Author: Harold

Monday July 1          Pentecost 6

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Psalm 106 Part 2
In the wilderness the people repeatedly betrayed God, and then joined horrific religions (as they understood them) when they entered the promised land, and there were terrible consequences. Even so, God took mercy on them when they were captured and caused their captors to let them return.

Their release from captivity in Babylon enabled the writers to understand that they had caused that captivity by abandoning God’s justice and how God had always forgiven and provided safety.

Psalm 127
It is useless to trust your own hard work—it is God who makes your household succeed.

Numbers 22.1-21                           What’s Numbers about?
Moab, a powerful nation, is afraid of being destroyed by the Israelites. The king of Moab sends for a powerful magician to come to Moab and curse the Israelites. The magician, Balaam, not an Israelite, is warned by God not to do this and he refuses to go. The king of Moab sends a second delegation and this time God tells Balaam to go, but to do only what God commands him.

The story is claiming that God can act even in the countries that have their own gods and that non-Jews can be obedient to God—a profound insight of the time which will lead to the Jewish clarity about there being only one God of the entire world.

This is the opening section of a highly sophisticated story describing how God uses the foreigner Balaam to reveal God’s care for God’s people.

Matthew 21.12-22                           What’s Matthew about?
These are several incidents in the days following Jesus’ peaceful entry into Jerusalem, and each illustrates an implication of his challenging the violence of Rome with the inclusive justice of God.

This story of the cursing of the fig tree was likely originally a parable told by Jesus comparing Jerusalem to a fig tree that had become useless—a devastating criticism. Forty years later around the time Matthew was writing this gospel, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and the parable was misunderstood to have been an actual event carried out by Jesus to predict the destruction of Jerusalem.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
you have taught us through your Son
that love fulfills the law.
May we love you with all our heart,
all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength,
and may we love our neighbour as ourselves;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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Sunday June 30          Pentecost 6

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Psalm 145
Praise to God because God cares for the oppressed and feeds all creation—God is praised everywhere.

Numbers 21.4-9, 21-35                           What’s Numbers about?
The people continue to complain, not trusting God. God sends serpents which kill some of the people, but God provides a cure:  Moses holds up a bronze serpent which people can gaze upon to be healed. These are very ancient stories of danger and healing and may reflect some distant ceremonial or magic event which is remembered as significant.

In his gospel, John quotes this story to suggest that the serpent being lifted up is a fore-telling of Jesus being lifted up on the cross to heal all humanity. It was a daring use of an image to associate Jesus with a snake.

The Israelites then conquer two local kings, Og and Sihon, possibly giants, who refuse to accept the Israelites’ promise to take nothing when they pass through their lands. These two victories by God are sung in several of the psalms.  The stories may be saying that despite the constant unfaithfulness of the people, God remains faithful and ensures the promise of a land of their own will finally happen.

Luke 13.10-17                           What’s Luke about?
This story of Jesus curing a crippled woman on the Sabbath is one of many in which Jesus is criticized for healing (which technically was to do work) on the Sabbath. The story makes it clear that the opposition pointed out that Jesus had deliberately done the healing on the Sabbath—he could easily have done it one day earlier, or one day later considering the woman had been ill for eighteen years.

Do we, in our time, hear Jesus challenging us about making our faith not about ourselves, but about radical inclusion of modern outcasts?

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
you have taught us through your Son
that love fulfills the law.
May we love you with all our heart,
all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength,
and may we love our neighbour as ourselves;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

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Saturday June 29          Pentecost 5

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Psalm 33
A psalm of praise for God creating the earth, for being in charge of the nations and for rescuing us. We rejoice in this God!

Numbers 20.14-29                           What’s Numbers about?
The people are refused safe passage through the territory of the Edomites, even though they have promised to take nothing from the land. This may be a story to explain the later enmity with the Edomites. Aaron dies and his priestly role is passed to his son—the start of the inherited priesthood. Later, Moses will also die on a mountain-top, within sight of the land God promised. By having both leaders defy God at Meribah, the later storytellers could explain why neither of their original leaders completed the journey. Both are buried on mountain tops, very close to God.

