Wednesday August 18 Pentecost 12
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Psalm 128
Joy and prosperity come for those who seek God’s justice. Although the imagery is of abundance in family life, we may also experience that abundance in our sense of being full persons as we deepen our ability to care.
Psalm 129
We have been oppressed since our youth, but God ensures those who oppressed us will be defeated. They will be as useless as wheat growing on a roof, and nobody will wish them well.
We may have confidence that evil directions in our world will come to nothing.
Psalm 130
There isn’t much hope of us getting things right by ourselves. But I am waiting, as if in the darkness of night for the tinniest glimmer of dawn, for God to bring God’s loving kingdom into being.
2 Samuel 18: 19-33 What’s Samuel about?
David receives the news of his son’s death and is prostrated with grief. David cares for his son, even though his son had tried to kill him.
Not only is this sophisticated story-telling with psychological insight, but it also portrays David as simultaneously forgiving and as abandoning God’s call to serve the people.
Mark 12: 13-27 What’s Mark about?
The challenges to Jesus grow more intense. He is challenged to make a public commitment either to pay tribute to Rome or not. Whichever he chooses, the leaders can arrest him. He can be arrested for blasphemy if he chooses the emperor (because the emperor claims to be god), or for treason against the emperor if he refuses. Jesus points to the picture of the emperor on the coins, and to the inscription which identifies the emperor as God, and he replies that we must all give God what is due to God, and give to the emperor what is due to the emperor. But what he means is that nobody owes anything to the emperor because the emperor owns nothing—God is in charge of the world, not the Roman emperor! This is not just a clever trick on Jesus’ part—he is challenging all our assumptions about who runs the world and to whom we give our loyalty.
The next challenge to Jesus is to ridicule the idea of resurrection with the suggestion that a widow of many husbands would have to commit adultery in heaven when they all came back to life! Jesus responds that God is interested in people who are alive now and not interested in clever arguments. While to us these critiques seem like clever puzzles, these were attacks which, if successful, could carry the death penalty. The more Jesus insists on loyalty to the God of justice and inclusion, the more those in power are determined to attack and silence him forever.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
you have broken the tyranny of sin
and sent into our hearts the Spirit of your Son.
Give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service,
that all people may know the glorious liberty
of the children of God;
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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