Wednesday June 16 Pentecost 3
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Psalm 119 Part 5
Psalm 119 is a meditation on responding to God’s call to justice. Every verse contains some synonym for “justice”, such as “word”, “statute”, “commandment” or the like. The psalm is arranged in groups of eight verses. Each verse in the group starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet – 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 order in the human world. The human world and the rest of creation are thus united. Today’s three sections begin with the letters M, N, and S which are in the Hebrew alphabetical order. As you read them, imagine the effect of each line beginning with “M” and so on.
1 Samuel 2: 12-26 What’s Samuel about?
The priest’s sons are abusing their authority as hereditary priests to gain luxury and sexually exploit women servants. Meanwhile the boy Samuel is growing up with integrity. We can foresee the outcome as Samuel is placed in the potential position of challenging those in authority about their abuse of power. Are we sometimes called to do the same?
Luke 20.27-40 What’s Luke about?
This is the last public confrontation mounted by the religious authorities before Jesus’ arrest and execution. Appropriate that it should be about resurrection. We may be hearing the concerns of some Christians in Luke’s time who may have been wondering if the resurrection was true at all since some Christians were already dying and still the resurrection of all people hadn’t yet happened. The religious leaders ridicule the idea of resurrection—they argue that if resurrection is true, then a series of brothers legally married to the same woman, would be required to commit bigamy with her in heaven! Perhaps that was an argument against resurrection being made by opponents in Luke’s time. In response Jesus makes three points. First, that life in the resurrection is entirely different from this life. Secondly, those who are of the resurrection cannot die any more. And finally, that when Moses identifies God as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all of whom had died long before Moses’ time, it must be that those who have died are alive in God’s perspective.
Jesus is saying that God’s interest is in those who are alive now, already living in anticipation of the resurrection as well as those who have died but have already been taken up into the resurrection. The implication is that highly vulnerable widows, such as the one in their story, are to be treated justly, and not as a joke or as a way to win an argument as his challengers are treating women.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God, without you we are not able to please you.
Mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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This week’s collect:
Almighty God, without you we are not able to please you.
Mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Click here to share a comment on the web site.