Author: Harold

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.

1 Samuel 9: 1-14 What’s Samuel about?
Here is how, the story-teller says, we got our first king. It started out with good intentions, but as God warned, it soon went very bad. The good-looking Saul is searching unsuccessfully for his father’s lost donkeys and consults the prophet Samuel to find out where the donkeys are. Notice that David (who will later replace Saul as king), will also be called while he is out looking for sheep.

We see the pattern—God calls people in difficulty to become leaders. The reason is that they are the ones who should most clearly understand God’s call to justice and dignity for the most vulnerable and least powerful people. Which of course is what God did for the Israelites when God rescued them from slavery in Egypt, and from slavery in Babylon which became the basis of these books.

Luke 22: 31-38 What’s Luke about?
At the Last Supper, Peter is not yet aware of the depth of his immanent betrayal of Jesus. Jesus understands this and prays that after Peter grasps what has happened, he will lead the others into understanding what God is doing through Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus goes on to say that when they understand and start to proclaim God’s message that self-sacrificing love is the only way to full life, they will need all the strength they can get, because most people will reject this style of life. In recommending that his disciples go out an buy swords Jesus is likely describing how they are feeling at that moment—they can only imagine the looming confrontation in terms of a violent response to violence and so they offer Jesus swords so he doesn’t have to die. Jesus rejects their reliance on oppressive power and violence to bring fulfillment to the world. The only other option is self-offering love.

Most of our world believes that in the last resort violence is the only thing we can really rely on to ensure safety and justice. But thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ we know a better Way.

This week’s collect:

O God our defender,
storms rage about us and cause us to be afraid.
Rescue your people from despair,
deliver your sons and daughters from fear,
and preserve us all from unbelief;
through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and ever. Amen.

Readings for Thursday June 24

Thursday June 24 Pentecost 4

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.

1 Samuel 8: 1-22 What’s Samuel about?
In old age, Samuel’s sons behave in the same abusive way as did Eli’s sons. The people therefore ask God to provide them with a king. But the people, who say they hope the king will bring justice, are really hoping a king will bring them wealth as they see has happened with other nations. Samuel warns them that abandoning justice in this way will only result in disaster and more oppression because the kings will seek their own wealth at the expense of ordinary people. God relents, and allows the people to have a king, but only as a way of proving that abandoning justice has terrible and inevitable consequences. Samuel resists because he knows that kings will abuse the people with their power.

Following the release from captivity in Babylon, many centuries after Samuel’s time, the authors arranged these ancient stories to demonstrate that the defeat and exile by Babylon was the fault of the kings leading the people into oppression and injustice to the poor. These stories about Eli and Samuel not preventing their children from committing injustices show how far back this abandoning of God was taking place. Even back then, the God of justice cannot allow injustice to happen without consequences.

This makes so much sense of what is going on in our world.

Luke 22: 24-30 What’s Luke about?
During the Last Supper the disciples speculate about which of them is the betrayer but immediately begin to fight among themselves for seniority—which is itself a form of betrayal in which they all take part. Jesus points out that he is doing exactly the opposite. He is acting as their servant so that they may all have exalted positions at God’s banquet. They have not grasped how fulfillment is achieved in God’s world—by those who enable others to be fulfilled.

The disciples still think that God is offering a contract: “Love each other, and I will give you honour in heaven”, so they argue about who has done this loving the best so they can claim honour in heaven! We are intended to be amused and horrified at their total lack of understanding and at their self-centredness. Jesus is actually saying, “The ability to sacrifice something significant for another person is itself the experience of being infinitely alive.” God, in Jesus, is about to do exactly that, but the disciples don’t yet grasp it. Like them, we also don’t see this until we, like them, experience some form of Christ’s resurrection.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Wednesday June 23

Wednesday June 23 Pentecost 4

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.

1 Samuel 7: 2-17 What’s Samuel about?
After the ark returns to them, the people of Israel spend twenty years repenting of the injustice into which they had been led by the priest Eli and his two sons. That is how seriously they take God’s call for justice and dignity for every person. Then Samuel leads the people in returning to loyalty to the God of justice. Repeating the events of the escape from Egypt, Samuel sacrifices a lamb and God thunders at the Philistines and defeats them, and during Samuel’s life Israelite territory is never again invaded by the Philistines.

God’s justice is indeed very powerful. If we were as sure of that, our lives and hopes would be transformed.

Luke 22: 14-23 What’s Luke about?
As the kingdom comes ever closer, Jesus gives himself to us under the signs of bread and wine, so that we may feast forever with him. It is clear that he makes an enormous sacrifice to do so—Judas is at the table, and yet Jesus feeds him. The other disciples are all worried it will be them who betray Jesus. They are beginning to realize any of them might betray Jesus. In a moment, in tomorrow’s reading, they will do so.

God, in Jesus, is prepared to accept any level of betrayal to ensure we are embraced by God anyway. Nothing could be more astonishing or affirming.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Tuesday June 22

Tuesday June 22 Pentecost 4

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.

