16th Sunday After Pentecost

God’s power to heal and restore.

Collect: Proper 18

Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen

Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23 . . .  reminds us that God rewards just behavior.

Psalm 125 . . . God produces the condition of stability, and faith in the “Unmoved  Mover” of the world?

or

Isaiah 35:4-7 and Psalm 146. . . looks ahead to when God will bring healing to God’s people and to the land

and

James 2:1-10, (11-13) 14-17. . . God’s gift of inner, spiritual wholeness, a wholeness that results in outward acts of purity and kindness.

Mark 7:24-37. . . Jesus transforms a man’s silent world by healing his deafness and a speech impediment.

Ryan Ahlgrim, Pastor of First Mennonite Church in Richmond, Virginia, preaches the story of the Syrophoenician Woman from Mark 7:24-37.    “Even Jesus Changes His Mind.”