Thursday May 6 Easter 5
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Psalm 70
God can be trusted to deliver the poor from evil.
These two psalms are often used on Thursdays, the mini-anniversaries of the approach of Jesus’ death in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Psalm 71
In old age I am filled with praise for the God who has rescued me in so many ways throughout my long life. People are attacking me now, but I trust in your salvation as you have acted for me all my life.
Wisdom 14: 27-15:3 What’s Wisdom about?
The Jews were living under Greek culture when this book was written, and the Greeks worshipped many gods and had many idols, in sharp contrast the Jewish worship of the one true God. But because the ark and the original ten commandments had been lost when the temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, there was no physical object in the temple which Jews of this time could worship. They had come to realize that there is nothing which can adequately symbolize God, and so in the temple the central holy space was completely empty—a constant reminder that the real God is beyond all human understanding. In contrast, the poet says, basing one’s life upon idols, as the Greeks do despite their sophistication in other ways, leads to destruction.
An idol is anything to which we give our loyalty but that doesn’t represent justice and inclusion of all—the qualities of the true God. Making power, violence or ownership our priority are some of the forms that idols take in our time, and all lead to death. But to know the true God who is inclusive justice is the path to be immortal, a path that the Greeks, and much of society in our time too, mistakenly think can be achieved by grasping for power, violence and ownership.
Luke 8: 26-39 What’s Luke about?
Jesus heals a man possessed by thousands of demons. His name, “Legion”, suggests this is also a story about the Jews who are possessed by the Roman empire. Jesus allows the disgusting demons to inhabit a disgusting animal, pigs. But when the demons destroy the pigs, the pig-farmers, who are all Jews and therefore violating their faith by raising pigs, are devastated—their desire for financial profit has destroyed their loyalty to the God of freedom.
The world does not always applaud the bringing of health and sanity. The lure of profit may take priority.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
your Son Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.
Give us grace to love one another
and walk in the way of his commandments,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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