Golden Thread: Lent 3 Service of Morning Prayer

Lent 3

Service of Morning Prayer

St. Thomas and St. Mary’s Anglican Churches

March 15, 2020

(Suggested reading: Take your time, do not race. When you come to a space in a litany or a canticle, stop for a moment and reflect on what has just been said. Think about each phrase and its meaning in the responsories. Think about what each canticle or block of prayer says. At times you may want to go back and repeat a litany or prayer etc. That is totally acceptable.)

Opening Sentence

Lord, you are indeed the Saviour of the world.

Give us living water, that we may not thirst.

THE GATHERING OF THE COMMUNITY

Introductory Responses

We cast our burdens upon you, O Lord,

and you will sustain us.

Create in us clean hearts, O God,

and renew a right spirit within us.

Cast us not away from your presence

and take not your Holy Spirit from us.

Give us the joy of your saving help again

and sustain us by your bountiful Spirit.

Blessed are you, O Holy One,

the God of our salvation who bears our burdens.

Blessed are you, God of compassion and mercy,

to you be praise and glory for ever.

In the darkness of our sin,

your light breaks forth like the dawn

and your healing springs up for deliverance.

As we rejoice in the gift of your saving help,

sustain s with your bountiful Spirit

and open our lips to sing your praise.

Blessed be God: Source of all being,

eternal Word and Holy Spirit.

Blessed be God for ever.

The Proclamation of the Word

Psalm 95 Venite, exultemus

1 Come, let us sing to the Lord; *

let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.

2 Let us come before the presence of the Lord with thanksgiving *

and raise a loud shout to God with psalms.

3 For you, O Lord, are a great God, *

and a great sovereign above all gods.

4 In your hand are the caverns of the earth, *

and the heights of the hills are yours also.

5 The sea is yours, for you made it, *

and your hands have moulded the dry land.

6 Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *

and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

7 For you are our God,

and we are the people of your pasture

and the sheep of your hand. *

Oh, that today we would hearken to your voice!

8 “Harden not your hearts,

as your forebears did in the wilderness, *

at Meribah, and on that day at Massah,

when they tempted me.

9 They put me to the test, *

though they had seen my works.

10 Forty years long I detested that generation and said, *

‘This people are wayward in their hearts;

they do not know my ways.’

11 So I swore in my wrath, *

‘They shall not enter into my rest.’”

Glory to the holy and undivided Trinity, one God:

as it was in the beginning,

is now and will be for ever. Amen.

Exodus 17:1-7

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water to drink.’ Moses said to them, ‘Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, ‘Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?’ So Moses cried out to the Lord, ‘What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.’ The Lord said to Moses, ‘Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.’ Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?’

Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

Thanks be to God.

The Responsory

Incline your ear to me;

Make haste to answer when I call.

Lord, hear my prayer and let my cry come before you.

Make haste to answer when I call.

Hide not your face from me in the day of my trouble.

Make haste to answer when I call.

You endure for ever and your name from age to age.

Make haste to answer when I call.

You will arise and have compassion on Zion,

for it is time to have pity upon her.

Make haste to answer when I call.

Romans 5.1-11

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church

Thanks be to God.

The Song of Zechariah (Luke 1.68-79)

Blessed are you, Lord, the God of Israel, *

you have come to your people and set them free.

You have raised up for us a mighty Saviour, *

born of the house of your servant David.

Through your holy prophets, *

you promised of old to save us from our enemies,

from the hands of all who hate us, *

to show mercy to our forebears,

and to remember your holy covenant.

This was the oath you swore to our father Abraham: *

to set us free from the hands of our enemies,

free to worship you without fear, *

holy and righteous before you,

all the days of our life.

And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, *

for you will go before the Lord to prepare the way,

to give God’s people knowledge of salvation *

by the forgiveness of their sins.

In the tender compassion of our God *

the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

to shine on those who dwell in darkness

and the shadow of death, *

and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Glory to God, Source of all being,

eternal Word and Holy Spirit:

as it was in the beginning,

is now and will be for ever. Amen.

Gospel

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ

according to John.

Glory to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

John 4:5-42

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.’

Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come back.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am he, the one who is speaking to you.’

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you want?’ or, ‘Why are you speaking with her?’ Then the woman left her water-jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’ They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, ‘Rabbi, eat something.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Surely no one has brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there for two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’

The Gospel of Christ.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

Sermon (Click here)

Hear, O Israel

O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart,

with all your soul, with all your mind,

and with all your strength.

This is the first and the great commandment.

The second is like it:

Love your neighbour as yourself.

There is no commandment greater than these.

The Prayers of the Community

The Litany

Let us offer our intercessions,

petitions and thanksgivings, saying,

‘God of our ancestors, hear our prayer.’

For the one holy catholic and apostolic Church

throughout the world,