Monday August 26 Pentecost 14
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Psalm 4
So much of the world trusts in “dumb idols” and “false gods”—those seductive priorities which do nothing to bring goodness and justice. But the true God can still do wonders and we can trust God to care of us and so we can fall asleep peacefully.
Psalm 7
I am pursued by evil. This would make sense if I had done something terribly wrong, but I haven’t. God, sit like a supreme judge, and make that evil self-destruct. I will then proclaim that God is indeed just.
Job 4.1, 5.1-11, 17-21, 26-27 What’s Job about?
Eliphaz continues to argue that it is faithless people who suffer but that God is reliable and will set things right and lift Job up and heal him. In the end, God will ensure that all will be well for Job. Job should trust in God because it is only humans who give rise to evil.
The author is putting in the mouth of Eliphaz, as clearly as possible, the traditional arguments that God ultimately makes everything fair. But tomorrow Job will refute this, and insist that God is not fair and that the traditional religious beliefs don’t work. The fact that such arguments against God were kept in the scriptures indicates the profound insights that the ancient Jews had in opposing superficial religious belief.
John 6.52-59 What’s John about?
Jesus insists, in face of opposition, that he is the real bread of life, and even more starkly that his flesh must be eaten. As always in John, there are at least two levels of meaning. All of us are reluctant to be told we must die with Christ in order to live fully, and John deliberately faces us with our reluctance by focusing on the disturbing image of eating Jesus’ flesh—it was Jesus’ flesh that died and rose again. Jesus also insists that we must drink his blood—an image that was abhorrent to Jews for whom blood was sacred and had to be removed from meat before it is eaten, as is still the case for kosher Jewish food. Jesus is challenging all our assumptions about what is normal so that his death and resurrection can be the foundational reality of our lives.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
we are taught by your word
that all our doings without love are worth nothing.
Send your Holy Spirit and pour into our hearts
that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtue;
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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