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| This Eastertide, as we continue to navigate the shut-down of society and the global response to COVID-19, we are joined together through our common faith, and offer these daily Scripture readings for your spiritual reflection and encouragement.
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| | Wednesday, Second Week of Easter
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| “Abide in My Love” (John 15:1-11, NRSV)
This week’s Gospel texts originate from the Book of Common Worship: Daily Prayer (Louisville, KY:Westminster/John Knox, 1993).
15 1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
The Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8-17, NRSV)
The Home Daily Bible Readings for Monday through Saturday are selected in support of the Sunday lesson in the Uniform Lessons Series, ©Spring 2020.
25: 8 You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the day of atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. 10 And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. 11 That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. 12 For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces. 13 In this year of jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your property. 14 When you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not cheat one another. 15 When you buy from your neighbor, you shall pay only for the number of years since the jubilee; the seller shall charge you only for the remaining crop years. 16 If the years are more, you shall increase the price, and if the years are fewer, you shall diminish the price; for it is a certain number of harvests that are being sold to you. 17 You shall not cheat one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God.
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| | Blessed Are You
By Reverend Barbara Nixon
Blessed are you healers and helpers, for you offer care without measure.
Blessed are you who must recover your health in solitude – may you know you are loved.
Blessed are you mask-makers, for you help us breath easier.
Bless are you who stay at home, for you are protecting all.
Blessed are you work to provide essentials of every kind, for you are lifelines.
Blessed are you who are worried, for you anticipate what can go wrong.
Blessed are you who worry not, for you show us hope and courage.
Blessed are the introverts, for you show us the joys of solitude.
Blessed are you extroverts, for you remind all of a bigger life.
Blessed are you who create in all ways, for you feed our spirits with beauty and laughter.
Blessed are you working in newsrooms, for you keep us connected in the search for honest answers.
Blessed are you good neighbors, for yours is an appreciative neighborhood.
Blessed are you who never lose sight of the big picture, for you remind us to notice more than our limited experience.
Blessed are you who pray and ponder and meditate and hold silence and speak with heart, for you ground us all in the truth of love.
Blessed are you who dream, for you are helping us rise into a more beautiful life together.
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| Serving as a leading voice of witness to the living Christ in the public square since 1950, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) brings together 38 member communions and more than 40 million Christians in a common expression of God's love and promise of unity. |
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