Wednesday June 9 Pentecost 2
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Psalm 72
A prayer that the king will rule with justice for the poor, and that as a result all will have more than enough to live fully. This can easily applied as a prayer for our political leaders today.
Deuteronomy 31: 30—32:14 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses sings a song, at the end of his life, in praise of the God who has given them life and land and overflowing abundance.
This concludes our readings from Deuteronomy. Tomorrow we begin reading from Sirach, a book written not long before the life of Jesus, intended to encourage the Jews who were then under the domination of the Greek empire.
Luke 19: 11-27 What’s Luke about?
Jesus tells a story about a royal person who travels to get more power and who leaves his money with three slaves. Two slaves use the money to make immense profits, but the third does nothing with the money and has it taken from him and given to the most successful slave. The story appears to contradict everything that Jesus stands for—that God rewards those who started out rich by taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich, and violently executing those who object.
The clue to understanding the story is that Jesus tells it shortly before he enters Jerusalem where he will be executed days later. The ruler who travels probably refers to Herod who had travelled to Rome to have his authority confirmed by Caesar Augustus. The story is not invented by Jesus but is a commentary on actual events. The people who don’t want this ruler are the common Jewish people who hated the violence and exploitation of the Roman empire, and the slave who refuses to engage in economic exploitation is Jesus himself. For refusing to support violent Roman oppression, Rome will execute him. Jesus is explaining, in story form obvious to people of the time, what is about to happen to him.
Notice that this story of Jesus refusing to participate in Roman oppression comes immediately after the account of Zacchaeus the Jewish exploiter, who had become rich by using the violent Roman military to beggar his fellow citizens of Jerusalem. But following a meal with Jesus, he changed and returned all that he had stolen. The point is that despite the apparent victory of Roman violence in executing Jesus, God’s kingdom of justice is breaking in anyway.
In tomorrow’s reading, Jesus borrows a donkey, being too poor to own one, and enters Jerusalem mocking the grandeur of the Roman military forces entering by another gate at the same time.
This week’s collect:
O God,
you have assured the human family of eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Deliver us from the death of sin
and raise us to new life in him,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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