Author: Harold

Psalm 55
I am terrified at what is happening. The city is full of corruption and my dear familiar friend has betrayed me. I will not cease imploring God to intervene and put things right.

Appropriate for a Saturday, when Jesus, betrayed by friends, waits in silence in the grave.

Deuteronomy 29: 2-15 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses continues his insistence that God had treated the people with enormous generosity and that God wishes to continue to do so after they have arrived in the land. Before they enter the promised land they must swear to never forget that generosity, and as a sign of that generosity foreigners will be included as well. Otherwise their lives will degenerate into self-centred searching for power and they will lose the full life God had intended for them.

The reference to God being loyal to people not with them at the time is likely a reflection that the compilers at the time of the return from Babylon wanted to be clear that the loyalty to inclusive justice was not just for the people of Moses’ time in the ancient stories, but for the people of their present day who had just returned from Babylon.

Luke 18: 15-30 What’s Luke about?
Jesus is challenging our commitment to power and ownership. He gives special honour to children, who were understood to have no rights. Someone who was wealthy and a very good person, claims correctly that he has led an upright life and wonders if that is sufficient to be accepted by God. Jesus responds that to be in heaven is to to generously give everything he owns to the poor—then he will be living fully. But he is unwilling to do so. Jesus says it is almost impossible for rich people to enter heaven—to have full lives. The disciples are astonished (as are people today) because full life is assumed to be based on how much one owns. Jesus insists that anyone who has given up something valuable for God’s justice has already entered the kingdom of God and is living fully.

This week’s collect:

Father, we praise you:
through your Word and Holy Spirit you created all things.
You reveal your salvation in all the world
by sending to us Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.
Through your Holy Spirit
you give us a share in your life and love.
Fill us with the vision of your glory,
that we may always serve and praise you,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Readings for Friday June 4

Friday June 4 Trinity

Psalm 40
All my life God lifted me up and I rejoiced in God’s care. But now my own sin, and my enemies, have nearly destroyed me. Do not wait any longer, God!

Psalm 54
I am in dire straights. Put everything back to right, God. I praise you, because you have done that.

Deuteronomy 26: 1-11 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses says that the people must never imagine they escaped from Egypt by their own power or found this fertile land by their own cleverness. In fact, they received these as unexpected generous gifts. So, when they live in comfort they must resist the tendency to think they got all this for themselves and lose the sense that they were founded in generosity. So when their crops increase, they must take some to God in the temple to thank God, and must formally tell the story of how God rescued them from Egypt through the Red Sea. That formal story became a kind of creed for Judaism—they were founded in generosity. Even foreigners were to be included in the celebration of generosity.

The same would be a life-giving attitude for our modern world.

Luke 18: 9-14 What’s Luke about?
Jesus compares two people. One is rightly proud of himself because he has never done anything wrong. The other has collaborated with the Romans extorting money from his own people by violence, but asks God for mercy for having betrayed his people and betrayed God’s inclusive justice. Astonishingly, Jesus claims that God is delighted with him far more than the person who had never done anything wrong. Jesus says this to undermine our ideas that God is only loving toward good people—who, of course, are usually us—in our humble opinion! It’s a revolutionary idea that God’s care and joy extends to those who have totally rejected God and God’s justice.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Thursday June 3

Thursday June 3 Trinity

Psalm 50
This psalm imagines God’s response to the people doing evil and abandoning justice. Rather than simply reacting or punishing, God lays out the case as if God were taking them to court—the idea is that God is being completely fair and getting an unbiased opinion about what the people have done. They have substituted religion for being just and if this continues there will be consequences, but if they return to justice all will be well.

Psalm 98
The people, the nations, and the whole of creation delight in God’s victory and rejoice when God comes to put all creation right. This psalm is used at Easter, and is often used on Sundays, mini-anniversaries of Easter. There is some lovely imagery of the sea deliberately making a noise with its waves and rivers doing the same by clapping their hands.

