Monday May 6 Easter 6
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Psalm 77
God is not responding when I call in trouble. But I will not forget the amazing things God did in the past.
Psalm 79
Evil people have destroyed your temple. Come and help because we are your sheep.
Leviticus 25.35-55 What’s Leviticus about?
More expectations about justice—anyone who falls into poverty shall be supported and not taken advantage of through charging interest (one of the ways in which poverty is made worse), they may not be owned as slaves and on the 50th year they are allowed to return to their original land where they can again live and have food. If any of the people become slaves to a foreigner they are not permanently slaves—they become free in the 50th year. These were radical and revolutionary expectations in a time when permanent life-long slavery was completely normal. Notice the recurring statement – these expectations arise because God freed the people from slavery in Egypt – they are to do the same.
The early Jewish Jesus-followers understood that in Jesus this justice and inclusion had been accomplished for the entire human race (and even for the entire universe) and that even slavery to death had been overcome in his death and resurrection. What a different place our world would be if we still believed that and acted on that basis!
Matthew 13.1-16 What’s Matthew about?
Jesus tells the parable about the various seeds and how they grow or don’t grow. The original version told by Jesus was probably intended to illustrate how immense the harvest of God’s kingdom will be even though many seeds do not survive, but Matthew changes the focus to illustrate how people wilfully do not understand.
Matthew is often concerned about how people ignore Jesus’ call, and that may be because he lived in a time when some members of the early Christian community under pressure to abandon this new belief, were not taking Jesus’ seriously. Matthew presents Jesus as admonishing people back to faithfulness.
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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