You Must Be a Subscriber to View This Page
23rd Sunday After Pentecost • Year B
October 31, 2021 • Proper 26
Click on black & white clipart (above left) or color photo-graphic (above) to view and download full resolution graphics for use on bulletin covers.
• Tutorials available. • Original image
Historical Collect
Stir up the wills of your faithful people, O Lord, because the more they are inclined to bear the fruit of your good work, the more generously they will receive your gracious healing. Grant this, we pray, through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Thematic Collect
God of love, you gave your commandments to your people to help us live in harmony, to guide us through life and protect us from harm, to lead us in your will and walk in your ways. Teach us to to love you with our whole hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves so the whole world would know you and worship your holy name. We pray this through Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
The Common Thread
We are to be careful to “do” the commandments of God. We each do so to varying degrees of excellence. However, all may do one commandment—the most critical commandment—with equal quality. Even in the absence of having kept the last nine, we may all keep the first commandment. Faith in God is more critical than personal perfection. Believing in the Christ that God sent, keeping our eyes fixed on him, even when we have not kept them fixed on all his commandments, keeps our attention off ourselves.
First Reading • Deuteronomy 6:1-9
The great commandment teaches us to love God, but also to fear him. Doing so, we may trust God with our lives. But how are we to fear, love, and trust God? First, with the understanding of faith informed by Scripture, we believe who he is. This empowers us to love him with every fiber and component of our beings. However, the love of God does not stop with ourselves; we are to teach our children the love of God, as well let it be publicly known.
Psalm • Psalm 119:1-8
Sometimes, the Scriptures are, at first, discouraging. Here is one such case. How may one live up to the example given by the Psalmist, whoever he might have been? Blameless? Seek him with a whole heart? Do no wrong? If the author was David, we are especially blessed to know a bit of his history. For he was not blameless. At times, he sought his own desires instead of the heart of God. David did wrong things; he was a poor sinner like us. This history helps us when we arrive at verse eight. The Psalmist knows he deserves to be deserted, so he cries, “Do not forsake me,” as he resolves again to keep the Lord’s statutes.
Second Reading • Hebrews 9:11-14, 15-22
We cannot perfectly love God, as the greatest commandment bids us do. Nor can we be blameless. But we can trust the one who is not only blameless, but love itself. We will never enter heaven if the key is our own goodness or righteousness. Yet, we are promised entrance by the righteousness of another: Jesus Christ. Trusting in his blood as the means by which God has secured our redemption and inheritance, we are emancipated from conscience and its slavery to both sin and dead works. Now, we are able to serve God, imperfect as our service surely is.
Gospel • Mark 12:28-37
Knowledge of the Law is insufficient. Confirmands may memorize the Catechism, but never darken the door of the narthex thereafter. It is one thing to quote the greatest commandment; it is something entirely different to love God and neighbor. What is it to love God but to keep his commandments (1 John 5:3)? And what is the work that God wants us to do but to believe in the one whom he sent (John 6:29)? The scribe had memorized the Law, but not having faith in God’s Christ, remained outside the kingdom.
Sermon Starter:
The word typically translated “LORD” in all CAPITALS or in SMALL CAPS is done out of respect of the name of God. In the brief text today, the Hebrew reads “Yhwh,” which, if not changed to “LORD,” is translated as either Jehovah or Yahweh. Though we are uncertain of its pronunciation, we know this as the name of God. Moses calls God by this name and says that he is One. This oneness is curious. The word for God in the verse, Elohim, is plural. This may again, be simple respect, as the plural is sometimes ceremonially applied to rulers and judges. The word for One—echad—is also telling. A proper translation for echad is “united.” One sees here that God is Plural and yet One. This Oneness seems to be more than being “onely” (Geneva Bible), or only. Here, in the early Scriptures, the plurality of the Mystery we call God, is a unity.
Resources
Links to Worship Resources for this Service
