Happy 5th Sunday in July after a break from the sauna which is Southern Virginia. It has been a relatively difficult week with the state of affairs with the air condition in the sanctuary. We have done our best and we have been resilient. We moved worship to the Parish Hall, because conditions are more predictable in the Parish Hall. Hopefully we will resolve the issues quickly, regardless, we will be resilient and flexible. May you be blessed as July moves to August.

Note, there was an issue with the microphone which arose in the New Testament reading and persisted until after the Gospel reading. As such, the two readings were recorded after service and appended into the video.

In worship we began by offering a prayer that reminds us that God’s guidance helps us live in this world but only to prepare ourselves for our eternal life. God provides us strength to thrive in our earthly existence. Our reading from Hebrew Scripture we heard the story of Laban and Jacob in Genesis. That Laban was capricious in his interaction with Jacob, but Jacob was able to persist because God had called him to do certain things. Our Psalmist sings the song that reminds us of God’s constancy and God’s part in the covenant. Paul reminded us in his letter to the Romans, that nothing in or of this world separates us from the love of God. Our gospel today was Matthew’s “rapid fire” series of “the kingdom of God is like…” which serves as a reminder that we need to be able to tell our story so others can understand.

The point, Jesus offers parables to help people understand about the kingdom of God. It is through our parables that we convey the truth about a relationship with God. That (1) God’s standards and requirements never change, and (2) that nothing of this world can separate us from God except our hesitance.

I invite your comments,
Les+

Readings: Genesis 29:15-28; Psalm 105:1-11, 45b; Romans 8:26-39; Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Listen at: https://audiomack.com/fatherles-1/song/9th-sunday-after-pentecost-sermon

Video of worship: https://youtu.be/s2zu6-Xr7aQ

Video of sermon: https://youtu.be/_X2-OlpwTGk