Author: Harold

Psalm 18 Part 1
A meditation on God’s immense power to save: – a poetic imaginative recounting of the crossing of the Red Sea. It can be read as if it were the experience of one person being rescued or as if the nation is speaking with a single voice.

Isaiah 41: 17-29
God is so powerful that God can make the immense Syrian desert, which separates the people from their home in Jerusalem, be filled with water and food and trees. Isaiah has a clever argument to counter those who point out that such a rescue was never prophesied in the Bible and so can’t be due to God: if you doubt that God is making Cyrus let you go, the absence of prophesy about this only proves that the God of justice can change the future—that’s why nobody ever predicted this! Everyone who thought they knew what would happen turn out to be wrong because God can act beyond the prophesies of scripture and can change the future!

What would such confidence look like in our time?

Mark 2: 1-12
Four friends are so desperate that their paralysed friend be healed that they jump the queue by getting on the roof and lowering the sick man on ropes to get him in front of Jesus. As they understood it, some terrible sin the man had done must have caused his paralysis, but his friends are determined he will be healed from that and so his body will also be healed. So Jesus enacts the kingdom in a new way – the man is welcomed into the community of the holy even though he says not a word—hadn’t repented or even asked for anything. The religious leaders are appalled—religion will be worth nothing if everyone can enter heaven that easily, but Jesus insists the kingdom is breaking in and that rule-breaking generosity is typical of God.

This week’s collect:

Eternal Father,
who at the baptism of Jesus
revealed him to be your Son,
anointing him with the Holy Spirit,
keep your children, born of water and the Spirit,
faithful to their calling;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings for Wednesday January 13

Wednesday January 13 Epiphany 1

Psalm 119 Part 1
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 A, B and G (in Hebrew alphabetical order). As you read them, imagine the effect of each line in today’s first section beginning with A” and so on.

Isaiah 41: 1-16
King Cyrus has defeated the Babylonians and has a policy of allowing enslaved people to return to their lands. He probably had in mind they would grow crops that his armies could then appropriate in further conquests—it wasn’t likely out of the kindness of his heart! But Isaiah attributes this policy to God working behind the scenes of history. Isaiah claims that God “…has roused a victor from the east, and summoned him to his service” i.e. that God has roused the infidel Cyrus to do God’s work. To claim that God could use non-believing super-powers to accomplish God’s covenant with tiny insignificant Israel and return them to the land was a revolutionary concept. Isaiah was a theological genius to identify how God works, and this insight became foundational to Hebrew and later Christian understandings of God.

While today’s introductory passage focuses on the renewed power of Israel, we will encounter Isaiah in the next couple of months continuing to develop illustrations of how God works in the wider world to accomplish God’s covenant with Israel.

Mark 1: 29-45
After Jesus’ first healing, throwing out the demons who know him, the kingdom continues to break in with overwhelming power. A woman, Peter’s mother-in-law, is the first person who experiences the kingdom happening and her dignity restored. The oppressed—a leper, socially an outcast, is restored to community. Both healings are about social restoration as well as physical. Jesus refuses to stay in one place and allow the healings to set him up as the centre of a new cult – his priority is to ensure the kingdom breaks in everywhere.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Tuesday January 12

Tuesday January 12 Epiphany 1

Psalm 5
Trust that God will act to overcome evil around me.

Psalm 6
I have been hounded almost to death, help me, God. Thanks be to God that God heard me.

Isaiah 40: 25-31
Isaiah continues the image of God as hugely powerful behind the universe, and therefore entirely able to rescue the people from Babylon. “Lift up your eyes and see…” in this context means “Look at the stars…”

Mark 1: 14-28
John is arrested, and Jesus appears and proclaims that the kingdom is very close. He has discovered how the kingdom arrives: his first words in Mark’s gospel insist that the kingdom is not only coming, but is on the verge of breaking in. This is a whole new approach, and on that basis he calls his first four disciples. Jesus enables the kingdom to actually take place – evil knows exactly what is going on, and someone overcome by evil is set free from it. People are amazed – they see the kingdom actually happening!

This week’s collect:

Readings for Monday January 11

Monday January 11 Epiphany 1

Psalm 1
Those who live in righteousness – which means with justice to all – will be as strong as healthy trees planted near water. Injustice will be blown away like chaff.

Psalm 2
Other nations laugh at God and God’s people, but God has chosen this people and their king, and God will have the final word.

Christians may understand this to be God’s statement of placing the justice and reconciliation we know in the death and resurrection of Christ as the ultimate reality. All other attempts at finding full life through self-interest are laughable.

