Category: TODAY’S READING

Monday October 28          Pentecost 23

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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.

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 19.4-17                            What’s Ecclesiasticus about?
Don’t gossip, and do find out the truth before repeating stories.

Luke 11.14-26                            What’s Luke about?
Jesus is accused of doing tricks with power from the devil when he heals people. He counters by saying that the devil is in trouble if people are being healed! If people are being healed it means the devil has been tied up-the kingdom really has come! But he warns against complacency on that basis-if we aren’t on guard, we can lose the kingdom.

This week’s collect:

Lord God our redeemer,
who heard the cry of your people
and sent your servant Moses
to lead them out of slavery,
free us from the tyranny of sin and death,
and by the leading of your Spirit
bring us to our promised land;
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 27          Pentecost 23

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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.

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 18.19-33                           What’s Ecclesiasticus about?
Advice about keeping balance in life.

Matthew 18.15-20                            What’s Matthew about?
Matthew understands that Jesus was concerned about the quality of life within the Christian community. Jesus requires that there be complete fairness and transparency when a member of the community must be confronted. Such a community will reflect God’s community and God will be present among them.

This week’s collect:

Lord God our redeemer,
who heard the cry of your people
and sent your servant Moses
to lead them out of slavery,
free us from the tyranny of sin and death,
and by the leading of your Spirit
bring us to our promised land;
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 26          Pentecost 22

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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.

“God’s 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 predictable consequences-anything else would produce 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 for us 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.

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 15.9-20                            What’s Ecclesiasticus about?
Advice about making good choices, taking responsibility for one’s actions and not blaming God for one’s bad decisions.

Luke 11.1-13                            What’s Luke about?
Jesus teaches the Lord’s prayer-our commitment that the kingdom come. Be absolutely confident that God will shower you with whatever you ask. If we are doubtful that will happen, he compares God to a neighbour who won’t help you because it is inconvenient, but will help because you persist, or to a parent who would never give a live snake or a live scorpion for food to their child. So much more will God bring in the kingdom which we pray for in this prayer which Jesus taught us.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everliving God,
increase in us your gift of faith,
that forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to what is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
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 25          Pentecost 22

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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.

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 11.2-20                            What’s Ecclesiasticus about?
Good advice about life and work.

Luke 10.38-42                            What’s Luke about?
Jesus stays with two women and enables each to be fulfilled-Mary claims equality with Jesus by sitting next to him and learning, Martha is enabled to fulfil her role as hostess. The kingdom arrives differently for each of us and heals our jealousies.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everliving God,
increase in us your gift of faith,
that forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to what is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
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 24          Pentecost 22

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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.

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 10.1-18                            What’s Ecclesiasticus about?
Advice to those in positions of leadership and authority-act with integrity and do not be controlled by pride. Since we all die and violence is not natural for humans, lead well. This was helpful advice to Jews trying to get along in the pagan society of ancient Greece.

Luke 10.25-37                            What’s Luke about?
A biblical scholar attempts to engage Jesus in a contest of wits about scripture. But Jesus takes his technical question seriously and commends him to live with the love the scholar’s quote describes. The scholar presses the technical issues of who he should love and who he doesn’t have to love. Jesus responds with a story about how religious leaders ignored a victim of violence, but in contrast, one of the Jews’ hated enemies, a Samaritan, acted with generosity. When Jesus asks him to draw the obvious conclusion, the biblical expert cannot bring himself to admit his enemy was more caring than he. Jesus tells him to emulate his enemy’s level of caring. The kingdom challenges us at our deepest level.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everliving God,
increase in us your gift of faith,
that forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to what is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
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 23          Pentecost 22

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Psalm 38
I have caused my own downfall, people take advantage of me, and even friends have abandoned me. I remain silent because there is nothing left to do but to hope in God. Help me, God!

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 7.4-14                            What’s Ecclesiasticus about?
Good advice about handling oneself in public and in private.

Luke 10.17-24                            What’s Luke about?
On their journeys, the seventy disciples have experienced the kingdom breaking in through their actions. Jesus warns them against being impressed-what is important is that they are entering the kingdom, not the power that works through them. Jesus emphasizes that the power they have experienced comes from their weakness, and that those who crave power will never experience God’s kingdom.
Being vulnerable and open to one’s unimportance is the path to maturity, another example of Jesus’ insistence that he and they must die so the kingdom can come.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everliving God,
increase in us your gift of faith,
that forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to what is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
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 22          Pentecost 22

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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 people around the world can live in peace and fulfilment. The second half of the psalm gives thanks that God has indeed been victorious over oppression.

