Author: Harold

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 9:13-21
Moses describes the deep goodness of God which has no place for evil and self-serving. It sounds as if God were angry and Moses only just persuaded God not to destroy the people because of their sin, but we are to understand, not that God gets angry, but that there are terrible consequences to worshipping greed and self-centredness (which is what worshipping the golden calf means). Moses is insisting that those consequences are to be taken very seriously and that when they enter the land God promised they are to base their national life on justice and inclusion of all and not on acquisition of wealth. Otherwise the consequences may destroy them.

John 2: 23 – 3:15
Jesus speaks about the need for people to completely change their priorities. Nicodemus objects that that is not realistic (“Can someone enter their mother’s womb and be born again?”—i.e. it’s impossible to start a new life.) Jesus responds that by the power of the Holy Spirit it is possible, and goes on to say that possibility comes through accompanying Jesus in his dying to self-centredness (being lifted up on the cross), and rising to full life.

The good news in this is that the new life doesn’t depend upon us suddenly changing and becoming totally loving (we are Nicodemus saying it’s just not possible), but it depends upon us participating in Christ’s life of joyful love (Jesus being “lifted up” on the cross) and we change by trusting (mis-translated as “believing”) in that.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
whose Son fasted forty days in the wilderness,
and was tempted as we are but did not sin, give us grace to discipline ourselves
in submission to your Spirit,
that as you know our weakness,
so we may know your power to save;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings for Tuesday February 23

Tuesday February 23 Lent 1

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 9: 4-12
Moses has just said, speaking to the people shortly before they enter the promised land, that God didn’t choose to rescue Israel because they were powerful but because God cares about the powerless. Now Moses says that God didn’t rescue Israel and give them their own land because they were morally good – but because God wanted the evil already in the land to stop. Moses recalls several events in which the people were morally evil. God doesn’t act in order to give rewards, but acts for no other reason than that God is generous to the powerless and to the immoral. This is a radical way of understanding God. It applies to us, too. And we realise that this passage anticipates Paul saying that while we were yet sinners, God acted for us.

We no longer believe that God destroyed the people already in the land to make room for God’s favourites, but in ancient times the Israelites understood the aboriginal people as being evil. But the seeds of change are present in Moses’ insistence that God acts for the powerless and the immoral. Some of those seeds are bearing fruit in the start of reconciliation with the First Nations of our time.

John 2: 13-22
John continues his multi-layered account of Jesus’ significance. Immediately following the wonderful wedding reception, Jesus confronts the religious leaders who, to serve the sacrilegious Romans, were extorting money from people coming to worship the God of justice in the temple built for upholding justice. Jesus is taking action to ensure that the wedding reception for God’s faithfulness to humanity is actually able to happen. When Jesus is challenged about his stance, he points to his future resurrection as proof of the victory of justice over exploitation.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Monday February 22

Monday February 22 Lent 1

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 8:11-20
Moses continues his instructions before the people leave the wilderness and enter the land God promised them. Moses warns them that when they become wealthy, living in cities, if they forget the justice and equality they experienced in the desert when God miraculoulsy provided food and water, then disaster will follow.

The warning applies to countries in our time, too. We have also accumulated immense wealth and if we do not share it with the poor in our country or the poor around the world, disaster will happen for us. We can see this playing out when more and more money is spent on military equipment to kill people, and less and less on food and medicine for the poorest. As the disparity between wealth and poverty grows, health and security decline for everyone. Moses’ warning is universal and reminds us that there is urgency to change our direction.

John 2: 1-12
John’s gospel begins with this story of Jesus’ attending a wedding reception at which he miraculously provides 180 gallons of the very best wine after everyone had already drunk too much! A foretaste (literally!) of the joy we will experience in the resurrection for which we are longing in Lent.

