettleton LaughingBird.net
Short
Preface
(for insertion into Eucharistic prayers with
fixed prefaces)
We thank you that to all who seek and ask,
you
give the gift of full life,
holding us together in Christ’s
body,
nourishing us daily with the bread of life
and calling us
“Children of the living God.”
©2001
Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net
General
Prayer of Thanksgiving
(Preface reformatted for use
apart from communion)
We give you all
thanks and praise, O God,
and hallow your name throughout the
earth,
for in you love and fidelity embrace,
peace and justice
kiss.
When you created the earth and poured out your
riches
the land sprang to life with good gifts for all.
When we
prostituted ourselves
to the ruling spirits of the world,
you
loved us still, and sent your prophets to call us back.
In
your child, Jesus,
your divine nature has indwelt humanity.
Nailed
to the cross, he cancelled the record of our sin,
and when we were
buried with him in baptism,
you raised us with him
through
faith in your active power.
Now to all who seek and ask,
you
give the gift of life,
holding us together in Christ’s
body,
nourishing us daily with the bread of life
and calling us
“Children of the living God.”
Therefore, with our
hearts lifted high,
we offer you thanks and praise at all
times
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
©2001
Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net
Declaration
of Grace / Absolution
To all who turn their hearts
to God, the word of peace comes:
God has erased the record that
stood against us,
nailing it to the cross of Christ.
God has
shown mercy,
coming to revive us and save us.
Sisters and
Brothers,
........your sins are
forgiven;
................be at
peace.
©2001 Nathan
Nettleton LaughingBird.net
Commission
& Benediction
Go now as people in whom
love and fidelity embrace;
peace and justice kiss.
Live your
lives in Christ,
rooted and built up in him,
full of
thanksgiving
and praying as he taught us.
And may God give
good gifts in answer to your prayers;
May Christ Jesus establish
you in the faith;
And may the Holy Spirit pour out heaven’s
riches upon you.
We go in peace to love and serve the
Lord,
........In the name of
Christ. Amen.
©2001 Nathan
Nettleton LaughingBird.net
Paraphrases
of the Scripture
Lections
for Proper 12 - Year
C - Sunday 28 July 2013
Lections from The
Revised Common Lectionary.
Copyright 1992 by the Consultation on
Common Texts (CCT)
P. O. Box 340003, Room 381, Nashville, TN
37203-0003, USA. Used with Permission.
* Hosea 1: 2-10
........When
Hosea was first called to be the LORD’s
mouthpiece, the LORD said to him, “Hosea,
Israel has been as unfaithful to me as a wife who has sex with anyone
willing to pay. Since you are to represent me, go and take a
prostitute as your wife, and have children with her, even though
you’ll always wonder if they are really yours.”
........So
Hosea went and married a prostitute named Gomer, the daughter of
Diblaim. Gomer fell pregnant and soon they had a baby
boy.
........The LORD
said to Hosea, “You are to name your son Jezreel, after the
site of the infamous massacre. It won’t be long now before I
will punish the royal family of King Jehu for that massacre. The
kingdom of Israel will be destroyed. When that day comes, I will
smash their weapons to pieces right there in the Jezreel
valley.”
........Gomer fell
pregnant again and gave birth to a baby girl. This time the LORD
said to Hosea, “You are to name your daughter ‘No-mercy’.
I’ve had a gutful of the people of Israel. I will no longer
have mercy on them. I am not forgiving them any more. The people of
Judah still belong to me and I will be merciful to them. Their
defence systems, armies and weapons won’t save them, but I, the
LORD their God, will save them
myself.”
........After she had
weaned No-mercy, Gomer fell pregnant again and gave birth to another
baby boy. The LORD said to Hosea, “You are
to name this one ‘Not-mine’, because these people are not
mine any more and I am no longer their God. Nevertheless, it will not
always be that way. One day Israel will flourish in such numbers that
trying to count them would be like trying to count the grains of sand
on the beach. And, in the very same place where they were known as
‘Not-mine’, they will once again be known as ‘Children
of the living God.’”
©2001
Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net
*
Psalm 85
LORD, you smiled on
your land
........and brought back
the good times for your people.
You struck out the record of
our guilt
........and pardoned all we
had done wrong.
You swallowed your rage,
........unclenched
your fists, and cooled down.
Yes God, you have saved us
before,
........and now we need your
help again.
Put aside the anger we caused you, LORD,
........and
help us get back on track.
You won’t maintain your rage
forever, will you?
