Wednesday October 2 Pentecost 19
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Psalm 119 Part 6
Psalm 119 is a meditation on responding to God’s call to justice. Each of the 176 verses is a variation on the theme of what it means to follow God’s call to justice, using terms such as “command”,”law”, “word”, “statute”, and the like. The psalm is arranged in 22 groups of eight verses—one group for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Within a group, each of the eight verses starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and the groups are in Hebrew alphabetical order. So the first group of eight verses all start with A, the second group all start with B and so on. The first seven verses mirror the seven days of creation, with the eighth sometimes pointing to the next group. This very careful construction mirrors God’s creating the universe by overcoming chaos with order.
In the human world, justice, dignity and fulfilment – the outcomes of justice—are the human expressions of order. Thus the human world and the rest of creation are united in the same foundation. Today’s three sections begin with the letters Ayin (which is not pronounced but which looks like o, or an eye), P, and Z (in Hebrew alphabetical order). As you read them, imagine the effect of each line in today’s first section beginning with an eye and so on.
Hosea 4.12-19 What’s Hosea about?
God accuses the people of involvement with fertility gods—the offence is that the people try to force God to make them fertile through sexual ceremonies instead of trusting God to do it out of God’s sheer love for them. The sexual nature of these foreign religions suggests orgies and prostitution, but the real offence is lack of trust in the God who rescued them from Egypt and still cares for them. Instead, they trust in anything else—such as wood carvings and attempts to manipulate God through sexual ecstasy.
Luke 5.27-39 What’s Luke about?
Jesus welcomes someone who has been enforcing Roman exploitation for his own enrichment. Jesus is challenged about this, and insists that in God’s kingdom everything will be different. To prepare for the kingdom people must be ready for immense change—God’s kingdom isn’t compatible with our former assumptions about what is normal.
This week’s collect:
Grant, O merciful God,
that your Church,
being gathered by your Holy Spirit into one,
may show forth your power among all peoples,
to the glory of your name;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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