Pentecost 17b

L       Who is wise and understanding among you? Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. (James 3:13; 4:7-8) Let us confess the ways we fail to draw near to God.

Silence is kept for confession and reflection

L        Behold, God is my helper;

C        I will offer you a sacrifice of praise, O Lord, for you have rescued me from every trouble… (Psalm 54:4,6-7)

L        Who is wise and understanding among you? …the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. (James 3:13, 17)

Pentecost 16b

L       The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning he wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. (Isaiah 50:4-5) Let us confess the ways we fail to listen to the word that sustains.

Silence is kept for confession and reflection

L       Gracious is the Lord and righteous;

C       Our God is full of compassion. The Lord rescues us from death; our eyes from tears and our feet from stumbling. (Psalm 116:5,8)

L        The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; It is the Lord God who helps me; who will declare me guilty? (Isaiah 50:4 7, 9)

Pentecost 15b

L        What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. (James 2:14-17) Let us confess the ways we fail to live our faith.

Silence is kept for confession and reflection

L         Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help;

C       who keeps His promises forever and gives justice to those who are oppressed, who gives food to the hungry and sets the captive free. (Psalm 148:5, 7)

L       Speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment. (James 2:10, 12-13)