Matthew 21.1-11                           What’s Matthew about?
Jesus enters Jerusalem, knowing that he is likely to be executed. He is modelling a society of equality in contrast to the military might of Rome by entering the city on a donkey deliberately at the same time as a Roman legion was entering the city through another gate. In order to suppress revolt at Passover, which celebrated their miraculous escape from Egypt and provided a model for overthrowing Rome, the empire sent a legion every year to occupy the city during the Passover celebrations. Rome believed that violence was an essential tool to keep the peace, and Jesus is challenging that by enacting a demonstration based on inclusion of all. Because his demonstration was effective, he will be executed five days later.

Modern world powers still believe that violence is most effective path to peace, but followers of Jesus still hear his call to God’s path to peace.

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.

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Friday June 28          Pentecost 5

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Psalm 107 Part 1
The first part of this psalm sings about how faithfully God has rescued people on many occasions: from slavery, from their own foolishness and rebellion against God, and from the dangers of travelling on the ocean. The ocean was a terrifying place for the Israelites, and the reference to God calming the storm and bringing them to harbour may have influenced the stories of Jesus calming storms.

Numbers 20.1-13                           What’s Numbers about?
The Israelites rebel again, complaining that Moses, and therefore God, have led them into a trackless waste. God commands Moses to hit a rock with his staff whereupon water for the people pours out. Apparently in another version of this story, now lost, Moses and Aaron had also doubted God, and God’s punishment is that Moses will not enter the land that was promised.

This account of water from the rock at Meribah was referred to frequently in the psalms, and was much later referenced by Paul in 1 Corinthians where he says this rock was Christ. This story may also be reflected in  John’s account of water coming out of Jesus’ side when the centurion stabbed his body with a spear after he had died during his crucifixion.

Matthew 20.29-34                           What’s Matthew about?
Jesus heals two blind men, who then follow him as he travels to Jerusalem and his death. They clearly stand for the disciples, and perhaps especially the two disciples who have just asked to reserve the best seats in heaven—they have been blind to what Jesus has been saying about the necessity to be vulnerable in order to love. But despite their blindness, they will be healed like the two other blind men and will eventually follow Jesus by living his risen life.

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.

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Thursday June 27          Pentecost 5

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Psalm 105 Part 2
The first half of this psalm sang about how God cared for the people up to the time of their becoming slaves in Egypt. This second half sings about how God forced the Egyptians to release the Israelites so God could bring them to their own land. God is being praised for consistently enacting justice in history.

Numbers 17: 1-11                           What’s Numbers about?
There has been more discontent, and God instructs Moses to collect a staff from each ancestral leader of the twelve tribes. Only Aaron’s staff, now associated with the priestly clan the Levites, sprouts leaves, flowers, and ripe almonds the next day. The Levites, descendants of Aaron, are thus permanently confirmed in their powerful role as priests.

Matthew 20: 17-28                           What’s Matthew about?
Jesus speaks again about his approaching execution. Two disciples respond by trying to reserve the most senior seats at the heavenly banquet!

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.

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Wednesday June 26          Pentecost 5

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Psalm 119 Part 6
Psalm 119 is a meditation on responding to God’s call to justice. Each of the 176 verses is a variation on the theme of what it means to follow God’s call to justice, using terms such as “command”,”law”, “word”, “statute”, and the like. The psalm is arranged in 22 groups of eight verses—one group for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Within a group, each of the eight verses starts with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and the groups are in Hebrew alphabetical order. So 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 human expressions of order. Thus the human world and the rest of creation are united in the same foundation. Today’s three sections begin with the letters Ayin (which is not pronounced but which looks like o, or an eye), P, and Z (in Hebrew alphabetical order). As you read them, imagine the effect of each line in today’s first section beginning with an eye and so on.

Numbers 16.36-50                           What’s Numbers about?
The ceremonial equipment of the censors used to burn incense at the altar and which had been owned by those who had rebelled against Moses, are beaten flat. They are then used as a decorative cover for the altar as a reminder never to lose trust in God’s underlying promise to save. This strange use of censors may reflect some details of how the new altar was constructed after the people returned from imprisonment in Babylon 1000 years later and rebuilt the temple. Possibly they found the censors had been crushed by the invaders and decided they couldn’t be repaired, but considered them still holy and so used them as decorations on the new altar.

