Blessings to you on Fathers’ Day: to those who are or were fathers, to those who have had father figures in their lives, and for those who have been blessed by a nurturing individual – either one by blood or by adoption or affiliation. We have had a tumultuous time in southside Virginia with unsettling weather that brought power outages and localized damage but thankfully nothing happened at church. June has crested and we begin the journey to July. May you be blessed and comforted by the father figures in and from your lives.

We began worship with the reminder and prayer in the collect which urges us to remember God’s grace is what fuels us to proclaim God’s truth with boldness and minister God’s justice with compassion. We are reminded that we have actions that we are equipped to do through our relationship with God. Our Hebrew Scripture was from Genesis and was the story of Abraham (and Sarah) meeting the “three men” at Mamre. In this passage we hear that Sarah will give birth (and does) to Isaac, even though she is old. The response from the Psalm tells us that we are God’s servants and because we are precious in God’s sight we have a vow to fulfill. The New Testament reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans assures us that we are justified by faith and that Jesus is the model of our life of action.

Today’s sermon was based on the gospel reading from Matthew where Jesus calls and commissions the Apostles and disciples to proclaim the good news – that the kingdom of heaven is near. The call is issued to the regular folks who find themselves in Jesus’ presence and faithfully follow his call. We have the same call today, as regular people we are compelled to tell the story of the kingdom of God which is here in the presence.

I invite your comments,
Les+

Manuscript:

Readings: Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7; Psalm 116:1, 10-17; Romans 5:1-8; Matthew 9:35-10:23

Listen at: https://audiomack.com/fatherles-1/song/pentecost-3-sermon

Video of worship: https://youtu.be/9aj2ezXQL9A

Video of sermon: https://youtu.be/ccsTIaYjOEQ