........Surely you
won’t burn with anger, year after year?
Wouldn’t
it be better to put us back on our feet
........and
have us trumpeting your goodness?
Let us in on your rock-solid
love, LORD.
........Save
us and give us a fresh start.
We are eager to hear all you
have to say, LORD God,
........for
your words bring peace and wellbeing
................to
those who stick with you
........................and
leave behind their foolish ways.
Surely for all who respect
you,
........the life you saved us
for is within reach.
................Our
land will be ablaze with your presence.
What a life it will
be!
........Love and loyalty will
link arms;
................justice
and peace will become lovers.
Faithfulness will sprout and
reach for the sky;
........integrity
will beam down on the earth.
You will give us every good
thing, LORD,
........and
the land will give bumper crops.
Justice and integrity will
spring up as you approach,
........lining
the road to welcome you among us.
©2001
Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net
*
Colossians 2: 6-15, (16-19)
........Stay
on track! You received Christ Jesus the Lord; now follow through on
your good start. Put down deep roots and draw on Christ in everything
you do. Make Christ the foundation on which you build your lives. See
that your faith grows strong and stable, just as you were taught, and
you will always be thankful.
........Don’t
let anyone entangle you with highfalutin theories and intellectual
clap-trap. There are plenty of exotic sounding spiritualities on
offer; all claiming to enable you to achieve harmony with the psychic
forces or spirit-powers that control the destiny of the cosmos. They
contain enough truth to be very persuasive, but they skirt around the
truth of Christ. It is in Christ that God is fully present as a human
being, and accessible to you. It is in Christ that your progress into
the fullness of human potential is made. And it is in Christ that you
will find the real nerve centre of the cosmos.
........It
is also in Christ that you were marked out as people who belong to
God, not by going under the knife in a physical circumcision, but by
going under Christ’s knife to have your selfish compulsions cut
away. This, of course, was still a physical action, because it was in
baptism that your old lives were lowered into the grave with Christ,
and it was from the waters of baptism that you were raised, with
Christ, to new life; having entrusted yourself to the same
life-giving power by which God raised Christ from the dead. Prior to
that, you were as good as dead, because your actions and your hearts
made it clear that you did not belong to God, but God set about
making you fully alive again, together with Christ. God forgave all
that you had done wrong, and cancelled out all record of your
offences and the punishments pending, by adding it all to the
conviction sheet of someone who had already been executed —
namely Jesus Christ! Dying and rising, Christ publicly exposed as a
sham the claims of the various psychic forces and spirit-powers to be
controlling the destiny of the cosmos. Christ’s resurrection
triumph made a mockery of them.
........So
then, do not let anybody put you down as spiritually inferior for not
conforming to their prescriptions about abstaining from certain foods
or drinks, or not observing their particular sacred days or
festivals. These sorts of things are a bit like travel brochures:
they may whet your appetite for what’s ahead, but they are
nothing like actually arriving there. Christ is the reality we are
looking forward to — the be all and end all — so you can
take or leave the various traditions or disciplines that, at best,
just point you in the right direction. Do not tolerate anyone
advocating that you should be excluded unless you do everything their
way and join them in their punishing self-disciplines and their
obsession with pandering to angels. They go on and on about how all
these things were communicated to them in supernatural visions, but
they are a lot of hot air. Their minds are actually stuck in an
all-too-human rut because they have lost touch with the nerve-centre
of true spirituality, namely Christ. It is only the impulses that
come from Christ the head that enable us, the body, to function and
grow as a healthy whole in the way God intended for us.
If
this paraphrase helped you to make sense of this passage, how about
clicking
here and helping my little
church pay me for six and a half hours it took me to make this much
sense of it!
©2001 Nathan
Nettleton LaughingBird.net
*
Luke 11: 1-13
........One
day, Jesus had set aside some time and space to pray. When he had
finished, one of his followers said to him, “Lord, John taught
his disciples how to pray. Please do the same for us.”
........So
Jesus said to them, “Here is a model prayer for you to use when
you pray:
........Father, may
your name be kept sacred.
................May
everything be brought under your rule.
........................Give
us enough food for each day.
................Forgive
us the things we have done wrong,
........................just
as we forgive those who owe us anything.
........And
don’t push us beyond our limits.”
........Jesus
went on to say, “Imagine if friends from out of town dropped in
without warning, late one night, and you didn’t even have
enough in the cupboard to offer them a sandwich. So you knock on your
next-door-neighbour’s door and call out, ‘Please be a
mate and lend me a few things from your kitchen to feed my unexpected
guests.’ But your neighbour yells back from inside saying,
‘Don’t hassle me with your problems. Its after midnight.
