Tuesday July 27 Pentecost 9
Click here for simplified daily office prayers
Psalm 68
A song of joy that God drives away evil and cares for the needy just as God rescued God’s people long ago from Egypt and drove out all the other kings so they could settle in the land God had promised. Can we cultivate the expectation that God will triumph over all the selfish international powers of our day?
The violent images part way through are a way of expressing how completely God’s goodness and justice will remove all evil and exploitative powers.
2 Samuel 3: 6-21 What’s Samuel about?
Abner, one of the commanders serving Saul’s household is insulted by an accusation made by Saul’s son that he had violated one of Saul’s royal concubines and was thus trying to start a new royal lineage in his own name. Enraged by this accusation, Abner defects to join David and offers to bring the rest of the country into loyalty to David. David agrees on condition that Michal, Saul’s daughter to whom he was engaged (in this version of the story) be brought as his wife, thus ensuring that he, David, will be the head of a lineage that will unite his kingship with that of Saul. However, Michal is already married and her husband is in deep mourning that his wife will be given to King David. Yet again, the storyteller is saying, David takes someone else’s wife. David continues to consolidate power over the whole country by making peace with those still loyal to Saul.
There are perspectives in these stories from writers who thought of David as the ideal king loyal to God, and those who understood that he continued Saul’s infidelity to the God of justice and thus began the moral depravity that resulted in their being exiled to Babylon half a millennium later.
Mark 6:30-46 What’s Mark about?
Just when there is danger that Jesus may be suspected of being a terrorist, he feeds 5,000 people and has 12 baskets left over from a tiny amount of original food. It’s a miracle with a meaning. No matter how little food there is, or how little safety, or how little faith, God can take it and make it far more than we can imagine. The 12 baskets show that there is more than enough for all the Israelites who lived in 12 clans. In spite of King Herod starting to hunt Jesus, God will provide food of justice for the whole universe through Jesus’ execution and resurrection.
This week’s collect:
O God,
the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy,
increase and multiply upon us your mercy,
that with you as our ruler and guide,
we may so pass through things temporal,
that we lose not the things eternal;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Click here to share a comment on the web site.