Saturday October 16 Pentecost 20
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Psalm 110
This psalm is written as if God is speaking to King David, the first great king of Israel, assuring David of God’s absolute support in battle.
The violence in the final two verses can be understood as expressing God’s absolute commitment to removing oppression and injustice from the world.
Psalm 116
God rescued me when I was at the point of death, and I give thanks!
Psalm 117
A delightful short two-verse psalm of praise.
2 Kings 25: 8-26 What’s Kings about?
The Babylonian army destroys Jerusalem, ransacks the temple and takes the irreplaceable holy vessels. The king of Babylon executes the religious leaders. This is the major disaster in Israel’s history which forced them to re-think what they understood about God who had promised to be faithful to them.
Their return from Babylon, seventy years later, was interpreted as God’s love never leaving them, even though they could not escape the consequences of their own evil which had led to the disaster. The entire Hebrew Bible was written from the perspective of this new understanding. God had rescued them, a small and insignificant people, so God must have special care for those who are weak both ethically and militarily. We now call that priority “social justice.”
Matthew 11: 7-15 What’s Matthew about?
After John’s imprisonment, Jesus points out that God’s kingdom is actually arising in the new life springing up around him. Jesus says that John was the greatest prophet yet to be part of God’s new kingdom is to be even greater than John the Baptist. Jesus insists that John must be obeyed—when the kingdom comes, if we are to participate, we will have to change our priorities as John proclaimed.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
in our baptism you adopted us for your own.
Quicken, we pray, your Spirit within us,
that we, being renewed both in body and mind,
may worship you in sincerity and truth;
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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