Whenever we read or deal with historical texts, such as the Scriptures, one thing we always have to remember is that the people who wrote them and the people they were written for didn’t think in the same way that we do today. Their understanding of things was different, their attitudes were different, their way of life was different. And so, when we read things in ancient texts, the words don’t necessarily have the same meaning for us as they did to and for the people in the time when those words were written. And one very good example of that is what the Scriptures mean when they speak about the heart.

The heart, obviously, is the organ that pumps blood round the body and keeps us alive. But sometimes when we speak about the heart, and especially the things of the heart, we’re actually talking about emotions and feelings aren’t we. And so, if we have a decision to make and we’re torn between our feelings and our reason, we say; ‘The heart says one thing, the head says another.’ In other words, we feel emotionally drawn to one course of action but our reason and intelligence, those things we associate with the brain, urge us to a different course of action. But for the people of ancient Israel, and other ancient peoples too, that wasn’t the case; for them the heart was the centre of all things, including reason. For them, everything that a person experienced in life entered the heart and it was in the heart that it was analysed, the appropriate response was devised, and from the heart that actions sprang. And when we realise that this is the way the people of ancient times understood the heart, it helps us make proper sense of the fourth thing we find in the list that the Book of Proverbs tells us are hateful to God: hearts that devise wicked plans.

I think we must say that a lot of wickedness does come from the heart, in a sense at least. A lot of the wicked things that people do come from emotional responses to things, from knee-jerk reactions to things. Something happens that upsets us and makes us angry, and we react without thinking. But that’s not what Proverbs really means. What’s hateful to God are heart’s that devise wicked plans, that plan wickedness by careful thought. So, although wickedness that springs from emotional, knee-jerk reactions is still sinful and wrong, what’s hateful to God is deliberate wickedness that’s planned with malice aforethought.

I think that most of the wickedness we’re guilty of is the result of thoughtless, emotional reactions to things that have hurt or upset us, at least I hope it is! But we do also devise wicked plans at times, we might not think we do, but we do, we all do. For example, as Christians, we know that we’re supposed to forgiving, but in reality, how many of us bear grudges? If someone hurts or upsets us, don’t we often have difficulty in letting go of the anger and resentment we feel towards that person? Don’t we often want to take revenge on those people, to pay them back in kind for what they’ve done to us? We might not let our anger and resentment lead us into any concrete action against those people, but how often do we think about doing it and how good it would feel to do it? And what’s that other than our hearts devising wickedness? We might think that to plot revenge is a very different matter to taking revenge, but doesn’t Jesus tell us that the thought is as bad as the action?  How else can we make sense of this, for example:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” 

I think we must assume that cuts both ways and the same applies to women who look at men in that way too!

One way we show the wickedness our hearts are devising is through a changed attitude towards those who’ve hurt us in some way. As Christians, we’re called to love our neighbour as ourselves but, if someone has hurt us, don’t we often treat them differently afterwards, and don’t we do that quite deliberately? We might not do them any harm in return, but we probably won’t want to do them any good either. When we’re in a situation when we could do something for someone who’s done us harm in the past, don’t we often say, “Why should I after what they’ve done to me?” Might we actually enjoy seeing that person in difficulty, enjoy seeing them suffer and do nothing to help because we think what’s happening to them is ‘poetic justice’ for what they’ve done to us, or to others? We might actually say that, and one way we very often do take revenge is through our words. When someone hurts us, don’t we often speak ill of them, and do it quite deliberately?

One very common situation in which we find hearts devising wicked plans is in the workplace. It’s a situation we’ve all come across; people want to get on, they want promotion, and they’re willing to deliberately sabotage the prospects of other people in order to get what they want.

In a book about the Roman Republic that I read a few years ago, I came across this quote, and it’s something I’ve never forgotten because it is so true:

‘High and commanding talent is always viewed with suspicion by the members of a ruling oligarchy, who depend on the maintenance a tame mediocrity for their authority.’

