The Collect
Almighty God, you know that we have
no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies
and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which
may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt
the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the
Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Old Testament
Exodus
17:1-7
From the wilderness of Sin the whole
congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at
Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled
with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you
quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?”
But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against
Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children
and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people?
They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord said
to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel
with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I
will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock,
and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in
the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah,
because the Israelites quarreled and tested theLord,
saying, “Is the Lord among
us or not?”
The Response
Psalm
95
Venite, exultemus
1 Come, let us sing to the Lord; *
let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.
2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving *
and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.
3 For the Lord is a great
God, *
and a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the caverns of the earth, *
and the heights of the hills are his also.
5 The sea is his, for he made it, *
and his hands have molded the dry land.
6 Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *
and kneel before the Lord our
Maker.
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. *
Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!
8 Harden not your hearts,
as your forebears did in the wilderness, *
at Meribah, and on that day at Massah,
when they tempted me.
9 They put me to the test, *
though they had seen my works.
10 Forty years long I detested that generation and said, *
"This people are wayward in their hearts;
they do not know my ways."
11 So I swore in my wrath, *
"They shall not enter into my rest."
The Epistle
Romans
5:1-11
Since we are justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have
obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of
sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our
sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces
character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us,
because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that
has been given to us.
For while we were still
weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone
die for a righteous person-- though perhaps for a good person someone might
actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still
were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been
justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For
if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his
Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.
But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through
whom we have now received reconciliation.
The Gospel
John
4:5-42
Jesus came to a Samaritan city
called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the
well. It was about noon.
A Samaritan woman came
to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had
gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that
you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things
in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God,
and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked
him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir,
you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?
Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his
sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of
this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will
give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them
a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir,
give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here
to draw water.”
Jesus said to her, “Go,
call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have
had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have
said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our
ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people
must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour
is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in
Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for
salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the
true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father
seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him
must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah
is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things
to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
Just then his disciples
came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said,
“What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left
her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see
a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can
he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.
Meanwhile the disciples
were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to
eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely
no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do
the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four
months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see
how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages
and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice
together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent
you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have
entered into their labor.”
Many Samaritans from
that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me
everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked
him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed
because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what
you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this
is truly the Savior of the world.”