Saturday October 19 Pentecost 21
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Psalm 20
We delight that God upholds us with strength far greater than military technology.
Psalm 21
Joy at how with great power God has blessed the king and removed the threats against him. This psalm would originally have been sung to the king, as God’s blessed one, but it is equally applicable to us and can be read with ourselves as the subject of the psalm.
These psalms are often used on Saturdays to suggest the power God is about to use to raise Jesus and us from death.
Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 3: 17-31 What’s Ecclesiasticus about?
Most of this book consists of often delightful nuggets of wise practical good advice. The author isn’t interested in the great over-arching issues of cosmic history, but in everyday situations-a good balance to the focus of most of the books of the Hebrew Bible which deal with the big issues of how God interacts with us. Or perhaps the author wants us to experience how God is always present even in the most mundane situations of which most life is composed. Sometimes some of the sayings are humorous, and should be read as such.
Luke 9: 37-50 What’s Luke about?
Immediately following the transfiguration, Jesus heals a boy from epilepsy, whom the disciples could not heal. The kingdom hasn’t arrived for them yet. Jesus repeats that the kingdom can only come through his death, and by implication, through theirs. The disciples are unable to grasp this. Jesus uses a trusting child to illustrate the trust the disciples must have in the kingdom, and rebukes them when they refuse to die to the self-serving belief that the kingdom of God can only come from within their own community.
We also may find it hard to accept that we must die for the kingdom to arrive, but it’s our ultimate joy and glory to do so, an act that heals us and the chaotic world we live in.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
in our baptism you adopted us for your own.
Quicken, we pray, your Spirit within us,
that we, being renewed both in body and mind,
may worship you in sincerity and truth;
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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