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Christian Resources Library
Notes on the readings
July to September 2006
July
| August | September
Sunday 2 July 2006
Third Sunday after Trinity
Wisdom of Solomon 1. 13-15; 2.23-24
This positive statement of our essential goodness and value as God's
own handiwork should encourage us. This underlies all that goes wrong
with us or spoils us for God. To realize this is to be on the way to
recovery.
2 Corinthians 8. 7-15
It may not be immediately obvious, but Paul is here urging his converts
in Corinth to give generously to the needs of the mother church in Jerusalem.
Perhaps they could not quite see the point. He bases his appeal on the
infinite generosity of Christ in his self-giving, living out his life
and death in the conditions of this world. They must love their fellow-Christians
wherever they are.
Mark 5. 21-43
The raising of Jairus' daughter is a kind of foreshadowing of Jesus'
own resurrection and must have been heard as such from the start. As
always, Jesus responds to human need, even in this extremity: and new
life is the outcome.
- Give thanks for our standing as God's creatures, which is our chief
glory.
- Let theory and practice meet in our practical generosity.
- Receive Jesus as the bountiful source of all kinds of good, even
life itself.
Sunday 9 July 2006
Fourth Sunday after Trinity
Ezekiel 2. 1-5
The call of Ezekiel is unconditional: he simply has to obey. And that
applies whether he succeeds in his mission or whether he is ignored.
The necessity is simply to speak, to bear witness to the cause of God.
2 Corinthians 12. 2-10
Paul has been provoked by the mistrust of his converts almost to a frenzy
of despair at their meanness of spirit. He reveals his deep identification
with Christ. Despite the temptation to boast of his spiritual experiences
(which he does not quite resist!), his real boast in the grace of God
which swamps his self-mistrust and overcomes his weakness.
Mark 6. 1-13
Two themes: Jesus is received least where he is best known - at home.
It rings true, yet it is not to the credit of those concerned. Is it
a common feature, not to recognize the good that is under our very nose?
Then: Jesus sends out his first followers to extend his own work, whatever
the obstacles, in simplicity and trust.
- Can we bear to see that sometimes devotion to God is a matter of
take it or leave it?
- Pray to recognize when meekness has gone too far and there is need
to speak.
- Pray to see when rejection of faith has a good point and when it
is perverse,
even in ourselves.
Sunday 16 July 2006
Fifth Sunday after Trinity
Amos 7. 7-15
The prophet Amos was a strange and unwelcome figure, a troublemaker
with his message of doom, but he was convinced that his words were what
God required his people to hear. Such people are a scourge to our complacency.
Ephesians 1. 3-14
This passage (a single sentence in Greek!) is a highly poetic piece
about Christ's high role in God's purpose, from the beginning of everything
to its final consummation, still to be revealed. This paean of praise
brings us fully into its scope, for we are the beneficiaries.
Psalm 85. 8 - 13
Like so many of the psalms, this one is down to earth. IT focuses on
the good we trust God to give to 'the land' - and we trust to live in
goodness and peace.
Mark 6. 14-29
The grim story of John the Baptist's martyrdom stands in its own right
but is also, in the context of the Gospel as a whole, a kind of foretaste
of Jesus' own passion which is still to come. Both fall victim to authorities
that cannot bear their goodness and truth.
- Pray for readiness to accept God's word even when it disturbs and
shakes us.
- Praise God for the whole sweep of his great work through Christ
for us.
- We thank God for the stirring witness of martyrs for truth and for
God's cause.
Sunday 23 July 2006
Sixth Sunday after Trinity
Jeremiah 23. 1-6
As ever, the prophet stands out from the comfortable message of more
common-or-garden spiritual leaders, and here offers a message of hope:
God will restore his apparently abandoned people and restore them in
the name of his righteous purpose.
Ephesians 2. 11-22
The writer rejoices that Paul's brave and crucial mission to bring gentiles
into the Christian movement alongside the original Jewish members has
been a triumphant success. It is what Christ stood for, God's love for
all, and is the richest kind of peace.
Mark 6. 30-34, 53-56
Here we have a general passage about two sides of Jesus' work: withdrawal
to recuperate for the purpose of God, and then the work itself of healing
and restoration for those in need.
- We give thanks for God's gift of hope.
