Wed. morning Feb. 11
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Opening response
O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare 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
Savior, More Than Life to Me
Words: Fanny J. Crosby (1875)
Music: William H. Doane (1899)
Our Great Redeemer’s Praise (#336)
Savior, more than life to me,
I am clinging, clinging close to Thee;
let Thy precious blood applied,
keep me ever, ever near Thy side.
Refrain:
Ev'ry day, ev'ry hour
let me feel thy cleansing pow'r;
may Thy tender love to me
bind me closer, closer, Lord, to Thee.
Through this changing world below,
lead me gently, gently as I go;
trusting Thee, I cannot stray,
I can never, never lose my way. [Refrain]
Let me love Thee more and more,
till this fleeting, fleeting life is o'er;
till my soul is lost in love,
in a brighter, brighter world above. [Refrain]
Confession of Sin
Seek the LORD while He may be found,
call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
and let him return to the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him,
and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
cf Isaiah 55
A time of silence and self-examination may be kept.
Lord God, I have sinned against you; I have done what is evil in your sight. I am sorry and repent. Have mercy on me according to your lovingkindness. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Renew a right spirit within me, and restore unto me the joy of your salvation, through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.
cf Psalm 51
May the Father of all mercies cleanse us from our sins, and restore us in his image to the praise and glory of his name, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Blessed be the LORD,
because He has heard the voice of my supplications.
Therefore my heart rejoices,
and with my song I will thank Him.
cf Psalm 28:7,9
Psalm 34
𝙍: Taste and see that the LORD is good.
I will bless the LORD at all times;
His praise will continually be in my mouth.
My soul will make its boast in the LORD;
the humble will hear of it and be glad.
Oh, magnify the LORD with me,
and let us exalt His name together.
I sought the LORD, and He answered me,
and delivered me from all my fears.
They looked to Him and became radiant,
and their faces were not ashamed.
𝙍: Taste and see that the LORD is good.
This poor man cried out, and the LORD heard him,
and saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him,
and delivers them.
Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good;
blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.
Oh, fear the LORD, you His saints,
for those who fear Him have no want.
The young lions suffer want and hunger,
but those who seek the LORD will not lack any good thing.
𝙍: Taste and see that the LORD is good.
Come, you children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
Who is the man who desires life,
and loves many days that he may see good?
Keep your tongue from evil,
and your lips from speaking deceit.
Depart from evil, and do good;
seek peace, and pursue it.
𝙍: Taste and see that the LORD is good.
The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous,
and His ears are open to their cry.
The face of the LORD is against those who do evil,
to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears,
and delivers them out of all their troubles.
The LORD is near to the broken-hearted,
and saves the contrite of spirit.
𝙍: Taste and see that the LORD is good.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the LORD delivers him out of them all.
He protects all his bones;
not one of them is broken.
Evil will slay the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
The LORD redeems the life of His servants,
and none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.
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.
𝙍: Taste and see that the LORD is good.
Psalm prayer
Send your holy angels to watch over us, O God, that on our lips will be found your truth and in our hearts your love; so we may ever taste your goodness in the land of the living; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Old Testament reading
Genesis 31:25-32:2
Then Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent on the mountain, and Laban with his kinsmen pitched in the mountains of Gilead. Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done that you have stolen away without my knowing and carried away my daughters like captives taken with the sword? Why did you flee away secretly and sneak away from me and not tell me? I would have sent you away with joy and with songs, with the tambourine and harp. And why did you not permit me to kiss my sons and my daughters farewell? You have acted foolishly in so doing. It is in my power to do you harm, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Take care that you not speak to Jacob either good or bad.’ Now you surely have gone away because you longed desperately after your father’s house, yet why have you stolen my gods?”
Then Jacob answered Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force. But anyone with whom you find your gods, let him not live. In the presence of our kinsmen, point out what I have that is yours and take it.” For Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.
So Laban went into Jacob’s tent and into Leah’s tent and into the two female servants’ tents, but he did not find them. Then he went out of Leah’s tent and entered into Rachel’s tent. Now Rachel had taken the household idols and put them in the camel’s saddle and sat on them. Laban searched the entire tent, but could not find them.
