Tuesday April 20 Easter 3
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Psalm 26
I do not sit down with the wicked: this gives us words to say how we wish to live, that deep in our heart we really are such people as keep God’s commands to love and do justice. “My foot stands on level ground” because we ground our lives on the solid base of justice.
Psalm 28
Like many psalms, this asks that the wicked be punished: “give them their just deserts.” (“Deserts” is “What is deserved,” not miles of sand or misspelled sweets!) This desire for evil people to be destroyed seems very unlike Jesus’ request that we forgive our enemies and love them, but it is really giving us words to express our own intense desire that oppressive and violent policies should come to an end. We might pray, “May any international trade agreements that make the poor even poorer, be utterly done away with.” The violent images in many psalms are not to ask God to be violent, but to ask that all evil actions and policies be completely defeated so people around the world can live in peace and fulfilment. The second half of the psalm gives thanks that God has indeed been victorious over oppression.
Daniel 4: 28-37 What’s Daniel about?
The king is punished with insanity for abandoning justice as his dream predicted, and when he repents and gives loyalty to the God of justice, God restores him and he praises the one true God.
Jews living under Greek oppression would have understood this story to mean that their God of justice was powerful even over the immensely powerful Greek and Roman empires. We are being challenged to trust in that God in overcoming the unjust empires of our day.
Luke 4: 31-37 What’s Luke about?
Jesus enacts the coming of the kingdom of justice by throwing out a demon—the first miracle in this gospel is evil being thrown out—it is clear that God is acting through Jesus to bring the world back to its original goodness.
This week’s collect:
O God,
your Son made himself known to his disciples
in the breaking of bread.
Open the eyes of our faith,
that we may see him in his redeeming work,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Callista Roy, Bob Russell, James Salmon,
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