Back in Moses’ time, a plague is understood to be punishment for lack of trust, and the ceremonial equipment is deployed to stop the plague. These would have been powerful stories for the survivors of the Babylonian imprisonment illustrating how important the temple ceremonies were for people who hadn’t experienced them in a generation.

Matthew 20.1-16                           What’s Matthew about?
In God’s society, generosity is radical—those who worked a single cool hour at the end of the day get a full day’s wage even though they didn’t deserve it. Those who worked hard all day long are jealous. That’s not the way of God’s society—in God’s society all would rejoice at the good fortune of those who got far more than they deserved. Jesus is upending our normal moral expectations that we should get what we deserve—those who deserve most get most and those who deserve least will get almost nothing. But in God’s kingdom, those who deserve nothing will be treated with overwhelming generosity. It’s a stark challenge to us about the implications of how to live full lives and how to organize our country.

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.

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Tuesday June 25          Pentecost 5

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Psalm 94
Those who oppress and abuse think that God does not care. How wrong they are! God created us, do they think God doesn’t know what is going on? God will act to remove the evil and support us. Some of the feelings in this psalm sound vindictive, but the underlying intention is that God should restore order in the world of human relationships. If oppression has full reign, there will be chaos.

Note that “just deserts” means “what is deserved,” not miles of sand or miss-spelled sweet food at the end of a meal!

Psalm 95
The daily office uses the first half of this psalm every morning. We praise God for God’s creation of the world and for our safety in God. Notice that the psalm assumes there are many gods, but that our God (of justice) is in charge of all of them. The second half is a warning that abandoning God by following evil ways, as the people did in the wilderness, will have consequences.

Numbers 16.20-35                           What’s Numbers about?
Some of the people have decided not to trust in God, and there are terrible consequences—they are swallowed up by the earth. The intention of the story is not to portray God as a vindictive tyrannical monarch, but that we should take seriously the consequences of relying on our own tiny power rather than trusting in God’s underlying promise to give us all we need. When the earth swallows them, they are returning to the primeval “dust” or “mud” (which is what “Adam” means) from which the first humans were created. Perhaps there is a suggestion that God can create for us a new humanity even when we have rejected God.

Matthew 19.23-30                           What’s Matthew about?
Jesus turns our assumptions about loyalty to God upside-down. Powerful people who can give immense sums and support to the faith are the most unlikely to experience God. Peter points out that he and the disciples have given up everything—exactly what the wealthy do not want to do—and they still have nothing, so whether wealthy or destitute no one can succeed! Jesus responds that when the kingdom arrives those who are generous and have given up everything for love will be truly alive and be blessed beyond imagining. But, Jesus says, this is a reversal of all the usual expectations.

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.

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Monday June 24          Pentecost 5

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Psalm 89 Part 2
This poem was written following the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon. In the first half of this psalm the poet had said, ‘God, you chose David as king and promised to protect him forever with the same amazing power with which you created the universe.’

But in this second half of the psalm the poet accuses God of being faithless, ‘God, you said you would be David’s father and he would be your son. Even if his children do not maintain justice for the poor, you said you would punish them but wouldn’t abandon your commitment to David that his royal line will never cease.’ The poet is referring to the disaster of Babylon as God’s punishment for the evil committed by kings who were all descended from David. The poet goes on, ‘But now you have broken your promise and have allowed him to be humiliated and his enemies rejoice in his defeat. God, you are faithless.’

But in face of disaster there is only one thing to do, the poet says. ‘In the end we can only trust in you.’ There is nothing more to say.

Numbers 16.1-19                           What’s Numbers about?
A rebellion arises against Moses claiming that all the Israelites are holy therefore rejecting the unique leadership of Moses. At the time these stories were arranged, the Levites, the tribe who became priests, may have been in a power struggle about whether priests or other leaders are in charge. In the story, Moses presents a challenge—the rebels are to light their censors (used in temple worship) and God will decide whose worship will be accepted. For the leaders of the community re-building the temple this would be to trust God.

