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DO NOT SUBMIT TO YOKE OF SLAVERY

Altar Server Prayer: Father in heaven, Your Son Jesus Christ showed his love for you by serving  his brothers and sisters in need.  I now ask you to give me your help I serve you and your people Open my mouth to praise you in word and song. Open my ears to hear your word. Open my hand to do your work well.  Take from me all evil and distracting thoughts. 

Help me to know what I should do and do it well.Help me to serve reverently at your Holy Altar and  give you praise and glory now and for ever. Amen  

The Law says, if you remember, that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave-girl, and one by his free-born wife. The child of the slave-girl was born in the ordinary way; the child of the free woman was born as the result of a promise. This can be regarded as an allegory: the women stand for the two covenants. The first who comes from Mount Sinai, and whose children are slaves, is Hagar. The Jerusalem above, however, is free and is our mother, since scripture says: Shout for joy, you barren women who bore no children! Break into shouts of joy and gladness, you who were never in labour. For there are more sons of the forsaken one than sons of the wedded  wife. So, my brothers, we are the children, not of the slave-girl, but of the free-born wife. When Christ freed us, he meant us to remain free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.

The crowds got even bigger, and Jesus addressed them:  ‘This is a wicked generation; it is asking for a sign. The only sign it will be given is the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the  Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. On Judgement day the Queen of the South will rise up with the men of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and there is something greater than Solomon here. On Judgement day the men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation and condemn it, because when Jonah preached they repented; and there is something greater than Jonah here.’




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