Zion Lutheran

Second Sunday after Pentecost May 25, 2008   GOSPEL Matthew 6:24-34   In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus encourages his followers to trust in God rather than material wealth.   ²⁴No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.              ²⁵Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  ²⁷And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?  ²⁸And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin,  ²⁹yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.  ³⁰But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you — you of little faith?  ³¹Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’  ³²For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  ³³But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.   ³⁴So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

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GOSPEL Matthew 28:16–20   Jesus summons his disciples and commissions them to baptize and teach all nations in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.   ¹⁶Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.  ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.  ¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

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Day of Pentecost May 11, 2008   SCRIPTURE Acts 2:1–21   Pentecost was a Jewish harvest festival that marked the fiftieth day after Passover. Luke portrays the Holy Spirit being poured out upon the disciples before the gathered and astonished people assembled in Jerusalem for the festival. Filled with the Spirit, the disciples were able to witness to the power of Christ’s resurrection.   When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.  ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.              ⁵Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.  ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.  ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?  ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?  ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,  ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,  ¹¹Cretans and Arabs — in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”  ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”  ¹³But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”              ¹⁴But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say.  ¹⁵Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.  ¹⁶No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:  ¹⁷‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. ¹⁸Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit;and they shall prophesy.   ¹⁹And I will show portents in the heaven above             and signs on the earth below,blood, and fire, and smoky mist.   ²⁰The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.   ²¹Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

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Seventh Sunday of Easter May 4, 2008 GOSPEL John 17:1-11 On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus prays to his heavenly Father, asking that those who continue his work in this world will live in unity.

    After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you,  ²since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.  ³And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.  ⁴I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.  ⁵So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.              ⁶I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  ⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you;  ⁸for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.  ⁹I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.  ¹⁰All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.  ¹¹And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

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