Thursday May 27 Pentecost
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Psalm 37 Part 1
It’s tempting to want to be as successful as evil people, but seeking God’s justice will fulfill us, and God will defeat evil completely.
Deuteronomy 4: 32-40 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses says it has never happened in history that a god chose a weak people and rescued them from a strong nation, but that is what God has done for them, and it is amazing. They must never forget this.
Although Moses is speaking about the people being rescued from slavery in Egypt, his description exactly fits the circumstances of their rescue from slavery in Babylon. That’s when the prophets concluded that the God of Israel made weak people God’s priority—that is God’s character. So the writers then wove their ancient stories into a narrative that illustrated how God had done the same thing repeatedly from the ancient past. Moses’ speeches in Deuteronomy, set in the ancient past, expressed their recent awareness of God’s startling compassion toward their small nation.
Luke 16: 1-9 What’s Luke about?
Jesus tells a story about an administrator who is about to be fired for misappropriating funds. The administrator then quickly assists his friends to falsify their purchase contracts so they will be obligated to assist him after he is fired. The owner of the business then praises the corrupt administrator for his cleverness and Jesus appears to commend theft as an insurance against the future. It may be that Jesus is challenging his followers to be equally determined to act in just ways.
Or it may be that Jesus is jokingly and ironically recommending that we should all make money as dishonestly as possible so that when our money is gone we will at least have friends in hell who will welcome us into even greater dishonesty! Jesus is condemning the widespread social admiration of wealth gained dishonestly and with ingenuity, a destructive admiration that is just as widespread in our day as in Jesus’.
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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