Sunday morning July 2
Monday morning
Saturday morning
Preparation
Opening response
Lord, open our lips
and our mouth will proclaim your praise.
Prayer of thanksgiving
Blessed are you, Sovereign God, creator of all,
to you be glory and praise forever.
You founded the earth in the beginning
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
In the fullness of time you made us in your image,
and in these last days you have spoken to us
in your Son Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.
As we rejoice in the gift of your presence among us
let the light of your love always shine in our hearts,
your Spirit ever renew our lives
and your praises ever be on our lips.
Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Blessed be God forever.
The night has passed, and the day lies open before us;
let us pray with one heart and mind.
Silence is kept.
As we rejoice in the gift of this new day,
so may the light of your presence, O God,
set our hearts on fire with love for you;
now and forever.
Amen.
Hymn
Hail! Jesus Hail! Our Great High Priest
Charles Wesley
Hail! Jesus hail! Our great High Priest,
Entered into thy glorious rest,
That holy, happy place above;
Thou hast the conquest more than gained
The everlasting bliss obtained
For all who trust thy dying love.
The blood of goats and bullocks slain
Could never purge our guilty stain,
Could never for our sins atone;
But thou thine own most precious blood,
Hast shed to make us priests to God,
And seat us with thee on thy throne.
Not without blood, thou prayest above,
The marks of thy expiring love,
God on thy hands engraven sees!
He hears thy blood for mercy cry,
And sends his Spirit from the sky,
And seals our everlasting peace.
Thankful we now the earnest take,
The pledge thou wilt at last come back,
And openly thy servants own;
To us, who long to see thee here,
Thou shalt a second time appear,
And bear us to thy glorious throne.
Confession of sin
Let us admit to God the sin which always confronts us.
A time of silence and self-examination may be kept.
Almighty God,
patient and of great goodness:
I confess to you,
I confess with my whole heart
my neglect and forgetfulness of your commandments,
my wrong doing, thinking, and speaking;
the hurts I have done to others,
and the good I have left undone.
O God, forgive me, for I have sinned against you;
and raise me to newness of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
May the God of love and power
forgive us and free us from our sins,
heal and strengthen us by his Spirit,
and raise us to new life in Christ our Lord.
Amen.
The Word of God
Psalm 52
Refrain:
I trust in God’s faithful love forever and always.
Hey, powerful person!
Why do you brag about evil?
God’s faithful love lasts all day long.
Your tongue devises destruction:
it’s like a sharpened razor, causing deception.
You love evil more than good;
you love lying more than speaking what is right.
You love all destructive words;
you love the deceiving tongue.
But God will take you down permanently;
he will snatch you up,
tear you out of your tent,
and uproot you from the land of the living!
The righteous will see and be in awe;
they will laugh at those people:
“Look at them! They didn’t make God their refuge.
Instead, they trusted in their own great wealth.
They sought refuge in it—to their own destruction!”
But I am like a green olive tree in God’s house;
I trust in God’s faithful love forever and always.
I will give thanks to you, God, forever,
because you have acted.
In the presence of your faithful people,
I will hope in your name because it’s so good.
Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.
Refrain:
I trust in God’s faithful love forever and always.
Psalm prayer
Faithful and steadfast God,
nourish your people in this wicked world,
and, through prayer and the Scriptures,
give us our daily bread;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Psalm 53
Refrain:
The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord; the knowledge of the holy one is understanding.
Fools say in their hearts, There’s no God.
They are corrupt and do horrible deeds;
not one of them does anything good.
God looks down from heaven on humans
to see if anyone is wise,
to see if anyone seeks God.
But all have turned away.
Everyone is corrupt.
No one does good—
not even one person!
Are they dumb—these evildoers—
devouring my people like they are eating bread
but never calling on God?
There, where there was nothing to fear,
they will be in utter panic
because God will scatter the bones
of those who attacked you.
You will put them to shame
because God has rejected them.
Let Israel’s salvation come out of Zion!
When God changes
his people’s circumstances for the better,
Jacob will rejoice;
Israel will celebrate!
Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.
Refrain:
The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord; the knowledge of the holy one is understanding.
Psalm prayer
Without you, God, nothing is real,
all things are open to corruption
and we are deadened by deceit;
do not abandon us to our folly,
but give us hearts that seek you
and, at the last, joy in your heavenly city;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Old Testament reading
Deuteronomy 15:1-11
Every seventh year you must cancel all debts. This is how the cancellation is to be handled: Creditors will forgive the loans of their fellow Israelites. They won’t demand repayment from their neighbors or their relatives because the Lord’s year of debt cancellation has been announced. You are allowed to demand payment from foreigners, but whatever is owed you from your fellow Israelites you must forgive. Of course there won’t be any poor persons among you because the Lord will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, but only if you carefully obey the Lord your God’s voice, by carefully doing every bit of this commandment that I’m giving you right now. Once the Lord your God has blessed you, exactly as he said he would, you will end up lending to many different peoples but won’t need to borrow a thing. You will dominate many different peoples, but they won’t dominate you.
Now if there are some poor persons among you, say one of your fellow Israelites in one of your cities in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, don’t be hard-hearted or tightfisted toward your poor fellow Israelites. To the contrary! Open your hand wide to them. You must generously lend them whatever they need. But watch yourself! Make sure no wicked thought crosses your mind, such as, The seventh year is coming—the year of debt cancellation—so that you resent your poor fellow Israelites and don’t give them anything. If you do that, they will cry out to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin. No, give generously to needy persons. Don’t resent giving to them because it is this very thing that will lead to the Lord your God’s blessing you in all you do and work at. Poor persons will never disappear from the earth. That’s why I’m giving you this command: you must open your hand generously to your fellow Israelites, to the needy among you, and to the poor who live with you in your land.