She said to her father, “Let not my lord be displeased that I cannot rise before you, for the manner of women is on me.” So he searched, but he did not find the household idols.
Then Jacob became angry and berated Laban. And Jacob asked Laban, “What is my offense? What is my sin that you have so hotly pursued after me? You have searched all my things, and yet what have you found of all your household things? Set it here before my kinsmen and your kinsmen, so that they may judge between us both.
“This twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried their young, and the male goats of your flock I have not eaten. That which was torn by beasts I did not bring to you. I bore the loss of it. You required it from my hand whether it was stolen by day or stolen by night. It was like this with me: In the day the heat consumed me and the frost by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. I have been twenty years in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, surely you would have sent me away empty now. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night.”
Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, “These daughters are my daughters, and these children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day to my daughters or to their children whom they have borne? Now therefore come, let us make a covenant, you and I, and let it be as a witness between you and me.”
So Jacob took a stone and set it up for a pillar. Jacob said to his kinsmen, “Gather stones.” So they took stones and made a pile, and they ate there on the pile. And Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed.
Laban said, “This pile is a witness between me and you this day.” Therefore its name was called Galeed, and Mizpah, for he said, “May the LORD watch between you and me, when we are apart from one another. If you mistreat my daughters, or if you take other wives beside my daughters, although no one else is with us, remember that God is witness between you and me.”
Then Laban said to Jacob, “See this pile and see this pillar which I have thrown between you and me. This heap is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, so that I will not cross over this pile to you and so that you will not pass over this pile and this pillar to me for harm. The God of Abraham, the God of Nahor, and the God of their father, judge between us.”
Then Jacob vowed by the Fear of his father Isaac. Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain and called his kinsmen to eat bread. And they ate bread and stayed all night on the mountain.
Early in the morning Laban rose up, kissed his grandchildren and his daughters, and blessed them. Then Laban departed and returned to his place.
Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. When Jacob saw them, he said, “This is God’s camp.” So he called the name of that place Mahanaim.
Silence may be kept.
New Testament reading
Titus 1
Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth which leads to godliness, in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began, and has in due time revealed His word through preaching, with which I was entrusted according to the command of God our Savior,
To Titus, my own son in the common faith:
Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.
For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city, as I commanded you: any man who is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children who are not accused of being wild or unruly. For an overseer must be blameless, as a steward of God, not self-willed, not easily angered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not greedy for dishonest gain, but hospitable, a lover of what is good, self-controlled, just, holy, temperate, holding firmly the trustworthy word that is in accordance with the teaching, that he may be able both to exhort with sound teaching and to convince those who oppose it.
For there are many unruly men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced, who subvert whole houses by teaching for dishonest gain things they ought not teach. One of them, a prophet of their own, said, “The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and idle gluttons!” This witness is true. So rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who reject the truth. To the pure, all things are pure. But to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Even their minds and consciences are defiled. They profess that they know God, but in their deeds they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and worthless for every good work.
Silence may be kept.
The Benedictus (The Song of Zechariah)
Luke 1:68-79
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for He has visited and redeemed His people,
and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of His servant David,
as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets of long ago,
that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us,
to perform the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember His holy covenant,
the oath which He swore to our father Abraham,
to grant us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies,
might serve Him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our lives.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest;
for you will go before the presence of the Lord to prepare His ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to His people
by the remission of their sins,
through the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise from on high has visited us;
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
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.
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.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He 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,
and is seated at the
right hand of the Father.
He 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.
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 social services
All who work in the criminal justice system
Victims and perpetrators of crime
The work of aid agencies throughout the world
Those living in poverty or under oppression
Other intercessions and supplications may be offered as the Holy Spirit leads.
Response
Father, hear our prayer,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Silence may be kept.
Collect of the day
Almighty God, you have created the heavens and the earth and made us in your own image: teach us to discern your hand in all your works and your likeness in all your children; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things, now and forever.
Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer
As our Savior taught us, so we pray
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever. Amen.
Conclusion
The Lord bless us, and preserve us from all evil, and keep us in eternal life.
Amen.