1st Scripture Reading – Genesis 12:1-9
The Call of Abram
1 Now 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. 2
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. 3
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.”
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five
years old when he departed from Haran. 5 Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot
and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in
Haran, and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of
Canaan, 6Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that
time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your
offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. 8
From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with
Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the
name of the Lord. 9And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.
2nd Scripture Reading – Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
The Call of Matthew
9 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax-collection station,
and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him.
10 And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting
with Jesus and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does
your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
12 But when he heard this, he said, “Those
who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13Go and learn what this
means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.”
A Girl Restored to Life and a Woman Healed
18While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader came in and knelt before him,
saying, “My daughter has just died, but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.”
19 And
Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. 20 Then suddenly a woman who had been
suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of
his cloak, 21
for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.”
22
Jesus
turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And the
woman was made well from that moment. 23When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw
the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, 24 he said, “Go away, for the girl is not
dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he
went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26And the report of this spread through
all of that district.