Daily Office Readings for Thursday of Proper 4: Year 1
Morning, Psalm 50; Evening, Psalms 8 and 84;
Deuteronomy 16:18 to 20 and 17:14 to 20; 2nd Corinthians 8:1 to 16; Luke 18:1 to 8:
“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses, what is man that you should be mindful of him? the son of man that you should seek him out?” (Psalm 8)
When I look up at night and gaze upon the stars and how even the planet we live on, revolves through space, I am amazed. The Great Creator of the universe is so awesome. We humans give created things names so that we might learn about them and pass such knowledge on to our children and our children’s children. As we do this we must also keep the Creator in the teaching. Without God there is nothing.
And then there is us, you and me. Why would the Creator of all things and all life itself take notice of us? We have come into being through the will and love of God. And while all universal creation seems to keep to its designated assignments, we, the human being, seem to want to argue, fuss and fight rather than to move with grace as does the suns, moons, stars and other planets.
God even came to us as one of us to model for us how to live in peace and harmony. Yet, we not only killed the Author of life, even our church has a history of killing others because of what they believe about our Lord – our Lord who would never kill anyone. We have enslaved our brothers and sisters, misused them, abused them; and yet, God is patient with us.
So why is God mindful of us? I think there is still hope. In spite of our sins, we are better than we used to be. It is because we tell our children about the Tulsa slaughter of 1921 and the Holocaust of Nazi Germany and other atrocities that we hopefully won’t repeat these horrors.
Our Jewish ancestors developed a beautiful history of telling their story, their long relationship with God. We have it in the Hebrew (Old) Testament. This is an example for us now. Our Lord Jesus was very good at telling us the stories about His relationship with God. We must follow this Jewish – Jesus example and tell our stories also, the good and the bad.
Since God has hope for us and is mindful of us, we must not give up on ourselves. We must live the stories we want to tell. We may not look like heroes in our stories, we may not even live through them and the stories might have to be told by those who knew us. But it’s still our story. Our story must be about unwavering love, no matter what. I really love Psalm 8. It makes me ponder and appreciate God in Christ Jesus even more. Don’t give up on us Dear Lord.
Let us live to love, more than just love to live, listening to what the Spirit is saying to, and through, the saints of God, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
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