AUGUST 17-23, 2020
Below are our lectionary passages for this week in the Church calendar. For those unfamiliar, the lectionary is a resource that churches all over the world use to consistently and uniformly read through the scriptures every week as we gather for worship. The lectionary passages typically consist of a combination of Old Testament readings, a Psalm, a New Testament letter, and a Gospel reading.
We dwell on these passages throughout the week so that when we gather together on Sunday we may proclaim these truths together in worship. We encourage you to find some rhythm of reading and meditating on these passages throughout the course of the week, whether that’s reading through all of the passages daily or reading a single passage a day until you’ve read them all. We have included below some commentary and thought for guided prayer and reflection.
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. - Psalm 119:105
EXODUS 1:8-2:10
This passage that begins the narrative of Exodus is something of a plot twist in the story of the people of Israel. To this point in the story, Joseph and his family have known favor in Egypt. After Joseph’s tumultuous youth, he ascends through the governing ranks to find himself as one of the most influential men in Egypt. But when a new authority takes office as king and is worried that the Hebrew people might have the power to overthrow the Egyptians, he suddenly turns on Joseph and his people and favor turns to slavery. This is also where the reader departs from the family of Abraham as the primary narrative focus. Out of the Egyptian oppression, Moses is born and “drawn from the water.” It’s also interesting to note that there is a word in this passage that, in the original language, is used only once elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. The word translated as “basket” is the same word that is used to describe the vessel that Noah is tasked by God to prepare to save God’s creation from the flood–the Ark. In both cases these vessels are instruments of God’s deliverance.
ISAIAH 51:1-6
The prophet implores his people to look back from where they came and witness the faithfulness of God. Look to Abraham and Sarah, that rock from which you were hewn, and see how God is ever-present. The role of the prophet is to be the mouthpiece of God in the midst of his people. In this particular context, Israel is in exile. They are not in their homeland and they are under the oppression of the Babylonians. Yet this is the message that God has for his people: “Look back and see how I have always been with you and know that even now I am your deliverance.” Note also whom this message is directed toward: “Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the Lord” (51:1). God’s people are in the midst of oppression. They find themselves under the rule of those who seek them harm, and yet God is concerned with the righteousness of His people. He is not indifferent to their ethics and the way they live their lives. He still desires the covenant of faithfulness and promises to deliver His people.
ROMANS 12:1-8
In this passage Paul reminds the believers in Rome that our bodies are not inherently our own. Rather, we are to “present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” The nature of a sacrifice is that, when given, you no longer retain any rights to it. Our bodies, when offered to Christ, become something greater than the individual; we experience true personhood in the gathering and re-membering of the body. No one member is the same, for a body needs the diversity of the members to create something that is beautiful and active. Paul reminds the Romans that we each have been created with various gifts and capacities and that the body is most healthy when we experience the diversity of these gifts. It is in the sacrifice of our selves that we find something greater than the sum of its parts. Somehow, in the mystery of Christ, when we come together in the name of the Spirit, no longer conforming to the world but renewing our minds and sacrificing our ego, Christ himself is made manifest in the gathering.
MATTHEW 16:13-20
This passage contains one of the most iconic scenes in Jesus’ later ministry. When he is alone with his disciples he asks, “Who do they say that I am?” and “Who do you say that I am?” This is a decisive moment in the narratives of the Gospels, as there are so few times when Jesus speaks unequivocally of his divine nature. There are no riddles and he is not cryptic. To Peter, Jesus responds affirmatively and he tells them all “not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.” I’d imagine that for Peter it takes courage to give voice to that which had not yet been plainly stated. Jesus danced around the question for much of his ministry but never came out and said it. Now, in this intimate circle, Jesus would have them speak the unspoken. And Jesus blesses Peter for speaking the truth.
REFLECTION
Despite the Bible being a collection of many books from many different authors, we believe this collection to be inspired by God and, furthermore, we believe it to tell a single cohesive narrative of God’s creation, relationship, and redemption of the world. Throughout the Old and New Testaments we see the ups and downs of God’s people from faithful to faithless, wounded and then healed, broken and then put back together. Throughout the lectionary readings this week we see the theme of God’s deliverance. In Exodus we see the beginnings of how God chooses to use the baby of an oppressed Hebrew family to deliver Israel from the hand of the Egyptians. In Isaiah, the prophet reminds Israel that God will deliver the righteous. To the Romans, Paul shares that we are being delivered for new life in Christ in the unity of his body. And in Matthew, the Gospel writer recounts Peter’s declaration of the Messiah whose established Kingdom is the reality of deliverance that we participate in here and now.
In our prayers and in our thought life, would we be reminded of and dwell on the faithfulness of the God who is our deliverance. In all of these passages we’re reminded that deliverance isn’t a path that guides us around or away from hardship, but rather, the path that takes us through hardship in the confidence of God who is ever present and ever faithful. And would we continue to pray for deliverance in these days. Not for deliverance from life’s challenges but deliverance from that which keeps us from God; deliverance from temptation, from complaining, from gossip and fear. Deliverance from a lack of trust that might keep us from seeing how God is continuing to move in our world. In these readings and in our prayers would we be reminded that we have been delivered, are being delivered, and will be delivered.