St. John the Divine Anglican Church

Mark 13:14-23 We are nearing the end of the liturgical year, being the 26th Sunday after Pentecost. Next Sunday will celebrate Christ the King, which caps off the year with a reminder of who is our true King, the one who loves us, protects us, and saves us. The reading from the Gospel of St. Mark today is from chapter 13, where there is a long discourse of Jesus teaching

Mark 12:28-34 29 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” RSV Deuteronomy 6:4,5 “Hear, O Israel: The

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” The reading from Isaiah that we heard today was one of the Songs of the Suffering Servant. You might recognize some of the verses from the Stations of the Cross, that we walk during Lent. From the earliest days of Christianity, the believers have seen the prophecy of the passion

This story about the rich young man is common to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The young man asks the question which I’m sure was in many people’s mind of the day, “how can I have eternal life?” This young man was very rich, and he must have had a very comfortable life. He is obviously attached to his wealth, and he did not want to share it.

Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. Genesis 2:24 What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” Mark 10:9 The lessons today are from the Church’s core teaching about Holy Matrimony. We teach that Holy Matrimony is a sacrament, which is “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. God gives us

James 4:7-12 (13-5:6) “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” In the 4th chapter

James 3:16-4:6 I hope you have been reading the letter of James this week. As I said, he does not pull his punches. The section we heard today concerns the wisdom of God verses the wisdom of the world. The first part of chapter 3 concerns the way we talk to God and to each other. James says the tongue is a fire, and can set fires wherever it goes!

James 2:1-5, 8-10, 14-18 “Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.” Last Sunday we started reading the letter of St. James, and today we read from the second chapter. One thing you can say for sure, James does not pull any punches. He tells it like it is. In the first section, verses 1-5, James wrote to warn the

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” James 1:17-27 Today, we will begin the study of the letter of St. James, which we will hear from for the next three Sundays, as we have today. This letter is attributed to James the Just, whom we hear from in

Ephesians 6:10-20 Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. This Sunday concludes our journey through the letter of St. Paul to the Ephesians. To recap a bit about the letter, it is widely believed that St. Paul wrote this letter in his final years