Monday June 28 Pentecost 5
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Psalm 106 Part 1
God, you are wonderful, but we have done wicked things. God, you acted with immense generosity when you rescued the people from Egypt, but the people stopped trusting in you, and there were terrible consequences, yet you continued rescuing them. The second half of this psalm has a long list of such examples and concludes with a plea for God to continue rescuing us despite our wickedness.
1 Samuel 10: 17-26 What’s Samuel about?
Samuel warns the people that their desire for a king is to abandon the God of justice who has been faithful to them and effective in protecting them—the people are rejecting the God who has acted as their king. Samuel presents Saul to be the king, but Saul has hidden himself, just as he did not tell his family that Samuel had anointed him. The writer may be thinking of Saul as fearful, or as enacting God’s reluctance to give the people a king. Against God’s advice, the people acclaim Saul as their king.
The stories of the kings were written much later during the disastrous exile in Babylon, and the kings were understood to have been the cause of the disaster by abandoning justice and being dominated by greed, and oppressing the poor.
Luke 22: 52-62 What’s Luke about?
As he is arrested Jesus acknowledges that he is allowing the powers of darkness to have authority over him, rather than his joining the darkness by engaging them with violence. Peter, too, joins the powers of darkness in a kind of violence of lies in denying Jesus. In weeping, Peter begins to take responsibility for what he has done, but is in despair and has no hope that anything can be changed.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
you have taught us through your Son
that love fulfils the law.
May we love you with all our heart,
all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength,
and may we love our neighbour as ourselves;
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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