Sunday 17 August 2025 – The Ninth Sunday after Trinity

Collect
Almighty God,
who sent your Holy Spirit
to be the life and light of your Church:
open our hearts to the riches of your grace,
that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
in love and joy and peace;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen

Jeremiah 23. 23-39
Am I a God near by, says the Lord, and not a God far off?
Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? says the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord.
I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, “I have dreamed, I have dreamed!”
How long? Will the hearts of the prophets ever turn back—those who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart?
They plan to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, just as their ancestors forgot my name for Baal.

Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? says the Lord.
Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces? See, therefore, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who steal my words from one another.
See, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who use their own tongues and say, “Says the Lord.”
See, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, says the Lord, and who tell them,
and who lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or appoint them; so they do not profit this people at all, says the Lord.

When this people, or a prophet, or a priest asks you, “What is the burden of the Lord?” you shall say to them,
“You are the burden, and I will cast you off, says the Lord.” And as for the prophet, priest, or the people who say, “The burden of the Lord,” I will punish them and their households.
Thus shall you say to one another, among yourselves, “What has the Lord answered?” or “What has the Lord spoken?”
But “the burden of the Lord” you shall mention no more, for the burden is everyone’s own word, and so you pervert the words of the living God, the Lord of hosts, our God.

Thus you shall ask the prophet, “What has the Lord answered you?” or “What has the Lord spoken?”
But if you say, “the burden of the Lord,” thus says the Lord: Because you have said these words, “the burden of the Lord,” when I sent to you, saying, You shall not say,
“the burden of the Lord, therefore, I will surely lift you up and cast you away from my presence, you and the city that I gave to you
and your ancestors.

Hebrews 11. 29. 12-2
By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land,
but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely,
and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,
looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Luke 12.49-56
Jesus said to his disciples,
“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!
I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!
Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;
they will be divided: father against son and son against father,
mother against daughter and daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west,
you immediately say, “It is going to rain’; and so it happens.
And when you see the south wind blowing, you say,
“There will be scorching heat’; and it happens.
You hypocrites!
You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky,
but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?