Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

This guide is drawn from the Scriptures the Church appoints for the day.

Opening Prayer

ALMIGHTY God, who art always more ready to hear than we are to pray, open now our ears unto thy holy Word. We come before thee with much that is hidden from one another, and nothing that is hidden from thee. Take from us the fear that would keep us from being searched, and give us instead the confidence of children who know themselves beloved. Let thy Holy Spirit loose our tongues, that what we are taught in this hour we may be able to speak plainly in the week to come. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Texts Before Us

The green weeks after Trinity keep returning to one quiet question, which is who does the work. This Sunday the readings answer it four times over. A people is told that the land they are entering will not be watered by their own labor as Egypt was, but by rain out of heaven. A psalmist finds there is no country far enough away to be unknown in. An apostle says flatly that our sufficiency is not our own. And a man who can neither hear nor ask is carried to Christ by other people. Nothing here begins with us. Come ready to be opened.

Reading and Reflection

Old Testament Lesson · Deut. 11:8-21

8 Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that ye may be strong, and go in and possess the land, whither ye go to possess it; 9 And that ye may prolong your days in the land, which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give unto them and to their seed, a land that floweth with milk and honey. 10 For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs: 11 But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: 12 A land which the Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. 13 And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. 15 And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full. 16 Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; 17 And then the Lord’s wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you. 18 Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 20 And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates: 21 That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth.

Moses draws a contrast a farmer would feel in his body. Egypt was watered by foot, by the labor of a man who could arrange his own supply. Canaan is a land of hills and valleys that drinks the rain of heaven, and its harvest hangs upon a God whose eyes are upon it from the beginning of the year unto the end. Dependence here is the gift, not the hardship. So the words are to be bound upon the hand and spoken at the table and written on the doorpost, because a people who forget where the rain comes from will soon serve something else.

1. Moses presents the loss of Egypt’s irrigation as a promotion rather than a hardship. What is gained in a life that cannot arrange its own supply?
2. These words are to be spoken sitting in the house, walking by the way, lying down, and rising up. What would change in a household if the Word ran through the ordinary hours instead of being set apart for one of them?

The Psalm · Psalm 139

O LORD, thou hast searched me out, and known me. * Thou knowest my down-sitting, and mine uprising; thou understandest my thoughts long before. 2 Thou art about my path, and about my bed; * and art acquainted with all my ways. 3 For lo, there is not a word in my tongue, * but thou, O Lord, knowest it altogether. 4 Thou hast beset me behind and before, * and laid thine hand upon me. 5 Such knowledge is too wonderful and excellent for me; * I cannot attain unto it. 6 Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit? * or whither shall I go then from thy presence? 7 If I climb up into heaven, thou art there; * if I go down to hell, thou art there also. 8 If I take the wings of the morning, * and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea; 9 Even there also shall thy hand lead me, * and thy right hand shall hold me. 10 If I say, Peradventure the darkness shall cover me; * then shall my night be turned to day. 11 Yea, the darkness is no darkness with thee, but the night is as clear as the day; * the darkness and light to thee are both alike. 12 For my reins are thine; * thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. 13 I will give thanks unto thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: * marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. 14 My bones are not hid from thee, * though I be made secretly, and fashioned beneath in the earth. 15 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imper-fect; * and in thy book were all my members written; 16 Which day by day were fashioned, * when as yet there was none of them. 17 How dear are thy counsels unto me, O God; * O how great is the sum of them! 18 If I tell them, they are more in number than the sand: * when I wake up, I am present with thee. 19 Wilt thou not slay the wicked, O God? * Depart from me, ye blood-thirsty men. 20 For they speak unrighteously against thee; * and thine enemies take thy Name in vain. 21 Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? * and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? 22 Yea, I hate them right sore; * even as though they were mine enemies. 23 Try me, O God, and seek the ground of my heart; * prove me, and examine my thoughts. 24 Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me; * and lead me in the way everlasting.

This is the psalm of being known, and it is not at first a comfortable one. The searching comes before the comfort. God knows the down-sitting and the uprising and the word that is still in the tongue, and there is no direction of escape: not heaven, not hell, not the uttermost parts of the sea, not the dark, which is no darkness with him. Then the psalm turns, and the same hand that beset him behind and before is the hand that leads and holds him. At the end he asks for the searching himself.

1. The psalm moves from being beset behind and before to being held by that same hand. What must be true of God before such knowledge becomes a comfort rather than a threat?
2. The psalmist closes by asking to be searched, which he has already said is happening. Why ask for what is already the case?

Epistle · 2 Corinthians 3:4-9

AND such trust have we through Christ to Godward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.

Paul has been defending a ministry that looked unimpressive, and he refuses to defend it on his own account. We are not sufficient of ourselves so much as to think anything as of ourselves. What follows is no slight against the Law, for he grants that the ministration written and engraven in stones came with real glory, enough that Israel could not look steadily upon the face of Moses. His argument is comparative. If a covenant that pronounced condemnation shone like that, the ministration of the Spirit, which gives life and righteousness, must shine further still.

1. Paul says the letter killeth and the spirit giveth life, and in the same passage calls the older ministry glorious. How do you hold both without setting Scripture against itself?
2. Paul places his sufficiency outside himself and still labors hard at his ministry. Where is that distinction hardest to keep in ordinary parish life?

Gospel · St. Mark 7:31-37

AND again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it; and were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.

Everything in this healing is done for a man who cannot ask for it. He is deaf, his speech is bound, and it is other people who bring him and beseech on his behalf. Our Lord takes him aside from the multitude, which is a mercy before any healing has happened, and then works with fingers and spittle and touch, meeting a man who cannot hear a word in the only language left to him. He looks up to heaven, and he sighs. Ephphatha, be opened. Then the crowd is charged to say nothing and cannot stop saying it.

1. The man is carried by others and says nothing until he is healed. What does that suggest about what a congregation owes to those who cannot ask for themselves?
2. Our Lord sighs before he speaks the word. What might that sigh be doing in the middle of a miracle?

Connecting the Texts

Together these four take away the ground we most want to stand on, and then give us better ground. Israel loses the irrigation it could work with its own foot and receives the rain of heaven. The psalmist loses every hiding place and receives a hand that leads him. Paul loses any sufficiency of his own and receives a ministry of the Spirit. The deaf man has no capacity even to ask, and receives his hearing. The Collect says it plainly, that God is more ready to hear than we to pray and gives more than we either desire or deserve. What we are asked to surrender is only our management of him.

For the Coming Week

One might pray Psalm 139 slowly across the week, a few verses at a time, and stay especially with the last two verses, where the psalmist asks to be searched. Consider also naming one thing whereof your conscience is afraid, as the Collect has it, and bringing it to God plainly rather than around the edges, since he knows it already and is more ready to hear than we are to speak. And there is an old practice of saying Ephphatha, be opened, before the day’s reading of Scripture, asking that the ears be unstopped before the eyes begin.

Closing Prayer

O LORD, who hast searched us out and known us, we thank thee for this hour spent together over thy holy Word. Grant that what thou hast opened in us here may stay open, and that we may not close again against thee or against one another before the week is out. Keep us mindful of those who cannot ask, and make us the sort of people who carry them. Preserve us in thy peace until we are gathered again. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honor and glory, world without end. Amen.