Author: Harold

Matthew 10: 24-42 What’s Matthew about?

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.

Ezekiel 3: 16-27 What’s Ezekiel about?
God warns Ezekiel that people who abandoned justice will suffer the consequences, but Ezekiel will be the one responsible if he does not warn the people—the necessity that he communicate God’s urgent concern is that important. God does not want the people to suffer the consequences of abandoning justice—God wants Ezekiel to warn them so they can change. Because people are so resistant to becoming just, God again provides an overwhelming vision to strengthen Ezekiel and God will symbolically tie Ezekiel up to prevent him from speaking too soon, but when God releases him God will give him the necessary power to warn the people.

The author of the book understands how desperately God wants to save the people, but how strongly they resist.

Jesus is strengthening his disciples against the inevitable persecution they will encounter, a situation early Christians were encountering when Matthew was writing. If I am persecuted, Jesus says, what makes you think you won’t be if you follow me? Of course we will, since we are proposing a whole new way of life not based on greed and endless desire for control of other people like the rest of society does. But don’t be afraid, says Jesus, God knows what’s happening to you, and if God loves sparrows and every hair of your head, how totally safe you are! Even if your own family turns against you, which was likely happening at the time, there will always be some who welcome you and will give you refreshment.

The verse about Jesus denying disciples who betray him seems very unlike Jesus’ teaching about forgiveness. We should perhaps interpret this as Matthew’s warning that giving up the call to insist on love and justice and inclusion will have life-denying consequences for the person who does so.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ
with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven.
Mercifully give us faith to know
that, as he promised,
he abides with us on earth to the end of time;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings for Saturday May 15

Saturday May 15 Ascension

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.

Ezekiel 3.4–17 What’s Ezekiel about?
Following the overwhelming revelation of God’s magnificence, Ezekiel is sent, or carried, to the exiles in Babylon, and God encourages him to confront them with the fact that they have not followed God’s justice and that is why they are in exile. God says that it would be easier if the people spoke a foreign language, because at least they would try to understand Ezekiel, but God says these Israelites are so stubborn that even though they speak the same language, they may choose not to understand.

In history, the Israelites were indeed conquered and taken away into captivity. This book is one of several in which that disaster is explained as being the consequence of the people abandoning God’s desire that all should live in dignity, and instead making it a priority to get wealthier and wealthier while others become poorer and poorer. The people have abandoned the God of justice and fairness and have followed the gods of greed and money. Ezekiel is sent to help them understand what has happened and to repent so that they may return to Jerusalem. Which is what happened 70 years later.

Luke 9.37–50 What’s Luke about?
The day after the disciples have seen Jesus in his cosmic glory at the transfiguration, Jesus heals a boy from epilepsy, and then repeats his statement that the kingdom can only come through his death. The disciples had been unable to heal the boy because they don’t yet trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection. We also may find it hard to accept that we must die for the kingdom to arrive. Jesus then uses a simple child to illustrate the trust they need to have in his death and resurrection. The disciples then refuse to accept that the kingdom can come outside their group—they are refusing to die to the self-centred belief that they control who is to enter the kingdom.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
your Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven
that he might rule over all things as Lord.
Keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit
and in the bond of his peace,
and bring the whole of creation
to worship at his feet,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings for Friday May 14

Friday May 14 Ascension

Psalm 85
Trust that God will save us, despite what we have done, and will fill us with plenty and fill the land with justice.

Psalm 86
O God, you have been so generous to me, I trust you, and ask you to uphold me when I am attacked.

Ezekiel 1.28—3.3 What’s Ezekiel about?
Six hundred years before Jesus, the Israelites have been captured and taken away from the land God promised them. Immediately after the astonishing and overwhelming experience of God’s glory in the land where they are exiled, Ezekiel hears a call to announce to the Israelites that they are not being faithful to God’s justice, which is why they have been conquered. He is to call the people to repent and change, and knows that won’t be popular. So he is invited to eat a scroll describing lamentation. He eats the scroll and finds it sweet in his mouth—which means he is happy to speak the words which will not be well received when he confronts the people.

Luke 9.28–36 What’s Luke about?
We now return to the sequential reading of Luke’s gospel.

Jesus’ disciples experience Jesus in cosmic glory at his transfiguration—another way of experiencing that Jesus’ life of death and resurrection is the foundation of the universe. The story may be an anticipation of a resurrection experience, but coming (in this gospel) immediately after Jesus announces for the first time that he must die, the transfiguration assures us that the kingdom will indeed be ultimately victorious.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Thursday May 13

Thursday May 13 Ascension

Psalm 8
God is amazing in what God has created. It is astonishing that God cares for humans who are so small in comparison, because God has even given humans care for God’s amazing earth.

