2022-Jul-10: Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

 

Opening prayer

Heavenly Father, send forth your Spirit to enlighten our minds
and dispose our hearts to accept your truth.
Help us to listen to one another with openness and honesty,
eager to learn from the talents and intuitions that you have given each of us. Never let differences of opinion diminish our mutual esteem and love.
May we leave this meeting with more knowledge and love for you and your Son.
In the unity of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Theme of the liturgy 

Deuteronomy 30:10-14

The primary theme of Deuteronomy is God's covenant to the Jews - a binding promise made by Yahweh to Abraham, Sarah, and their descendants. In today's reading from Deuteronomy 30:10-14, Moses emphasizes the accessibility, transparency, and doability of the covenant and its laws and statutes to Jews at Moab about to enter the Promised Land. 

This passage echoes the Shema, the prayer that observant Jews pray twice daily, which begins with this well-known passage from Deuteronomy 6: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:4-8).

The commands are not presented as a burden to the people, but as a source of life and prosperity in service to a God who rejoices over them.

In the previous chapter Deuteronomy 29:10-29, Moses forewarns that the people will violate the covenant, follow other gods, and suffer terrible consequences: “all the curses in this book will descend on them, and the LORD will blot out their names from under heaven.” If that was the stick, then Deuteronomy 30:8-9 was the carrot promising prosperity, abundance, and joy.

Psalm 69 

It is important, in light of psalm 69 in which David talks as being a righteous innocent sufferer overwhelmed by his enemies and looking for relief from Yahweh, just like in the Book of Job, to note that suffering is not necessarily a sign of sin. 

Psalm 69  falls into three major sections, each issuing a call for God’s help:

1. Save me, God! (verses 1-6). The one who prays this psalm is desperate, even near death.

2. Set me free, Lord! (verses 7-18). Verses 7-9 present an “I” complaint. Verses 10-12 continue with they-complaints about others in the community. Verses 13-18 are desperate cries for help and are at the core of the psalm.

3. O God, protect me from my enemies! (verses 19-36). 

Colossians 1:15-20 

St Paul's letter to the Colossians is striking in that, while the cross is mentioned the suffering and death of Jesus are not the primary focus of the hymn, instead it emphasizes the power and divinity of the Messiah. In Colossians, Christ does not bring reconciliation to one individual believer alone, nor only to the church, but to all of God’s creation.

In Colossians prototokos or first-born is employed in two different ways. First, Jesus is the prototokos of all creation (1:15) in whom “all things hold together” (1:17). Second, Jesus is the prototokos or first-born of the dead (1:18). In the sense “first-born of the dead” is a simple statement of the resurrection — both that of Jesus and the promised resurrection of believers in Christ.

Our text does not indicate how the cross of Christ brings reconciliation, rather the focus is on the scale of what has been achieved: All things, in heaven and on earth, have now been reconciled to God in Christ (1:20). 

What this does is connect the act of creation with the promise of resurrection

Luke 10:25-37 

The parable of the Good Samaritan, along with that of the Prodigal Son, are two of the most well-known stories of Jesus. When Jesus is tested by a Torah expert about actions consistent with inheriting eternal life (Luke 10:25), Jesus responds by returning the question, asking “What is written in the Law?” and inquiring about this expert’s interpretation of the Torah on this specific point (10:26). When the man answers using the central Scriptural commands to love God and love neighbor (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18, respectively). Jesus agrees. But merely knowing the law is not enough, living it is the hard part.

The Torah expert desires to justify his lifestyle by somehow limiting the definition of neighbor - the fewer to love the less the inconvenience and so asks the now-infamous question, “And who is my neighbor?” (10:29). 

Jesus’ answer to this question with the famous parable of the Good Samaritan. And when the Torah expert chooses rightly, Jesus says "Go and do likewise". Tangible actions like attending to his wounds, bringing him to an inn, and paying for his care - no questions asked. “Neighbor” is not defined by location or group but by those who need concern and care.

This compassionate care for the marginalized is a common Lukan theme. In Luke's Gospel the Israelites and Samaritans are both God's people - they are not Gentiles. The Samaritans trace their ancestry back to Jacob and uphold the Torah but their center of worship was on Mount Gerizim rather than Jerusalem. In an unexpected twist the Samaritan, unlike the priest and Levite, acts as the ideal Israelite. We need to examine ourselves to see how often we behave like the priest and the Levite. "Go and do likewise" applies to all of us as true disciples of Jesus. The parable demonstrates that God is enacting, in Jesus the Messiah, the restoration of the fullness of Israel, as a prelude to the offering of salvation to all nations (Acts 1:8). 

Closing prayer

We now raise in prayer the following in our community who need prayers including Jean's daughter-in-law Lynn, Lou Ryan, Tom Smith, Loran Courpet, Elinor Stetson, Maria Gallo, Frank Caradonna, Javad & Louise Zolfaghari, Suzanne's brother Raymond ...

Heavenly Father we praise and thank you for the gift of life.

Heavenly Father we call on you right now in a special way.

It was through your power that they were created. 

Every breath they take, every morning they wake and every moment of every hour they live under your power.

Father, we ask you now to touch them with that same power.

For if you created them from nothing, you can certainly recreate them anew.

Fill them with the healing power of your Spirit.

Cast out anything that should not be in them.

Mend what is broken, root out any unproductive cells.

Open any blocked arteries and veins.

And rebuild any damaged areas of their body and brain.

Remove all inflammation and cleanse any infection.

Let the warmth of your healing love pass through their body to make new any unhealthy areas so that their body will function the way that you created it to function.

And Father, restore them to full health in mind and body so that they may serve you the rest of their life 

We ask this through Jesus Christ Our Lord, Amen.