Saturday August 14 Pentecost 11
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Psalm 33
A psalm of praise for God creating the earth, and for being equally in charge of the nations and for rescuing us. We rejoice in this God!
2 Samuel 16: 1-23 What’s Samuel about?
On his flight from Jerusalem, David is first warmly welcomed by one person and then cursed and insulted by someone else for his violent oppression. David refuses to have his attacker killed because he knows that what the man says about his evil ways are true and David hopes that God will forgive. Notice that David’s reaction is opposite to that when he was insulted by Naban, whose wife David subsequently married after her husband’s mysterious death.
When Absalom enters Jerusalem to claim his kingship his father’s trusted advisor Ahitophel abandons king David and transfers his loyalty to Absalom. Ahitophel advises Absalom to lie with his father’s concubines in public to insult his father, solidify his own power as king, and to establish himself as head of the royal lineage. We know that the God of justice will not be pleased with these profound violations and disaster will befall Absalom.
Mark 11: 1-11 What’s Mark about?
It is a week before the Passover, the annual commemoration of God rescuing the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Jews in Jesus’ time felt equally enslaved by the Roman empire and many hoped that God would act at a Passover to overthrow Roman rule just as God had overthrown the Egyptians in the ancient past. To prevent a rebellion, every year at Passover the Romans sent an entire legion to Jerusalem which was welcomed by the leaders of the city and religious authorities, all of whom held their positions at the pleasure of the Roman governor.
By riding into the city on a young colt, at the same moment as the legion entered the city led by a Roman general seated on a great stallion, Jesus deliberately mocks the enormous military operation and makes it clear that the God of justice stands against the violence and oppression of Rome. Jesus’ enacting of a peaceful society was immensely popular with the common people and the Roman authorities saw in it the beginning of a revolt against them.
Jesus’ message is clear and popular—God rejects the violence and abuse of Roman occupation. That defiance of Roman rule is exactly what the legion was ordered to suppress, exactly what ordinary people wanted, and it is no wonder that Jesus is executed by the Romans only five days later.
The early Christians interpreted these events as meaning that Jesus defied not only the Roman empire of their day, but all cruelty, oppression, and evil on a cosmic scale. By embracing evil and passing through death into resurrection God took evil on, and won.
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.
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