Sunday March 19 Lent 4
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Psalm 66
God, everyone praises you because you have rescued us from disaster so I will delight in praising you.
Psalm 67
Because of God’s blessings to all the nations we will all sing God’s praises.
Jeremiah 14: 1-22 What’s Jeremiah about?
There has been no rain, and famine is decimating the people and even the wild animals. This is a disaster beyond imagining. It has been brought on because the people have refused to treat each other with respect. People cry to God for help, but God refuses.
The official prophets insist that all will be well, but God replies that the prophets are lying—God never told them to say all would be well, and tells Jeremiah to go weeping in and out of the city about the disaster that is coming.
Jeremiah then asks God if God has finally abandoned the people. Jeremiah says they are taking responsibility for what they have done, and only God, and not the idol-gods of Babylon, can bring rain. They are in God’s hands. It is God who has brought this disaster and only God can change it. But as long as the people still think all will be well, they won’t change their behaviour.
It sounds so applicable to the world in our day. If our societies continue to do so little for the poor in other countries and care so little for the fate of the creatures of the world, disaster will happen to us, too. Jeremiah is critiquing the self-serving hope that somehow everything will turn out well. We, too, hope that God will forgive and everything will be fine. That’s not good enough, God says. Instead, profound change will be required of us.
Mark 8: 11-21 What’s Mark about?
On Sundays in Lent we continue to read from Mark.
Jesus has fed five thousand people with twelve baskets left over (symbolizing the twelve tribes of Israel), and then has travelled to the non-Jewish region where he has just fed four thousand people with seven baskets left over (symbolizing the seven original tribes that the Jews were told by God to exterminate).
Jesus’ critics insist he do another miracle to prove he is from God, but Jesus refuses. The words ” he sighed deeply” are better translated as “moaned” as in “frustrated and angry.” Jesus has just fed the descendants of the people God had commanded Joshua to exterminate and if the critics don’t see that God is changing the ancient command by including all peoples in God’s care without exception then there’s no point in Jesus performing “proof” miracles.
The Christian eucharist celebrated every Sunday repeats Jesus’ radical act of feeding all people, even those who are considered inferior and unworthy and unbelievers.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
through the waters of baptism
your Son has made us children of light.
May we ever walk in his light
and show forth your glory in the world;
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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