St John the Evangelist

Trinity 11 / Pentecost 12

Sunday, 16/08/2026

SENTENCE FROM SCRIPTURE:

How good and pleasant it is to live together in unity. (Psalm 133)

HYMN-

GREETING

Grace and peace to you from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

COLLECT FOR PURITY

Almighty God,
to whom all hearts are open,
all desires known,
and from whom no secrets are hidden:
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love you,
and worthily magnify your holy name;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

SUMMARY OF THE LAW

Our Lord Jesus Christ said: The first commandment is this:

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.”

The second is this: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these. Amen. Lord, have mercy.

CONFESSION AND ABSOLUTION

God is love and we are God’s children. There is no room for fear in love. We love because God loved us first.

Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith.

SILENCE

God our Father,
we confess to you
and to our fellow members in the Body of Christ
that we have sinned in thought, word and deed,
and in what we have failed to do.
We are truly sorry.
Forgive us our sins,
and deliver us from the power of evil,
for the sake of your Son who died for us, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

ABSOLUTION

God, who is both power and love,
forgive you and free you from your sins,
heal and strengthen you by the Holy Spirit,
and raise you to new life in Christ our Lord. Amen.

GLORIA sung by Sue St Joseph

COLLECT

O God,
you make known your almighty power
in your merciful compassion:
increase your mercy towards us;
that we, being eager for your promises,
may inherit the treasures of heaven;
through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, world without end. Amen

PROCLAIMING & RECEIVING GOD’S WORD

FIRST READING Genesis 45.1–15, read by Heather Gibbings

¹ Joseph could no longer control himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, ‘Send everyone away from me.’ So no one stayed with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. ² And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it. ³ Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?’ But his brothers could not answer him, so dismayed were they at his presence. ⁴ Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Come closer to me.’ And they came closer. He said, ‘I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. ⁵ And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. ⁶ For the famine has been in the land these two years; and there are five more years in which there will be neither ploughing nor harvest.

⁷ God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. ⁸ So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt. ⁹ Hurry and go up to my father and say to him, “Thus says your son Joseph, God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not delay. ^✝

¹⁰ You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near me, you and your children and your children’s children, as well as your flocks, your herds, and all that you have. ¹¹ I will provide for you there – since there are five more years of famine to come – so that you and your household, and all that you have, will not come to poverty.” ¹² And now your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you. ¹³ You must tell my father how greatly I am honoured in Egypt, and all that you have seen. Hurry and bring my father down here.’ ¹⁴ Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. ¹⁵ And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

SECOND READING Romans 11.1–2a, 29–32, read by Grant Fergusson

¹ I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. ² God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.

²⁹ For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. ³⁰ Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, ³¹ so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. ³² For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

GRADUAL HYMN:

GOSPEL Matthew 15, 10–28, read by Annette Beagrie

Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew, Chapter 15, beginning at verse 10.

Glory to Christ our Saviour

¹⁰ Then Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, ‘Listen and understand: ¹¹ it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.’ ¹² Then the disciples approached and said to him, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees took offence when they heard what you said?’ ¹³ He answered, ‘Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. ¹⁴ Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.’ ¹⁵ But Peter said to him, ‘Explain this parable to us.’ ¹⁶ Then he said, ‘Are you also still without understanding? ¹⁷ Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?

¹⁸ But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. ²⁰ These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.’ ²¹ Jesus went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. ²² A Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ ²³ But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ ²⁴ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ ²⁵ But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ ²⁶ He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ ²⁷ She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’

²⁸ Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.

Give thanks to the Lord for his glorious Gospel
Praise to Christ our Lord.

SERMON

Online Reflection 16^th August 2026

This morning’s reading from the book of Genesis continues the story of Joseph. Sold into slavery in Egypt, now risen to a position of power and authority, he reveals his true identity to those same brothers who had sought to cast him out of the family, never to be seen again. And Joseph’s response is to absolve his brothers of guilt for their actions. Don’t blame yourselves is, in effect, what he is saying to them, “…it was not you who sent me here but God.” Your actions were really God’s way of getting me to Egypt, says Joseph; all part of God’s plan so that I could look after you, my family and my people in these years of famine.

The picture of God that this presents, of our humanity in relation to God, and of the life choices and decisions that we make, is a challenging one. Is this passage saying that, in effect, we have no free will; that the choices and decisions we make are, somehow, pre-destined; that all is fatalistically pre-determined? Is Joseph saying that God is some kind of external manipulator, or planner of the lives we live and the choices we make? Whilst much of who we are, of what we become and, indeed, the life choices that we make, will flow from what we’ve been given by way of our genetic inheritance and the environment into which we’re born and in which we grow and develop, the truth is that the choices and decisions we make are our choices and decisions. The life path that we follow is the path that we have chosen. Life is not some fatalistic pre-destined or pre-determined charade. Perhaps Joseph is simply doing what we all do when we look back on the path our life has taken, on the decisions and choices that we have made along the way. Perhaps he is seeking to understand the path his life has taken, to see and understand the pattern, the direction, the purpose in his life.

We speak, rightly I believe, of life – each and every life – having value, meaning and purpose. We say, again rightly I believe, that God has a purpose for each and every life, for yours and for mine. Yet we know that we all fall short, we make wrong choices, take wrong decisions, go off in the wrong direction, wander away from the path that God would have us follow. Paul’s blunt, but apt, description of this is that we are all “imprisoned … in disobedience so that he [God] may be merciful to all.” [Romans 11 v 32] Here is our need and the need of the world. And in response, God, in His love, is come to us in Jesus, His Son, living, dying and rising that, as we open ourselves to Him, we might find our freedom, be drawn back to relationship with Him and walk again the path that He would have us follow. God doesn’t pretend that our guilt, our disobedience, our bad choices aren’t real – He doesn’t say (as Joseph does to his brothers) that it wasn’t really you, so don’t worry – but He does set us free by His love for us; He heals us of our guilt. And in that freedom, through that healing, we discover our true life in relationship with God, through Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Our response to God’s healing love for us can only then be that of the Canaanite woman [Matt 15 vv 21ff], who, remarkably and boldly, pushes through the barriers of gender and race as she seeks healing for her daughter. She recognises that her need can be met by Jesus and perseveres through an initial rejection, leaving Jesus also changed by the encounter. “Woman, great is your faith”, says Jesus. And faith must be our response too – opening ourselves to God’s love for us in Jesus; knowing ourselves freed from all that prevents us from being and becoming the people that God has created us to be; freed to discern and follow God’s path for us; walking our life’s journey with Him. May God bless each one of us in that journey.

Amen.

THE CREED

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
God from God,
Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one substance with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father.
With the Father and the Son,
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

PRAYERS

Merciful Father accept these prayers for the sake of your Son,
our Saviour Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those
who sin against us.
Do not bring us
to the time of trial
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power
and the glory are yours,
now and forever. Amen.

BLESSING

Christ the Son of God gladden your hearts with the good news of his kingdom; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

HYMN –

DISMISSAL

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord
In the name of Christ. Amen