Monday August 2 Pentecost 10
Click here for simplified daily office prayers
Psalm 77
God is not responding when I call in trouble. But I will not forget the amazing things God did in the past.
Psalm 79
Evil people have destroyed your temple. Come and help because we are your sheep.
2 Samuel 7: 1-17 What’s Samuel about?
David wants to build a temple (“a house”) for the Lord intending to consolidate his power as military and religious leader. But God’s response is to say that the ark, with the original ten commandments, had never been lodged in a house but had always been housed in a tent ready to move and lead the people in new directions. We are hearing one argument from the time of the Babylonian exile that what went wrong was that the king attempted to control the religion. The response of those writers is that God turns the tables and and says that David will not build a house for God, but God will build a house for David—but a “house” in the form of an eternal dynasty, and from that “house” David’s son Solomon will build a permanent house—the temple—for God. We are overhearing the struggle between the king thinking he is in charge of the Jewish faith, and the writer believing that God is in charge of David and of all kings. The description of God disciplining an unfaithful king as if disciplining a child is the writers’ interpretation of why the final kings were abused by the Babylonians. Nevertheless, the writers say, God will remain faithful. Early followers of Jesus understood Jesus to be the fulfillment of God’s promise to David, and to be a descendent of David and to be born in David’s city.
Mark 8: 11-21 What’s Mark about?
The conflict with the religious leaders continues. They want Jesus to demonstrate that he is God. Jesus refuses because his role is not to prove who belongs and who doesn’t, but to initiate the kingdom based on inclusion of all. He then tells his disciples that everyone belongs, as he demonstrated in the two overwhelmingly generous feedings—one for the Jews and one for the non-Jews. But the disciples do not understand—the idea that everyone belongs to the kingdom of fulfilment is impossible for them to imagine. Soon they will begin to see, but as we will find in the next passage, they start to see only imperfectly.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
your Son Jesus Christ fed the hungry
with the bread of his life
and the word of his kingdom.
Renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your true and living bread,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Click here to share a comment on the web site.