Silence may be kept.
New Testament reading
Acts 27:13-44
When a gentle south wind began to blow, they thought they could carry out their plan. They pulled up anchor and sailed closely along the coast of Crete. Before long, a hurricane-strength wind known as a northeaster swept down from Crete. The ship was caught in the storm and couldn’t be turned into the wind. So we gave in to it, and it carried us along. After sailing under the shelter of an island called Cauda, we were able to control the lifeboat only with difficulty. They brought the lifeboat aboard, then began to wrap the ship with cables to hold it together. Fearing they might run aground on the sandbars of the Gulf of Syrtis, they lowered the anchor and let the ship be carried along. We were so battered by the violent storm that the next day the men began throwing cargo overboard. On the third day, they picked up the ship’s gear and hurled it into the sea. When neither the sun nor the moon appeared for many days and the raging storm continued to pound us, all hope of our being saved from this peril faded.
For a long time no one had eaten. Paul stood up among them and said, “Men, you should have complied with my instructions not to sail from Crete. Then we would have avoided this damage and loss. Now I urge you to be encouraged. Not one of your lives will be lost, though we will lose the ship. Last night an angel from the God to whom I belong and whom I worship stood beside me. The angel said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul! You must stand before Caesar! Indeed, God has also graciously given you everyone sailing with you.’ Be encouraged, men! I have faith in God that it will be exactly as he told me. However, we must run aground on some island.”
On the fourteenth night, we were being carried across the Adriatic Sea. Around midnight the sailors began to suspect that land was near. They dropped a weighted line to take soundings and found the water to be about one hundred twenty feet deep. After proceeding a little farther, we took soundings again and found the water to be about ninety feet deep. Afraid that we might run aground somewhere on the rocks, they hurled out four anchors from the stern and began to pray for daylight. The sailors tried to abandon the ship by lowering the lifeboat into the sea, pretending they were going to lower anchors from the bow. Paul said to the centurion and his soldiers, “Unless they stay in the ship, you can’t be saved from peril.” The soldiers then cut the ropes to the lifeboat and let it drift away.
Just before daybreak, Paul urged everyone to eat. He said, “This is the fourteenth day you’ve lived in suspense, and you’ve not had even a bite to eat. I urge you to take some food. Your health depends on it. None of you will lose a single hair from his head.” After he said these things, he took bread, gave thanks to God in front of them all, then broke it and began to eat. Everyone was encouraged and took some food. (In all, there were two hundred seventy-six of us on the ship.) When they had eaten as much as they wanted, they lightened the ship by throwing the grain into the sea.
In the morning light they saw a bay with a sandy beach. They didn’t know what land it was, but they thought they might possibly be able to run the ship aground. They cut the anchors loose and left them in the sea. At the same time, they untied the ropes that ran back to the rudders. They raised the foresail to catch the wind and made for the beach. But they struck a sandbar and the ship ran aground. The bow was stuck and wouldn’t move, and the stern was broken into pieces by the force of the waves. The soldiers decided to kill the prisoners to keep them from swimming to shore and escaping. However, the centurion wanted to save Paul, so he stopped them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and head for land. He ordered the rest to grab hold of planks or debris from the ship. In this way, everyone reached land safely.
Silence may be kept.
Gospel canticle
The Benedictus (The Song of Zechariah)
Refrain:
You have raised up a mighty savior for us in your servant David’s house.
Bless the Lord God of Israel
because he has come to help and has delivered his people.
He has raised up a mighty savior for us in his servant David’s house,
just as he said through the mouths of his holy prophets long ago.
He has brought salvation from our enemies
and from the power of all those who hate us.
He has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,
and remembered his holy covenant,
the solemn pledge he made to our ancestor Abraham.
He has granted that we would be rescued
from the power of our enemies
so that we could serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness in God’s eyes,
for as long as we live.
You, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High,
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way.
You will tell his people how to be saved
through the forgiveness of their sins.
Because of our God’s deep compassion,
the dawn from heaven will break upon us,
to give light to those who are sitting in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide us on the path of peace.”
Luke 1:68-79
Glory to the Father and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning is now
and will be forever. Amen.
Refrain:
You have raised up a mighty savior for us in your servant David’s house.
Brief silence.
The Apostle’s Creed
Let us unite in this historic confession of the Christian faith:
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
Prayers
Intercession and thanksgiving
Prayers may be offered for:
the day and its tasks
the world and its needs
the church and her life
Prayers may include the following concerns:
The universal church
Bishops, superintendents and all who lead the church
The leaders of the nations
The natural world and the resources of the earth
All who are in any kind of need
Other intercessions and supplications may be offered as the Holy Spirit leads.
Response
Loving God, we look to you.
Receive our prayer.
Silence may be kept.
Collect of the day
Almighty God,
you have broken the tyranny of sin
and have sent the Spirit of your Son into our hearts
whereby we call you Father:
give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service,
that we and all creation may be brought
to the glorious liberty of the children of God;
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 forever.
Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
As our Savior taught us, so we pray
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and forever.
Amen.
Conclusion
The Lord bless us, and preserve us from all evil, and keep us in eternal life.
Amen.