Tuesday September 28 Pentecost 18
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Psalm 97
God’s power in creation is an expression of God’s commitment to justice—righteousness and justice are the foundations of God’s throne and therefore of all creation. We can count on God to uphold those who are without power as surely as we experience enormous power in creation. A wonderful image for our age when science shows us so much power in creation – dignity and justice are equally embedded.
Psalm 99
God’s justice was shown in the way God rescued the people from slavery and cared for them throughout history. Praise the Lord!
Psalm 100
A short hymn of praise that God has remained faithful forever.
2 Chronicles 29: 1-3, 30: 1-27 What’s Chronicles about?
The writer describes how Hezekiah, a very good king, brings the people back to worship of the true God of justice. He completes the repair of the temple and makes it available for worship, and re-institutes the Passover festival to which the entire country is to take part, not just the area of Judah in the south, but also of Israel in the north. But the northerners reject the invitation, which the writer understands explains why the Assyrians later attacked the north and defeated them. But all those who came to Jerusalem are cleansed and God postpones the disaster. Note that even non-Jews (resident aliens) are included by God in the blessings.
But soon, in the next readings, the accumulated evil of the other kings and the people will result in the whole country (not just the Samaritan north) being enslaved and the temple destroyed by the Babylonians. That disaster (and the later release and the return to Jerusalem) will set the stage for all Jewish understanding of their history and their unique understanding of God’s loyalty to them when they were not loyal to God.
Matthew 7: 1-12 What’s Matthew about?
This is the final of three chapters of the “sermon on the mount” in which Jesus is teaching the way of justice, respect, hope and confidence through reliance on God’s care. Matthew understands Jesus to be deliberately copying Moses, proclaiming a renewed version of the 10 commandments which Moses had received on a mountain.
This week’s collect:
Grant, O merciful God,
that your Church,
being gathered by your Holy Spirit into one,
may show forth your power among all peoples,
to the glory of your name;
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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