Author: Harold

Psalm 106 Part 1
God, you are wonderful, but we have done wicked things. God, you acted with immense generosity when you rescued the people from Egypt, but the people stopped trusting in you, and there were terrible consequences, yet you continued rescuing them. The second half of this psalm has a long list of such examples and concludes with a plea for God to continue rescuing us despite our wickedness.

2 Kings 21: 1-18 What’s Kings about?
Hezekiah’s son Manasseh becomes king on his father’s death, but he reverts to being unfaithful and commits unspeakable crimes. The prophets understand that the subsequent destruction of the temple is his fault for having abandoned the God of justice.

Matthew 8: 28-34 What’s Matthew about?
Two men who are severely infected with demons come to Jesus and Jesus sends the demons into a herd of pigs, an abominable animal being raised by Jews. The community asks Jesus to leave—their desire to earn money is stronger than their desire to be faithful to ancient Jewish traditions or to see in Jesus the arrival of the kingdom of health.

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.

Readings for Sunday October 3

Sunday October 3 Pentecost 19

Psalm 118
An enthusiastic song of thanksgiving for everything God has done for us—God has protected us from evil forces, and we give praise in the temple and in processions. Appropriate for a Sunday as an anniversary of the triumph of Easter Day.

Portions of this psalm are traditionally sung on Easter Day.

2 Kings 20: 1-21 What’s Kings about?
The faithful king Hezekiah is very ill but Isaiah says he will recover and God will defend Jerusalem. As proof, Isaiah asks God to move the sun backwards. Hezekiah’s commitment to the God of justice ensures safety for the people and God’s commitment to them is demonstrated by this miracle of the sun. If God can make the sun move backwards then it’s no problem for God to reverse the intentions of the king of Assyria. Nevertheless, the evil of former and subsequent kings will have consequences, and Isaiah predicts that Babylon will conquer Jerusalem. The king dies of old age as appropriate for a faithful king. God has allowed that respect to happen.

Luke 7: 11-17 What’s Luke about?
Today is Sunday, so we read of a young man whom Jesus raises from death—this is a kind of resurrection which we celebrate every Sunday.

A widow who loses her only son is a woman without male protection—a personal disaster in the ancient world. So this miracle is about giving new life to the son and to the woman.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Saturday October 2

Saturday October 2 Pentecost 18

Psalm 107 Part 2
When the Israelites completed their journey through the wilderness God brought disaster on the evil people who lived there (as the Israelites understood them) to make a fertile place for God’s own people. When God’s people were oppressed, God rescued them. Wise people, the poem says, will take this to heart and will trust in God’s care and justice to prevail.

One of our tasks today is to cultivate that trust in God’s care for humanity so that when disaster happens in our world we will have something solid to offer.

2 Kings 19: 21-36 What’s Kings about?
The writer imagines God is speaking and accusing the king of Assyria of insulting God by threatening to attack Jerusalem. God knows the king intimately and is responsible for his successful campaigns. But God will ensure he will not attack Jerusalem.

The writer is affirming God’s absolute global power and faithfulness to Israel. This is to assure readers that when the consequences of generations of evil happen a few chapters later it is not because God is weak or uncommitted to them.

Matthew 8: 18-27 What’s Matthew about?
Jesus says that his followers will not have outward security, and then he calms a storm in which the disciples are afraid of drowning. Jesus is promising something more important—inward security from drowning on the storms of life.

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.

Readings for Friday October 1

Friday October 1 Pentecost 18

Psalm 102
A lament at the destruction of Jerusalem 600 years before Jesus. It ends with hope of God’s faithfulness. The imagery of desolation is appropriate for Fridays, the mini-anniversary of Jesus being betrayed, abandoned, and in hours will be dead. Yet God will remain faithful.

2 Kings 19: 1-20 What’s Kings about?
When king Hezekiah hears that the Assyrians are planning to attack, he prays to God for help against the Assyrians, and Isaiah affirms that God will respond.

The writers are saying that God’s faithfulness is illustrated in God postponing the disaster because of Hezekiah’s faithfulness.

Matthew 8: 1-17 What’s Matthew about?
Jesus brings the kingdom of God to several unlikely people: a leper is cured (leprosy was considered incurable), a Roman soldier’s slave (Romans were hated for being the military occupiers) but the Roman trusts more deeply than anyone Jesus has met, and finally a woman, Peter’s mother-in-law. In each case, Jesus is enacting God’s love beyond what was normal immediately after having given the new version of the Ten Commandments. Jesus has proclaimed the kingdom and immediately it comes to pass.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Thursday September 30

Thursday September 30 Pentecost 18

Psalm 105 Part 1
Praise to God for caring for and protecting the people—God looked after them before they were enslaved in Egypt, and prepared them for rescue from famine by arranging for Joseph to become the Pharaoh’s senior officer. God is committed through a covenant to do this forever. The second half of the poem will continue the story with God’s rescue of them from Egypt, God’s care for them in the wilderness, and God’s gift of a promised land.