Isn’t this exactly what happens in life? The situation may change but isn’t it so often the case that good, talented people can be held back, side-lined, kept down and even forced out by those in authority simply because they see them as a threat to their own position? Or that they can be deliberately sabotaged by less able colleagues so that they can gain advancement? And don’t we often find it to be the case that those with the ‘gift of the gab’ get on while those who haven’t, don’t? That those who talk a good job are often better thought of and rise higher than those who can actually do a good job? We call it ‘office politics’ and we’ve probably all been involved in it; sometimes as the perpetrator, and at other times as the victim. But it doesn’t only happen in the workplace, it happens in all human institutions where power, authority and prestige are involved and what it always reveals are hearts that devise wicked plans.

It is this deliberately wicked nature of what we do and say that Proverbs is speaking about when it says that hearts that devise wicked plans are hateful to God. Hearts like this are hateful to God because what they reveal is a lack of love for our neighbour, a love of self that’s far greater than our love for our neighbour. And it’s perhaps fitting that today is the day we’ve come to the fourth thing on the list of things hateful to God, because today is Mothering Sunday and so it’s a day when we think very much about love for others.

It’s often said, isn’t it, that there’s no love like a mother’s love, and for most of us that’s probably true. Very few, if any people will ever love us in the way or as much as our mother’s love us or loved us. Of course, mothers may do things we don’t like at times, and quite deliberately at that. But, on the whole, they do that out of love for us. They do things we don’t like simply to stop us from harming ourselves, from physically hurting ourselves, from making poor choices that will lead us into bad ways, bad company, and into trouble and distress through those things. We could say that mothers, most mothers at least, have good hearts, at least towards their children. So today we think about mothers, about our mothers and their love for us, and our love for them. And amongst the mothers we think about today, we also think the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, Mary.

As we read about Mary in Scripture, we often read that, after some significant or troubling event, Mary’s heart is mentioned. We’re told that Mary stored, pondered and treasured these things in her heart. And this goes back to that understanding of the heart as the place that everything in life, all experiences of life, entered into to be analysed and considered so that an appropriate response could be devised, and the right actions would result.

And, as we read Scripture, we can see that, in spite of the often strange and troubling experiences that were poured into Mary’s heart, what sprang from her heart was trust, faithfulness and love.

Mary didn’t always understand or even agree with what her son was doing. When he was a young boy, she told him off for staying behind in the temple in Jerusalem after she and Joseph set off for home. Later, after Jesus’ ministry had begun and great crowds had begun to follow him, she went with his siblings to collect him, perhaps to rescue him from the crowds and the authorities because they thought he was ‘out of his mind’. But as she pondered these things in her heart, she came to trust Jesus, as she’d trusted God when she’d been visited by the archangel Gabriel. We find that trust in the story of the Wedding in Cana. She was faithful to Jesus, she followed him during his earthly ministry and after his Resurrection. And she loved Jesus; she was one of the very few who followed Jesus on the road to Calvary, and  she was there at the Cross when he died. That, more than anything else that happened must have been the sword that pierced her soul, but Mary had a good heart that stored, pondered and treasured everything that had happened and, as a result, brought forth good things. 

Mary is often spoken of as an example to Christians because of the trust, faithfulness and love she showed towards God and Jesus. But I think we can sum up Mary’s example to us as an example of what it means to have a good heart, a heart that’s right with God rather than hateful to God. There are so many ways we can get this wrong, so many ways we can devise wicked plans in our hearts, even if we don’t always put those plans into action. But let’s try to take Mary’s example to heart by making our hearts more like Mary’s heart. Whatever happens to us, whatever bad experiences we have, whatever wickedness is poured into our hearts by the world and by other people, let’s try to make sure that we don’t make our hearts hateful to God by repaying those things in kind through devising wicked plans in return. Let’s try to make sure our hearts are good hearts that are beloved of God by making sure that they bring forth good things like trust, faithfulness and love.