Psalm 47
God reigns over history and over the nations and has protected us. Praise to God!

Ezekiel 1: 1-28 What’s Ezekiel about?
This is a poetic description of an immense experience Ezekiel had of God’s glory. As we read it, it’s not helpful to try to put all the pieces together as if Ezekiel were drawing a picture for us. His intention is to communicate an experience of overwhelming awe when he is encountered by God. Notice that he repeatedly uses the phrase “something like” to communicate that the experience is beyond description, that the glory of God is indescribable. This experience will give Ezekiel strength to later proclaim some very unpopular truths.

This passage is chosen for today to suggest to us the cosmic glory that lies behind Jesus’ death and resurrection, and which the disciples glimpsed momentarily at his ascension, commemorated today.

For the next ten days, until Pentecost, we read from Ezekiel, the theme being that the people need to enact God’s justice if they are to experience the new life God has promised.

For Christians, this means that we must incorporate God’s victorious life in our own actions if it is to mean anything.

Matthew 28: 16-20 What’s Matthew about?
Jesus is taken up into heaven at the end of his earthly life. In Matthew this happens in Galilee where Jesus’ ministry started and where the early Christians had probably fled to when the Romans destroyed the temple around the time Matthew was writing.

In Luke’s gospel, Jesus ascends on Easter Day from Jerusalem because Luke wants to emphasize that the good news in Christ is so powerful that it spread from the capital city of the Jews to the capital city of the Roman empire.

The issue is not whether one description is more accurate than the other, but whether we are open to experiencing the power of God lying behind our own participation in God’s victory over evil.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Wednesday May 12

Wednesday May 12 Easter 6

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.

2 Kings 2: 1-12 What’s Kings about?
Elijah, more than any other prophet, had challenged the kings of his time for their abuse of the people. A legend grew up that he had never died but had been taken directly into heaven. His successor, Elisha, accompanies him on his final journey which starts at Bethel where Jacob saw angels coming up and down from heaven, continues to Jericho where God gave the Israelites their first victory, and then Elijah repeats the miracle of the crossing of the Red Sea and the crossing of the Jordan. The journey toward his being carried into heaven is a celebration of how God had repeatedly triumphed over the forces that would have crushed the people, just as Elijah had done in his opposition to the abusive kings. Early Christians applied this story to Jesus being taken up into heaven tomorrow at Ascension.

Luke 24: 44-53 What’s Revelation about?
In Luke’s gospel Jesus meets the dispirited disciples on Easter evening, eats with them and then leads them to Bethany where he is taken up to heaven. In the Acts, which Luke wrote as his second book, Jesus’ ascension seems to be somewhat later. The present date on which the ascension is commemorated, tomorrow, is selected as being forty days after Easter—a traditional way of describing a significant length of time, never used as an exact date.

This week’s collect:

Merciful God,
you have prepared for those who love you
riches beyond imagination.
Pour into our hearts such love toward you,
that we, loving you above all things,
may obtain your promises,
which exceed all that we can desire;
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 Tuesday May 11

Tuesday May 11 Easter 6

Psalm 78 Part 1
This poem speaks of how God showered the people with constant protection and generosity as God held the sea back so they could escape from their slavery in Egypt, and continued to protect them and miraculously feed them in the desert. But the people continued to distrust this God of justice and inclusion for all. There are consequences, as always, for unjust exploitative behaviour, but God does not abandon the people, even though they have abandoned God’s call to justice. So God continues to care because God makes care of the weakest a priority.

In effect, this is the basic creed of the ancient Israelites. If it were our basic belief today, what a difference that would make to our personal and international life.

Deuteronomy 8: 11-20 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses reminds the people that the wonderful land they are entering is a gift, not something they have earned, and they will perish if they forget it is a gift.

Luke 11: 1-13 What’s Luke about?
Jesus teaches the Lord’s prayer—our commitment that the kingdom come. If we are doubtful that will happen, he compares God to a selfish neighbour who acts generously to get his needy neighbour to stop asking for a favour —so much more will God bring the kingdom to us whom God loves. More illustrations of the same thing—you would never give your child a scorpion to eat if the child asked for an egg—how much more responsive is God! So God really will bring in the kingdom, just as we have asked in the Lord’s prayer.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Monday May 10

Monday May 10 Easter 6

Psalm 80
After rescuing us from slavery in Egypt, God had planted us in new ground like a well-watered vine, and we grew and filled the whole land. But now we are being attacked by a foreign power and God’s vine is being uprooted. God, rescue us so that we may be a healthy vine again.

