Monday April 26 Easter 4
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Psalm 41
Just as we care for the poor and needy, so God cares for us. I am needy in that I have sinned and my enemies and even my friends are all conspiring against me and hoping that I will die. All I can do is trust that God will protect me.
When we, or our world, seem to have little hope, we ground ourselves in knowing God holds us fast.
Psalm 52
Cruel powerful people seem to run the world, but we trust that God will enable the world to be as fertile as a green olive tree and evil will be ended.
Wisdom 1: 16- 2:11, 21-24 What’s Wisdom about?
This passage critiques a common Greek approach to life: everything is chance and meaningless, so we should get as much pleasure as we can no matter what the cost to others. The writer insists that in contrast, God calls us to a higher style of life.
Luke 6: 1-11 What’s Luke about?
Luke had experienced horrific acts of violence by the occupying Romans when they destroyed the temple. He remembers the Pharisees as courageously holding to God’s ancient command to do no work on the Sabbath as a way of retaining their loyalty to God against immense pressure to conform to Caesar who believed he was God and violence was his ultimate character. In contrast, Jesus has begun living in a different power—the power of trust in God’s deep care and generosity, so Jesus works on the Sabbath both to eat and to heal—signs of God’s imminent presence. The authorities start to plot his death because they are afraid that God will abandon them to the Romans if they don’t uphold the ancient Sabbath law.
This week’s collect:
O God of peace,
who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ,
that great shepherd of the sheep,
by the blood of the eternal covenant,
make us perfect in every good work to do your will,
and work in us that which is well-pleasing in your sight;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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