Amen.

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Propers for Lent 4 (Mothering Sunday) 19th March 2023

Entrance Antiphons

Lent 4
Rejoice Jerusalem!
Be glad for her, you who love her; rejoice with her, you who mourned for her,
and you will find contentment at her consoling breasts.

Mothering Sunday
Simeon said to Mary;
This child s destined to be a sign that men will reject; he is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel; and a sword shall pierce your own soul.

The Collects

Lent 4
Merciful Lord,
absolve your people from their offences,
that through your bountiful goodness,
we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins which by our frailty we have
committed;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Mothering Sunday
God of compassion,
whose Son Jesus Christ, the child of Mary,
shared the life of a home in Nazareth,
and on the cross drew the whole human family to himself:
strengthen us in our daily living,
that in joy and in sorrow,
we may know the power of your presence to bind together and to heal;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

The Readings

Lent 4
Missal (St Mark’s)       
1 Samuel 16:1, 6-7, 10-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41

RCL (St Gabriel’s)          
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Psalm 23
Ephesians 5:8-14
John 9:1-41

Mothering Sunday
Exodus 2:1-10 or 1 Samuel 1:20-28
Psalm 34:11-20 or Psalm 127:1-4
2 Corinthians 1:3-7 or Colossians 3:12-17
Luke 2: 33-35 or John 19:25-27

When we look at the list of things in the Book of Proverbs that we’re told are hateful to God, it’s no surprise that we find there, hands that shed innocent blood. But whilst it isn’t a surprise to find that in that list, what Proverbs says does pose us a question. If God hates hands that shed innocent blood, does that means it’s acceptable to shed the blood of those who aren’t innocent, to shed the blood of the guilty? 

For many people and for some societies, the answer to that has been, and still is, ‘Yes’. We know that some people and societies agree with the death penalty for murder, cutting off the hands of thieves and such like, and in fact, those people could point to scriptural authority to do that because among the things we read in the Book of Leviticus is this,

If anyone injures his neighbour, as he has done it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; whatever injury he has given a person shall be given to him. Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, and whoever kills a person shall be put to death. 

And we only need to read the Old Testament to see that this idea was very much the way the people of ancient Israel believed things should be. In fact, some people would say that the Old Testament should come with a warning to anyone who reads it because of the often blood-thirsty, vengeful nature of what we read in its pages. But, whilst some people would agree that this is the way to treat those who are guilty of crimes, it poses a real difficulty for us as Christians because it seems to run contrary to the teaching of Jesus.

If we read that part of St Matthew’s Gospel that we know as the Sermon on the Mount, we find quite a lot of teaching that warns us against acting in the way that Leviticus says we should. Jesus tells us,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Then a little later he says,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”

And yet a little earlier Jesus had said that hadn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfil it. So how can Jesus say this and yet, almost immediately afterwards say things that seem to contradict the law? The answer I think, lies in our understanding of justice and judgement, and guilt and innocence.

When we speak about ‘justice’, what do we really mean? Ideally, justice is about treating all people fairly and equally and doing the right thing by them. And in terms of a case where some wrong has been committed, it’s about offering some kind of compensation to the victim and giving a penalty to the offender. Judgement is about knowing what justice requires, about knowing what the right compensation and penalty should be. But, in reality, there’s always a danger that what we mean by seeking justice, in fact, means looking for revenge. This is perhaps especially true of individuals rather than the law itself, and I think this is the problem Jesus is really speaking about in these passages of Scripture, the problem of individual people looking to exact revenge on those who have, or who they think have, wronged them.