- Praise God for the universal scope of the gospel as it has come
to us.
- Pray to accept both the reflective and the active sides of the Christian
life.
Sunday 30 July 2006
Seventh Sunday after Trinity
2 Kings 4. 42-44
This miracle of Elisha's is one of a number of his great deeds as a
prophet, and it stands here as a pointer to Jesus' own feeding of the
multitude in the gospel reading. Material abundance points to the richness
of God's spiritual provision.
Ephesians 3. 14-21
We hear a great statement of praise to God for the known gift of his
love to us and the boundless scale of his grace. We have the capacity
to achieve far more than we care or dare to recognize.
John 6. 1-21
The feeding of the multitude stands in the Gospel of John as a sign
which Jesus than expounds in terms of himself as the true bread from
heaven. It is not just as a wonderful happening but as a sign of all
that he stands for in terms of God's saving generosity to us.
- We pray that we may be 'fed' at all levels of the life that we have
from God.
- Praise God for the scale of his gifts, so easily underestimated.
- May we open ourselves with imagination to God's love.
Sunday 6 August 2005
Transfiguration
David 7. 9 - 10, 13 - 14
The passage describes a vision of the court of Heaven, Its imagery was
taken up in the New Testament - and ever since.
2 Peter 1. 16 - 19
This is the only reference outside the Gospels to today's subject. IT
concerns and experience which confirmed the inner truth about Jesus
- not visible to the naked eye.
Luke 9. 28 - 36
In this experience we glimpse the truth that is always present beneath
the surface of things - and we need to learn to look with insight.
- Pray for grace to see the inner reality of those around us.
- Thank God for the true splendour of the world
- We must learn to rejoice in the truth behind all things
Sunday 13 August 2006
Ninth Sunday after Trinity
1 Kings 19 .4-8
A simple story from the life of Elijah, illustrating his plain reliance
on God's provision for his life. We note that the prophet's purpose
was to be in God's special presence at mount Horeb, a kind of equivalent
to Sinai of old.
Ephesians 4. 25-5.2
Towards the end of his letters, Paul turns to moral instruction, and
here it is simple and straightforward. The heart of all Christian morality
is the need to love, just because we are ourselves already loved by
Christ who 'gave himself up for us'.
John 6. 35, 41-51
The emphasis here falls on the solid permanence of God's gift of himself
to us in Christ. This is no temporary emergency aid like the manna,
but something that is 'for ever'. It belongs, that is, to a whole different
dimension of things, which we refer to as 'eternity'.
- There is room to recognize with gratitude God's simple gifts, though
they are always for a great and good purpose.
- Pray not to neglect the simple duties which are basic to human life.
- Thank God for our access to the new 'world' that means the life
of God.
Sunday 20 August 2006
Ninth Sunday after Trinity
Proverbs 9. 1-6
This nice little picture speaks of the attractiveness we should feel
for God's gift of 'wisdom', which means the intelligent appreciation
of the world. It is one of God's often unrecognised gifts, and bids
us go beyond emotion or solid moral conduct in our faith to the use
of our brains.
Ephesians 5. 15-20
This is one of the earliest references to Christian music. So early
they had hymns to life the soul, and it is worth reflecting on this
gift of music that we so easily take for granted in the good provision
for our lives, including our religious lives before God.
Psalm 34. 9 - 14
God's providence - in nature and for us - is to be trusted, wondered
at and rejoiced in.
John 6. 51-58
The very solid and direct language here about the eucharist often causes
offence. It is partly designed to make us see the physical realism that
is part of what we call our spiritual lives. We need such material links
with God because we are people of flesh and blood who live in the world
of stuff and sense. But the subject throughout is Jesus himself.
- Give thanks for the intelligence which we can bring to our love
for God.
- We give thanks for the gift of music.
- Pray for readiness to bring our whole selves, body and soul, to
our service of
God.
Sunday 27 August 2006
Eleventh Sunday after Trinity
Joshua 24. 1-2a, 14-18
Solemn incidents like this one serve to renew the 'covenant' or bond
made between God and his people repeatedly, from Abraham on to Moses
at Sinai. It puts us in mind of the 'new covenant' which we Christians
see firmly made in the cross of Christ.
