Monday September 9 Pentecost 16
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Psalm 44
This is a psalm for times when bad things happen to us when it’s not our fault. The psalm starts off by recounting how God did amazing things for us in the past—God rescued us out of Egypt through the Red Sea. But now God no longer cares for us and terrible things are happening to us, even though we have done nothing wrong. At the end the psalm says there is nothing to do but call on God to put things right.
Job 32.1-10, 19-33.1, 19-28 What’s Job about?
A young friend of Job has waited out of respect for his seniors. But now he bursts into his explanation for what has happened. He assures Job that if someone pleads for him, God will immediately redeem him and not allow the disaster and death to continue.
The author wants to explore every possible reason that Job might have caused his own suffering, and then show that like Job’s friends we are mistaken—it is God’s fault, not Job’s. This is a highly courageous project—to undermine everything that religious faith assumes to be true about God. A deeper faith will be the outcome, but only if we have exhausted every traditional explanation for the experience of evil.
John 10.19-30 What’s John about?
Jesus has just said that he has the power to lay down his life and some say he has a demon to say such a thing. He is challenged to claim the role of Messiah, the one to save the people from the disaster of Roman rule. His response is that the restoration of God’s creation, as in the man born blind who now sees, is proof in itself, but that those who don’t see that don’t see because they don’t know God’s desire to restore creation “The Father and I are one.” If you don’t know the character of God as self-sacrificing love, then you won’t see the character of God in Jesus. But those who do see the character of God can never be in danger.
This week’s collect:
Stir up, O Lord,
the wills of your faithful people,
that richly bearing the fruit of good works,
we may by you be richly rewarded;
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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