Psalm 3
Because of God’s protection, I have nothing to fear.

Isaiah 40:12-23
If the people doubted God’s ability to return them, Isaiah presents God as so great that all the super powers are but a pinch of dust in comparison to the God who spreads out the stars as effortlessly as if they were a mere piece of cloth. Such a God can easily act to return the people to their home. This global power of God related to God’s power over the entire universe is a new perspective developed by the author of this second section of Isaiah.

Mark 1: 1-13
We have concluded the Epiphany focus on the coming of Jesus into the world and today we start reading through Mark’s gospel.

Mark begins with a quote from Isaiah about the people being returned to Jerusalem – he will demonstrate how that is happening in Jesus. Jesus commits himself to John’s call to enact the kingdom and is immediately affirmed. But then he is driven into a wilderness, perhaps of terrible doubt. He may be aware that John is about to be executed and may wonder if Isaiah’s and John’s prophecies of the kingdom are impossible after all. But something happens to him in the wilderness of doubt and we see the astonishing outcome tomorrow.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Sunday January 10

Sunday January 10 Baptism of the Lord

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!

Isaiah 40:1-11
This middle section of Isaiah (written by Second Isaiah) begins with the traditional interpretation—that the nation’s injustice to its poor is what caused the country to be exiled to Babylon and enslaved there. But then more of God’s character shows through—God is tender, gentle, holding the people in God’s bosom, gently leading the female sheep, and at the same time full of might—a great highway will appear across the Syrian desert on which the people will easily travel back to Jerusalem.

Second Isaiah is pushing the limits of his new interpretation—God can’t ignore injustice, but in spite of the nation’s injustice to the poor and its faithfulness being like parched grass or fading flowers, God is more powerful and compassionate than had been imagined.

John 1: 1-7, 19-20, 29-34
For the next six weeks or so we will read from John’s gospel on Sundays.

This beginning of John’s gospel focuses on Jesus’ cosmic significance – Jesus (the process of love through death and resurrection) was central to the creation of the universe. John the Baptist asserts that process is becoming complete in human history in the person of Jesus.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Saturday January 9

Saturday January 9 Epiphany

Psalm 121
Confidence that God will watch over us to protect us from natural calamities and everyday situations.

Psalm 122
Joy at entering Jerusalem to worship in the temple. Prayers for Jerusalem.

Psalm 123
We keep our eyes trained on God’s direction to us, like servants alert to their owner’s slightest hand signal. We are oppressed by the wealthy and we anticipate God’s signal at any moment that God will act.

Isaiah 63:1-5
A set of violent images expressing God’s absolute determination that injustice and oppression will be eliminated from the earth and that God’s power is sufficient to protect the people.

John 5: 1-15
Jesus heals a paralyzed man on the Sabbath—the day that allowed everyone to be completely free from all obligations and thus humanity could weekly re-experience the joy of the fully completed creation. Following today’s excerpt, Jesus claims that God never stops working for the healing of the world, even on sabbaths, and thus God breaks the ten commandments! Jesus is asking for a revolution in the meaning of religious faith—it’s about celebrating God’s triumph over illness. No wonder opposition to Jesus arises from the religious leaders.

Notice that Jesus has not done any work in this healing, he doesn’t carry the man to the water as the man hopes. Instead, Jesus explicitly instructs the man to carry his mat, thus celebrating God’s total victory over his paralysis. Jesus is insisting that not just he, but the whole of humanity, is to participate in God’s victory. Like the formerly paralyzed man, we may also be subject to criticism for rejoicing in God’s victory regardless of social expectations.

This week’s collect:

Eternal God,
who by a star
led wise ones to the worship of your Son.
Guide by your light the nations of the earth,
that the whole world may know 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 January 8

Friday January 8 Epiphany

Psalm 117
A delightful short two-verse psalm of praise.

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. Portions of this psalm are traditionally sung on Easter Day but are used today, a Friday, to express joy at Christ’s becoming widely known at Epiphany.

Isaiah 59:15-21
God sees there is oppression everywhere and acts with great power to release the people from their oppressors just as God had promised in the covenant. Those who return to Jerusalem after long oppression will know God’s justice and their descendants will know and speak of it forever.

John 4: 46-54
Immediately after spending two days with the hated Samaritans and with the woman at the well, Jesus returns to Cana of Galilee where he had provided 180 gallons of the best wine after everyone had already had too much. The royal official will have been one of those colluding with the Roman oppression, yet he, too, drinks of the abundant wine when his child is cured. This passage is chosen at Epiphany to illustrate how the Christ is shown forth to everyone.

