Sunday 31st May

TRINITY SUNDAY PLUS
1030 Christ Church Joint Communion

Rev Sarah and team

Week 1
The Good Life
Sabbath in the Trinity

Isaiah 40.27-31
Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God’? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Matthew 28:16-20
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’

Common Worship Additional Collect
Holy God, faithful and unchanging: enlarge our minds with the knowledge of your truth, and draw us more deeply into the mystery of your love, that we may truly worship you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

Prayers for an Inclusive Church Collect
Trinity of love, deposing the powers of hate and isolation, gathering creation into bonds of mutual care: through the waters of baptism may our relatedness be born in justice, mercy and peace, through Jesus Christ who is with us always.
Amen.

1. What stands out? Imagine the passage from Isaiah in a high-quality documentary. Whose voice as narrator would do it justice?

2. What does it mean? In these closing moments of Matthew’s Gospel, what does Jesus tell them and what does he tell them to do?

3. How does it connect? In Isaiah people receive strength; in Matthew the disciples are sent. How do those two things belong together?

4. What are the deeper questions? What is bigger than ever before about the way Jesus sends the disciples?

5. What challenges you? This season is about Sabbath, and how it is the Good Life to which we are invited in the Trinity. What draws you and what unsettles you as you hear that?

6. How will you respond? Over the coming week, pay attention each day to the things that bring you Sabbath, and to the things that draw you away from it. You might like to keep a notebook to jot things down.