Saturday November 19 Pentecost 23
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Psalm 107 Part 2
When the Israelites completed their journey through the wilderness God brought disaster on the evil people who lived there (as the Israelites understood them) to make a fertile place for God’s own people. When God’s people were oppressed, God rescued them. Wise people, the poem says, will take this to heart and will trust in God’s care and justice to prevail.
One of our tasks today is to cultivate that trust in God’s care for humanity so that when disaster happens in our world we will have something solid to offer.
Psalm 108
I will praise God because God is so powerful and I ask you, God, to act on behalf of the poor. God replies by listing all ways in which land will be given to God’s people and taken from those who are evil. I respond by asking God to act to save us because it seems God has abandoned us.
These two psalms are scheduled for Saturdays as we experience the wait for the resurrection while Christ is still in the grave.
Malachi 3.13-4.6 What’s Malachi about?
God promises that if the people respond with commitment and integrity in their worship, they will not be destroyed. This concludes Malachi’s message of challenge and hope that there is a way out of their disaster.
Luke 18.9-14 What’s Luke about?
Jesus says we are not to assume that because we are followers, we have already arrived in the kingdom and are better than others. Someone who knows themselves to be a failure and knows they badly need the kingdom is closer to the kingdom than the person who is so proud of the fact that they are good that they think they are already in the kingdom!
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
you sent your Son Jesus Christ
to be the light of the world.
Free us from all that darkens and ensnares us,
and bring us to eternal light and joy;
through the power of him
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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