A Sermon on the 6th Sunday After Pentecost

First Reading: Baruch 2:11–15, 19–23

¹¹Holy One, God of Israel, who brought out your people from the land of Egypt by a mighty hand and with signs and with wonders and with great power and with an outstretched arm and you made for yourself a Name that until this day [endures]: ¹²We have sinned; we have been ungodly; we have done wrong, Holy One our God, against all of your commandments. ¹³Let your anger turn away from us, for we are left few in number, among the nations where you have scattered us. ¹⁴Harken, Holy One, to our prayer and petition and deliver us; and as to those who carried us off, for your sake, grant us favor before their face ¹⁵so that all the earth may know that you are the Holy One our God; that your Name has been called upon Israel [and Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Leah, Zilpah, Bilpah] and upon their offspring.
  ¹⁹For it is not because of any righteous acts of our mothers and fathers or our queen mothers and their sons that we throw ourselves down for mercy, we, we before you, Holy One, our God. ²⁰For you have brought your anger and wrath against us, just as you spoke by the hand of your women servants and men servants, the prophets, saying:
  ²¹Thus did the Holy One say: Bend your shoulder and serve the king of Babylon, and dwell in the land which I gave to your mothers and fathers. ²²And if you all do not obey the voice of the Holy One to work for the king of Babylon, ²³I will make to fail from the towns of Judah and from outside of Jerusalem a voice of merriment and a voice of delight, a voice of bridegroom and a voice of bride, and all the land will become untrodden by inhabitants.

Psalm: Psalm 18:2–11, 16–17

 ²The Rock Who Gave Us Birth is my rock,
 and my fortress, and my deliverer,
 my God, my rock in whom I take refuge,
 my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
 ³I call upon the Holy One, may she be praised,
 and from my enemies I shall be saved.
 ⁴The snares of death encompassed me;
 the rivers of wickedness assailed me.
 ⁵The snares of Sheol encircled me;
 the snares of death confronted me.
 ⁶In my distress I called upon She Who Hears;
 to my God I cried for help.
 From her temple she heard my voice,
 and my cry came before her, to her ears.
 ⁷Then the earth shuddered and quaked;
 the foundations also of the mountains trembled
 and were shaken because of her anger.
 ⁸Smoke went up from her nostrils,
 and consuming fire from her mouth;
 burning coals blazed forth from her.
 ⁹She spread out the heavens, and descended;
 thick darkness was under her feet.
 ¹⁰She mounted up on a cherub, and flew;
 she soared upon the wings of the wind.
 ¹¹She made darkness her veil around her,
 her canopy dark waters and thick clouds.
 ¹⁶She reached down from on high, she took me;
 she drew me out of the multitude of water.
 ¹⁷She delivered me from my strong enemy,
 and from those who hate me;
 for they were too mighty for me.

Second Reading: 2 Thessalonians 2:1–8

¹We beseech you all, sisters and brothers, with regard to the coming of our Redeemer Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him: ²Be not quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter, seeming to have come from us, claiming the day of the Savior is here now. ³Let no one deceive you all in any way. For it will not come unless the rebellion first and the revealing of the lawless one, the one born for destruction. ⁴Standing in opposition to and self-exalted above every designated god or sacred thing, sitting down in the temple of God, self-proclaimed to be God. ⁵Do you all not remember that I told you these things when I was still with you? ⁶And now you all know what it is restraining that one, until the time of their revelation. ⁷For the conspiracy of lawlessness is already at work, but only until the one who now restrains it is removed. ⁸And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Messiah Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, reducing that one to nothing by the manifestation of his coming.

Gospel: Luke 12:4–7

⁴[Jesus said:] I say to you all my friends, fear not those who kill the body and after that I have no remaining power to do anything. ⁵But I will show you all who you should fear; fear the one who, after having killed, has power to cast into hell. Yes! I am telling you all, fear that one! ⁶Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not a single one of them is forgotten before God. ⁷And yet even the hairs of your head are all counted. Fear not; you all are worth more than many sparrows.