Prayer

God of eternity, you promised eternal life to all who believe.

Hear us as we give thanks for your servant Elizabeth who, having served our nation and Commonwealth, has passed from this life, full of years yet strong in faith.

As we give thanks for her life, for her shining example of commitment, grace, and Christian witness, meet us in our sadness, and fill our hearts with a longing for the values which she embraced in love and joy and peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

(Adapted from the St Edmundsbury Cathedral Prayer Card.)

Readings for The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity

First reading

Jeremiah 8.18 – 9.1

My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.

Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land:

'Is the Lord not in Zion?

Is her King not in her?' ('Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?') 

The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.'

For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,

I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?

Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?

O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!

Second reading

1 Timothy 2.1–7

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet andpeaceable life in all godliness and dignity.

This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all

—this was attested at the right time. For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

Gospel

Luke 16.1–13

Then Jesus said to the disciples, 'There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his

property. So he summoned him and said to him, "What is this that I hear about you? Give me an account of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer."

Then the manager said to himself, "What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes."

So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, "How much do you owe my master?"

He answered, "A hundred jugs of olive oil." He said to him, "Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty." Then he asked another, "And how much do you owe?"

He replied, "A hundred containers of wheat." He said to him, "Take your bill and make it eighty."

And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

'Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?

And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.'