Do we expect that those opposed to faith may be the very people who experience Jesus most clearly?

This week’s collect:

Readings for Thursday January 7

Thursday January 7 Epiphany

Psalm 103
God has been so generous to us! God has given us life when death was close, has been generous when we abandoned God’s justice, has cared for us as a doting parent does, and all in spite of our lives being so short. Even angels and creation bless God and we join with them!

Isaiah 52: 3-6
God sees the people oppressed again, just as they had been long ago in Egypt, and despite the sabre-rattling (“howling”) of their captors, God is really in charge and will act to rescue them.

Isaiah is setting up the expectation that God controls history and will act. Not a bad expectation for our time. No wonder Isaiah has to ring the changes on this idea since for them, no less than for us, this idea acting for humanity seems fanciful. Isaiah insists it is real: “Here am I,” states God.

John 2: 1-11
John’s gospel focuses on this first miracle by Jesus at a wedding reception at which Jesus provides 180 gallons of the very best wine after everyone had already drunk too much! A foretaste (literally!) of the delights – more than we can ask or imagine – for which we have been created.

John sets the story of the wedding “on the third day” and thus suggests this event is a way of understanding the resurrection, which happened on the third day – the resurrection, says John, is the ultimate wedding!

This week’s collect:

Readings for Wednesday January 6

Wednesday January 6 Epiphany

Psalm 46
Neither storms on water or storms of war will shake me because I know that God is behind all the world. Like a river flowing through the city, God is always in our midst.

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.

Isaiah 52: 7-10
We now return to Isaiah, and read from the middle section of the book, written by another person (known as Second Isaiah) perhaps 100 years later than the first section. King Cyrus of Persia has conquered the Babylonians and allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem. Because Cyrus had never heard of, and could care less about, and did not believe in the Jewish God, and because there were no prophecies in the Jewish scriptures about such an event, it could look as if God had nothing to do with this happy outcome. Isaiah solves these two problems at one stroke with a new proposal about how God exercises power. Isaiah’s new idea is that God can control foreign kings without them knowing, and that God could do something totally new and completely outside the scriptures. This radical new approach to understanding how God works in human history could be a template for how we think in new ways about how God acts in our modern world.

This passage is a hymn of joy, and affirmation of God’s effective act, at the people’s imminent return to Jerusalem.

Over the next month we will see Isaiah using a variety of images to repeatedly present his revolutionary argument for a whole new way of understanding how God is present on a global scale.

Matthew 12: 14-21
The religious leaders have just rejected Jesus for “working” on the Sabbath by healing someone’s hand. Matthew contrasts their rejection of God’s generosity in Jesus with God’s openness to non-Jews. He quotes Isaiah who understood God as being interested in non-Jews, and this revolutionary attitude may lie behind some of the story about the arrival of the non-Jewish wise ones from the distant pagan East.

The quotation from Isaiah contains several elements that influenced the early Christians’ description of the baptism of Jesus which is celebrated today, the Feast of the Epiphany.

This week’s collect:

Readings for Tuesday January 5

Tuesday January 5 Christmas 2

Psalm 2
Other nations laugh at God and God’s people, but God has chosen this people and their king, and God will have the final word.

Christians may understand this to be a way of saying that God has made self-offering love and justice in the death and resurrection of Christ to be the ultimate reality. All other attempts at finding full life through pursuing self-interest are laughable and doomed to fail.

Psalm 110
This psalm is written as if God is speaking to King David, the first great king of Israel, assuring David of God’s absolute support in battle.

The violence in the final two verses can be understood as expressing God’s absolute commitment to removing oppression and injustice from the world.

Joshua 1: 1-9
The people are finally about to enter the land God promised to them in his appearance to Abraham. Moses has died, and Joshua is about to lead them across the Jordan to actually take the land. Are we confident that God wants us to claim this planet for the God of justice?

This concludes a series of passages in which the ancient Jews experienced God’s unremitting commitment to them. That absolute commitment, which they called a “covenant” began with the promise to Abraham (or even with the promise to Noah), and was accomplished as the people entered their permanent home. The passage is read today as a way of celebrating the Christian experience of God’s fulfilling the ultimate covenant with humanity in the birth of Christ.

John 15: 1-16
Using the image of a vine’s branches, which actually almost constitute the vine, Jesus asks us to imagine ourselves as the constituents of the life of Jesus after his physical departure. If we remain in his life of deep love, we will do even greater things than Christ did, but if we leave that life of love, then we will accomplish nothing.

This week’s collect:

God of power and life,
the glory of all who believe in you,
fill the world with your splendour
and show the nations the light of your truth;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.