Communion Service’s for the Fourteenth Sunday of Trinity – St. John’s –
Hymn – A New Commandment I Give Unto You
The Greeting
Grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
All: And also with you
The Peace
We are the body of Christ.
In the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body
Let us then pursue all that makes for peace
and builds up our common life.
The peace of the Lord be always with you.
All: And also with you.
Let us offer one another a sign of peace.
(Please turn to those around you, offering your hand, and say
‘The peace of the Lord be with you’)
Prayer of Preparation
All: Almighty God,
to whom all hearts are open,
all desires known,
and from whom no secrets are hidden:
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love you,
and worthily magnify your holy name;
through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Prayer of Penitence
Our Lord Jesus Christ said: The first commandment is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our Cod is the only Lord. You shall love the Lord your Cod with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
All: Amen. Lord, have mercy.
God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son Jesus Christ
to save us from our sins,
to be our advocate in heaven,
and to bring us to eternal life.
Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith,
firmly resolved to keep God’s commandments
and to live in love and peace with all.
All: Father eternal, giver of light and grace,
we have sinned against you and against our neighbour,
in what we have thought,
in what we have said and done,
through ignorance, through weakness,
through our own deliberate fault.
We have wounded your love
and marred your image in us.
We are sorry and ashamed
and repent of all our sins.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
who died for us,
forgive us all that is past
and lead us out from darkness
to walk as children of light.
Amen.
Almighty God,
who forgives all who truly repent, have mercy upon you, pardon and deliver you from all your sins, confirm and strengthen you in all goodness, and keep you in life eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
All: Amen.
Collect for the Fourteenth Sunday of Trinity – 6th September 2026
Almighty God,
whose only Son has opened for us
a new and living way into your presence:
give us pure hearts and steadfast wills
to worship you in spirit and in truth;
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.
All: Amen
Our First Reading is – Romans Chap: 13
8 Be under obligation to no one – the only obligation you have is to love one another. Whoever does this has obeyed the Law.
9 The commandments, “Do not commit adultery; do not commit murder; do not steal; do not desire what belongs to someone else” – all these, and any others besides, are summed up in the one command, “Love your neighbour as you love yourself.”
10 If you love others, you will never do them wrong; to love, then, is to obey the whole Law.
11 You must do this, because you know that the time has come for you to wake up from your sleep. For the moment when we will be saved is closer now than it was when we first believed.
12 The night is nearly over, day is almost here. Let us stop doing the things that belong to the dark, and let us take up weapons for fighting in the light.
13 Let us conduct ourselves properly, as people who live in the light of day – no orgies or drunkenness, no immorality or indecency, no fighting or jealousy.
14 But take up the weapons of the Lord Jesus Christ, and stop paying attention to your sinful nature and satisfying its desires.
This is the word of the Lord
All: Thanks be to God.
Here the Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Matthew Chap: 18
15 “If your brother sins against you, go to him and show him his fault. But do it privately, just between yourselves. If he listens to you, you have won your brother back.
16 But if he will not listen to you, take one or two other persons with you, so that “every accusation may be upheld by the testimony of two or more witnesses,’ as the scripture says.
17 And if he will not listen to them, then tell the whole thing to the church. Finally, if he will not listen to the church, treat him as though he were a pagan or a tax collector.
18 “And so I tell all of you: what you prohibit on earth will be prohibited in heaven, and what you permit on earth will be permitted in heaven.
19 “And I tell you more: whenever two of you on earth agree about anything you pray for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.
20 For where two or three come together in my name, I am there with them.”
This is the Gospel of the Lord.
All: Praise to you, O Christ.
Sermon Notes
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy where Douglas Adams sets his story “nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change.”
• It’s a cynical joke, and it massively undersells what Jesus did — the cross was God taking on the cost of our sin, not someone getting executed for good manners.
• But Adams has stumbled onto something true.
• Underneath all our theology, there’s a heartbeat to the gospel that never changes: o God has loved us, and that love is supposed to change how we treat each other.
• Two passages this morning make that really practical:
Romans 13:8-14, and Matthew 18:15-20.
