Monday April 11 Monday in Holy Week
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Psalm 51
I have committed evil acts and I long that God will wash me clean. If I am forgiven, I will tell everyone of God’s goodness. I would have given expensive sacrifices, but what you want, O God, is that I change my priorities. Then God will be pleased with us and our religious practices.
This psalm is often used on Fridays, the anniversary of the death of Christ through which forgiveness is possible. Our world would receive new life if we were as committed to changing direction in matters which are bringing death to the planet.
Lamentations 1.1-2, 6-12 What’s Lamentations about?
The author describes the devastation of Jerusalem when it was captured 600 years before Jesus. Christians later interpreted parts of this passage to be descriptions of the sufferings which Jesus underwent.
Mark 11.12-25 What’s Mark about?
The story of Jesus cursing a fig tree for not having fruit before it was the season to have fruit is likely a parable Jesus told which was later misinterpreted as a actual event.
Israel was often called God’s fig tree, and around the time Mark’s gospel was written, the temple in Jerusalem had been permanently destroyed by the Roman empire. Mark understood that Jesus was warning that Jerusalem, like a fig tree, was about to be destroyed for its having abandoned justice.
As Mark often does, he wraps one story around another story to draw out the implications. The second story is of Jesus destroying the temple leaders’ exploitation of the poor. This second story happens the day after Jesus has challenged the Roman empire by riding a donkey into the city, mocking the Roman use of military cavalry in triumphantly demonstrating their control of the city.
Having challenged Rome’s control of the city, Jesus now challenges the temple leaders’ abuse of the poor. The temple leaders were forcing poor worshippers to pay exorbitant taxes to the priests who were collaborating with the Roman emperor to extort tribute from the poor. Jesus is incensed that this would happen in the very building dedicated to the God of justice whose priority is to uphold the poor. Jesus overthrows the financial and religious system that enables this abuse. This is a popular message among the poor who flock to Jesus. No wonder the priests and others start to look for ways to execute Jesus—he is overthrowing their whole world. Notice that each night he leaves the danger of the city for the safety of the country. The passage ends with Jesus’ exhortation to seek forgiveness—Jerusalem’s leaders have much to ask forgiveness for.
Today’s collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son was crucified yet entered into glory,
may we, walking in the way of the cross,
find it is for us the way of life;
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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It was, I think, a very unfortunate theory that sexual intercourse became interpreted as evil in itself. That wasn’t something that was believed by Jesus or most of the Old Testament, notice how frequently there is a phrase like “so and so knew his wife and she conceived…” There is never a suggestion that “knowing” in that sense was evil. The poet uses exaggeration, as Jesus sometimes also did (he didn’t mean that a person should literally cut off their own hand or foot or eye if they did something wrong!), but it was to make a point and help people remember it. So the poet here is saying how profoundly he feels responsible for the evil he’s done, and takes it all the way back to his mother. But I doubt that he meant us to take that literally. He’s really saying “I’ve done evil things as far back as I can remember and maybe even before that, and I need God’s help and forgiveness.”
Hi Donna,
You may find the following footnote from the NABRE translation of the Bible helpful in understanding this verse of Psalm 51:
In sin my mother conceived me: lit., “In iniquity was I conceived,” an instance of hyperbole: at no time was the psalmist ever without sin, cf. Ps 88:15, “I am mortally afflicted since youth,” i.e., I have always been afflicted. The verse does not imply that the sexual act of conception is sinful.
I would agree that creation is an act of Love. And yet in our freedom we human beings are capable of love but also clearly of sinning, or “missing the mark.”
There are a number of suggested “sentences” or “antiphons” (so called because they were originally sung) listed on page 47 and 48 of the BAS. They are all from psalms or other scriptures. You can Google them to locate the passage. They are suggested as appropriate introductions for various times of year.
The passage from Lamentations could describe Ukraine today.
Very true. We have much in common with the experiences of the ancient world. In some ways we may understand the reactions of the ancient Israelites to their invasion by a world empire better today than ever before.
Where is the “short one-sentence meditation” that comes just before the Venite to be found?
From today’s Psalm: I have been wicked from my birth,
a sinner from my mother’s womb.” Please elaborate. This is not my perspective on birth. If this were true, I can’t help but wonder what the point is of being born (ie. creation)? Is not creation an act of Love??