THE BIBLE – TODAY’S TREASURE HUNT
COMMENT FOR PENTECOST 14 – 10-09-06
Proverbs 22: 1-2, 8-9, 22-23
There were emerging questions for the people of Abraham after 400 years in the promised land. How to build a stable society in growing cities and towns, living responsibly and wisely, and caring for the poor. But the people with power – the strong - went on arranging the life of the community for their own benefit, not understanding that the poor were family. So the justice of God is the justice of the family in which all share equally.
Psalm 125
With the end of the sixth century BCE the exile had occurred and the first group of exiles had returned. Think of them amid the devastation, processing to the Temple Mount as part of this pilgrim song, and enjoying being part of the covenant community. But the questions came – why is interest in the recovery so hard to sustain, and how does their God actually help now? However, finally the conviction emerges that God’s way is the only way to achieve peace for Israel.
James 2: 1-10, 14-17
James has a clear view of the Christian faith at work – personally or for a group of people. Like children in an ideal family, there are no favourites, every one is loved and valued for who they are. It is the same in God’s human family. Therefore each group of Christians shows the way the family of God should work.
Mark 7: 24-37
Jesus visits Tyre, a Gentile area where a Phoenician woman recognizes the loving spiritual energy of God and begs for help. Jesus gives a strange reply. As a Jew he is offering the food of God to the children of the promise, not to Gentile dogs. But the word he uses is the diminutive for the little household pets – not dogs of the street. The woman smiles and understands, and says “Yes, for these little dogs eat the bread on which people wipe their fingers while eating the food.” Her daughter is healed because of her faith.
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