- Wednesday October 20 Pentecost 21
Click here for simplified daily office prayers
Psalm 119 Part 2
Psalm 119 is a meditation on responding to God’s call to justice. Every verse contains some synonym for “justice”, such as “word”, “statute”, “commandment” or the like. The psalm is arranged in groups of eight verses. Each verse in the group starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet – the first group of eight verses all start with A, the second group all start with B and so on. The first seven verses mirror the seven days of creation, with the eighth sometimes pointing to the next group. This very careful construction mirrors God’s creating the universe by overcoming chaos with order. In the human world, justice, dignity and fulfilment – the outcomes of justice – are the expressions of order in the human world. The human world and the rest of creation are thus united. Today’s three sections begin with the letters D, H and W (in Hebrew alphabetical order). As you read them, imagine the effect of each line in today’s first section beginning with “D” and so on.
Lamentations 2: 8-15 What’s Lamentations about?
A poem about how it feels for the city to have been destroyed. While it is clear that God has done this, at least that provides some implicit hope and meaning whereas to believe that the city was destroyed by a power struggle between the great nations would be utterly meaningless.
The same dilemma is present in our time. Is the posturing of the great countries and is the threat to the planet’s life just the working out of greed? Or is God somehow present in these crises?
This concludes our long reading since spring about the destruction of Jerusalem, and how the ancient authors creatively interpreted how a loving God never abandoned the people despite their sin and consequent destruction. Tomorrow we begin reading about how Jerusalem was restored.
Matthew 12: 1-14 What’s Matthew about?
Jesus responds to the criticism that he is not observing the Sabbath by pointing out that King David once broke the Bible’s rules by eating sacred consecrated bread. When he is criticized for healing on the Sabbath, which was technically work, Jesus again insists that the kingdom breaking in is the true meaning of the Sabbath. This challenge to the Sabbath traditions was inflammatory and shortly a plot to kill him begins.
We may be overhearing an early Christian conversation in which the kingdom of joy and justice that Jesus initiated is being given absolute priority over all other religious concerns. Do we need that conversation in our time?
This week’s collect:
Almighty and everliving God,
increase in us your gift of faith,
that forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to what is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
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.