Thursday August 12 Pentecost 11
Click here for simplified daily office prayers
Psalm 105 Part 2
The first half of this psalm sang about how God cared for the people up to the time of their becoming slaves in Egypt. This second half sings about how God forced the Egyptians to release the Israelites so God could bring them to their own land. God is being praised for consistently enacting justice in history.
2 Samuel 15: 1-18 What’s Samuel about?
Absalom begins to undermine his father’s leadership and consolidate his own power. He lies about attending a religious ceremony and instead organizes a rebellion against his father. David is afraid that Absalom may asassinate him and he flees from Jerusalem.
The historians, compiling these stories five hundred years later, are demonstrating that royal power degenerates into greed and that betrayal and violence increase with each generation of kings. They believe that abandoning God’s command for justice caused the ruin of the entire country when it was invaded by Babylon five hundred years later
Mark 10: 32-45 What’s Mark about?
Jesus is deliberately walking towards confrontation with the oppressive authorities in Jerusalem. This is the third time in a row that Jesus insists that God’s love involves God sacrificing God’s self for us, God’s beloved. The disciples, for the third time, want nothing to do with this—this time they want to make a secret deal to sit at the head table in heaven with Jesus. They do not want to die for God’s kingdom, they want safety and power.
Of course, the disciples are us. Our world is in such difficulty because safety and power are the priorities of human cultures. Even today it is almost unimaginable that a culture would make significant sacrifices for the well-being of others. But there is hope—God is acting, in Jesus, to reverse what is “normal”.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
you sent your Holy Spirit
to be the life and light of your Church.
Open our hearts to the riches of your grace,
that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
in love, joy, and peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive 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.