1 Samuel 6: 1-16 What’s Samuel about?
The Philistines decide to test the cause of the plagues caused by the ark. They yoke it to two milking cows and turn them loose with an offering of gold to appease the source of the plagues. If the cows pull the cart to Israel, then it was the Israelite God who was offended and the Philistines will be safe since the ark has returned to its home, but if the cows pull the ark back to their calves which is what milking cows would normally do as fast as possible, then the plagues were only coincidence and not an indication that the God of justice is supreme. However, the cows, against all their normal instincts, go directly to Israelite territory and the ark is returned to its rightful place.

God’s justice is vindicated, and God is eager to return justice to Israel. What a remarkable experience it would be if we lived in that expectation about God’s eagerness to return justice to ourselves and to the national priorities of our nations.

Luke 22: 1-13 What’s Luke about?
Judas betrays Jesus who then prepares to eat the ceremonial meal commemorating the Jews’ ancient escape from Egypt signified by the ritual killing of lambs. The imagery of this ancient experience was applied to Jesus by the early Christians—Jesus is the new form of the lamb whose death will usher in a modern escape from the oppression of our day.

This passage challenges us to understand what sort of sacrifices, perhaps of our world’s need for endless consumption, may provide a new freedom for us and for the people of the earth, and for the earth itself. Being confident that the first step in that process has already been taken by God, can give us confidence to take our own steps along that path.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Monday June 21

Monday June 21 Pentecost 4

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.”

1 Samuel 5: 1-12 What’s Samuel about?
The Philistines have captured the ark, containing the original stone Ten Commandments and place it as a trophy in the temple of their god Dagon (understood by the Israelites as the symbol of greed and injustice.) But each night the idol of Dagon mysteriously falls on its face in obeisance to the justice contained in the ark, and ark destroys the idols in every town to which the Philistines then move it. The ark then brings disaster, similar to the plagues with which the God of Israel struck the Egyptians generations earlier. It is clear that the God of justice has supreme authority even in non-Israelite territory. Such a story would have greatly encouraged the Israelites under Babylonian rule when these ancient stories were being compiled and arranged.

Trust that the God of justice reigns supreme even in our time and place can change our sense of powerlessness into a sense of confidence and hope.

Luke 21: 29-38 What’s Luke about?
Jesus concludes his apocalyptic description of the destruction of Jerusalem, encouraging the crowds to remain confident in dangerous times. People were spellbound.

There are few messages in our day which encourage wide-awake confidence—the news usually encourages us to despair or to shelter in the illusion that all is well. Jesus’ clarity that dangerous times can be fertile opportunities for a new kind of confidence gives us a whole new way of experiencing life in our day.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Sunday June 20

Sunday June 20 Pentecost 4

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.

1 Samuel 4: 12-22 What’s Samuel about?
When hearing the news of the capture of the ark, which contained the original two stones carved with the 10 commandments, a matter of unimaginable disaster, ElI, the priest in charge of the ark who had allowed his sons to abuse the people, falls over and dies. His daughter-in-law gives birth and then dies calling the child “Ichabod”, meaning “the glory has gone.” The ancient writers understood that the people and their leaders had been unjust and thus had abandoned the God of justice, and these were the inevitable and unspeakably disastrous consequences.

However, God will ensure that glory will return to Israel through Samuel, who as a child had shown himself to be more responsive to God’s call than his mentor Eli. Samuel will anoint the first king, Saul.

Matthew 19: 23-30 What’s Matthew about?
Following Jesus’ generous death and resurrection will mean giving up all lesser priorities such as wealth. This astonishes the disciples who cannot imagine how a person in deep poverty could ever be holy, just as that thought astonishes us. But Jesus assures them it is possible to make God’s kingdom of love and justice our priority and when we do the life we receive in return is far more valuable than what any amount of money could buy.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Saturday June 19

Saturday June 19 Pentecost 3

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.

1 Samuel 4: 1b-11 What’s Samuel about?
A battle takes place with the Philistines, and the Israelites lose. We are to understand this is the consequence of the abuse being carried out by the sons of the priest Eli. So, as the ultimate defence, the Israelites bring the ark, their most sacred object (which contained the original stone ten commandments and was an object of supernatural power) to protect themselves from the Philistines. But the Philistines capture the ark, an unmitigated disaster. It is clear that the God of justice has abandoned the Israelites, and even the ten commandments stored in the ark, because of their refusal to challenge injustice. In the battle the sons of Eli are killed, as God had predicted. It is clear that God will not allow anything to stand in the way of God’s opposition to injustice.

Luke 21: 20-28 What’s Luke about?
Luke continues with the apocalyptic vision of Jerusalem’s destruction, much of it anticipating the historical destruction of Jerusalem forty years after Jesus’ execution. Three hundred years before Jesus, the Book of Daniel was written to describe how a “Son of Man” would be raised up by God to throw off the oppressive Greek empire. The book was popular around the time of Jesus because it offered hope that the Roman empire would be divinely defeated. Early Christians understood that Jesus would have quoted from Daniel the verse “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” as a way of encouraging his disciples to be confident and rejoice in times of great uncertainty—because God’s victory is very near.

We are to live as if God’s arrival is now very close indeed—that in itself gives us confidence and fullness of life without fear of being destroyed by the surrounding chaos. How relevant to our time!

