Category: TODAY’S READING

Thursday December 5          Advent

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 18 Part 1
A meditation on God’s immense power to save:—a poetic imaginative recounting of the crossing of the Red Sea and God’s rescue of the people from their slave masters. The psalm 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 2: 12-22                           What’s Isaiah about?
The God of justice is more powerful than all the most advanced nations and their military and their priorities. When God acts to restore justice and inclusion for all, those who have abused their power and put value on selfishness will be utterly defeated.

Luke 20.27-40                            What’s Luke about?
We may be hearing responses to critiques of Christian claims about Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus responds that God is interested in those who are alive now and live through the resurrection, not in speculations about the social arrangements in heaven.
Are our faith concerns primarily with how to enact justice and inclusion for all, or about how to win religious arguments? Jesus challenges us not to get caught up in the latter. This is the final confrontation mounted by the religious authorities before Jesus’ crucifixion. From now on Jesus takes the initiative and critiques his accusers.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ
came to us in great humility,
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge both the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Wednesday December 4          Advent

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 119 Part 1
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 twenty-two groups of eight verses. 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 expressions of this order. Thus the human world and the rest of creation are united in the same foundation. 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 2: 1-11                           What’s Isaiah about?
Isaiah imagines a time when there will be a global response to justice, but warms of what may happen if the Israelites do not respond to that invitation to justice for all.

Luke 20.19-26                            What’s Luke about?
Those opposed to Jesus ridicule the then controversial idea of resurrection—they point out that if resurrection is reall, then a woman who had been married to a series of brothers (as was legally required if each died without children) then when they were all resurrected she would be married to them all simultaneously and would be committing polygamy in heaven!
We may be hearing responses to critiques of Christian claims about Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus responds that God is interested in those who are alive now and live through the resurrection, not in speculations about the social arrangements in heaven.

Are our faith concerns primarily with how to enact justice and inclusion for all in this world, or about how to win religious arguments? Jesus challenges us not to get caught up in the latter.

This is the final confrontation mounted by the religious authorities before Jesus’ crucifixion. From now on Jesus takes the initiative and critiques his accusers.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ
came to us in great humility,
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge both the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Tuesday December 3          Advent

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 5
There is evil all around, but I will go into your presence, O God, and know that you are more powerful than all evil and will protect us.

Psalm 6
I have been hounded almost to death, help me, God. Thanks be to God that God heard me and the evil people will be overcome.

Isaiah 1: 21-31                           What’s Isaiah about?
As far as we know the ancient Israelites were the only culture to believe that God made a priority of including people with little power. ‘Justice’ and ‘righteousness’ are the English translations of words referring to that priority of inclusion, justice and valuing of all persons by God. The implication was that the Israelite nation must also make inclusion of the poor a priority.

This understanding of God may have arisen from Israel’s experience of being rescued from slavery in Egypt by God even though they were a small and powerless people. Isaiah’s expectation is that now they are enslaved again, this time by Babylon a thousand years later, their God will rescue them again. But this time they will be also rescued from their own exploitation of one another. Isaiah uses extensive imagery to make that hope real for the people of his time.

The early Christians interpreted Isaiah’s expectation as if he had been looking forward to God’s final completion of a new world through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

In today’s reading Isaiah understands that the disaster of Babylonian slavery has fallen upon the people because they abandoned making the powerless their country’s priority.

Luke 20.9-18                            What’s Luke about?
Towards the end of Luke’s gospel, Jesus’ confrontation with the religious authorities intensifies. In this story Jesus confronts those who run the vineyard—that is, the religious leaders who are exploiting the poor in Jerusalem.
Luke understands that Jesus has special knowledge of the fact that Rome will destroy Jerusalem 40 years later. At the time Luke was writing, the early Christians interpreted the disaster of Rome permanently destroying the temple as God’s punishment for generations of religious exploitation.

For religious leaders in the temple to exploit and crush the poor was the ultimate offence against the God of justice and inclusion for all and disaster for the temple would certainly follow.

These passages are chosen for this first week in Advent to challenge us to make the necessary changes in society as God’s rule approaches.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ
came to us in great humility,
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge both the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Monday December 2          Advent

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

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

Isaiah 1: 10-20                           What’s Isaiah about?
For nearly three months we will read from this most famous of the prophets. Likely there were three authors—the first, in the first 40 chapters, attributes the disaster of their defeat 700 years before Christ, to the consequences of exploiting powerless people. The second author, in chapters 40 to 55, proposes a revolutionary new way of understanding God who can work through pagan rulers, who allowed the Jews to return after the defeat of 600 B.C., and the final author, in the last 11 chapters, is concerned with continuing policies of justice after the people have returned to the city.

