Sunday 7 June – (1st Sunday after Trinity)
Genesis 12.1-9
Abram, whose name God changed to Abraham, is called to leave his home town of Haran, with his wife Sara. God promises to make him the father of a great nation.
Romans 4.13-25
Before he visits the Christians in Rome for the first time, Paul begins to explain to them how, in the past, God chose Abraham, because he had faith in God.
Matthew 9.9-13, 18-26
Jesus surprised the religious leaders of the day by the company he kept, quoting the Old Testament (Hosea 6:6). His healing of the woman with haemorrhages who was ‘unclean’ in those days, also underlined the point. The healing of the young girl was an early example of Jesus’s God-given powers.
Sunday 14 June – (2nd Sunday after Trinity)
Genesis 18.1-15, 21.1-7
Abraham offers hospitality to strangers, who promise him that his wife Sarah will have a child, although she is past child-bearing age. Sarah overhears and laughs at the idea.
Romans 5.1-8
Paul continues to assure his readers that God’s love and peace, shown in Jesus’s death, will strengthen them.
Matthew 9.35-10.8
Matthew continued his account of Jesus’s mission with the call of the twelve disciples - a significant number for the Jews in the light of the 12 tribes of Israel, their ancestors. Jesus gave them their commission to go out and proclaim the gospel but warned them of the dangers they would face.
Sunday 21 June – (3rd Sunday after Trinity)
Genesis 21.8-21
When Isaac, Abraham’s son, grows up, his wife becomes jealous of the child her slave, Hagar, had born and orders her husband to send them away. God has pity them on as they flee and saves them.
Romans 6.1b-11
Paul stresses the importance of baptism for the Christians; it unites them with Christ in his death so they may share his life.
Matthew 6:1b-11
Jesus continued in his warnings to the disciples of the dangers they would face, but reassured them of God’s continuing protection.
Jesus summoned the twelve and sent them out with the following instruction:
Sunday 28 June – (Feast Day of Peter and Paul, Apostles)
Acts 12.1-11
To please the Jews, Herod Antipas persecutes leaders of the Christians community. Peter is thrown into prison but has a miraculous rescue in the night.
About that time
2 Timothy 4.6-8, 17-18
Paul writes to his young companion Timothy encouraging him, by describing how he has been strengthened by God in his own sufferings.
Matthew 16.13-19
Simon Peter was well known for his impetuous nature, and jumping in with answers to questions, without due thought. On this occasion, Jesus commended him but laid upon him heavy responsibilities as the rock on which the church would be built, carrying the burden of loosening or tightening the powers of sin. The names ‘Peter’ and ‘Cephas’ (John 1:42) both mean ‘rock’.