Author: Harold

Wednesday October 9          Pentecost 20

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Psalm 128
Joy and prosperity come for those who seek God’s justice. Although the imagery is of abundance in family life, we may also experience that abundance in our sense of being full persons as we deepen our ability to care.

Psalm 129
We have been oppressed since our youth, but God ensures those who oppressed us will be defeated. They will be as useless and as stunted as stray wheat growing on a roof, and nobody will wish them well.

We may have confidence that evil directions in our world will come to nothing.

Psalm 130
There isn’t much hope of us getting things right by ourselves. But I am waiting, as if in the darkness of night for the tiniest glimmer of dawn, for God to bring God’s loving kingdom into being.

Micah 2.1-13                            What’s Micah about?
God accuses the people of terrible injustice to the poor and dependent. As a result, foreign nations will conquer them. The people ask for preachers who will tell them everything is OK—they would even be happy to have drunk preachers if they told the people not to worry! Even so, God is ready to offer them safety.

Luke 7.18—35                            What’s Luke about?
John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask if Jesus is the image of God who has come to bring in God’s kingdom. Jesus doesn’t answer directly but points to all the events which are signs of the kingdom breaking in. He then praises John as the greatest prophet, because he had the courage to defy the violence of the Roman empire, but nevertheless, following Jesus’ path of death and resurrection is the only way into the kingdom. If people rejected John because he was too demanding and reject Jesus because he is too joyful, they are simply obstinate.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
you have built your Church
on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
Join us together in unity of spirit by their teaching,
that we may become a holy temple, acceptable to you;
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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Tuesday October 8          Pentecost 20

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Psalm 124
We would have been destroyed in Egypt if God hadn’t been acting on our behalf to rescue us from drowning in the Red Sea. A beautiful short psalm of appreciation.

Psalm 125
A prayer that God will continue to protect God’s people by being like the protective hills around Jerusalem. God’s protection included ensuring that good people don’t turn to selfishness under pressure.

Psalm 126
Joyful memories of when by God’s act they escaped from captivity in Babylon, and returned to their land. A prayer that God will do it again.

Micah 1.1-9                            What’s Micah about?
Micah writes around the time of the first attack against the people in about 800 BC and describes the consequences of the people abandoning the God of justice. The book opens with his insight that the whole country from Samaria in the north to Jerusalem in the south will be destroyed as the consequence of their abandoning the God of justice. The people have abandoned God by aligning themselves with other priorities in hope of protection—this willingness to sell their soul lies behind Micah’s images of the nation as a prostitute.

These, and others, are hard passages to read because we lack the context of the ancient political situation. To us they sound like an enraged God threatening violence. But what was intended was a severe wake-up call saying that unless priorities were changed, terrible consequences would inevitably follow. In our day, such warnings are all around us about the horrific consequences for our planet if our current priority of unending consumerism doesn’t change.

Luke 7: 1-17                           What’s Luke about?
Two stories about authority—Jesus is amazed that a non-Jewish Roman general who is supportive of Judaism understands Jesus’ authority over disease better than the Jewish people themselves. Luke often speaks of Romans who are sympathetic to the early Christians. Jesus then exercises authority over a death which would have left the mother destitute without male husband or son. Two unlikely people, one with power and one without any, both experience God’s rule breaking in on them. God’s kingdom really is arriving!

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
you have built your Church
on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
Join us together in unity of spirit by their teaching,
that we may become a holy temple, acceptable to you;
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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Monday October 7          Pentecost 20

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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.

Hosea 14.1-9                            What’s Hosea about?
God invites the nation to return to God’s ways of justice, and then God will give them fullness of life again like fruitful plants. The same can be true in the world of our time.

This completes the book of Hosea. Tomorrow we begin reading Micah, which has a similar theme.

Luke 6.39-49                            What’s Luke about?
Jesus says that to live fully we must have a solid foundation for our lives, just as a house needs a solid foundation. That foundation rests on two things. First, we must see clearly, and seeing clearly means seeing that a life of love, open to doing costly things for others is the way to full living. If we don’t see that, we won’t see how to live or to lead others to life. Second, our heart must be in it, we must long for that kind of love to be a priority in our lives —that’s to become the “treasure of our heart.”

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
you have built your Church
on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
Join us together in unity of spirit by their teaching,
that we may become a holy temple, acceptable to you;
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 October 6          Pentecost 20

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

Hosea 13.4-14                           What’s Hosea about?
God argues that God has done everything possible to give the Israelites good life, but they have rejected God, and so the consequences may be terrible.

Matthew 14.1-12                            What’s Matthew about?
Herod executes Jesus’ cousin. While the focus in this story is on the details of the feast and what led up to the beheading, the significance is that the Roman empire and the local Jewish leaders, such as Herod, who support it, will destroy anyone who challenges their reliance on violence as the ultimate power of governing. Since Jesus is a close relative of John, he is also now under threat.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
you have built your Church
on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
Join us together in unity of spirit by their teaching,
that we may become a holy temple, acceptable to you;
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 October 5          Pentecost 19

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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!

Hosea 11.1-9                            What’s Hosea about?
God speaks of God’s yearning for the people the way doting parents yearn for their toddlers. Even when the people abandon God and suffer oppression as a result, God’s yearning to be with the people will not end.

In a world, not unlike ours, in which God is often understood as naked power, these were provocative and challenging images of God yearning for wayward children.

