Wednesday October 6 Pentecost 19
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Psalm 119 Part 7
Psalm 119 is a meditation on responding to God’s call to justice. Every verse contains some synonym for “justice”, such as “word”, “statute”, “commandment” or the like. The psalm is arranged in groups of eight verses. Each verse in the group starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet – the first group of eight verses all start with A, the second group all start with B and so on. The first seven verses mirror the seven days of creation, with the eighth sometimes pointing to the next group. This very careful construction mirrors God’s creating the universe by overcoming chaos with order. In the human world, justice, dignity and fulfilment – the outcomes of justice – are the expressions of order in the human world. The human world and the rest of creation are thus united. Today’s three sections begin with the letters Q, R, S, and T, the final letters of the Hebrew alphabet. As you read them, imagine the effect of each line in today’s first section beginning with “Q” and so on.
2 Kings 22: 14—23:3 What’s Kings about?
The prophetess Hulda foretells that the Babylonians will conquer and enslave the Israelites, but because king Josiah repented, and led the people back to faithfulness, God will postpone the disaster so Josiah can live to old age, like Hezekiah, and not be humiliated by the approaching destruction.
Matthew 9: 9-17 What’s Matthew about?
Jesus asks a tax collector to join him and then has supper with him. Tax collectors were hated because although being Jews, they had permission and protection from the Roman authorities to extort as much money as they could for their own personal greed after they had collected the Romans’ taxes. No wonder Jesus is criticized for welcoming a violent extortioner as a disciple. Jesus is then criticized for not fasting and being solemn. His response is that new wine is breaking in giving joy even to extortioners and that the old ways of oppressive judgment are no longer the norm in God’s society. How wise and transformative such an attitude would be in our time.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
you have built your Church
on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
Join us together in unity of spirit by their teaching,
that we may become a holy temple, acceptable to you;
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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