Tuesday May 25 Pentecost
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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.
Deuteronomy 4: 15-24 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses reminds the people that when they encountered God on Mount Sinai they did not see any shape of God. So they are never to make any carved images because they might start to think that the carvings of wealth and greed are a real god.
It may be that because the sacred ark was destroyed in the Babylonian invasion, there was no central object to place in the temple when it was rebuilt. This disastrous loss became a profound insight—using any image for God demeans God. In contrast, all the other ancient religions had statues of their gods, but the Israelite religion had none. That is why the Jews even today have no pictures of God, and do not even pronounce or write the name of “God” in the Hebrew language.
Moses says that the people must never abandon the justice which God requires. Moses knows he will die before he arrives in the promised land, and he points that out as a warning—the people had abandoned God’s justice even in the wilderness and there will be consequences, one of which is him dying before they get to the promised land.
Luke 15: 1-10 What’s Luke about?
Jesus is being criticized for treating evil people as equals. Jesus turns our ideas about God upside down by telling three stories about how God is happier when even one evil person returns than about hundreds of good people who were never bad! The first story is about a sheep that got lost, the second is about a lost engagement ring, and the third story, which we will read tomorrow, is about a young man lost to reckless living.
This week’s collect:
Almighty and everliving God,
who fulfilled the promises of Easter
by sending us your Holy Spirit
and opening to every race and nation
the way of life eternal,
keep us in the unity of your Spirit,
that every tongue may tell of your glory;
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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