Wednesday September 22 Pentecost 17
Click here for simplified daily office prayers
Psalm 119 Part 5
Psalm 119 is a meditation on responding to God’s call to justice. Each of the 178 verses is a variation on the theme of what it means to follow God’s call to justice, using terms such as “command”,”law”, “word”, “statute”, and the like. The psalm is arranged in groups of eight verses. Within a group, each of the eight verses starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and the groups are in Hebrew alphabetical order. So 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. Thus the human world and the rest of creation are united in the same foundation. Today’s three sections begin with the letters M, N, and S which are in the Hebrew alphabetical order. As you read them, imagine the effect of each line beginning with “M” and so on.
2 Kings 6: 1-23 What’s Kings about?
These are three short stories about God’s power working in unexpected ways through Elisha. One of Elisha’s monks loses his axe in the river and Elisha causes the axe to float to the surface by throwing in a stick. This may be a deliberate parallel with Joshua parting the waters in the same river. Elisha mysteriously knows where the king of Aram is going to encamp and warns Israel’s king. Finally, the king of Aram tries to kill Elisha for reporting his location, but Elisha turns his entire army blind and leads them to Samaria where he tells the king of Samaria not to kill them but to feed them, and the Arameans no longer attack Israel.
These mysterious stories have been intertwined with legends and would have elicited awe at God’s power over the physical world, the military world, and the world of violent revenge. They encourage us to look for ways in which God’s power can work unexpectedly through us.
Matthew 5: 38-48 What’s Matthew about?
These three pieces of advice are widely misunderstood as exhortations to generosity. They originally had a very different intent. Going the extra mile: Under Roman law a Roman soldier had the right to force any civilian to carry his military equipment for exactly one mile, but to prevent abuse it was illegal for the soldier to require the person to go more than one mile. Roman roads were marked with milestones so it was easy to know when the forced mile was completed. Jesus says that if a Roman soldier forces you to carry his equipment one mile you should insist on carrying it a second mile. Allowing that to happen could get the soldier in trouble for breaking military law and would produce the hilarious situation in which a Roman solider would have to struggle to prevent the oppressed person from helping him! Turning the other cheek: To hit someone on their right cheek can only be done with a back-handed slap—a typical insult by an occupying soldier, not a serious attack. So to offer one’s left cheek to the abusive soldier makes it impossible to repeat the insult—the soldier would have to contort their arm backwards to do that! Give away your coat: Roman soldiers were allowed to confiscate someone’s cloak for their personal use—so Jesus advises the victim to strip naked and loudly insist the Roman soldier take their dirty underwear as well thus drawing public attention to the abuse while suggesting the soldier is so poor he has no underwear! Jesus is teaching oppressed people how to claim their dignity and refuse to accept their oppression without resorting to the violence being used by the oppressors.
Jesus then suggests we use these amusing situations as models for finding ingenious ways of caring for one another, and for our enemies. In that way we will become complete people—the real meaning of ‘perfect’.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth,
and ourselves in your image.
Teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and to serve you with reverence and thanksgiving;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Click here to share a comment on the web site.