Later in St Matthew’s Gospel Jesus tells us,

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” 

And seeing the faults of others but not our own, seeing what they’ve done wrong but not what we’ve done wrong is something we’re all very good at isn’t it. But that means that we have to be very careful when it comes to speaking about guilt and innocence. Are any of us truly innocent? Can any of us truly say that the things we’d punish others for, we’ve never done ourselves? We might, for example, agree that thieves should have their hands cut off, but have we never stolen anything ourselves? We might not have robbed a bank or broken into anyone’s house and taken their property, but have we never taken anything we weren’t entitled to? How many of us, for example, have left work early or taken an extended tea or lunch break? But, when we’ve done that and yet still received a full day’s pay for less than a full day’s work, have any of us ever given back to our employer the money they paid us for time we haven’t spent working for them? Should we then have our hands cut off too? So we have to be very careful not to judge the guilt of others and take revenge on them before we’ve considered whether we’ve ever been guilty of the same thing we’re condemning them for.

And we have to be careful too, to make sure we know exactly what we mean when we talk about shedding blood. In one sense that’s easy to understand, we shed blood when we do physical harm to another person. But there are more ways of shedding someone’s blood than just that. But something else we read in the Book of Leviticus is this,

For the life of every creature is its blood: its blood is its life.

So to shed blood is to take, or harm, the life of the one whose blood is shed. That’s obvious when it comes to the actual shedding of blood, but we can harm people’s lives in other ways than just shedding their blood in a physical sense can’t we? So we can shed someone’s blood, we can harm them and their lives, without actually making them bleed.

One way we very often do this is through our words. We can say all sorts of terrible things about people, we can blacken their name and cause a lot of harm to them and to their lives by doing that. A person may well be guilty of an offence against us but one way we very often do take revenge for that is by telling other people what they’ve done (and very often exaggerating what they’ve done into the bargain). In that way, we can cause people who’ve offended us to be treated as guilty by people to whom they’ve done no harm whatsoever. We call blackening people’s name in this way character assassination don’t we? And that’s a very good name for it because, when we do this, what are we doing but shedding someone’s blood, harming their life by killing their reputation? And if we think about the harm we can do through our words as shedding blood we can make sense of the very severe punishment Jesus says will lie in store for those who do speak ill of other people;

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgement.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgement; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” 

Jesus tells us then, that to be angry with another person, to insult them and speak ill of them is just as bad as murdering them. So shedding blood is hateful to God whether we do that in a physical sense or through the harm we do to them through our words. And in these days when so many of our words are the work of our hands through texts and emails and on social media, this is a warning that’s extremely relevant to us and our society.

Of course we need laws to keep order in society and make sure that we don’t descend into anarchy and Jesus himself said he came to fulfil the law, not abolish it. But the very essence of the law, God’s law, is that we shouldn’t treat other people as they do treat us, but that we should treat them as we would like them to treat us. And that means that we shouldn’t shed their blood, in any sense of that expression.

There will be times when we’re the injured party, and there’s nothing wrong with seeking justice when we are. But we shouldn’t mistake revenge for justice, and we shouldn’t take the law into our own hands to get it. There will be times too when we think we’re the injured party but, in reality, aren’t so innocent as we might want to think or claim. So we need to be willing and able to see our own faults as well as the faults of others and not succumb to the temptation to see every problem and dispute we have with others as a case of their guilt and our innocence. And we need to do these things so that we don’t judge others in a way that we wouldn’t like to be judged ourselves. We don’t want to make ourselves hateful to God, so let’s make sure that by neither our deeds nor our words, are our hands, hands that shed blood.
Amen.  

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Propers for Lent 3 Sunday 12th March 2023

Entrance Antiphon
My eyes are ever fixed on the Lord, for he releases my feet from the snare.
O look at me and be merciful, for I am wretched and alone.

The Collect
Almighty God,
whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain,
and entered not into glory before he was crucified:
mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross,
may find it none other than the way of life and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)        
Exodus 17:3-7
Psalm 95:1-2, 6-9
Romans 5:1-2, 5-8
John 4:5-42

RCL (St Gabriel’s)         
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42

It’s often said isn’t it, that once trust has been lost in a relationship, it can never be regained. And perhaps one of the surest ways to destroy trust in a relationship is to be dishonest in our dealings with the other person or people in a relationship. So it’s not surprising that in the list of things that the Book of Proverbs tells us are hateful to God because they cause discord between people, a lying tongue is second only to haughtiness, to arrogant pride.

