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St Peter's Online: This Sunday

Sunday February 28 - Second Sunday in Lent

Notices
Opening Hymn: Take Up Thy Cross, the Saviour Said
Sentence of the Day
Collect
Readings
Gradual Hymn: When I survey the Wonderous Cross
Gospel
Sermon
Prayers & Intercessions
Anthem: God So Loved the World (Stainer)
Closing Hymn: Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah

Notices

Fisherfolk Newsletter & Pew Sheet
St Peter's Lenten Programme

Opening Hymn: Take Up Thy Cross, the Saviour Said

Sentence of the Day

If you want to become a disciple of Jesus, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him.
Mark 8:34

Collect

Servant God, grant us opportunity,
give us willingness
to serve you day by day;
that what we do
and how we bear each other’s burdens,
may be our sacrifice to you.
This we ask through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Amen.

Readings: Lesson & Epistle

Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16

¹When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. ²Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”

³Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, ⁴“As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. ⁵No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. ⁶I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. ⁷I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

¹⁵God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. ¹⁶I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”

Psalm

²³You who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
²⁴For he has not despised or scorned
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help.

²⁵From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows.
²⁶The poor will eat and be satisfied;
those who seek the Lord will praise him —
may your hearts live forever!

²⁷All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
will bow down before him,
²⁸for dominion belongs to the Lord
and he rules over the nations.

²⁹All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
all who go down to the dust will kneel before him —
those who cannot keep themselves alive.
³⁰Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.
³¹They will proclaim his righteousness,
declaring to a people yet unborn:
He has done it!

Romans 4:13-25

¹³It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. ¹⁴For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, ¹⁵because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

¹⁶Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. ¹⁷As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

¹⁸Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” ¹⁹Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old — and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. ²⁰Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, ²¹being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. ²²This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” ²³The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, ²⁴but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness — for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. ²⁵He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

Gradual Hymn: When I survey the Wonderous Cross

Gospel

Mark 8:31-38

³¹He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. ³²He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

³³But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

³⁴Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. ³⁶What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? ³⁷Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? ³⁸If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

Sermon by Vicar Stuart Goodin

In Oscar Wilde’s play, Lady Windemere’s Fan, Lord Darlington quips that a cynic is “a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

A great deal of art has a prophetic edge to it, and Wilde was striking at what he saw as the problems with society. Lady Windemere’s Fan was first performed in 1892, but the phrase Wilde puts on Darlington’s lips is at least as pertinent now as it was almost 130 years ago. “These days, our government, our businesses, our media, and more seem to be dominated by what Wilde would have described as cynics. The idea that anyone in the ‘real world’ should even consider ethical, moral, philosophical or cultural values to be on a par with financial or economic ‘value’ appears whimsical, sentimental, even romantic. Hard-nosed, sensible, rational, practical people ‘know’ otherwise. It’s the economy, stupid.” Read more...