25 July 2010
Psalm 24, 29; Joshua 24:1-15; Acts 28:23-31; Mark 2:23-28

It is important for us as Christians, as communities of Christians and as individual Christians to recount from time to time what the Lord has done for us. In our worship we recall the work Christ has done on our behalf in our Eucharistic prayers, the work that enables us to be children of God. In our communities or churches we need to remember what He has done that has enabled us to serve Him and to survive all that threatens to destroy us so that we can celebrate His faithfulness to us. All churches have faced challenges to survival and have also seen incredible things the Lord has done among us and we need to celebrate Him. As individuals we should regularly recall what He has done for us lest we allow ourselves to be in the mire of the present. Joshua recounts all the Lord has done to get this nation here safely and then calls upon them to either follow the God who has done all this or to follow after the gods of those who have been displaced. It is important to regularly renew our covenant relationship with Him and one another.

It would be interesting to know what the Pharisees thought of Jesus’ answer to their objection to the disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath. The argument that if David could eat the showbread then certainly people should be allowed to simply pull the grain off the stalk and separate the edible portion from the inedible if they are hungry is sensible to them but there is a greater principle at stake. Jesus makes a direct comparison to Himself and the disciples and David and then calls Himself the Son of Man. Even if they resigned themselves to the argument they would have not been able to go along with the comparison to the great hero and king without accusing Jesus of presumption.

Paul’s argument with the Jews regarding Jesus relies on His place in their redemptive history. Paul did his best to scripturally insert Jesus into that history and to show that the Jewish Scriptures themselves testify to Jesus and his life, death and resurrection but they rejected his argument. His quotation from Isaiah is from chapter 6, just after Isaiah has seen the glory of the Lord filling the temple and just as he volunteers to be the Lord’s messenger. Isaiah volunteered for the mission before he was told that no one would listen to his message and that it would not bear fruit because of the hardness of the hearts of the people. Paul claims now to be in line with Isaiah and the people to be the true ancestors of those people. Have we found our place in God’s story of redemption?

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!