Having said that, just as there’s a difference between pride itself, feeling happy and satisfied about something we’ve done, and haughtiness, feeling superior to others and looking down on them because of what we’ve done, I think we have to make a distinction between ways of being truthful and lying too. And the distinction, I think, can be made in the intention behind what we say, or don’t say as the case may be.

We can sometimes tell lies with good intent. We tell what we call ‘little white lies’ don’t we? And these ‘little white lies’ are things we say that aren’t entirely truthful, or perhaps not truthful at all, but that we say to protect the feelings and well-being of the person or people we’re speaking to. So, for example, If someone had been to the hairdressers and they asked us if we liked their new hairstyle, we might say, “Yes, it really suits you.” We might actually be thinking something along the lines of “What on earth have you done to your hair? You look like you’ve joined the Grenadier Guards. It looks like you’re wearing a bearskin hat!” But we wouldn’t say that because we know it’d hurt the feelings of the person who’d asked us the question. Perhaps particularly if it was obvious to us that the person who’d asked really liked their new hairdo. Or, more seriously, if we knew someone was terminally ill and one of their children asked us what was wrong with their mum or dad, we might say that they’re just a bit poorly at the moment, but they should get better soon. We’d know that was a lie, but we’d say it to protect a child from a truth that was too hard for them to hear and bear. We’d lie with good intent; we’d hide the truth out of care and concern for the person we were speaking to.

And hiding the truth from people in order to protect them, not telling them the whole story because it would be too much for them to hear, is another way we can sometimes be less than truthful with people but with good intent. It might not necessarily be a case of telling a ‘little white lie’, but of telling them only part of the truth, or just not saying anything to them at all, even when we know what the truth really is.

I’m sure there are those who think that, as Christians, we should treat every situation as a court case where we should tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But if that was the case, we would make Jesus himself hateful to God. In that part of the Gospel according to St John that we know as the ‘Farewell Discourses’, we hear Jesus’ final teaching and instruction to his disciples. Part of that teaching is a warning of the difficulties and persecutions his disciples would face on account of their faith but even so, Jesus hides some things from them. He tells the disciples,

“I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.”

But even so, Jesus goes on to say,

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”

So it’s clear from that, that we can sometimes be less than truthful without being sinful and hateful to God.

Whether what we say that isn’t truthful is hateful to God does then, depend on our intention. And I think the usual ways that our lying tongues are hateful to God is when we lie either about ourselves, or we lie with the intention of leading others astray.

So why do we lie about ourselves? Obviously, one of the usual reasons we lie about ourselves, and probably the main reason we lie about ourselves, is to try and cover up the things we’ve done wrong. We lie in an attempt to hide our sins. This is certainly one way in which our lying tongues are hateful to God because, to put it very simply and bluntly, if we have to lie because we’ve done something we shouldn’t have done, we shouldn’t have done it in the first place should we? If we hadn’t done that thing, or those things, we wouldn’t have to lie to try and hide what we’ve done would we? But we can look at lying to hide our sins in another way too.

Lying to hide our sins from God is a completely futile exercise, because we can’t hide from God. And if we’re lying for that reason then we really haven’t learned anything since the days of Adam and Eve because didn’t they try to hide from God in the Garden of Eden after they’d committed the first sin?

