Thursday January 26 Epiphany 3
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Psalm 50
This psalm imagines God’s response to the people carrying out their religious practices but doing evil and abandoning justice. Rather than simply reacting or punishing, God lays out the case as if God were taking them to court—the idea is that God is being completely fair and getting an unbiased opinion about what the people have done. They have refused to be thankful for what God has done for them in rescuing them from Egypt and have substituted religion for being just to their own poor people and if this continues there will be consequences, but if they return to justice and thanksgiving all will be well.
Isaiah 49: 13-23 What’s Isaiah about?
In captivity far away, the people imagine that Jerusalem assumes God had forgotten the city, but God compares God’s self to a woman nursing her baby—a startling image then as now—in the same way as a new mother, God will never forget Jerusalem.
God will give the people prosperity and make the Babylonians serve them by carrying their children back to Jerusalem—Babylon’s kings will become their foster-fathers and Babylon’s queens will become their wet nurses! (Note that God had become a nursing mother to the newborn people a couple of verses earlier.) The people will grow so much that there won’t be room for them in the city!
God’s ability to put things right is without limit. Knowing that would make all the difference to us in a time when so many forces of destruction oppress us.
Mark 6: 30-46 What’s Mark about?
When the news of John’s execution reaches Jesus, he and his disciples wisely withdraw—into the wilderness, just as Jesus did when he first realized John would be executed.
But in the wilderness an astonishing thing happens. Despite Herod’s violent fury against John the Baptist and his followers, Jesus feeds five thousand people and has dozens of baskets of food left over from a tiny amount of original food. Despite being near the lake they can find only two small fish to eat—this near-starvation has been caused by Herod’s policy of over-fishing the lake to pay for his enormous construction projects, leaving the local people to starve. So it’s a miracle with a meaning. No matter how little food there is, or little safety, or little faith, God can take whatever little there is produce from it far more than we can imagine.
It’s crystal clear who is really in charge. Abusive power and violence can do its worst, but God’s generosity continues unabated, pouring food upon those who are hungry. If we also trust in that overarching generosity, we will be enabled to regain the generosity of full human nature in our time.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
by grace alone you call us
and accept us in your service.
Strengthen us by your Spirit,
and make us worthy of your call;
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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