Monday November 8 Pentecost 24
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Psalm 77
God is not responding when I call in trouble. But I will not forget the amazing things God did in the past.
Psalm 79
Evil people have destroyed your temple. Come and help because we are your sheep.
Nehemiah 9: 1-15 What’s Nehemiah about?
The Israelites confess their sin, and recount how God has always been faithful to them—in Abraham’s time, at the Red Sea, at the giving of the 10 commandments, and fed them with manna.
Matthew 15: 1-20 What’s Matthew about?
Washing hands before eating was not about hygiene as it would be for us, but was a religious ceremony, required by scripture, designed to demonstrate one’s commitment to not being contaminated by injustice. Jesus and his followers are accused of abandoning God’s commitment to justice by not following this law. Jesus points out how real injustice even to one’s own family is allowed by other scriptures, and continues by insisting that injustice comes from a person’s inner motivations. We may be overhearing the response to a critique in Matthew’s time that the early Christians were beginning to separate themselves from observant Judaism.
This week’s collect:
Eternal God,
who caused all holy scriptures
to be written for our learning,
grant us so to hear them,
read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,
that we may embrace and ever hold fast
the blessed hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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