Wednesday November 3 Pentecost 23
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Psalm 119 Part 4
Psalm 119 is a meditation on responding to God’s call to justice. Each of the 178 verses is a variation on the theme of what it means to follow God’s call to justice, using terms such as “command”,”law”, “word”, “statute”, and the like. The psalm is arranged in groups of eight verses. Within a group, each of the eight verses starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and the groups are in Hebrew alphabetical order. So 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. Thus the human world and the rest of creation are united in the same foundation. Today’s three sections begin with the letters Y, K and L (in Hebrew alphabetical order). As you read them, imagine the effect of each line in today’s first section beginning with “Y” and so on.
Nehemiah 13: 4-22 What’s Nehemiah about?
While Nehemiah is away on a trip, part of the temple is used as living quarters and the priests are not being supported. On his return, Nehemiah restores proper use to the temple. Nehemiah finds that people are doing work on the Sabbath and he commands it to stop and shuts the doors of the city gates so nobody can come in and out to work on the Sabbath. The point is that the city and the temple are being returned to the pure worship of the God of justice.
Matthew 13: 53-58 What’s Matthew about?
Jesus is doubted among his own people. Their lack of trust foreshadows the growing plot to arrest and kill him. Similar rejection was happening around this time to the early Christians as they were under suspicion by the Roman occupiers and perhaps by some of their own families, and it would have been of great support to have known the same things had happened to Jesus.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
whose chosen servant Abraham obeyed your call,
rejoicing in your promise
that in him the family of the earth is blessed,
give us faith like his,
that in us your promises may be fulfilled;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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