Thursday May 2 Easter 5
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Psalm 74
About 600 years before Jesus, the Babylonians invaded Israel and the Jerusalem temple was completely destroyed. This was a time of deep despair, and many thought Judaism would disappear forever. The psalm asks God to remember what great things God did in controlling the forces of nature when God made the world, and how God rescued the people from Egypt, and to do great things again to rescue the people. They trust this is possible because God is in charge of the whole earth. We face similar issues in terms of the entire planet in our time.
Leviticus 19.26-37 What’s Leviticus about?
These are prohibitions against practices which arise in other religions which, as the ancient Israelites understood them, did not value the poor. Notice, most unusually, that non-Jews are to be respected and valued—it was most unusual in the ancient world, as in the modern world, for a culture to understand it was commanded by God to value foreigners. This is the revolutionary background to Jesus’ insistence on love of enemy.
Matthew 6.25-34 What’s Matthew about?
Jesus encourages us to have the first-hand experience of God’s presence which enables us to function without being driven by anxiety about temporary things. It is that worry about temporary things which drives our self-centredness and prevents us from loving more deeply. If we experience God in the fact that even birds find food and flowers are more gorgeous than the best royal clothing, then we can trust in God’s care for us in face of our anxiety about the uncertainties of our life.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
your Son Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.
Give us grace to love one another
and walk in the way of his commandments,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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