Readings for Tuesday October 8

Tuesday October 8          Pentecost 20

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Psalm 124
We would have been destroyed in Egypt if God hadn’t been acting on our behalf to rescue us from drowning in the Red Sea. A beautiful short psalm of appreciation.

Psalm 125
A prayer that God will continue to protect God’s people by being like the protective hills around Jerusalem. God’s protection included ensuring that good people don’t turn to selfishness under pressure.

Psalm 126
Joyful memories of when by God’s act they escaped from captivity in Babylon, and returned to their land. A prayer that God will do it again.

Micah 1.1-9                            What’s Micah about?
Micah writes around the time of the first attack against the people in about 800 BC and describes the consequences of the people abandoning the God of justice. The book opens with his insight that the whole country from Samaria in the north to Jerusalem in the south will be destroyed as the consequence of their abandoning the God of justice. The people have abandoned God by aligning themselves with other priorities in hope of protection—this willingness to sell their soul lies behind Micah’s images of the nation as a prostitute.

These, and others, are hard passages to read because we lack the context of the ancient political situation. To us they sound like an enraged God threatening violence. But what was intended was a severe wake-up call saying that unless priorities were changed, terrible consequences would inevitably follow. In our day, such warnings are all around us about the horrific consequences for our planet if our current priority of unending consumerism doesn’t change.

Luke 7: 1-17                           What’s Luke about?
Two stories about authority—Jesus is amazed that a non-Jewish Roman general who is supportive of Judaism understands Jesus’ authority over disease better than the Jewish people themselves. Luke often speaks of Romans who are sympathetic to the early Christians. Jesus then exercises authority over a death which would have left the mother destitute without male husband or son. Two unlikely people, one with power and one without any, both experience God’s rule breaking in on them. God’s kingdom really is arriving!

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
you have built your Church
on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
Join us together in unity of spirit by their teaching,
that we may become a holy temple, acceptable to you;
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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