Tuesday February 23 Lent 1
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Psalm 45
A poem about King David, using the imagery of an ancient oriental king, describing his personal and public magnificence and the glory of his relationship with the queen. Note that his prime duty is to serve truth and justice.
We can read this poem as a description of our own fulfilled self and relationships which have been made possible for us in union with Christ’s resurrection.
Deuteronomy 9: 4-12
Moses has just said, speaking to the people shortly before they enter the promised land, that God didn’t choose to rescue Israel because they were powerful but because God cares about the powerless. Now Moses says that God didn’t rescue Israel and give them their own land because they were morally good – but because God wanted the evil already in the land to stop. Moses recalls several events in which the people were morally evil. God doesn’t act in order to give rewards, but acts for no other reason than that God is generous to the powerless and to the immoral. This is a radical way of understanding God. It applies to us, too. And we realise that this passage anticipates Paul saying that while we were yet sinners, God acted for us.
We no longer believe that God destroyed the people already in the land to make room for God’s favourites, but in ancient times the Israelites understood the aboriginal people as being evil. But the seeds of change are present in Moses’ insistence that God acts for the powerless and the immoral. Some of those seeds are bearing fruit in the start of reconciliation with the First Nations of our time.
John 2: 13-22
John continues his multi-layered account of Jesus’ significance. Immediately following the wonderful wedding reception, Jesus confronts the religious leaders who, to serve the sacrilegious Romans, were extorting money from people coming to worship the God of justice in the temple built for upholding justice. Jesus is taking action to ensure that the wedding reception for God’s faithfulness to humanity is actually able to happen. When Jesus is challenged about his stance, he points to his future resurrection as proof of the victory of justice over exploitation.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son fasted forty days in the wilderness,
and was tempted as we are but did not sin, give us grace to discipline ourselves
in submission to your Spirit,
that as you know our weakness,
so we may know your power to save;
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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