Ephesians 6. 10-20
This is one of the most military passages in the New Testament and has
inspired warlike manifestations of our faith. But the enemy in view
is forces of evil that threaten God's cause of love and find a place
in all of us. The 'fight' is sustained by close attachment to God in
vigilant prayer.
John 6. 56-69
Rounding off a series of readings from this long chapter of the Gospel
of John, we find that the blunt teaching about the intimacy of Christ's
self-giving to his own and his union with them leads people to hesitate
and even withdraw. Jesus has always been a figure of controversy, for
good reasons and bad. Faith is not without cost.
- Thank God for his reaching out to us in the firmest of bonds.
- Pray for grace to recognize and combat that which is hostile to
God.
- Our task is to remain faithful to God's truth whatever may tempt
us away.
Sunday 3 September 2006
Twelfth Sunday after Trinity
James 1. 17 - 27
This rather down-to-earth letter gives us lessons in the morality of
everyday life in our daily relationships. There are no surprises - but
it is none the worse for that.
Psalm 15
The psalm corresponds to the reading from James by reminding us of daily
goodness -not without a hit of smugness!
Mark 7. 1 - 8, 14 - 15, 21 - 23
Jesus responds to people who are sticklers for the details of the Jewish
Law. He prefers to draw attention to the deeper matters that we should
focus on is we would lead good lives.
- Pray for attention to the simple and basic rules for the good life.
- We trust not to grow complacent
- Pray not to grow conceited and self-righteous
Sunday 10 September 2006
The Nativity of Mary (Patronal Festival)
Isaiah 61. 10-11
The prophet rejoices in the call and the fit of God: it is as intoxicating
as a marriage and as joyful as the greatest of feasts and as the most
wonderful of the miracles of nature.
Galatians 4. 4-7
This is Paul's sole reference (and it is not by name) to Jesus' parentage.
He simply makes the point that Jesus came into an ordinary human setting,
with family and social set-up, centred on the Jewish law. But how his
effect has been to transcend it and to open the way to God for all people
of whatever background.
Luke 1. 46-55
The Magnificat, taken into the evening prayer of the Church, is a statement
of praise to God, on the lips of Mary, for the gift of salvation through
Jesus and a celebration of its desired effect to revolutionize our minds
and our societies.
- Pray never to lose sight of the drastic possibilities of the gospel
of Jesus for us
all.
- The mission of Jesus is full of implications at every level of our
lives.
- Praise God unstintingly for his endless generosity to us through
Christ.
Sunday 17 September 2006
Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity
Isaiah 50. 4-9a
This is one of the celebrated passages in Isaiah which are easily read
as foreshadowing the passion of Jesus and are commonly read in Holy
Week.
It speaks of a servant of God who sees that his calling involves the
enduring of suffering and persecution for God's cause. So it has always
been.
James 3. 1-12
This warning about the dangers that beset those who reckon to pass on
the faith is alarming. But it is plain truth for us all that the gift
of speech is carries risks as well as delights. James lays his message
on in spades.
Psalm 116. 1 - 8
We must trust in God's goodness and always rejoice in out being secure
in his love.
Mark 8. 27-38
The message that comes first via Peter's bold but unconsidered confession
is stern: to follow Jesus is to take on the cross. Mark's teaching is
without light and shade. And Peter was to illustrate the point only
too clearly when he denied his following of Jesus in the moment of trial.
- There is always a risky side to taking on the cause of God: pray
to accept it.
- Many of us need to be more aware of the possibilities of speech
- for good and
ill.
- Following Jesus is, in essence, infinitely demanding and no picnic.
Sunday 24 September 2006
Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity
Jeremiah 11. 18-20
A briefer passage making much the same point, but also expressing a
hope for retribution which the teaching of Jesus forbids.
James 3. 13-4.3, 7-8a
Worldly ambition easily leads us to distort truth in our own interests.
The passage urges peacefulness and contentment in the pursuit of goodness
and truth.
Mark 9. 30-37
The disciples of Jesus are here shown, as commonly by Mark, as contentious
and ambitious: they serve as a warning quite as much as an example.
It is necessary to accept the role of a servant in simplicity and grace,
as Jesus himself did, above all in his dying.
- A virtuous life is no passport to a peaceful life: can we be ready
for such an
outcome?
- Pray for the gift of single mindedness in our goals in life.
- Thank God for the simplicity that the Christian faith can form within
us.
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