John sets the story of the wedding “on the third day” and thus suggests this event as a way of understanding the resurrection, which happened on the third day—the resurrection, says John, is the ultimate wedding! This is the first miracle in John’s gospel (John calls them “signs” which is a clue to what John thinks the point of miracles is) and by putting this one at the start of his book John suggests that’s where the whole story of Jesus is heading.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Sunday February 21

Sunday February 21 Lent 1

Psalm 63
I delight in the certainty of God’s protection and victory over evil. The violence in verses 9 and 10 can be understood as an expression of our intense desire that all evil will come to an end.

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 8: 1-10
Moses continues to speak to the people as they are about to enter the land God promised them. Even in difficult times, don’t forget that God’s generosity is greater than you can imagine. You knew this generosity in the past (when God was generous in the wilderness) and you had difficult times (which were to strengthen you), but God’s generosity in the future is even greater.

Jesus quotes the verse about bread alone not being enough when he is being tempted in the desert. Early Christians thought of Jesus as going through the same experience as the Israelites in the wilderness when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. Lent is our participation in that experience.

Mark 2: 18-22
Technically, it is forbidden to fast on a Sunday, even in Lent, because that would be to refuse to experience Jesus’ resurrection. This passage is chosen for this first Sunday in Lent to remind us that the point of Lent is not to fast as much as we can, but to prepare for Jesus’ resurrection. To do that will draw us into a whole new way of living in joy. That will be very different from what is usual in society—just as unshrunk cloth is different from shrunk and new wine can burst old wine skins.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Saturday February 20

Saturday February 20 Lent

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.

“His 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 total 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 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 7: 17-26
Moses tells the people who are about to enter the land, which is already inhabited, that God will destroy the people already living there. The ancient Jews felt those nations were evil and that’s why God would destroy them.

We now understand that such attitudes arose in our time from a sense of superiority and the false affirmation that newcomers received from comparing themselves to the “primitive” and “evil” people they conquered. Acknowledging our participation in such violence, and our attributing it to God and not to ourselves, is one of the difficult disciplines of Lent. But such honesty is the foundational step toward new life and renewed relationships.

It is of note that Jesus deliberately fed 4,000 of the descendants of those nations when he travelled into their territory. Seven baskets left over symbolized the seven nations that had been destroyed. This was an extraordinary political statement by Jesus who was saying that those pagan nations were equal to the Jews and that this passage of Deuteronomy was no longer to be obeyed. It was an astonishing and courageous statement against any command to destroy other peoples. Are we as sure as Jesus was, that God never approves of violence against entire peoples in our day?

John 1: 43-51
Jesus is attracting his disciples and Nathaniel is astonished to discover that Jesus already knows all about him. John’s gospel is saying that our discipleship begins when we experience not that we are learning about Christ, but that God in Christ already knows everything about us.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
you despise nothing you have made
and forgive the sins of all who are penitent.
Create and make in us new and contrite hearts,
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our brokenness,
may obtain of you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen

Readings for Friday February 19

Friday February 19 Lent

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 7: 12-16
As the people are about to enter the land God promised them, Moses proclaims to them that the result of enacting justice will be a life full of joy. At the time this was written, the joy would be understood as huge flocks and herds—we can imagine that joy and then apply it in our own lives in ways we have joy. Because we are preparing to enter into the promised land of the resurrection, we read through this section of Deuteronomy at the beginning of Lent.

“…You shall devour all the peoples that the Lord your God is giving over to you, showing them no pity…” For the ancient Israelites it meant that God would remove the evil cultures to make room for the people of the covenant, and that the Israelites were not to compromise with the evil ways. For us, the image is barbaric especially in light of our experience of suppressing First Nations. But we can read passages like this as a call to replace the culture of oppression and violence which characterizes our own country with a culture of generosity.

That’s the Lenten journey, because it will involve self-sacrifice of giving up priorities that now exploit other people and nations.