We’ve already gone to bed and the kids are asleep. There’s
no way I’m getting up for you or anyone.’ But let me tell
you this; he might not get up and help just because he thinks that’s
what mates do, but if you stick to your guns and make a scene for
long enough, he will eventually get up and give you whatever you need
just to shut you up!
........“So,
what I am telling you is this:
................If
you want to be given something, keep on asking for
it.
................If you want to
find something, keep on searching for it.
................If
you want a door to open for you, keep on knocking at it.
“That’s
the way it is. All who keep on asking will receive; all who keep on
searching will find; and all who keep on knocking will have the door
opened for them. Think about it. None of you parents would ever put a
live snake in your child’s lunch box, would you? If your child
asked for a piece of chocolate, you wouldn’t pop a funnel-web
in her mouth, would you? You lot might score a lot more marks for
selfishness than you do for generous love, but you still care enough
to want to provide the best for your own children. So surely you can
see that God, who conceived you in heaven, will be all the more eager
to give the Holy Spirit to anyone who asks.”
©2001
Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net
Alternative
Hebrew Bible Lections themed to the Gospel Lection
*
Genesis 18: 20-32
........The LORD
said to Abraham, “The reports I am hearing about the people of
Sodom and Gomorrah are full of allegations of callous depravity and
corruption. I have decided to go down and see for myself whether the
situation is really as horrendous as the reports make out. Perhaps
the people are really not so bad, but I need to know.”
........So
the visitors set off in the direction of Sodom, leaving Abraham in
the presence of the LORD. Abraham turned to the
LORD and said, “Surely you wouldn’t
just wipe out everybody; the good along with the bad? What if there
are fifty decent, honest people in the city? Will you still go ahead
and wipe out the city instead of sparing it for the sake of the fifty
good people who live there? Far be it from you to be so
indiscriminate, to lump the good people in with the evil, and punish
them all the same. How could you? You are the one who sits in
judgment over all the earth; surely you must be seen to be fair in
your own actions.”
........The
LORD replied, “If I find fifty decent,
honest people in Sodom, I will pardon the whole city for their
sake.”
........Abraham spoke up
again, saying, “I know I am way out of line challenging you,
Lord — mere mortal that I am — but what if the count
falls five short? Would five people make such a difference that you
would go ahead and destroy the whole city?”
........The
LORD replied, “I will hold fire if I find
forty-five decent people.”
........Abraham
pressed on: “What if you could only find forty
there?”
........The LORD
replied, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.”
........Then
Abraham said, “Forgive me for pushing the issue, Lord, but what
if you can only rustle up thirty?”
........The
LORD replied, “I will hold fire if I find
thirty of them.”
........“Maybe
I’m pushing my luck, speaking to you like this, Lord,”
said Abraham, “but let’s say you found only twenty. What
then?”
........The LORD
replied, “For the sake of twenty I will spare the
city.”
........Abraham said,
“Lord, please don’t be angry with me if I speak one more
time; but what if you can find only ten good people in
Sodom?”
........“Then for
the sake of those ten,” the LORD answered,
“I will not destroy the city.”
©2001 Nathan
Nettleton LaughingBird.net
*
Psalm 138
Thank you, LORD,
thank you!
........Thank you, from
the bottom of my heart!
I will stand and sing your
praises
........in the face of every
would-be god!
Wherever I am, I turn towards your holy
Temple
........and fall to my knees
in gratitude,
................thanking
you for your rock-solid love and loyalty;
With everything you say
and everything you do
........your
reputation continues to go through the roof.
The minute I called,
you were there for me,
........you
put steel in my spine,
................gave
me the guts to go on.
When the things you have been saying
sink in, LORD,
........all
the earth’s powerful rulers will give credit to you.
They’ll
join the party, singing and dancing in your
honour,
........celebrating the
wonderful things you do.
As great as you are,
........you
never think of ordinary people as beneath you,
but you don’t
waste your time
........on those who
are pretentious and stuck-up.
Although I must often walk into
dangerous situations,
........you
protect me from hatred and hostility;
................your
invisible hand is always there, keeping me safe.
You, LORD,
have made plans for me
........and
you will see them through to completion.
Your love is as timeless
and dependable as the rock;
........you
have made us what we are
................and
you never give up on us.
©2001 Nathan
Nettleton LaughingBird.net