Sunday May 5 Easter 6
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Psalm 34
I will praise God because God rescued me when I was in trouble. God will always support those who live with integrity and the evil people will not get away with it forever.
The verse about no bones being broken became significant for the early Christians. Breaking legs was the Roman technique when they wanted to hasten the death of a crucified person. John, the gospel writer, says that Jesus’ legs didn’t need to be broken (and uses this verse to prove that) because Jesus was already dead. In John’s understanding Jesus wasn’t a victim, but was in charge of the entire process—his death was pure gift carried out entirely by his own will.
Leviticus 25.1-17 What’s Leviticus about?
This is a foundational text for Jewish life in which the people are to have not only one day a week when everything goes back to the way God made the world to be fulfilled, but an entire sabbath year every seventh year. During that year even the ground is to be free and not be in slavery to people. Everyone is to enjoy this return to the Garden of Eden—even slaves, employees and animals.
This going back to the perfection of Eden culminates with a “week” or sabbath, of these special years, so that every 50th year everyone gets their property returned to them. In this “Jubilee” year ancestral property was returned for everyone and everyone became equal again, the way it was when the world was created. Nobody oppressed anyone through accumulated wealth. This was the ancient Jewish way of addressing the inevitable accumulation of wealth and increase in poverty that plagues our world today.
The difference between us and the ancient Israelites is that we don’t yet believe that we need some kind of Jubilee system for putting our common life of the whole of humanity back the way God intended it. And we suffer global instability as a result.
Luke 12.13-21 What’s Luke about?
Jesus warns about allowing oneself to be focused on getting more and more. What happens to all that stuff when you die? The bumper sticker which says, “The one who has the most toys when they die wins,” says the same thing—there is no point to a life which is only about accumulating stuff.
Although our world constantly urges consumption and accumulation of wealth, we Christians have a different understanding of what life is about. Jesus is saying that wealth will fail you, but living for justice for all will never fail and will make us fully alive.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
you have prepared for those who love you
riches beyond imagination.
Pour into our hearts such love toward you,
that we, loving you above all things,
may obtain your promises,
which exceed all that we can desire;
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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