Daily Office Readings for Friday of the 5th Week in Lent: Year 1
Morning, Psalms 95 and 22; Evening, Psalms 141 and 143:1-11;
Jeremiah 29:1,4 to13; Romans11:13 to 24; John 11:1 to 27, or, 12:1 to 10:
“But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the rich root of the olive tree, do not vaunt yourselves over the branches. If you do vaunt yourselves, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you.” (Romans 11: 17 and 18)
Here Paul reminds us that we Christians on the Jesus movement got our faith from the Hebrew faith. Jesus was a faithful Jew. He went regularly to the Synagogue on the Sabbath and kept the Sabbath clean of work unless reason required His intervention to save a life or some other good and necessary work.
We have been grafted into the Tree of faith and are fed by the Holy Spirit from the same root that feeds all believers. Yet, I see where some so-called Christians are what is called “Anti-Semitic,” that is, hostile to or prejudiced against Jewish people. This is ridiculous. We are fed from the same root. We believe in the same God. This is the same God that Jesus points us to.
We should be inwardly proud of our Christian-based faith. But we should not vaunt it, as Paul says. We are to be peaceful and loving in the communities in which we live, seeking and serving Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves, striving for justice and peace among all people, and respecting the dignity of every human being. And, we can only do this with God’s help.
Today we remember George Augustus Selwyn, Bishop and Missionary (April 11, 1878) and his information may be found at: George Augustus Selwyn.
“Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done” (Genesis 2:1 and 2). So, for this evening and tomorrow day my friends, Shabbat Shalom.
What is Shabbat? Intro to the Jewish Sabbath – YouTube
As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and to serve, and to teach others to love and to serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
Let us pray: (BCP p. 289)
O God, whose wonderful deeds of old shine forth even to our own day, you once delivered by the power of your mighty arm your chosen people from slavery under Pharaoh, to be a sign for us of the salvation of all nations by the water of Baptism: Grant that all the peoples of the earth may be numbered among the offspring of Abraham, and rejoice in the inheritance of Israel; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
onewhoponders 