In this passage from the first of the authors, Isaiah understands God to be saying that God has no interest in, and even is revolted by, religious worship when it is not accompanied by care for the oppressed, orphans and widows—the people in their society who were homeless, destitute, and subject to extreme abuse. If the nation changes its ways, as military disaster looms, there is still hope for a prosperous future.

Luke 20.1-8                            What’s Luke about?
In Advent we are encouraged to look at the challenges involved as God arrives in our lives. For the next two weeks we will be reading about the challenges confronting Jesus as the kingdom comes close in his death and resurrection.
Opposition to Jesus grows. The religious leaders confront Jesus with the fact that he has no authorization to teach. He responds by asking who gave John authorization. John was highly popular because of his rejection of Roman rule, and became a martyr after being executed by Herod. So the leaders cannot criticize John for fear of a popular uproar, and cannot support John for fear of Herod executing them. Jesus has exposed their true loyalty to their survival and not to God’s call for justice. That is Jesus’ authority—it lies in loyalty to God’s justice for all.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ
came to us in great humility,
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge both the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Sunday December 1          Advent Sunday

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

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 1: 1-9                            What’s Isaiah about?
The readings for the next couple of weeks now focus on the anticipation of the birth of Christ and prepare us for Christmas as well as for the final completion of God’s world. One of the themes of Advent is that for God’s will to be done on the earth, much will have to change. These readings for the next few weeks challenge us to be ready to change.

The first part of the book of Isaiah was written around the time when Jerusalem was first conquered. That disaster is attributed to the nation being unfaithful to God by the rich exploiting the poor in order to get even richer. At a superficial level God’s response, of bringing disaster, could seem like a divine tit-for-tat—abandon God and God will abandon you. However, the imagery used in these extensive analyses makes clear that the offence against God is exploitation and oppression by the powerful of those with little power.

As far as we know the ancient Israelites was the only culture which identified their God primarily with inclusion of those with little power. ‘Justice’ and ‘righteousness’ are the English translations of words referring to that priority of inclusion, justice and valuing of all persons by God and by the nation. This understanding of God may have arisen from Israel’s experience of being rescued as a powerless people from slavery by Egypt. Isaiah’s interpretation is that their God will rescue them again, this time from their own exploitation of one another. Isaiah uses extensive imagery to make that hope real for the people of his time. The early Christians saw his expectation as anticipating God’s final conclusion of the new world accomplished through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Matthew 25: 1-13                           What’s Matthew about?
The older tradition of Christmas was that its focus was about how Christ comes among us now and in the future, not just about the details of his ancient birth which were understood to symbolize his present and future arrival.
This story of bridesmaids who had planned ahead for the arrival of the groom and those who didn’t is chosen for the beginning of Advent as we prepare for the coming of the cosmic groom, Jesus, in whom God pledges eternal care for the world. Matthew makes it clear that it really matters whether we are anticipating the great banquet with God—if we aren’t, we could miss it.

This week’s collect:

Almighty God,
give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ
came to us in great humility,
that on the last day,
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge both the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Saturday November 30          Reign of Christ

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 137
Another psalm expressing terrible grief that the nation had been abandoned. When the people were captured and taken to Babylon about 700 years before Jesus, they were asked to amuse their captors with funny songs, and were horrified to have to entertain those who had destroyed their land and the glorious temple dedicated to justice.

The concluding couple of verses of this psalm are disturbingly violent. We sometimes also feel violent when we are abused, so there is an honest recognition of that truth here. Or we can think of this part as a commitment to ensuring that all evil should be completely removed from the world.

Psalm 144
This psalm expresses the feeling that we are not very strong in face of terrible forces, but that God can act to save us, and the end result will be unimaginable prosperity and happiness.

These two psalms are chosen for a Saturday when Jesus lies dead in the grave, destroyed by evil as was Jerusalem. Yet Jesus and Jerusalem were to hear a call to new and glorious life.

Zechariah 14.12-21                           What’s Zechariah about?
Zechariah assures the abandoned people that God will utterly destroy those who try to kill them, and that all nations, even the world powers of the time will worship the God of justice, that everyone will finally be safe, and even cooking pots, the most disposable kitchen implements will become holy as places where God is worshipped!

Luke 19.41-48                            What’s Luke about?
Jesus laments the fact that the city will reject the kingdom and wishes that it had welcomed God’s kingdom. Luke imagines that Jesus was aware of the coming destruction of the city by Rome forty years later and that Jesus interpreted that future disaster as what happens inevitably when we abandon care and justice for everyone. But God’s attitude is not of violence but of longing to embrace the people like a mother hen with her chicks.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
whose will it is to restore all things
in your well-beloved Son, our Lord and King,
grant that the peoples of the earth,
now divided and enslaved by sin,
may be freed and brought together
under his gentle and loving rule;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Friday November 29          Reign of Christ

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 140
A cry to God for help against enemies who are strong and trust that God will help the poor and needy.

Psalm 142
A cry to God to help when there is no hope. If God acts to save me, I will then be able to praise God again.

These two psalms are appropriate for Fridays, a mini-anniversary of Christ’s crucifixion.

Zechariah 14: 1-11                           What’s Zechariah about?
God will act with immense power to restore Jerusalem.

Luke 19.28-40                           What’s Luke about?
Jesus prepares for the Passover celebration and enters the city of Jerusalem as an equal on a lowly donkey, perhaps simultaneously as a Roman legion enters the city with its full military force to prevent revolution during the Passover ceremonies (which symbolize God rescuing the people from slavery). Religious leaders tell him to stop this demonstration, because they are frightened that the Roman legion will respond to this challenge with violence, but Jesus insists that everyone rejoices when the kingdom comes—even stones!

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
whose will it is to restore all things
in your well-beloved Son, our Lord and King,
grant that the peoples of the earth,
now divided and enslaved by sin,
may be freed and brought together
under his gentle and loving rule;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Thursday November 28          Reign of Christ

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 131
God is like a mother on whom I rest in complete confidence.

Psalm 132
The psalm reminds God that David was committed to finding a permanent place for the ark to stay in Jerusalem and that God swore an oath that God would never abandon David or Jerusalem.

In our time we can understand this oath to be God’s absolute commitment to creation and to our rescue which is accomplished in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Psalm 133
Another short psalm expressing joy in the abundance we experience when humanity lives in unity—that is, in justice and inclusion of all.

Zechariah 13: 1-9                           What’s Zechariah about?
God will purify the leaders and the people.

Luke 19: 11-27                           What’s Luke about?
At the time Luke was writing the Romans had just destroyed the Jewish temple with enormous violence, and many early followers of Jesus had begun to worry that Jesus’ death and resurrection had meant nothing. Luke probably combines these two concerns in this parable. The first lesson of the story is that only the poorest slave was faithful to God because the slave refused to take part in illegal investment to make money—this kind of profit is condemned in the Hebrew Bible. He suffers under the cruelty of the king. Luke is saying that the cruel king is the Roman empire and that the faithful slaves who refuse to take part are the early followers of Jesus. They are to be congratulated because of their courage and faithfulness.
The second lesson is that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Romans could be interpreted as the consequence of people being unfaithful to the God of justice.

Such interpretations would have been very encouraging to the early followers in such dire circumstances. In the same way, as Advent approaches, this parable encourages us to trust that God’s power is greater than all the betrayals that are happening in our word.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
whose will it is to restore all things
in your well-beloved Son, our Lord and King,
grant that the peoples of the earth,
now divided and enslaved by sin,
may be freed and brought together
under his gentle and loving rule;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Wednesday November 27          Reign of Christ

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 119 Part 7
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 Q, R, S, and T, the final letters of the Hebrew alphabet. As you read them, imagine the effect of each line in today’s first section beginning with “Q” and so on.

Zechariah 12: 1-10                           What’s Zechariah about?
God will make Israel strong and the nations around will be in terror. This would have been good news for a people afraid of being wiped out.

Luke 19: 1-10                           What’s Luke about?
Jesus invites himself into the home of a rich traitor, wealthy because under the protection of Roman soldiers he has defrauded Jews. Jesus is criticized for this, and the traitor commits to repay all his extortion. Jesus says this is how the kingdom comes – to those who are hated.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
whose will it is to restore all things
in your well-beloved Son, our Lord and King,
grant that the peoples of the earth,
now divided and enslaved by sin,
may be freed and brought together
under his gentle and loving rule;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.

 

Tuesday November 26          Reign of Christ

Click here for simplified daily office prayers

Psalm 120
God saved me from those who lie and rely on deceit. Even though I am committed to peace, those around me still seek war.

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.

Zechariah 11: 4-17                           What’s Zechariah about?
The leaders have exploited the people and used them for profit and betrayed their people. Zechariah announces that God will abandon the people, forgetting God’s covenant to protect them. Zechariah takes on the role of being an abusive shepherd.

Luke 18: 31-43                           What’s Luke about?
Jesus again tells his disciples that he must be killed but they do not want to understand. He heals a blind man as he prepares to walk toward Jerusalem, and this story makes it clear that the disciples will eventually come to see what Jesus means.

This week’s collect:

Almighty and everlasting God,
whose will it is to restore all things
in your well-beloved Son, our Lord and King,
grant that the peoples of the earth,
now divided and enslaved by sin,
may be freed and brought together
under his gentle and loving rule;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Click here to share your thoughts on the web site.

Please unsubscribe me.