Sunday August 11 Pentecost 12
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Psalm 66
God, everyone praises you because you have rescued us from disaster so I will delight in praising you.
Psalm 67
Because of God’s blessings to all the nations we will all sing God’s praises.
Judges 11.1-11, 29-40 What’s Judges about?
We now begin another story of another “judge,” Jephthah, who leads Israel back to the God of justice.
Gilead has had a son Jephthah by a prostitute and also has sons by his legitimate wife. The sons of the legitimate wife expel Jephthah because he is impure by the standards of the time. This situation is reminiscent of Abraham’s wife centuries earlier expelling Ishmael the son of the concubine Hagar.
However this expulsion means that Jephthah becomes skilled in guerrilla warfare and when the Israelites are under threat, those who had expelled him approach him to take leadership and he agrees. God is working once again through the unclean and socially outcast to rescue Israel. Jephthah defeats the Ammonites.
However, Jephthah has vowed to make a sacrifice of thanksgiving and his only daughter turns out to be the required sacrifice. But such vows cannot be broken. Jephthah and his daughter remain deeply loyal to God at terrible cost—he loses the chance for a continuing family to keep his name alive and she looses her life and the dignity of having children. The situation has some parallels with Herod’s vow a thousand years later leading to John the Baptist’s execution.
The story is told in part to explain the custom that Israel’s women lament the death of Gilead’s daughter and demonstrate how the son of a prostitute and his daughter can be profoundly committed to the God of justice.
Mark 4.35-41 What’s Mark about?
The calming of the storm is not only about a physical phenomenon, but is the calming of all kinds of storms within us. For Jesus there is no threat, and when he is with us we need fear nothing.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
you sent your Holy Spirit
to be the life and light of your Church.
Open our hearts to the riches of your grace,
that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
in love, joy, and peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.