This week’s collect:

Almighty God, without you we are not able to please you.
Mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings for Friday June 18

Friday June 18 Pentecost 3

Psalm 88
A lament that I have been crushed and am beyond hope. When I am dead, there is nothing left, there is no life beyond the grave.

Astonishingly, to be fully with us, Jesus enters completely into such a death. This psalm is appropriately read on a Friday as Jesus is placed in the grave. Only God’s act, on Saturday night—the eve of the resurrection—can reverse death—even Jesus’ death. That’s the only hope there is.

1 Samuel 3: 1-21 What’s Samuel about?
God now speaks through Samuel to warn Eli about his sons. But Samuel is very young and does not understand at first that it is God speaking. When he hears the message, Samuel is afraid to tell Eli and tries to hide it from him. When Eli insists on hearing it, he accepts the consequences of having done nothing to stop his sons’ abuse of vulnerable people.

It takes courage for us, as for Samuel, to hear the call to justice and to confront those in authority, but God persists in calling us to speak the truth when the poor are being exploited.

Luke 21: 5-19 What’s Luke about?
For the next couple of days we read Luke’s description of Jesus’ final conversations before Judas decides to betray him. These talks are set in the then-popular style of writing called “apocalyptic”, used by many people at that time, to describe frightening events at the end of the world. Because the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem and its temple not long before Luke wrote, Luke understands that Jesus spoke about those frightening events long before they happened, using the apocalyptic style to describe them. The significance of the events, according to Jesus, is to insist that God’s justice and care are even more powerful than the worst oppressive violence we can experience and to call us to confidence even in the most difficult times.

“By your endurance you will gain your souls” means that by refusing to join in the chaos and allow it into our lives, we remain people of the victorious God of justice and stay alive—an important calling to us in our time.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Thursday June 17

Thursday June 17 Pentecost 3

Psalm 83
We are under terrible attack. God, act quickly and utterly defeat them. We can say the same: that our world is under attack from forces of greed and exploitation, and we desperately need to be rescued. We can interpret the almost violent images in this psalm, as an expression of our deep determination that nothing will overcome the work of justice, inclusion and dignity for all. If our culture felt that strongly about dignity of all, what a wonderful world we would live in!

1 Samuel 2: 27-36 What’s Samuel about?
God speaks to Eli through an anonymous holy man, about his sons’ terrible betrayal of justice, the justice for which the priesthood was the ultimate symbol. The holy man predicts that Eli’s sons and his entire family will pay with their lives for their infidelity. The oppression which will ultimately result in slavery in Babylon is appearing even in the priests.

Luke 20.41—21: 4 What’s Luke about?
As his confrontation with the authorities intensifies in the days before his execution, Jesus seems to be arguing against the widespread belief that the messiah would be descended from the great King David, a belief widely held by the early Christians who told stories on that basis about Jesus being born in Bethlehem, the town from which David had come. So it is very strange to find Jesus arguing that the messiah is not descended from King David.

The royal families in Jesus’ time were descended from David but had given up loyalty to the God of justice and had become loyal to the Roman empire and its gods of violent oppression. So by denying that the messiah would be descended from King David, Jesus is saying that God isn’t constrained by normal expectations and can act without reference to the powerful and oppressive royal families descended from David. Jesus then criticizes exploitation by religious leaders (members of the royal families) and commends the startling generosity of the very poor. No wonder he will be executed in a couple of days.

When the kingdom arrives, for which we are to live in expectation, many of our normal expectations will be reversed.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Wednesday June 16

Wednesday June 16 Pentecost 3

Psalm 119 Part 5
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 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.

1 Samuel 2: 12-26 What’s Samuel about?
The priest’s sons are abusing their authority as hereditary priests to gain luxury and sexually exploit women servants. Meanwhile the boy Samuel is growing up with integrity. We can foresee the outcome as Samuel is placed in the potential position of challenging those in authority about their abuse of power. Are we sometimes called to do the same?

Luke 20.27-40 What’s Luke about?
This is the last public confrontation mounted by the religious authorities before Jesus’ arrest and execution. Appropriate that it should be about resurrection. We may be hearing the concerns of some Christians in Luke’s time who may have been wondering if the resurrection was true at all since some Christians were already dying and still the resurrection of all people hadn’t yet happened. The religious leaders ridicule the idea of resurrection—they argue that if resurrection is true, then a series of brothers legally married to the same woman, would be required to commit bigamy with her in heaven! Perhaps that was an argument against resurrection being made by opponents in Luke’s time. In response Jesus makes three points. First, that life in the resurrection is entirely different from this life. Secondly, those who are of the resurrection cannot die any more. And finally, that when Moses identifies God as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all of whom had died long before Moses’ time, it must be that those who have died are alive in God’s perspective.

Jesus is saying that God’s interest is in those who are alive now, already living in anticipation of the resurrection as well as those who have died but have already been taken up into the resurrection. The implication is that highly vulnerable widows, such as the one in their story, are to be treated justly, and not as a joke or as a way to win an argument as his challengers are treating women.

This week’s collect:

This week’s collect: