Wednesday, June 30, 2010
While God speaks through Amos of how disgusting are feasts and offerings, in the last verse we hear what God does want, God’s desire: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
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Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Peter is led out of chains, out of prison and into a barred city by an angel. “Then Peter came to himself…” Again it seems we are repeating the Sunday gospel for June 20: “Who do you say that I am?"
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Monday, June 28, 2010
Amos is noted for speaking God’s justice to a sinning people. The psalm continues with God spurning the sinners’ burnt offerings. “Those who bring thanksgiving as their sacrifice honor me,” God says
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Sunday, June 27, 2010
Call and response is our theme today. God instructs Elijah to anoint Elisha as his successor and when he does, the two travel together as prophets.
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Saturday, June 26, 2010
“Pour out your hearts like water before the Lord.” Imagine the kind of water your heart would gush forth. Discuss this with Jesus.
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Friday, June 25, 2010
The king of Babylon soundly defeats God’s people, and carrying some off to exile, he leaves the poor, the “defective” in Israel.
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Thursday, June 24, 2010
This day was chosen for this feast because the light in the northern hemisphere is beginning to wane, while at Christmas, six months later, the light is returning
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Wednesday, June 23, 2010
In exploring the ruins of Jerusalem, the high priest finds the book of the covenant, which awes and inspires king, prophets, priests and people alike.
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Tuesday, June 22, 2010
All this week instead of a meditation, helps for prayer and a brief prayer, we will use questions.
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Monday, June 21, 2010
All this week instead of a meditation, helps for prayer and a brief prayer, we will use questions. When the Word of God, as the Alleluia verse promises, “probes the thoughts and motives of our hearts,” what will Jesus find?
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Sunday, June 20, 2010
Jesus asks his friends a question today, and so all week instead of a meditation, helps for prayer and a brief prayer, we will use questions.
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Saturday, June 19, 2010
In the New Testament we often hear of the stoning of the prophets and today Chronicles narrates the stoning of Zechariah. God sent the people prophets to bring them back but they would not listen.
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Friday, June 18, 2010
Again a wicked Queen plots to murder the whole royal family, but an aunt kidnaps and hides her nephew, the rightful king, in the "house of the Lord."
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Thursday, June 17, 2010
The psalmist tells us, "Fire goes before God," and Sirach, in a summary statement of Elijah's mission as prophet, bearing the word of God calls him "a prophet like fire, and his word burned like a torch."
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Wednesday, June 16, 2010
With all this emphasis on sin thus far in ordinary time, now we receive a reminder from Jesus of what our church emphasizes during Lent: almsgiving, prayer and fasting.
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Tuesday, June 15, 2010
God's wrath pours out on Ahab through the prophet Elijah. Ahab "has sold himself" through the machinations of his wife Jezebel, all for a vineyard.
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Sunday, June 13, 2010
In our first reading God's wrath is delivered by the prophet Nathan. David not only lusted after Bethsheba, abused power, got her with child, but then sent her husband to the front of the war to cover his sin.
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Saturday, June 12, 2010
Who, looking at this statue, the only survivor of Nagasaki’s cathedral, could ever pray: “Lovely lady, dressed in blue….?” Oh, she can teach us to pray all right! Not a child’s prayer.
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Friday, June 11, 2010
Our reading from Ezekiel presents a textual problem. When we come to the end of the unique ways our good Shepherd responds to our differing needs we hear that “the fat and the strong I will destroy.”
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Thursday, June 10, 2010
It is strange, this relationship between King Ahab and Elijah. Yet the king obeys the prophet who hears “the sound of rushing water.”
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Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Elijah is the last prophet left in Israel and yet, standing alone, he can count on God when he challenges the people not “to go limping along with two different opinions.”
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Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Jesus is the light of the world and yet today he tells us that we are the light of the world. Such union he offers us, that we are fired most deeply by his own fire and light.
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Monday, June 7, 2010
The theme of feeding continues today. The Lord sends famine and drought for three years, but Elijah is cared for, fed by ravens. When we feel dry, Psalm 121 is helpful.
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Sunday, June 6, 2010
This is a celebration for all of us, for every day. Not the way our liturgists image it: priests and scepters. Rather the simple gift of hospitality which Melchizedek offers Abraham. Jesus offers an even greater hospitality to the crowd who has gathered to hear him
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Saturday, June 5, 2010
The Pastor urges all of us to proclaim the message “with utmost patience in teaching.” He warns against those who wander away to myths, that is “Gnosticism,” the earliest heresy of all, that denied the humanity of Jesus.
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Friday, June 4, 2010
Jesus’ cryptic self-questioning in the gospel delights the crowd. He indicates that he is not the son of David (and indeed, in Matthew’s gospel it is Joseph who in David’s line).
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Thursday, June 3, 2010
Thanks be to God for open windows, a new Pentecost and a church semper reformanda! More good news! “The word of God is not chained!”
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Wednesday, June 2, 2010
2 Timothy is not considered to be Paul’s own writing, but there is much to ponder in this piece of scripture. “I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.”
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Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Glorious summer greenery and yet we are never left long without the cross. All week long, Jesus will be tested
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