Luke 6.27-38                           What’s Luke about?
Jesus describes a difficult but liberating truth. In the kingdom, generosity extends to our enemies—the disciples (we, too) are called to a life very different from what society thinks is normal and the result is that we will be deeply fulfilled.

This week’s collect:

Grant, O merciful God,
that your Church,
being gathered by your Holy Spirit into one,
may show forth your power among all peoples,
to the glory of your name;
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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Friday October 4          Pentecost 19

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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.

Hosea 10.1-15                            What’s Hosea about?
God accuses the country of abandoning justice as their loyalty and substituting reliance on wealth and on military and foreign alliances. The consequences will be terrible. As they will be for our world if we do not make justice and fairness for the least powerful our priority.

Luke 6.12-26                            What’s Luke about?
Jesus selects the twelve disciples and declares that the kingdom is the opposite of what most people think—the poor, the hungry and the hated are the lucky people because they know that they need God to intervene, whereas people who have everything don’t realise that they also need God, because regardless of our life circumstances we are all dependent upon God, but those who are comfortable don’t learn to trust and won’t learn that they, too, are safe.

This week’s collect:

Grant, O merciful God,
that your Church,
being gathered by your Holy Spirit into one,
may show forth your power among all peoples,
to the glory of your name;
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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Thursday October 3          Pentecost 19

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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.

Hosea 5.8-6.6                            What’s Hosea about?
God is determined to attack the tribes by ensuring consequences for them trusting in foreign military might instead of in the God of justice. The people respond with superficial affirmations of trust that God will rescue them, but God says they are insincerely using religion in hope of avoiding consequences. What God wants is commitment to justice; God declares no interest in religious ceremonies.

Luke 6.1-11                            What’s Luke about?
Jesus challenges the assumptions about behaviour on the Sabbath when no work was allowed. His disciples pick tiny amounts of grain, a purely technical violation of the prohibition against work, but an indication of how extreme was the criticism of his behaviour. Jesus defends this action by referring to a story about David who allowed his warriors to eat holy bread in the temple, a far more serious violation, in order to point out how silly the accusation about him was.
Jesus then goes to the core of of the issue: he deliberately heals on a Sabbath to claim that God’s full life is appropriately claimed on the weekly anniversary of the completion of the six days of creation. The argument isn’t that Jesus is caring and the religious authorities aren’t, but that Jesus claims God’s kingdom of healing takes precedence over all religious claims. The authorities start to plot his death because they are committed to exercising power and not generous justice on the Sabbath. 

This week’s collect:

Grant, O merciful God,
that your Church,
being gathered by your Holy Spirit into one,
may show forth your power among all peoples,
to the glory of your name;
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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Wednesday October 2          Pentecost 19

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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.

Hosea 4.12-19                            What’s Hosea about?
God accuses the people of involvement with fertility gods—the offence is that the people try to force God to make them fertile through sexual ceremonies instead of trusting God to do it out of God’s sheer love for them. The sexual nature of these foreign religions suggests orgies and prostitution, but the real offence is lack of trust in the God who rescued them from Egypt and still cares for them. Instead, they trust in anything else—such as wood carvings and attempts to manipulate God through sexual ecstasy.

Luke 5.27-39                            What’s Luke about?
Jesus welcomes someone who has been enforcing Roman exploitation for his own enrichment. Jesus is challenged about this, and insists that in God’s kingdom everything will be different. To prepare for the kingdom people must be ready for immense change—God’s kingdom isn’t compatible with our former assumptions about what is normal.

This week’s collect:

Grant, O merciful God,
that your Church,
being gathered by your Holy Spirit into one,
may show forth your power among all peoples,
to the glory of your name;
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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Tuesday October 1          Pentecost 19

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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.

Hosea 4.1-11                           What’s Hosea about?
God speaks, as if giving evidence in court, about how terrible are the actions of the people. The priests are to keep silent because they have been part of this abuse.

Luke 5.12-26                            What’s Luke about?
Leprosy was considered incurable and caused absolute social isolation. Only at the end of the world would leprosy be conquered. For Jesus to heal the disease and enable a person to return to full relationships is another example of God’s kingdom arriving.
The people climbing a roof to get their friend to Jesus are sure the kingdom has arrived. When Jesus removes the man’s sins, the kingdom has fully arrived and he is well physically and morally.  No wonder there is enormous response.

In our day, leprosy and paralysis of the will and of hope may happen in the form of unending exploitation by various forces in our society. Do we anticipate the kingdom arriving among us anyway?

This week’s collect:

Grant, O merciful God,
that your Church,
being gathered by your Holy Spirit into one,
may show forth your power among all peoples,
to the glory of your name;
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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Monday September 30          Pentecost 19

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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.

Hosea 2.14-23                            What’s Hosea about?
God describes how he will take Israel, who has been faithless, as his honoured wife and how all creation will be again fruitful.

Luke 5: 1-11                           What’s Luke about?
Fisher people on the lake of Galilee were pushed into destitution by Roman taxation and over-fishing, so for Jesus to enable a huge catch of fish is experienced as God’s liberation actually arriving. No wonder the fishers follow him. When we have experienced liberation in Christ we respond with equal energy.

This week’s collect:

Grant, O merciful God,
that your Church,
being gathered by your Holy Spirit into one,
may show forth your power among all peoples,
to the glory of your name;
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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