Sunday 1st March Second Sunday of Lent
FIRST READING Genesis 12.1–4a
A reading from the book of Genesis.
The LORD said to Abram,
‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house
to the land that I will show you.
I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’
So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him.
PSALM Psalm 121
R My help comes from the Lord,
[the maker of heaven and earth].
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills;
from where is my help to come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
the maker of heaven and earth. R
3 He will not let your foot be moved
and he who watches over you will not fall asleep.
4 Behold, he who keeps watch over Israel
shall neither slumber nor sleep; R
5 The Lord himself watches over you;
the Lord is your shade at your right hand,
6 So that the sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night. R
7 The Lord shall preserve you from all evil;
it is he who shall keep you safe.
8 The Lord shall watch over your going out
and your coming in,
from this time forth for evermore. R
SECOND READING Romans 4.1–5, 13–17
A reading from the letter of Paul to the Romans.
What are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh?
For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
For what does the scripture say?
‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’
Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due.
But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.
For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith.
If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs,
faith is null and the promise is void.
For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.
For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants,
not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written,
‘I have made you the father of many nations’) –
Abraham believed in the presence of the God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
GOSPEL
John 3.1–17
Hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John.
There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus,a leader of the Jews.
He came to Jesus by night and said to him,
‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God;
for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’
Jesus answered him,
‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God
without being born from above.’
Nicodemus said to him,
‘How can anyone be born after having grown old?
Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’
Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.
What is born of the flesh is flesh,
and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Do not be astonished that I said to you,
“You must be born from above.”
The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it,
but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’
Nicodemus said to him,
‘How can these things be?’
Jesus answered him,
‘Are you a teacher of Israel,
and yet you do not understand these things?
Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know
and testify to what we have seen;
yet you do not receive our testimony.
If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe,
how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up,
that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not perish
but may have eternal life.
Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world,
but in order that the world might be saved through him.’
SUNDAY 8 March LENT 3 YEAR A
FIRST READING Exodus 17.1–7
A reading from the book of Exodus.
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 quarrelled 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 quarrelled and tested the LORD,
saying, ‘Is the LORD among us or not?’
PSALM Psalm 95
R O that today you would hearken to his voice!
Harden not your hearts.
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. R
4 In his hand are the depths 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 moulded the dry land. R
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.
O that today you would hearken to his voice! R
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. R
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.”’ R
SECOND READING Romans 5.1–11
A reading from the letter of Paul to the Romans.
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.
GOSPEL John 4.5–42
Hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John.
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 worshipped 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 worshippers 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 labour.
Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.’
Many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus
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 for 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 Saviour of the world.’