Tuesday July 9 Pentecost 7
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Psalm 5
There is evil all around, but I will go into your presence, O God, and know that you are more powerful than all evil and will protect us.
Psalm 6
I have been hounded almost to death, help me, God. Thanks be to God that God heard me and the evil people will be overcome.
Numbers 35.1-3, 9-15, 30-34 What’s Numbers about?
As the Israelites prepare to enter the land, moving finally from a nomadic people to a settled civilization, they must learn how to live in the very different environments of cities.
God commands that two special kinds of settlements are to be arranged. First, the Levites (the priests) are to have the right to certain towns and their food sources so their livelihood is assured. Second, three cities inside the land and three cities in non-Jewish territory are identified as refuges for murderers.
Until this transition into settled life, families could take personal vengeance on a killer at their own initiative, and so cycles of mutual retribution could emerge. Now God declares that anyone, even a non-Jew, who kills someone without intending to has the right to seek safety in any of these six cities, three within the promised land easily accessible to Jews and three outside it accessible to non-Jews. To prevent arbitrary acts of vengeance, a person accused of murder cannot be convicted on the evidence of a single witness. Neither can a wealthy person buy their way to freedom if they have murdered someone. The Israelites understood that God had made it clear that in settled city life social disruptions must be dealt with differently than they had been in nomadic family groupings—in cities murder cannot be righted by personal vengeance nor can wealth be used to avoid responsibility. Even murderers have rights.
This concludes our readings from the Book of Numbers.
Matthew 23.13-26 What’s Matthew about?
The readings for the next several days come from a section of Matthew’s gospel which uses a poetic form of writing common at the time of Jesus. In this poetic form, called “apocalyptic”, there is a predictable list of approaching disasters and prophecies about the end of the world after which God arrives to put everything right. Matthew uses this popular form of writing to encourage the early Christians when things had become difficult due to their being rejected by Judaism and the city of Jerusalem being destroyed by the Romans. We also live in uncertain times and the assurance of God’s goodness being present anyway can encourage us not to be overwhelmed by the crises of our time.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
your Son Jesus Christ has taught us
that what we do for the least of your children
we do also for him.
Give us the will to serve others
as he was the servant of all,
who gave up his life and died for us,
but lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.