Thursday January 28 Epiphany 3
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Psalm 50
This psalm imagines God’s response to the people doing evil and abandoning justice. Rather than simply reacting or punishing, God lays out the case as if God were going to court – the idea is that God is being completely fair and getting an unbiased opinion about what the people have done. They have substituted religion for being just and if this continues there will be consequences.
Isaiah 49: 13-23
Jerusalem assumed God had forgotten the city, but God compares God’s self to a woman nursing her baby – in the same way God will never forget Jerusalem. God is acting to give the people prosperity and to make their former captors serve them by carrying their children back to Jerusalem – their enemy’s kings will become their foster-fathers and their enemy’s queens will become their wet nurses! The people will grow so much that there won’t be room for them in the city!
God’s ability to put things right is without limit. Knowing that would make all the difference to us in a time when so many forces of destruction oppress us.
Mark 6: 30-46
When the news of John’s execution reaches Jesus, he and his disciples wisely withdraw—into the wilderness just as Jesus did when he first realized John would be executed. But in the wilderness an astonishing thing happens. Despite Herod’s fury, Jesus feeds five thousand people and has dozens of baskets of food left over from a tiny amount of original food. The fact that being near the lake they have only two fish reflects Herod’s policy of over-fishing the lake to pay for his enormous construction projects, leaving the local people to starve. So it’s a miracle with a meaning. No matter how little food there is, or little safety, or little faith, God can take it and make it far more than we can imagine.
It’s crystal clear who is really in charge. Abusive power can do its worst, but God’s generosity continues unabated, pouring food upon those who are hungry. If we also trust in that overarching generosity, we will be enabled to regain the generosity of full human nature.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
by grace alone you call us
and accept us in your service.
Strengthen us by your Spirit,
and make us worthy of your call;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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