Friday, October 14, 2011 — Week of Proper 23, Year One Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky, Bishop of Shanghai, 1906 Today’s Readings for the Daily Office
When I felt so small, weak and invisible, it was comforting and empowering to imagine God watching and delighting in me.
All of today’s readings in the Daily Office seem to reflect on the complexities of speaking God’s Word prophetically.
The good life is not really about intelligence, certainty, or acclaim. It really is all about love.
This gathering for a common meal has been the distinctive mark of Christian worship from the evening of the resurrection on Easter Day until now.
There is a long history about religious people who do good, but their good acts provoke opposition from religious authorities. In today’s reading Jesus does two good things things, but he provokes opposition because he acts outside the conventions and customs of his religious heritage.
Paul encourages us to limit our freedoms out of respect for other’s scruples, conscience, or even their superstitions. It is a generous practice.
Today we have two of Matthew’s stories about Jesus operating around and across the borders of Jewish society.
How do we know what is the will of God? How can we give priority to God’s will rather than to our self-centered motivation?
How many injustices and how much violence might have been avoided had Christians been faithful to our Rabbi and his teaching: “Do not judge… How can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? …In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”