Matthew 19.13-22                           What’s Matthew about?
Immediately following the disciples’ incredulity that husbands should treat their wives as equals, Jesus affirms the trust of small children (“children” may also refer to beginners in the faith) as foundational to God’s kingdom. It takes trust to enter a new direction in life.

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.

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Sunday June 23          Pentecost 5

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Psalm 19
The first half of this psalm imagines each day telling the next day and each night telling the next night about God’s glory, and of the sun rising out of the sea praising God and running around the sky like an athletic sprinter showing off. The second half of the psalm says that goodness and integrity are as sure and powerful as the sun.

Psalm 46
Neither storms of 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. The refrain, “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold.” expresses this confidence over and over.

Numbers 14.26-45                           What’s Numbers about?
To our ears God sounds cruel and vindictive for punishing the people so severely for their lack of trust. However the story was trying to say that decisions have consequences. Doubting God’s ability to care for them and putting their trust in their own power to defeat the people in the land means they do not trust God’s underlying presence. The same is still true today—putting our trust in things other than God’s infinite care, things such as the violence of military superiority or of economic oppression of poor people will destroy us.

This story of Moses’ struggle with the people likely reflects the struggle for leadership a thousand years later between those claiming the role of traditional kings on the one hand, and the priests wanting to be in charge of re-building the temple on the other. Hearing these stories from the ancient past in which similar struggles happened, and in which God dramatically rejected rebels would have supported those in charge of the temple re-building and of the restoration of its ceremonies.

Luke 12.49-56                           What’s Luke about?
Jesus challenges those who imagine that being his follower is a casual matter—he insists it’s a matter of prime importance and that making a life of justice and inclusion for all, which is the only way to be alive, will inevitably pit us against the popular priorities of our culture. We know how to predict the weather, but we refuse to predict the consequences of not ensuring justice for all.

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.

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Saturday June 22          Pentecost 4

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Psalm 136
God’s relentless love (‘mercy’ in the relentless refrain of this hymn) is seen first in creation, then in Israel’s rescue from Egypt as if that rescue was another part of creation, and finally for every creature.

Numbers 13.31-14.25                           What’s Numbers about?
The people are frightened of the inhabitants of the land God wishes to give to them. They do not trust that God will honour the covenant to give them the land and so they decide to return to Egypt. In response, God intends to destroy them, but Moses argues with God that God would then look foolish to the Egyptians, so God forgives. Even so, God cannot remove all the consequences of their lack of trust and that generation never arrives in the land God promised.

These stories were compiled when the people were being released from Babylon a thousand years after their escape from Egypt, and it may be that the seventy years they were enslaved in Babylon is being explained as a pattern: a thousand years ago we didn’t trust God, so an entire generation died before our people finally arrived in the land God promised, and that’s why we were seventy years in Babylon—it’s not that God didn’t care or wasn’t powerful enough but that we didn’t trust.

If we don’t trust  God’s infinite power and goodness, we put our trust in unreliable things such as the threat of large-scale violence to keep us safe or the exploitation of the poorest to keep our prices down, the consequences will be self-destruction which can feel like God being angry but are actually our responsibility.

Matthew 19.1-12                           What’s Matthew about?
Jesus challenges the assumption that men may arbitrarily divorce a wife for no reason, thus leaving her destitute in absolute poverty. The religious leaders respond that the Bible gives husbands permission to do that. The disciples respond that such a standard of respect for women is impossible, and it would be better not to get married.

Jesus points out that among the various reasons a man might be castrated, some choose to be castrated (because that made it possible for a man to serve in a palace in a position of great trust, honour and wealth), so, Jesus points out, men do have a choice about their own sexuality and are able to treat women with equality and not as objects to be owned or disowned.

Perhaps this story reflects an attempt within the Christian community to treat Christian women as of less value than men. Jesus’ valuing of women as equals was a profoundly new understanding of the value of every person, and Matthew is determined that the Christian community not abandon that emergence of God’s kingdom.

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.

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