Deuteronomy 16: 18-20, 17: 14-20 What’s Deuteronomy about?
In this passage, reflecting a much later perspective from the time following their release from Babylon, Moses says that the people must follow only justice, and they are to have a justice system which will be fair to all and ensure that nothing distorts fair legal decisions. The compilers of these stories, in light of the injustice committed by their kings which caused the Babylonian exile, present Moses as anticipating the appointment of absolute kings, but requiring that the king never enrich himself and so abandon justice. To ensure the kings remain just, Moses is imagined as insisting that the king must read the 10 commandments—the law of justice and fairness—every day.

Luke 18: 1-8 What’s Luke about?
Jesus says if we begin to worry that the kingdom won’t come, then we should think of a corrupt judge who hears a case from a homeless destitute woman (called a “widow” because she has no male sponsor) just because she keeps bothering him, even though he normally insists on a bribe before pronouncing judgment. So if we ask for the kingdom to come, the God of justice and inclusion will certainly act!

This week’s collect:

Readings for Wednesday June 2

Wednesday June 2 Trinity

Psalm 119 Part 3
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 Z, H, and Th (in Hebrew alphabetical order). As you read them, imagine the effect of each line in today’s first section beginning with “Z” and so on.

Deuteronomy 13: 1-11 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses tells the people that if anyone tempts them to follow the other religions (which the ancient Jews understood to be expressions of exploitation) then they must absolutely refuse. They must only follow the God of justice. In our day the gods calling us to oppression and injustice to the poor are powerful and must also be consciously resisted.

Luke 17:20-37 What’s Luke about?
Jesus responds to an ironic question about when God’s world of justice will happen. The question suggests that the world of inclusive justice will never happen—”When will it come?” i.e. “Never, its an illusion.” But Jesus’ response is that God’s justice won’t arrive from external processes but suggests a radical re-understanding: God’s justice is already happening between us.

He then clarifies that the consequences of our not embracing God’s justice will be horrific—many of the illustrations fit our time. Unless we die to wanting our self, or our species, to be the centre of everything, we cannot rise to full life on this planet. We may have the brief illusion that all is well, but the injustice will catch up to us and take us suddenly by surprise. It seems very contemporary. When he is asked why this destruction is going to happen, he replies that it’s obvious—when there is a dead body (which is us dying as a result of our self-centredness) there is inevitably going to be destruction as surely as vultures circle a corpse. These are very disturbing images. As Jesus intended.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Tuesday June 1

Tuesday June 1 Trinity

Psalm 45
A poem about King David, using the imagery of an ancient oriental king, describing his personal and public magnificence and the glory of his relationship with the queen. Note that his prime duty is to serve truth and justice.

We can read this poem as a description of our own fulfilled self and relationships which have been made possible for us in union with Christ’s resurrection.

Deuteronomy 12: 1-12 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses instructs the people that when they enter the new luscious land they must never succumb to greed and injustice—in the ancient Israelite understanding, idols and local gods were symbols of selfishness. In contrast to those destructive practices, the Israelites are to include everyone, even foreigners without any rights, into their community. This challenge applies to our time equally as to theirs.

The arrangers of these stories, writing soon after the Israelites had been released from Babylon, imagine Moses being aware that a temple would be erected in Jerusalem, long before there was any such city, and instructing the people to worship there. These instructions and admonitions to faithfulness to the God of justice, applied well to the time the people were returning from the polytheistic culture of Babylon. They needed this encouragement to re-commit to the central worship in Jerusalem and its temple of justice.

Luke 17:11-19 What’s Luke about?
Leprosy (what we would perhaps experience as psoriasis and caused by not observing religious rituals) was understood to be incurable and contagious. Someone suffering from it could never rejoin family life and would be permanently exiled to the outskirts of a community. Astonishingly Jesus cures ten people suffering from leprosy, including one who is a mortal enemy of Jews. But it is this foreigner enemy who was already excluded from the Jewish community, who is the only one to give thanks. Just as in Jesus’ story about the enemy Samaritan who was the only one to assist a wounded Jew, this story challenges the almost universal assumption that our enemies are selfish and that God will not be generous to our enemies. How deeply we need to learn that truth in our time.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Monday May 31

Monday May 31 Trinity

Psalm 41
Just as we care for the poor and needy, so God cares for us. I am needy in that I have sinned and my enemies and even my friends are all conspiring against me and hoping that I will die. All I can do is trust that God will protect me.

