Wednesday May 26 Pentecost
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Psalm 38
I have caused my own downfall, people take advantage of me, and even friends have abandoned me. I remain silent because I hope in God. Help me, God!
Deuteronomy 4: 25-31 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses predicts that the people will abandon God’s justice after they enter the promised land, but if they repent and return to justice, God will not abandon them because God will never abandon the people.
This is exactly what the prophets had written about following the Babylonians having captured Israel five hundred years before Jesus, and as the religious leaders of that time arranged the stories from the ancient past into the first five books of the Bible they understood that Moses had anticipated the same thing happening when the people first entered the land. To learn about an identical abandoning of God’s call to justice and of God’s rescue of them would have been profoundly encouraging for people returning from Babylon and rebuilding the temple.
Luke 15: 11-32 What’s Luke about?
This is Jesus’ third story about how God is happier about one person returning from self-destruction than about many good people who never did anything wrong. Jesus isn’t saying God doesn’t care about people who never did anything wrong, but is challenging good people to be filled with joy when even the worst person changes. Jesus deliberately undermines everything that is usually thought about God rewarding good and punishing evil. The son takes his whole inheritance—half of his father’s wealth and blows it on irresponsible living and then has to feed pigs which was the most disgusting thing that a Jew could ever do. When he returns to his father the father embraces him and celebrates more than he ever did about his law-abiding older son who refuses to join the celebrations.
As in Jesus’ story about the infidel, but loving, Samaritan, Jesus is challenging us to embrace, as God does, those who have betrayed us. This prevents good people from thinking that they are better than evil people, because in that certainty, good people may find it hard to love, and therefore wouldn’t be be special at all.
This week’s collect:
Almighty and everliving God,
who fulfilled the promises of Easter
by sending us your Holy Spirit
and opening to every race and nation
the way of life eternal,
keep us in the unity of your Spirit,
that every tongue may tell of your glory;
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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