Monday October 18 Pentecost 21
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Psalm 9
O God, you have always taken the side of the oppressed and abused to defend them against the powerful. May the oppressors be caught in their own schemes. Don’t forget us now, and don’t let the oppressors succeed and think they have the power.
Psalm 15
We are strong when we act in justice.
Jeremiah 44: 1-14 What’s Jeremiah about?
God reminds the people who have fled to Egypt from the disaster and hope to have safety there, that God had tried over and over again to persuade the people to live in justice, but they refused. So the disaster became inevitable. But those who fled to Egypt have committed themselves to the gods of selfish power, not to the God of justice. Those who fled to Egypt will suffer the same fate as those who were killed by the Babylonians—they will not return to the promised land.
There is no magic or religious way to avoid responsibility for having acted in cooperation with evil. God is faithful by always offering a way to return, but even God cannot magically remove the consequences of evil.
Matthew 11: 16-24 What’s Matthew about?
Jesus critiques those who rejected John and himself as being deliberately resistant—they rejected John because he was too serious, and Jesus because he was too joyful. Deliberately rejecting what is true and good has more terrible implications than simply having done wrong things.
This week’s collect:
Almighty and everliving God,
increase in us your gift of faith,
that forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to what is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
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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