Psalm 25:

1  Of David.

To you, O LORD,

 I lift up my soul.

Psa 25:2  O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame;

 do not let my enemies exult over me.

Psa 25:3  Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;

 let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

Psa 25:4  Make me to know your ways, O LORD;

 teach me your paths.

Psa 25:5  Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation;

 for you I wait all day long.

Psa 25:6  Be mindful of your mercy, O LORD, and of your steadfast love,

 for they have been from of old.

Psa 25:7  Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;

 according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness' sake, O LORD!

Psa 25:8  Good and upright is the LORD;

 therefore he instructs sinners in the way.

Psa 25:9  He leads the humble in what is right,

 and teaches the humble his way.

Psa 25:10  All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness,

 for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.

Psa 25:11  For your name's sake, O LORD,

pardon my guilt, for it is great.

Psa 25:12  Who are they that fear the LORD?

He will teach them the way that they should choose.

Psa 25:13  They will abide in prosperity,

 and their children shall possess the land.

Psa 25:14  The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him,

and he makes his covenant known to them.

Psa 25:15  My eyes are ever toward the LORD,

 for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

Psa 25:16  Turn to me and be gracious to me,

 for I am lonely and afflicted.

Psa 25:17  Relieve the troubles of my heart,

 and bring me out of my distress.

Psa 25:18  Consider my affliction and my trouble,

 and forgive all my sins.

Psa 25:19  Consider how many are my foes,

 and with what violent hatred they hate me.

Psa 25:20  O guard my life, and deliver me;

do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.

Psa 25:21  May integrity and uprightness preserve me,

 for I wait for you.

Psa 25:22  Redeem Israel, O God, out of all its troubles.

This Psalm seems to be two prayers woven together into a lament. This is both the prayer of a suffering individual who cannot find God, and as well as a communal expression of trust in God’s guidance. This Psalm has emerged over time as a prayer used in worship by the people of God. It allows us as individuals to bring our fears and distress to worship – while being held by the faith of the community.

Use the Psalm as your prayer for today. If possible pray it with another person – reading it responsively.    

Ordinary 24 / Pentecost +17

46 Beyond Forgiveness

The Scripture passage for the day is drawn from Reuben Job and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and other Servants, (Nashville, The Upper Room 1983), 282.
This reflection is from my own devotional exercises for the day.

Praise loudly & blame softly

John 8:2  Early in the morning Jesus came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them.3  The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4  they said to him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5  Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" 6  They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7  When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." 8  And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9  When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10  Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" 11  She said, "No one, sir." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again."

This is a ‘disputed’ passage of Scripture: it was not in the original text, but is rather a later addition. I am suggesting that even if this story was not told alongside the others – it should have been. Because this is so central to everything that Jesus represented: Here is a woman who is ‘caught out’ and is publicly humiliated. Jesus does not condone her actions – but instead he offers he an opportunity for a new beginning:  “Go your way, and from now on do not sin again." 

One of the great challenges in life is to hold each other accountable to Godly moral and ethical standards – while helping those who fail to get back on their feet.  I have discovered that the best way is to remember my own moral failures, and the many, many times I have had to pick myself off the floor and dust myself off ....and begin again. This motivates me to offer the same encouragement to others.

"I praise loudly. I blame softly" :   Catherine the Great 

Ordinary 24 / Pentecost +17

46 Beyond Forgiveness

The Scripture passage for the day is drawn from Reuben Job and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and other Servants, (Nashville, The Upper Room 1983), 282.
This reflection is from my own devotional exercises for the day.

Do you want to be made well...

John 5:1  After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2  Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3  In these lay many invalids--blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5  One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6  When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be made well?" 7  The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me." 8  Jesus said to him, "Stand up, take your mat and walk." 9  At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath. 10  So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, "It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat." 11  But he answered them, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Take up your mat and walk.'" 12  They asked him, "Who is the man who said to you, 'Take it up and walk'?" 13  Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. 14  Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, "See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you." 15  The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

This bears all the signs of a well crafted – and often told – story: 

Here we have a sick man who desperately holds onto the forlorn hope of finding healing in the magically stirred water.  We are told that he had been there ‘a long time’. And just when he feels himself giving up hope – Jesus crosses his path with these words “Do you want to be made well?”  What a question! Of course he wants to get well. But this question asks if he wants to be well badly enough to trust Jesus.

