Wednesday March 12 Lent 1
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Psalm 119 Part 3
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 Z, H, and Th (in Hebrew alphabetical order). As you read them, imagine the effect of each line in today’s first section beginning with “Z” and so on.
Deuteronomy 9:13-21 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses describes the deep goodness of God which has no place for evil and self-serving. It sounds as if God were angry and Moses only just persuaded God not to destroy the people because of their sin, but we are to understand, not that God gets angry, but that there are terrible consequences to worshipping greed and self-centredness (which is what worshipping the golden calf means). Moses is insisting that those consequences are to be taken very seriously and that when they enter the land God promised they are to base their national life on justice and inclusion of all and not on acquisition of wealth. Otherwise the consequences may destroy them.
Those are exactly the choices and consequences our world is facing in out time. In what ways is our faith community called to challenge the world, and how do we express our confidence that God’s justice will triumph in the end?
John 2: 23-3:15 What’s John about?
Jesus speaks about the need for people to completely change their priorities. Nicodemus objects that that is not realistic (“Can someone enter their mother’s womb and be born again?”—i.e. it’s impossible to start a new life.) Jesus responds that by the power of the Holy Spirit it is possible, and goes on to say that possibility comes through accompanying Jesus in his dying to self-centredness (being lifted up on the cross), and rising to full life.
The good news in this is that the new life doesn’t depend upon us suddenly changing and becoming totally loving (we are Nicodemus saying it’s just not possible), but it depends upon us participating in Christ’s life of joyful love (Jesus being “lifted up” on the cross) and we can change our lives by trusting in (not the misleading translation of “believing in”) Christ’s victory of joyful love.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son fasted forty days in the wilderness,
and was tempted as we are but did not sin, give us grace to discipline ourselves
in submission to your Spirit,
that as you know our weakness,
so we may know your power to save;
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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