So who are we trying to hide our sins from, other people? In that case aren’t we doing things for the praise of men, as Jesus put it? If we lie to make ourselves look better than we really are to other people, aren’t we putting worldly praise and glory before the things that lead to eternal life? And if we lie to make ourselves look good to other people, isn’t that also rooted in pride and haughtiness?  When we lie about ourselves to cover up our faults and failings, aren’t we then claiming to be something we’re not, claiming to be better than we are and, by implication, better than others? But when we lie about ourselves aren’t we at the same time also implicitly confessing to ourselves that we’re not as good as we should be? Unless of course we start to believe our own lies and really believe that we are much better than we actually are. Perhaps that’s the worst and most hateful aspect of our lying tongues, because if we really do believe our own lies, how can we possibly be penitent and repent? If we believe our own lies about ourselves we probably won’t think we have anything to be penitent for or repent of. If we believe our own lies about ourselves we’ll be in danger of being those people of whom we read in the First Letter of John;

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us…. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Even if we don’t believe our own lies about ourselves though, the lies we tell about ourselves are always intended to deceive others. But we can lie to deceive others in other ways too. We can lie to them in order to make them think and act in ways that we want them to and when we do that, our lying tongues are hateful to God because our lies can lead people astray, they can lead people away from truth, God’s truth, and can lead them into sin.

We know this happens in the world because we see it happening all around us. One very subtle way lies lead us astray is in advertising. Why do advertisers often use famous people to advertise their products? One reason is because a well-known face will draw attention to the product they want to sell but isn’t there also a subtle but false implication that, if we have that thing, we’ll be like that famous person? But, for example, having a certain beverage making machine will not make us into millionaire, multi-award-winning actors.

And I’m sorry fellows, it won’t make us look like said actor, which might be a bit disappointing for the ladies in our lives too! 

A far more serious way that lies can lead us astray though is in politics. The  very essence of politics and of politicians is to convince people of the need to think and act in a certain way. A ‘good’ politician is one who can convince people that their way is the right way, even if doing that involves taking liberties with the truth. But we know what this can lead to. The Nazis convinced the German people that Germany didn’t lose the First World War on the battlefield but because they were betrayed by Jews and Bolsheviks at home. They convinced people that the German people were superior to all other people on earth. They convinced people that the Jews in particular were the cause of all their problems and that if the Jews could be eliminated they, the Germans, would be able to take their rightful place as the ‘Master Race’ and rulers of the world. All lies; but they convinced people that it was all true and we know that it led to what must be one of the most shockingly brutal examples of how lying tongues can lead to the discord between people that is so abhorrent to God.

And sadly this happens in the Church too. At the moment, in the debate about same-sex marriage in the Church of England, we’re hearing various interpretations of what Scripture has to say on the subject which are ranging from simple, direct translations through various interpretations of how these words could be translated and interpreted, to blatant lies about what the words in Scripture mean and even about what the words in Scripture actually are. We know how much discord this is causing in the Church and some of it, at least, is stemming from lying tongues that are simply seeking to push their own particular view on this subject and convince others that their view is the right one, that their view is the truth.

Lying tongues are hateful to God because they are one of the primary causes of discord between people. They must also be hateful to God because they lead people away from the truth, his truth, and so they lead people into error and into sin and prevent them from feeling penitence and repenting of sin. So, let’s try to make sure that we know God’s truth so that we can discern lying tongues and not be led astray by them. And let’s make sure too that our tongues are not lying tongues so that we don’t lead anyone astray.

Amen.  

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Propers for Lent 2 – 5th March 2023

Entrance Antiphon
Remember your mercies, Lord, your tenderness from ages past.
Do not let our enemies triumph over us; O God, deliver Israel from all her distress.

The Collect
Almighty God,
you show to those who are in error the light of your truth,
that they may return to the way of righteousness:
grant to all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion,
that they may reject those things that are contrary to their profession,
and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same;
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

The Readings
Missal (St Mark’s)       
Genesis 12:1-4
Psalm 33:4-5, 18-20, 22
2 Timothy 1:8-10
Matthew 17:1-9

RCL (St Gabriel’s)         
Genesis 12:1-4
Psalm 121
Romans 4:1-5, 13-17                                    
John 3:1-17