Deuteronomy 8: 1-10 What’s Deuteronomy about?
Moses is reminding the people of the wonderful land they are about to enter and how God has always cared for them.

Luke 9: 18-27 What’s Luke about?
Jesus asks who his disciples think he is. Peter says he is the Messiah—the person who will rescue them from the Romans. But Jesus says that in order to rescue them he will have to die. Everyone who follows Jesus must learn to die to their self-centredness so they can live fully. Luke has omitted Mark’s story of Peter criticizing Jesus for insisting that he must die—perhaps Luke cannot imagine that Peter would have been so opposed to the whole point of Jesus’ life.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Sunday May 9

Sunday May 9 Easter 6

Psalm 93
A psalm of praise to God who is forever and who makes the world secure. “The waters lifted up their voice” means that although the raging sea (the original chaos) is threatening to drown everything, God’s voice is stronger. Appropriate for a Sunday when we celebrate God’s victory in the resurrection.

The raging sea can be circumstances in our lives, in our inner life, or in the life of the world.

Psalm 96
Praise to God who really will bring equity (equality) and righteousness (which is the old English translation of dignity and justice) to the whole of humanity.

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 43: 1-32 What’s Ecclesiasticus about?
A hymn of praise to God for how God is seen in the glory of creation.

For the next several days the Hebrew Bible lessons are chosen to anticipate Ascension Day this Thursday, when in Luke’s gospel Jesus’ cosmic implications are experienced in his ascension to heaven. Today’s reading gives us that sense of God’s cosmic presence and power.

Matthew 13: 24-34a What’s Matthew about?
A series of encouraging stories about the triumph of God’s kingdom of justice using illustrations about seeds. Seeds start out very small but become very important. So God’s victory may seem to start very small, but will be wonderful in the end.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Saturday May 8

Saturday May 8 Easter 5

Psalm 75
God assures us that justice will prevail.

Psalm 76
Praise to God who stands with overwhelming power for the poor and for the oppressed.

Wisdom 19: 1-22 What’s Wisdom about?
More poetic images about how the Israelites were rescued from Egypt by God doing marvellous things in nature to rescue them. God is powerful over every aspect of nature, ensuring that the innocent are treated justly.

This concludes the book of Wisdom.

Luke 9: 1-17 What’s Luke about?
The kingdom is breaking in, not just through Jesus, but Jesus gives power to his disciples to also bring in the kingdom. Even Herod is impressed. Herod had driven fisher people in Galilee into poverty and had almost wiped out the fish stock in the lake to raise the money to build his city of Tiberias, so when Jesus feeds 5,000 people and has 12 baskets left over having started with only two fish, this may have been experienced as a political act symbolizing God’s reign of justice arriving in spite of Herod’s oppression.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
your Son Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.
Give us grace to love one another
and walk in the way of his commandments,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings for Friday May 7

Friday May 7 Easter 5

Psalm 69
A desperate plea for help in the midst of betrayal, disaster and defeat. Some imagery is violent, which we can interpret as expressing a deep desire that there be no evil in the world. The references to gall and vinegar may have influenced the early Christians’ description of Jesus’ crucifixion. Often used on Fridays, the weekly anniversary of the crucifixion.

Friday is a day to ask what it means that God is willing to go through such an experience.

Wisdom 16: 15-17:1 What’s Wisdom about?
The poet imagines that God’s power in the natural world is so great that when the Israelites were escaping from Egypt opposites like fire and ice changed their basic qualities so as to express God’s rejection of evil and oppression and God’s affirmation goodness and justice. Even the manna, the food God provided in the wilderness, changed its taste so each person had their favourite version!

The writer understands the natural world to be an expression of God’s ethics and justice, and not simply a collection of mechanical marvels.

Luke 8: 40-56 What’s Luke about?
Jesus cures two women considered of little importance: a woman with a highly embarrassing disease which cut her off from all normal adult family activities, and a twelve-year-old girl born at the same time as the woman first became sick, who is about to lose her life before she had even had a chance at adulthood. The kingdom is indeed coming as those without hope are fulfilled and become full members of the community.

This week’s collect: