Friday July 9 Pentecost 6
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Psalm 22
This psalm is one of the most dramatic expressions of extreme fear, moving into trust in God. God acted in the past, but is doing so no longer. Jesus quotes from this psalm while he is on the cross, (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). It is appropriately read on Fridays, mini-anniversaries of the day Jesus was crucified.
Several elements in this psalm may have influenced the early Christians’ understanding of Jesus: the taunt that Jesus should save himself, Jesus being God’s in Mary’s womb, Jesus’ thirst on the cross, his garments divided, and packs of dogs which likely gathered at crucifixions.
The second half of the psalm proclaims God’s faithfulness to the oppressed and to the dead.
1 Samuel 17: 17-30 What’s Samuel about?
David’s father sends him to carry food for his brothers who are part of the army terrified by Goliath. David, still a boy, asks pointed questions about killing the giant and the reward of marrying the king’s daughter. David’s older brother is insulted at the implication of this young boy imagining he can kill the giant. We can see God calling this youngster to become more important than his older brothers—a frequent theme in the Hebrew Bible (remember Joseph becoming more important than his brothers) demonstrating God’s freedom to upend oppressive social norms.
Mark 1: 1-13 What’s Mark about?
Today we start reading through Mark’s gospel.
Jesus’ cousin John is proclaiming a revolution, under God’s leadership, against the pagan Romans, by inviting people to symbolically repeat Joshua’s ancient crossing of the Jordan and thereby invite the fall of Jericho—code for the Roman empire. Jesus—whose name was actually “Joshua”—joins this movement and is immediately driven (notice the tense of the verb) back into the wilderness from which Joshua had emerged. There Jesus will undergo a transformation in how he understands God’s victory over the Roman empire’s oppression and exploitation. Jesus will then emerge from the wilderness to lead another kind of revolution.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
your Son Jesus Christ has taught us
that what we do for the least of your children
we do also for him.
Give us the will to serve others
as he was the servant of all,
who gave up his life and died for us,
but lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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