Saturday June 5 Trinity
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Psalm 55
I am terrified at what is happening. The city is full of corruption and my dear familiar friend has betrayed me. I will not cease imploring God to intervene and put things right.
Appropriate for a Saturday, when Jesus, betrayed by friends, waits in silence in the grave.
Deuteronomy 29: 2-15 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses continues his insistence that God had treated the people with enormous generosity and that God wishes to continue to do so after they have arrived in the land. Before they enter the promised land they must swear to never forget that generosity, and as a sign of that generosity foreigners will be included as well. Otherwise their lives will degenerate into self-centred searching for power and they will lose the full life God had intended for them.
The reference to God being loyal to people not with them at the time is likely a reflection that the compilers at the time of the return from Babylon wanted to be clear that the loyalty to inclusive justice was not just for the people of Moses’ time in the ancient stories, but for the people of their present day who had just returned from Babylon.
Luke 18: 15-30 What’s Luke about?
Jesus is challenging our commitment to power and ownership. He gives special honour to children, who were understood to have no rights. Someone who was wealthy and a very good person, claims correctly that he has led an upright life and wonders if that is sufficient to be accepted by God. Jesus responds that to be in heaven is to to generously give everything he owns to the poor—then he will be living fully. But he is unwilling to do so. Jesus says it is almost impossible for rich people to enter heaven—to have full lives. The disciples are astonished (as are people today) because full life is assumed to be based on how much one owns. Jesus insists that anyone who has given up something valuable for God’s justice has already entered the kingdom of God and is living fully.
This week’s collect:
Father, we praise you:
through your Word and Holy Spirit you created all things.
You reveal your salvation in all the world
by sending to us Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.
Through your Holy Spirit
you give us a share in your life and love.
Fill us with the vision of your glory,
that we may always serve and praise you,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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