2 Kings 18: 28-37 What’s Kings about?
The Assyrians tell the people that God will not rescue them, because none of the gods of other countries rescued their people from the Assyrians, and the god of Israel did not rescue northern Israel, centred in Samaria. The writers know what the Assyrians did not, that the God of Israel will indeed rescue them. The God of Israel, the God of justice, will act in justice and loyalty. The people refuse to agree that the Assyrians will conquer them.

Matthew 7: 22-29 What’s Matthew about?
Jesus ends the “sermon on the mount” with assurance that the depth of love which he commands will provide us with a solid life.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Wednesday September 29

Wednesday September 29 Pentecost 18

Psalm 101
I am determined to live a life of justice and not to support exploitation.

Psalm 109
A desperate plea for God’s assistance, and rejoicing that God is faithful to the poor. The middle section, which uses violent images against those who oppress the powerless, expresses a profound desire that oppression be removed from the world. At the conclusion the writer rejoices that God is committed to the needy and to protecting those who are unjustly accused.

2 Kings 18: 9-25 What’s Kings about?
The king of Assyria conquers northern Israel (Samaria) and deports the people as slaves. The next king of Assyria confronts the southern part of the country and demands all its wealth.

Matthew 7: 13-21 What’s Matthew about?
Jesus warns us to be careful about who we give our loyalty to and not to be fooled by people who claim to represent God but who do not. This would have been an issue for Christians struggling with why Judaism was not following Jesus, and is a struggle we have today with forms of Christianity which are centred on ourselves and not on God’s call to costly justice for others.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Tuesday September 28

Tuesday September 28 Pentecost 18

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:

Readings for Monday September 27

Monday September 27 Pentecost 18

Psalm 89 Part 1
God’s faithfulness in creation is the basis for our trust in God’s justice and care for us. Just as God created order from chaos in creation, so we can rely upon God to create order out of chaos in human society. God’s original goodness intended for humanity and the world, is that everyone have a place and dignity and worth. Accomplishing that is the work of justice, often translated into traditional English as “righteousness.”

2 Kings 17: 24-41 What’s Kings about?
About a hundred years before the Babylonians destroyed the temple in Jerusalem (in the southern part of the country), the king of Assyria sends settlers (people of disgusting religions as the Jews understood them) to live on God’s sacred land in the northern part of the country, in the region of Samaria. God sends lions to punish the people, and the king sends a Jewish priest to teach them God’s ways. Nevertheless, they are not faithful to the God of justice.

The writers, writing about two hundred years after the events they describe, are blaming the disaster of the Babylonian invasion on the Samaritans who used an alternate temple which Jews in Jerusalem, where the writers lived, considered blasphemous. This hatred continued even to Jesus’ day, so his praise of Samaritans and his conversations with them are the more remarkable.

Matthew 6: 26-34 What’s Matthew about?
Jesus encourages us to have the first-hand experience of God’s presence which enables us to function without being driven by anxiety about temporary things. It is that worry about temporary things which drives our self-centredness and prevents us from loving more deeply.

How relevant this is in our time—we are bombarded by messages which encourage our society to buy more and to always be be dissatisfied with what we have, and the result is the destruction of the earth. The antidote is to become aware of God’s call to justice for those who have little and to experience God’s generosity underlying all life.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Sunday September 26

Sunday September 26 Pentecost 18

Psalm 66
God, you have made the earth wonderfully, and have rescued us from disaster so I will delight in praising you.

Psalm 67
Because of God’s blessings to nature and the nations we will all sing God’s praises.

2 Kings 17: 1-18 What’s Kings about?
This passage summarizes why the entire two books were written: the kings and the people have been so evil, especially in the north around Samaria (also known as “Israel”) that God allowed their enemies to capture them. All were destroyed except the tribe of Judah in the south (ruled from Jerusalem). Later the southern part of Israel will also be captured.

The writers insist that injustice has terrible consequences not just for individuals, but on an international scale as well. An important proclamation for our times.

Luke 5: 1-11 What’s Luke about?
Fisher people on the lake of Galilee were pushed into destitution by Roman taxation to build the port of Tiberias. For Jesus to enable a huge catch of fish is experienced by them as God’s liberation actually arriving. No wonder they then follow him. When we have experienced liberation in Christ we respond with energy.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Saturday September 25

Saturday September 25 Pentecost 17

Psalm 87
A vision of Jerusalem as the source of life for all the world, as if every nation and every beautiful thing originated there. Christians might interpret this as Jesus’ death and resurrection in Jerusalem being the source of life and beauty for the whole world.

Psalm 90
Our lives are very short, like a breath we are gone, we are so insignificant. Bless us, God.

2 Kings 11: 1-20a What’s Kings about?
The daughter of King Ahab is now reigning and she attempts to kill the child God has chosen to be king, but the priest Jehoiada hides the child and arranges for him to be guarded and proclaimed king. The altars to false gods are torn down and the people return to loyalty to the God of justice.

Matthew 6: 19-24 What’s Matthew about?
Matthew is aware that we may prefer security to the new life of love in Christ. Jesus warns that won’t work, and if our eyes are looking toward security, then we will be truly dark inside.

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.