Wednesday November 30 Advent 1
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Psalm 119 Part 1
Psalm 119 is a meditation on responding to God’s call to justice. Each of the 176 verses is a variation on the theme of what it means to follow God’s call to justice, using terms such as “command”,”law”, “word”, “statute”, and the like. The psalm is arranged in twenty-two groups of eight verses. Within a group, each of the eight verses starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and the groups are in Hebrew alphabetical order. So the first group of eight verses all start with A, the second group all start with B and so on. The first seven verses mirror the seven days of creation, with the eighth sometimes pointing to the next group.
This very careful construction mirrors God’s creating the universe by overcoming chaos with order. In the human world, justice, dignity and fulfilment – the outcomes of justice—are the expressions of this order. Thus the human world and the rest of creation are united in the same foundation. Today’s three sections begin with the letters A, B and G (in Hebrew alphabetical order). As you read them, imagine the effect of each line in today’s first section beginning with A” and so on.
Isaiah 2: 1-11 What’s Isaiah about?
Isaiah imagines a time when there will be a global response to justice, but warms of what may happen if the Israelites do not respond to that invitation to justice for all.
Luke 20.19-26 What’s Luke about?
Jesus’ confrontation with the religious authorities continues. They attempt to get Jesus to declare his relationship to the Roman empire by expressing loyalty or disloyalty to Caesar whose image is on the coinage as a god. If Jesus approves of paying taxes to Caesar, they will accuse him of being a traitor to his faith in which case his followers will reject him, but if he rejects the authority of Caesar they can get the Romans to execute him for encouraging insurrection.
Jesus’ response is to declare his loyalty in terms that demand their response: God owns everything and the emperor, who is a false god, owns nothing—he dares his accusers to declare where they stand on this fundamental religious claim.
In Advent we are challenged to make our decision either for the God we know in Jesus, or for the gods of this world who exploit the poor with violence like the Roman empire did. We are learning to say to the violent gods of our day, “God owns the world, you own nothing.” And then the cruel gods of this world no longer own us.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ
came to us in great humility,
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge both the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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