When we, or our world, seem to have little hope, we ground ourselves in knowing God holds us fast.

Psalm 52
Cruel powerful people seem to run the world, but we trust that God will enable the world to be as fertile as a green olive tree and evil will be ended.

Deuteronomy 11: 13-19 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses insists that the people will live lives overflowing with plenty if they continue to live in inclusive justice with each other—the central message of the 10 commandments. If they abandon those principles for self-centred purposes, there will be disaster. His analysis fits our time perfectly.

The admonition to bind the commandments to one’s hand and forehead is taken literally by some traditional Jews to this day.

Luke 17: 1-10 What’s Luke about?
Living in the life of death and resurrection means living with extraordinary generosity far beyond what is socially expected. In response to the plea that this is impossible, Jesus responds that the tiniest impulse of generosity is immensely powerful. To ensure that we don’t become proud of our generosity and therefore lose it, Jesus says we mustn’t claim credit for it but simply state that such generosity is entirely normal.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Sunday May 30

Sunday May 30 Trinity

Psalm 146
Joy in God’s victorious justice for the oppressed, the blind, the strangers and the orphans—that justice for all is built into God’s magnificent creation. Appropriate for a Sunday, which is the anniversary of the resurrection—God’s victory over all evil.

Psalm 147
God’s wondrous creation and God’s commitment to justice are intertwined. Other cultures are not aware of this. What a helpful insight in our day!

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 43.1–12, 27–33 What’s Ecclesiasticus about?
We interrupt our reading from Deuteronomy today for a reading from Ecclesiasticus (also called Sirach) which extols the magnificence of God and how far God is beyond our understanding. Appropriate for Trinity Sunday today.

John 1.1–18 What’s John about?
John, in his imaginative understanding of what Jesus is about, associates Jesus with the creation of the universe and says Jesus, as the eternal “logos” or meaning, or structure of the universe, is God. The grace we have received through Christ can be understood has having just been given in Pentecost. While John may not have thought this explicitly, Christian have understood this opening statement by John to be an implicit statement of the Trinity – that God is creator, redeemer and sanctifier.

Tomorrow we return to reading through Luke’s gospel, reading Matthew on Sundays.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Saturday May 29

Saturday May 29 Pentecost

Psalm 30
Because of its references to being in the grave, followed by joy, this psalm is often used on Saturdays, the weekly mini-anniversary of Jesus’ being in the grave.

“God’s wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye”—it’s not that God is losing God’s temper, but that God made the world so that actions have consequences—anything else would produce chaos. It’s inevitable that evil selfish actions on our part have consequences but the psalm proclaims that God’s goodness acts to overcome the evils that we have caused. Christians interpret Jesus’ dying and rising as the process by which God accomplishes fulfilment and joy for us despite our evil.

Psalm 32
When I acknowledged my sin, I received immense joy. When we acknowledge our participation in oppressive policies, we know God will overcome those, and we can also be in joy instead of living in denial or guilt. Then we will have the energy to act against those oppressions.

Deuteronomy 5: 22-33 What’s Deuteronomy about?
After reading the commandments to the people, Moses reminds the people that they were terrified of God and afraid that their lives would end by merely being so close to the ultimate glory and so they asked Moses to approach God on their behalf. God understands that their fear is the way they are experiencing the commitment to justice—they have understood the danger of not following justice. They have understood the earth-shaking implications of a society based on justice and if they live with inclusive justice all will be well.

Luke 16: 19-31 What’s Luke about?
Jesus tells a story of a rich man who cared nothing for a desperately poor man lying outside his front door. There are consequences for not enacting the generosity of God’s kingdom—we become inward-turned like the rich man in the story and thereby create a gulf between ourselves and God’s offer to everyone of an all-inclusive banquet.

