Thursday October 3 Pentecost 19
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Psalm 105 Part 2
The first half of this psalm sang about how God cared for the people up to the time of their becoming slaves in Egypt. This second half sings about how God forced the Egyptians to release the Israelites so God could bring them to their own land. God is being praised for consistently enacting justice in history.
Hosea 5.8-6.6 What’s Hosea about?
God is determined to attack the tribes by ensuring consequences for them trusting in foreign military might instead of in the God of justice. The people respond with superficial affirmations of trust that God will rescue them, but God says they are insincerely using religion in hope of avoiding consequences. What God wants is commitment to justice; God declares no interest in religious ceremonies.
Luke 6.1-11 What’s Luke about?
Jesus challenges the assumptions about behaviour on the Sabbath when no work was allowed. His disciples pick tiny amounts of grain, a purely technical violation of the prohibition against work, but an indication of how extreme was the criticism of his behaviour. Jesus defends this action by referring to a story about David who allowed his warriors to eat holy bread in the temple, a far more serious violation, in order to point out how silly the accusation about him was.
Jesus then goes to the core of of the issue: he deliberately heals on a Sabbath to claim that God’s full life is appropriately claimed on the weekly anniversary of the completion of the six days of creation. The argument isn’t that Jesus is caring and the religious authorities aren’t, but that Jesus claims God’s kingdom of healing takes precedence over all religious claims. The authorities start to plot his death because they are committed to exercising power and not generous justice on the Sabbath.
This week’s collect:
Grant, O merciful God,
that your Church,
being gathered by your Holy Spirit into one,
may show forth your power among all peoples,
to the glory of your name;
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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