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 6.5-17                           What’s Ecclesiasticus about?
How to choose reliable friends.

Luke 10.1-16                            What’s Luke about?
Jesus sends seventy followers to bring in the kingdom. They are to deepen their own trust in the kingdom-there will be dangers and they are to take no supplies with them. They are to enact the kingdom by their own behaviour and are to challenge people to join the kingdom. They are also to warn that joining the kingdom is not a casual decision-rejecting the kingdom will have worse consequences for local villages than were faced by the most wicked cities in the ancient world.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everliving God,
increase in us your gift of faith,
that forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to what is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
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 21          Pentecost 22

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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.

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 4.20-5.7                            What’s Ecclesiasticus about?
Good advice.

Luke 9.51-62                            What’s Luke about?
Jesus makes the decision to walk to Jerusalem where he will be executed. On his way he and his disciples are rejected by a Samaritan town who believe that Jerusalem represents a degraded form of Judaism. The disciples want to use violence from God in response, but Jesus refuses that way-he insists on the kingdom of justice, even towards enemies of their faith. As they walk they encounter a series of people who declare they want to follow Jesus, but Jesus challenges each of them. These are illustrations of how his own disciples say they want to follow him, but as their response to the Samaritan town illustrates, they are not yet ready to follow Jesus in making the sacrifices required for the kingdom to arrive.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everliving God,
increase in us your gift of faith,
that forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to what is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
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 20          Pentecost 22

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Psalm 148
These three psalms are especially appropriate on Sundays, the mini-anniversary of the resurrection. All creation praises God-the heavens, the earth-including fog, sea monsters, and “creeping things” (perhaps even insects or worms)-and humanity-rulers, young people and old people-all things without exception praise God together. Notice that the sequence is taken from the first creation story in Genesis: first light, then the heavens, then creatures of the water, then creatures of the land, and finally people.

Psalm 149
Songs of joy at God’s victory. The joy of military victories toward the end of the psalm was their way of saying that God has ended all injustice.

Psalm 150
A scene of riotous joy as every conceivable instrument and every creature praises God.

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 4.1-10                           What’s Ecclesiasticus about?
Advice to be generous to the poor-you will then be a full member of God’s family.

Matthew 16.13-20                            What’s Matthew about?
Peter realizes that Jesus is the embodiment of God’s kingdom come into the world. Matthew is often concerned about how the early Christian community of his time will remain faithful and so he remembers Jesus giving responsibility for the community to Peter.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everliving God,
increase in us your gift of faith,
that forsaking what lies behind
and reaching out to what is before,
we may run the way of your commandments
and win the crown of everlasting joy;
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 19          Pentecost 21

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Psalm 20
We delight that God upholds us with strength far greater than military technology.

Psalm 21
Joy at how with great power God has blessed the king and removed the threats against him. This psalm would originally have been sung to the king, as God’s blessed one, but it is equally applicable to us and can be read with ourselves as the subject of the psalm.

These psalms are often used on Saturdays to suggest the power God is about to use to raise Jesus and us from death.

Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 3: 17-31                           What’s Ecclesiasticus about?
Most of this book consists of often delightful nuggets of wise practical good advice. The author isn’t interested in the great over-arching issues of cosmic history, but in everyday situations-a good balance to the focus of most of the books of the Hebrew Bible which deal with the big issues of how God interacts with us. Or perhaps the author wants us to experience how God is always present even in the most mundane situations of which most life is composed. Sometimes some of the sayings are humorous, and should be read as such.

Luke 9: 37-50                           What’s Luke about?
Immediately following the transfiguration, Jesus heals a boy from epilepsy, whom the disciples could not heal. The kingdom hasn’t arrived for them yet. Jesus repeats that the kingdom can only come through his death, and by implication, through theirs. The disciples are unable to grasp this. Jesus uses a trusting child to illustrate the trust the disciples must have in the kingdom, and rebukes them when they refuse to die to the self-serving belief that the kingdom of God can only come from within their own community.
We also may find it hard to accept that we must die for the kingdom to arrive, but it’s our ultimate joy and glory to do so, an act that heals us and the chaotic world we live in.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
in our baptism you adopted us for your own.
Quicken, we pray, your Spirit within us,
that we, being renewed both in body and mind,
may worship you in sincerity and truth;
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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