John 1: 35-42
John’s gospel explores the significance of Jesus. At the start of the gospel John the Baptist graciously enables his own disciples to leave him and follow Jesus. These new disciples ask where Jesus is staying, but the deeper meaning is they want to know who Jesus is at his core. One of these disciples brings his brother Peter, whom Jesus nicknames “The Rock.”

John the gospel writer is describing how he thinks we all respond to Jesus—it will involve changing loyalties, asking what is Jesus’ importance, and discovering within ourselves a new character. Lent can be a time in which we go more deeply into those experiences.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Thursday February 18

Thursday February 18, Lent

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 7:6-11
God’s generosity to you (you were not an important nation) means that you have to also practice generosity (which is the meaning of “righteousness”), and if you don’t, you become a selfish nation like the others, and that is a recipe for disaster. It’s not that God will lose God’s temper with you, but that lack of generosity (justice, righteousness) always leads to bad consequences.

John 1: 29-34
For the next two months, until after Easter, we will read through John’s gospel. Unlike the other three gospels, John’s gospel explores the significance of Jesus through long conversations, and multiple levels of images and symbolism.

After his introduction placing Jesus as the Christ at the moment of creation, the gospel recounts Jesus’ baptism and John’s interpretation of Jesus. Images such as “Lamb of God” express that Jesus can be understood as an enactment of the Passover lamb which was a central part of the Jewish celebration of their ancient escape from slavery in Egypt.

Like John the baptist, we are called to insist that it isn’t ourselves or our faith or our goodness that will provide the escape from the slavery of consumerism in our day, but we point to Christ through whom modern slavery—such as to the forces of national and international greed in which we are all immersed—can be conquered.

In Lent we are challenged to deepen our journey toward liberation by counting on Christ’s victory to guarantee ours.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Ash Wednesday February 17

Ash Wednesday February 17 Ash Wednesday

Psalm 143
I am almost crushed by my enemy, and by my own weakness. But I remember how good you were in the past, and I still hope in you. Otherwise, there is no hope.

Jonah 3: 1-4: 11
Ash Wednesday is about taking responsibility for our having participated in evil, whether actively or by staying silent. We all have much to confess in that regard. In response we are generously forgiven, a miracle indeed!

Jonah, a deeply religious person, has been sent by God to challenge the wicked pagan city of Nineveh about their depravity. The city repents and God immediately forgives. But Jonah objects that this was too easy—there should have been some consequences for the city’s long evil. Like us, Jonah cannot comprehend that God would want to be so generous to pagans and to people who are totally ignorant. God points out that Jonah was concerned about a bush that died, so shouldn’t God be even more concerned about a whole city which faced up to their evil, even if they are people who don’t even know left from right? God is saying, “Don’t imagine that there is anything you or the human race can do that God won’t be eager to forgive.”

Written around the time that the Jews were about to return to Jerusalem after a generation enslaved in Babylon, the book proposes that God is as loyal and generous to the evil pagans who had enslaved them as to upright and religious people. That was a radical and even treasonous proposal. We, too, can object that it’s not fair that evil people be treated with the same generosity as those who have been faithful to God for their entire lives. But God’s inclusion extends to every part of us, and to every person without exception, no matter how undeserving. Even if, like the pagan Ninevehans, people have had no interest in God or faith, or if we think there is some part of ourselves that cannot be forgiven, that is to utterly underestimate God’s radical generosity.

Luke 18: 9-14
The theme is the same as in Jonah—the truly good and faithful person cannot imagine that God warmly welcomes the undeserving sinner who will be more at home in heaven than he or she themselves. Jesus was undermining the sense of truly good people that they are especially favoured by God. But such a person isn’t truly good—they aren’t in deep love and care for their sinning neighbour, as God is. Trusting in the illusion of our own goodness feels satisfying, as it did for the Pharisee, but that way leads to immaturity and isolation and prevents us from knowing the joy of discovering God’s radical and boundless love.