Following Jesus is more than a curiosity to occupy a few spare moments - following Jesus is an absolute commitment to trusting his ways.

Ordinary 24 / Pentecost +17

46 Beyond Forgiveness

The Scripture passage for the day is drawn from Reuben Job and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and other Servants, (Nashville, The Upper Room 1983), 282.
This reflection is from my own devotional exercises for the day.

A Better Way

Luke 17:1  Jesus said to his disciples, "Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! 2  It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3  Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. 4  And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, 'I repent,' you must forgive." 5  The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" 6  The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.

Matthew 18 & Luke 17 both carry this message: “you must forgive”  Matthew asks for this to be “seventy times seven times”, while Luke only refers to “seven times”.  Either way the intention seems to be that we are to be a forgiving people. This is a core value of being a follower of Jesus. While the world we live in thrives on hatred, anger and revenge, Jesus asks us to trust him (even if this is only a very small bit of trust) that there is a better alternative: to be forgiving.  

    

"Forgiving love is a possibility only for those who know that they are not good, who feel themselves in need of divine mercy, who live in a dimension deeper and higher than that of moral idealism, feel themselves as well as their fellow men convicted of sin by a holy God and know that the differences between the good man and the bad man are insignificant in his sight."
—Reinhold Niebuhr,  An Interpretation of Christian Ethics

Ordinary 23 / Pentecost +16

45 Forgiveness

The Scripture passage for the day is drawn from Reuben Job and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and other Servants, (Nashville, The Upper Room 1983), 276.
This reflection is from my own devotional exercises for the day.

Believing in other people’s goodness

Luke 6:37  "Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven;38  give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back." 39  He also told them a parable: "Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? 40  A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher. 41  Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 42  Or how can you say to your neighbour, 'Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.

This is an invitation to live generously. Based on the premise that “the measure you give will be the measure you get back" the followers of Jesus are invited to live without the need to put other people down.  The challenge for today is for us to believe the best of those around us.

Ordinary 23 / Pentecost +16

45 Forgiveness

The Scripture passage for the day is drawn from Reuben Job and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and other Servants, (Nashville, The Upper Room 1983), 276.
This reflection is from my own devotional exercises for the day.

Raising the bar

Luke 6:27  "But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28  bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29  If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30  Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31  Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32  "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33  If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34  If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. 35  But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36  Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Jesus is unapologetic in insisting that his followers were expected to show more love, more compassion, and more mercy than anyone else. The central thrust to this is that his followers were to reflect the quality of God:  “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”  Jesus invites his followers: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

Clearly the teachings of Jesus are easier to read in the Bible than they are to practice in our lives.  A case in point is Barak Obama’s desire to bomb Syria: We watch how a Jesus-following President of the United States of America flat-out ignores Jesus’ injunctions to find an alternative to violence.  It is disturbing how easily we Christians choose violence as the answer to the problems of our world. The greatest challenge of being a Jesus-follower is to have the will and stamina to relentlessly pursue non-violent ways of securing peace and justice in our world.  Jesus asks us to go further than anyone else – to raise the bar on our practice of love and mercy.      

Ordinary 23 / Pentecost +16

45 Forgiveness

The Scripture passage for the day is drawn from Reuben Job and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and other Servants, (Nashville, The Upper Room 1983), 276.
This reflection is from my own devotional exercises for the day.

Leadership

2 Corinthians 2:3
And I wrote this very thing to you, so that when I came I would not have sadness from those who ought to make me rejoice, since I am confident in you all that my joy would be yours.

Paul visits Corinth for the first time, spending about 18 months there (Acts 18:11). The second time he visited the Corinthian church this was a "painful visit" (2 Corinthians 2:1). Paul reassures the people of Corinth that they will not have another painful visit because of the love he has for them.

Here is a leader who cares for his people enough to visit them, write to them, and when necessary - speak bluntly to them about difficulties. We all can learn from his combination of compassion and straight talking.

Ordinary 23 / Pentecost +16

45 Forgiveness

The Scripture passage for the day is drawn from Reuben Job and Norman Shawchuck, A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and other Servants, (Nashville, The Upper Room 1983), 276.
This reflection is from my own devotional exercises for the day.

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