Eucharistic Readings for Monday of Easter Week: All Years
Acts 2:14,22b-32 ; Psalm 16:8-11; or Psalm 118:19-24; Matthew 28:9-15:
“When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.” (Matthew 28: 12 – 15)
Our Lord Jesus walked into human history well after the time that coin money made its way into our trading markets. While money has some good qualities insofar as having a long shelf-life whereas food (vegetable or animal) can’t be kept for trade for very long. On the downside, money quickly became the ends rather than the means of maintaining life. So the chief priest and elders gave the soldiers a large sum of money, which was in addition to their pay as soldiers, to perpetrate a lie.
For me, the saddest part is that these men (chief priest and elders) are supposed to be the faith and moral leadership of their community. These clergy studied and maintained the Ten Commandments of Moses, one of which says, “Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”
Being a person of communal religious responsibility, I keep my eyes and ears open to other faith traditions and always ask if my own tradition could learn something from another faith-walk. None of our religious traditions are perfect. But each of us, clergy or not, has a personal responsibility to monitor our own integrity. We should not devise schemes that lie about others nor should we become a party to such a scheme if it is proposed.
Our Lord Jesus was moved, that is, Raised!, not by His disciples or the soldiers, or any human being, but by God as a way of keeping an unbreakable covenant forever.
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: Tuesday in Easter Week (BCP p. 223)
O God, who by the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light: Grant that we, who have been raised with him, may abide in his presence and rejoice in the hope of eternal glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be dominion and praise for ever and ever. Amen.
onewhoponders 