• Paul says, “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another” (v. 8).
• Normal debt gets paid off and disappears.
o Love doesn’t.
• It flows from what God has already given us, so there’s no point where we get to say, “I’ve loved enough, I’m done.”
• Then Paul takes the commandments — don’t cheat, don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t covet — and says they all boil down to one thing: “love your neighbour as yourself”.
• “Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law” (v. 10).
• Love was never a soft add-on to real theology — it’s what the whole gospel is for.
• Matthew 18 shows us what that looks like when someone’s actually wronged you.
• Jesus doesn’t pretend it won’t happen — the gospel was never a promise of a conflict-free church, just a completely different way of handling conflict.
Notice the order:
• Verse 15 — go to them, just the two of you, not the group chat.
• Verse 16 — if that fails, bring one or two others.
• Verse 17 — if that still fails, bring it to the church, and even then keep the door open rather than writing them off.
• Every step protects the other person from public humiliation and protects you from acting alone on hurt rather than truth.
• Then verses 19-20: “Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
• That’s not just about prayer meetings — it’s about that hard first conversation.
• When two people at odds sit down together, God is in the room.
• And when God’s in the room, only one thing should win: love, not being right.
Bringing It Together
• We’re going to get things wrong and sin against each other — that’s part of being human, part of being church.
• The good news isn’t a community where nobody hurts anybody.
• It’s that we’ve been forgiven, and because of that, we’re able to forgive too.
• Where harm’s been done, love looks for reconciliation, not payback o which is not how our culture works, with its instinct to escalate, sue, and demand compensation the moment we’re wronged.
• That matters especially for the younger people watching us.
• They’ll learn far more from how we actually handle conflict than from anything we say up front.
• If they see us go privately to someone who’s hurt us, seek reconciliation instead of victory, and forgive as we’ve been forgiven — they’ll see something the world just doesn’t have.
To Finish
• Douglas Adams wasn’t wrong that love sits at the centre of what Jesus was doing o he just massively undersold it.
• So here’s the question for this week: is there a debt of love you’re holding back on?
o A conversation you’ve been avoiding o one that love, and Christ’s presence with you, is actually asking you to have?
• Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.
• Owe nobody anything — except this: love one another.
• Because the one who loves has fulfilled the law.
Amen.
Prayers of Intercession
During the intercession this response is used:
Lord, m your mercy
All: Hear our prayer.
Prayers for King Charles
Through this tritium of prayer we ask God’s continuing blessing on our new King Charles
Prayer
O God, to whom every human power is subject,
grant to your servant our sovereign Charles
success in the exercise of his high office,
so that, always revering you and striving to please you,
he may constantly secure and preserve
for the people entrusted to his care
the freedom that comes from civil peace.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
All: Amen
Prayer for the Royal
Almighty God, the fountain of all goodness,
we humbly beseech thee to bless
Queen Camilla, William Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, and all the
Royal Family:
Endue them with thy Holy Spirit; enrich them with thy heavenly
grace; prosper them with all happiness;
and bring them to thine everlasting
kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
All: Amen.
In the power of the Spirit and in union with Christ, let us pray to the Father.
Almighty God, our heavenly Father,
you promised through your Son Jesus Christ
to hear us when we pray in faith.
Strengthen Sophie our bishop and all your Church in the service of Christ, that those who confess your name may be united in your truth, live together in your love, and reveal your glory in the world.
All: Amen.
Strengthen all your Church in the service of Christ, that those who confess your name may be united in your truth, live together in your love, and reveal your glory in the world.
Bless and guide Charles our King; give wisdom to all in authority; and direct this and every nation in the ways of justice and of peace; that we may honour one another, and seek the common good.
Give grace to us, our families and friends, and to all our neighbours, that we may serve Christ in one another, and love as he loves us.
Comfort and heal all those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit; give them courage and hope in their troubles and bring them the joy of your salvation.
Hear us as we remember those who have died in the faith of
Christ……; according to your promises,
grant us with them a share in your eternal kingdom.