During Lent we are being encouraged to die to illusions about ourselves, and to receive glorious new life in that honest self-discovery. In Lent we focus on going through those deaths into new life.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Tuesday February 16

Tuesday February 16 Epiphany 6

Psalm 26
I do not sit down with the wicked: this gives us words to say how we wish to live, that deep in our heart we really are such people as keep God’s commands to love and do justice. “My foot stands on level ground” because we ground our lives on the solid base of justice.

Psalm 28
Like many psalms, this asks that the wicked be punished: “give them their just deserts.” (“Deserts” is “What is deserved”, not miles of sand or misspelled sweets!) This desire for evil people to be destroyed seems very unlike Jesus’ request that we forgive our enemies and love them, but it is really giving us words to express our own intense desire that oppressive and violent policies should come to an end. We might pray, “May any international trade agreements that make the poor even poorer, be utterly done away with.” The violent images in many psalms are not to ask God to be violent, but to ask that all evil actions and policies be completely defeated so the world can live in peace and fulfilment. The second half of the psalm gives thanks that God has indeed been victorious over oppression.

Isaiah 63: 7-14
Isaiah encourages the people to anticipate their return to Jerusalem by re-telling the story of how God acted to rescue them from Egypt. If God could do that once, God can do it again.

Mark 11: 12-25
The story of Jesus cursing a fig tree is likely a parable Jesus told which was later misinterpreted as a actual event. Israel was often called God’s fig tree, and around the time Mark’s gospel was written, the temple in Jerusalem was permanently destroyed by the Roman empire. So the fig tree being cursed is an image of Jerusalem being destroyed by the Roman army.

As Mark often does, he wraps one story around another: he wraps the story of the fig tree around the story of poor people being exploited in the temple. Money changers were forcing worshippers to pay exorbitant taxes to the priests who passed the money on to the Roman emperor. Jesus objects to extortion of the poorest people to support the wealthy in Rome and is incensed that this would happen in the building dedicated to the God of justice whose priority is to include the poor. By wrapping the cursed fig tree around the cursing of the exploitation of the poor, Mark is clarifying that the abandonment of God’s justice in the temple is what caused it to be destroyed.

This is a popular message among the masses of poor people so it’s no wonder the priests and others start to look for ways to execute Jesus. The danger is becoming intense—in four days he will be executed for this insistence on justice for the poor—and so each night Jesus leaves the dangerous city for the safety of the country.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everliving God,
whose Son Jesus Christ healed the sick
and restored them to wholeness of life,
look with compassion on the anguish of the world,
and by your power make whole all peoples and nations;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings for Monday February 15

Monday February 15 Epiphany 6

Psalm 25
I desperately need God’s support both from those who attack me, and from actions that are my own fault, and I know God is always generous to those in such a situation.

Isaiah 63: 1-6
Isaiah uses a series of violent images to convey God’s irresistible power and absolute determination that injustice and oppression be eliminated from the earth and that God will protect the people. This sense of God’s absolute power to overcome oppression was of great encouragement to the Jews living in slavery in Babylon and questioning whether they would ever escape.

Mark 11: 1-11
The disciples are about to see clearly what Jesus is all about. Every year a week before the celebration of the ancient Passover escape from Egypt, a Roman general entered Jerusalem riding on a magnificent stallion at the head of an entire legion, and welcomed by Herod. The purpose was to crush any revolt inspired by the ancient stories of God rescuing the people from slavery—this time, many hoped, from Rome.

At the same time as the Roman general enters the city, Jesus also enters Jerusalem but on a donkey, enacting the true kingdom by riding an unimportant animal which puts him on the same level as the people. Jesus’ defiance is exactly what the Romans have come to suppress, and it is no wonder that he is executed only days later.

The early Christians interpreted these events as meaning that Jesus defied not only the Roman oppression of their country, but all cruelty, oppression, and evil. By embracing evil and passing through death into resurrection he took evil on, and won. The disciples are about to see how by participating in Christ’s death and resurrection they will receive full life.

This week’s collect: