Friday October 22 Pentecost 21
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Psalm 35
A demand that God should protect me from evil people who want me to fail. We can read this psalm as applying to our own self, or as a way of experiencing the life of a person or group who are being abused and exploited. In the end we will praise God because God will protect us.
Appropriate for a Friday, the weekly mini-anniversary of Jesus’ crucifixion, in which he underwent ultimate exploitation and abuse in order to love us.
Ezra 3: 1-13 What’s Ezra about?
The priests have now returned to Jerusalem, and they begin the daily rituals in the ruined temple. They begin to re-build the temple and the disaster of being conquered is being replaced by joy. The detailed descriptions of the people involved reinforces the certainty that God is acting to restore justice to Jerusalem.
Matthew 12: 22-32 What’s Matthew about?
When Jesus heals an insane man who is blind and cannot speak, an act of profound love and justice, Jesus is accused of being an ally of the devil. Only people with evil intentions could imagine such a thing, and Jesus points out that if the devil is healing profoundly injured people, then the devil’s rule is about to end. Besides, his accusers also have exorcists who cast out demons, so his accusers must also be in league with the devil! Jesus concludes that to deliberately name as evil something that is deeply good is to reject the character of God, and to do so is to endanger ones own life.
This week’s collect:
Almighty and everliving God,
increase in us your gift of faith,
that forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to what is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
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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