The rich man, in torment, implores that someone rise from the dead to warn others, and this may be a reference to Jesus’ resurrection in which all such selfishness is healed, and a warning that the healing of the resurrection isn’t automatic—the resurrection must be embraced.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everliving God,
who fulfilled the promises of Easter
by sending us your Holy Spirit
and opening to every race and nation
the way of life eternal,
keep us in the unity of your Spirit,
that every tongue may tell of your glory;
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 May 28

Friday May 28 Pentecost

Psalm 31
I am being attacked from all sides but trust that God will rescue me. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus quotes from this psalm as he is dying. Appropriate for Friday as the weekly mini-anniversary of the crucifixion.

Deuteronomy 5: 1-22 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses reads the Ten Commandments to the people. The overwhelming experience of God (which terrified the people) is not just a sign of God’s physical power but of being in the presence of the demand for absolutely just living.

The first three commandments say that there are to be no other priorities than justice. We are not to worship idols because idols are projections of our own self which we use to make ourselves the centre of everything. We are not to abuse God’s name—the origin of using “God” in a swear word is to use God as a power to get control over other people to get what we selfishly want. The fourth commandment is that every week we are to set aside a full day in which we put into practice God’s original creation which allows no slavery—neither of people nor of animals. Even foreigners are to be treated as equals. The following five commandments describe specific acts of justice for others. The last commandment requires justice in our attitudes: it is self-destructive to covet—to deliberately long for selfish ownership of a person or some thing—even if we do not carry out that desire, because to allow ourselves to want something absolutely destroys our ability to be just.

Like the Israelites, we are in awe, and perhaps terror, at this absolute demand for a life of justice because, in honesty, we admit how far we are from that life of justice, which we know to be life-giving and true. Yet in the second commandment God speaks of forgiving people for thousands of generations. God’s commitment to us is not destroyed by our breaking the commandments. That astonishing insight, coming as a result of their release from Babylon, was the foundation for the Israelites’ unique understanding of God.

Luke 16: 10-18 What’s Luke about?
Jesus critiques social norms about wealth.

Then, as now, wealth was assumed to be a blessing by God for an ethical life, but Jesus asserts that we cannot simultaneously have priorities of both wealth and justice (which is to “serve God”). The implication for wealthy religious leaders is immediately obvious and they object, but Jesus won’t back off his judgment that greed is incompatible with justice. “Entering heaven by force” is the motivation to prove that God loves me because my wealth demonstrates it—Jesus says the tiniest vowel dot in traditional Hebrew holy script describing the call to justice, is more important than the entire universe. It’s one of Jesus’ typical and deliberate exaggerations—the tiniest dot of justice is more important than selling the entire universe.

Jesus’ uncompromising statement about divorce has a meaning not obvious today—Jesus is rejecting unfettered male power in an age in which men could divorce women on a whim.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Thursday May 27

Thursday May 27 Pentecost

Psalm 37 Part 1
It’s tempting to want to be as successful as evil people, but seeking God’s justice will fulfill us, and God will defeat evil completely.

Deuteronomy 4: 32-40 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses says it has never happened in history that a god chose a weak people and rescued them from a strong nation, but that is what God has done for them, and it is amazing. They must never forget this.

Although Moses is speaking about the people being rescued from slavery in Egypt, his description exactly fits the circumstances of their rescue from slavery in Babylon. That’s when the prophets concluded that the God of Israel made weak people God’s priority—that is God’s character. So the writers then wove their ancient stories into a narrative that illustrated how God had done the same thing repeatedly from the ancient past. Moses’ speeches in Deuteronomy, set in the ancient past, expressed their recent awareness of God’s startling compassion toward their small nation.

Luke 16: 1-9 What’s Luke about?
Jesus tells a story about an administrator who is about to be fired for misappropriating funds. The administrator then quickly assists his friends to falsify their purchase contracts so they will be obligated to assist him after he is fired. The owner of the business then praises the corrupt administrator for his cleverness and Jesus appears to commend theft as an insurance against the future. It may be that Jesus is challenging his followers to be equally determined to act in just ways.

Or it may be that Jesus is jokingly and ironically recommending that we should all make money as dishonestly as possible so that when our money is gone we will at least have friends in hell who will welcome us into even greater dishonesty! Jesus is condemning the widespread social admiration of wealth gained dishonestly and with ingenuity, a destructive admiration that is just as widespread in our day as in Jesus’.

This week’s collect: