Daily Office Readings for Monday of Proper 17: Year 1
Morning, Psalm 25; Evening, Psalms 9 and 15;
2nd Chronicles 6:32 to 7:7; James 2:1 to 13; Mark 14:53 to 65:
“Peter had followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest; and he was sitting with the guards, warming himself at the fire. Now the chief priests and the whole council were looking for testimony against Jesus to put him to death; but they found none.” (Mark 14: 55 and 56)
I often ask myself: Who witnessed the arrested Jesus, and told, or wrote it for us to have today? In this case, my question is answered; Peter is sitting within earshot of what is taking place. Too often we focus only on the three denials of Peter. We should pay attention also to the logistics of the Gospel and Peter’s physical closeness of Jesus’ interrogation.
They held court on our Lord Jesus trying to convict him to death even knowing that to murder another human being was against God’s Law. Let this be a lesson to us to keep God’s Law at the forefront of our own conduct. In their shallow testimony , “Some stood up and gave false testimony against him, saying, ‘We heard him say, “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands;” (Mark 14: 57 and 58).
St Paul will later write in his Second Letter to the Church in Corinth, “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens:” (2nd Corinthians 5:1). Too often we can’t grasp the deeper meaning of the Gospel of God in Christ Jesus because we are so full of self-serving (our way only) tendencies.
The not so secret mantra of God is to love each other, this also means, all others. This love that we are supposed to have is to extend to those who are like us as well as those who are different. We can disagree without disengaging. It’s not easy at first, but it is absolutely possible, and very pleasing to God. We are certainly not called to devise ways to put a person to death because of disagreement. Have we evolved any in the last two thousand years? I pray that we have, and I pray we continue to evolve and become more and more Jesus like.
Today our Church remembers David Pendleton Oakerhater, Deacon and Missionary (September 1, 1931) and his information may be found at: David Pendleton Oakerhater.
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: For Social Justice (BCP p. 823)
Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart [and especially the hearts of the people of this land], that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
onewhoponders 