Rejoicing in the fellowship of St. Laurence, St. John, St. Wilfred, St. Michel and all your saints, we commend ourselves and the whole creation to your unfailing love.
Merciful Father,
All: Accept these prayers
for the sake of your Son,
our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Heavenly Father,
you have promised through your Son Jesus Christ, that when we meet in his name, and pray according to his mind, he will be among us and hear our prayer: m your love and mercy fulfil our desires, and give us your greatest gift, which is to know you, the only true God, and your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
All: Amen.
Hymn – Father Hear the Prayer We Offer
1 Father, hear the prayer we offer:
not for ease that prayer shall be,
but for strength that we may ever
live our lives courageously.
2 Not for ever in green pastures
do we ask our way to be;
but the steep and rugged pathway
may we tread rejoicingly.
3 Not for ever by still waters
would we idly rest and stay;
but would smite the living fountains
from the rocks along our way.
4 Be our strength in hours of weakness,
in our wanderings be our guide;
through endeavour, failure, danger,
Father, be thou at our side .(by Love M. Whitcomb Willis (1824 to 1908)
The Eucharistic Prayer
The Lord is here.
All: His Spirit is with us.
Lift up your hearts,
All: We lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
All: It is right to give thanks and praise.
It is indeed right,
it is our duty and our joy,
at all times and in all places
to give you thanks and praise,
holy Father, heavenly King,
almighty and eternal God,
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.
For he is your living Word;
through him you have created all things from the beginning, and formed us in your own image.
All: To you be glory and praise for ever.
Through him you have freed us from the slavery of sin, giving him to be born of a woman and to die upon the cross;
You raised him from the dead and exalted him to your right hand on high.
All: To you be glory and praise for ever.
Through him you nave sent upon us your holy and life-giving Spirit, and made us a people for your own possession.
All: To you be glory and praise for ever.
Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we proclaim your great and glorious name, for ever praising you and saying:
All: Holy, holy, holy Lord,
God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Accept our praises, heavenly Father,
through your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ,
and as we follow his example and obey his command,
grant that by the power of your Holy Spirit
these gifts of bread and wine
may be to us his body and his blood;
who, in the same night that he was betrayed,
took bread and gave you thanks;
he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying:
Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you;
do this in remembrance of me.
In the same way, after supper he took the cup and gave you thanks; he gave it to them, saying: Drink this, all of you; this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.
All: To you be glory and praise for ever.
Therefore, heavenly Father, we remember his offering of himself made once for all upon the cross; we proclaim his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension; we look for the coming of your kingdom, and with this bread and this cup
we make the memorial of Christ your Son our Lord.
All: Christ has died: Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
Accept through him, our great high priest, this our sacrifice of thanks and praise, and as we eat and drink these holy gifts in the presence of your divine majesty, renew us by your Spirit, inspire us with your love and unite us in the body of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
All: To you be glory and praise for ever.
Through him, and with him, and in him, m the unity of the Holy Spirit,
with all who stand before you in earth and heaven, we worship you, Father almighty, in songs of everlasting praise;
All: Blessing and honour and glory and power be yours for ever and ever.
Amen.
Let us pray with confidence as our Saviour has taught us
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name;
Thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Breaking of the Bread
We break this bread to share in the body of Christ.
All: Though we are many, we are one body, because we all share in one bread.
All: Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world.
Have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world,
Have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world,
Grant us peace.
Giving of Communion
Draw near with faith
Receive the body of our Lord Jesus Christ
which he gave for you,
and his blood which he shed for you-
Eat and drink
in remembrance that he died for you,
and feed on him in your hearts
by faith with thanksgiving.
Amen
Post Communion Prayer
All Lord God, the source of truth and love,
keep us faithful to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship,
united in prayer and the breaking of bread,
and one in joy and simplicity of heart,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
The Blessing
May the Father who created you in love,
the Son who redeemed you by grace,
and the Holy Spirit who empowers you with truth,
go with you into the world.
Walk in unity, live in peace,
and bear witness to the love that holds all things together.
All: Amen.
Final Prayers and the Dismissal
Go in faith to love the Lord.
All: In the Name of Christ
Amen
© 702211