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| Serving God and Sharing Good News |
Weekly Bible Notes
Second Sunday before Lent
Year A. Colour: Green
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Opening Verse of Scripture—Micah 6:8
And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God!
Collect Prayer for the Day—Before we read we pray
Almighty God, you have created the heavens and the earth and made us in your own image: teach us to discern your hand in all your works and your likeness in all your children; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things, now and for ever. Amen.
First Bible Reading
Micah Chapter 6:1-8Listen to what the LORD says: "Stand up, plead your case before the mountains; let the hills hear what you have to say. Hear, O mountains, the Lord's accusation; listen, you everlasting foundations of the earth. For the LORD has a case against his people; he is lodging a charge against Israel. "My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me. I brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam. My people, remember what Balak king of Moab counselled and what Balaam son of Beor answered. Remember your journey from Shittim to Gilgal, that you may know the righteous acts of the LORD." With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Gospel Reading
Matthew Chapter 6:25-34"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ? "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Post Communion Prayer
God our creator, by your gift the tree of life was set at the heart of
the earthly paradise, and the bread of life at the heart of your Church: may
we who have been nourished at your table on earth be transformed by the
glory of the Saviour’s cross and enjoy the delights of eternity; through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Commentary: Justice and Mercy
The Bible Notes have been written this week by Mr John Stubbs a Local Preacher in our Methodist Circuit.
The final verse of today’s Old Testament lesson sets out a code of practice for all who would be in a right relationship with God – act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with one’s God. It is a code which most religions would acknowledge in some form or other. Indeed many who do not acknowledge God at all would find in the first two elements a code to which they could assent.
God requires the doing of what is right and fair between people – he amplifies the idea in subsequent verses. There is a standard of right and equitable dealing between people, as simple as filling up a measure of grain which is the basis of a transaction, accurate weighing of quantities agreed upon and the punishment of those guilty of agreed misdemeanours. Justice here is not based on a legal code, but upon the general sense found in every race that all should do what is “right”, however defined.
“Loving mercy” has the sense of fulfilment of all the obligations inherent in a relationship even when there are no laws to cover that relationship. There is in the Hebrew a sense of noblesse oblige, of steadfast love and of kindness. And all those elements can be found in varying ways in all the relationships which make up the pattern of our lives, not least between God and ourselves. And they are not defined by legal codes or negotiated agreements.
Micah’s final point reminds us that as faith people we not only have duties to others but we also have obligations in the way we approach God. As St. Paul reminds us “by grace we have been saved through faith”. We have not done it ourselves. For as Micah reminded people in verses 3, 4 and 5, God’s call is always set within the context of His grace. What is required of us is a grateful response. And that grateful response is not to be found in religious observances – most of us do not have calves or rams or rivers of oil – but in the way in which we live our lives and seek to relate to each other and to God.
Micah reminds us that God has challenged us – “plead your case”, “hear the Lord’s accusation”, a controversy with us couched in the reminder of how much God had done for His people. The response required is not unreasonable, not beyond our capacity to pay, but one which touches our public and private lives.
And in the gospel lesson Jesus is also reminding his hearers of how much God has done and can do for them and by implication what is the appropriate response. The key to what he says is to be found at the end of verse 24 “You cannot serve God and money.” Jesus is not suggesting that we do not work, that somehow we can be provided for. Of course that may be true for some who will devote their lives in total service to God and for whom the religious community will accept responsibility to see that they are fed and clothed. But for the majority of us we must still work to earn the necessities of life. The early church in Jerusalem lived a totally communal life involving the selling off all they had – and finished up needing help from elsewhere! But in our daily lives the question is whether our first loyalty is to God or to the things of this world. If we are too engrossed in accumulating possessions we may have made an idol of them, and have forgotten the eternal realities. And worry does not help and will not add to our size or longevity! The old hymn with its line “live this day as if it were thy last” still has much to teach us.
For as Micah said, living justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God is the way to seek the Kingdom and to enter into the riches of God. John Stubbs
Meditation: Love that blots out hatred
The 4 February was the birthday in Germany in 1906 of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He became a minister in the Lutheran Church and was outspoken about what was wrong when the Nazis first came to power. He spent two years as a minister in a church in London, but chose to return to Germany once it became clear that war would break out. He wrote, “I will have no right to be a part of the reconstruction of Germany after the war if I do not share in this time with my people.”
Like many others, he must have had great courage, intending to do whatever he could to oppose the evil being done in the name of his country. He knew the risks for himself in remaining a critic of the Nazi government and, on his return to Germany, every move of his was watched.
In July 1944 a plot to kill Hitler failed. Bonhoeffer was one of many who was implicated in that threat, and he was imprisoned. Less than a month before Germany’s surrender he was taken into the prison yard and hanged, aged 39.
The prison doctor said of his death: “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer kneeling on the floor in prayer. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so certain that God heard his prayer.”
Dietrich wrote this short prayer about love and hatred, and we can make the prayer our own today by thinking of those people with whom we haven’t get on very well over the years:
“Lord God, give me such love for
you and for others that it will blot out all hatred and bitterness.”
Hymns (Mission Praise to be distributed)
- God is love (187)
- Father God I wonder (128), & O Give thanks (497)
- Seek ye first (590)
- 4. Fill thou my life (146 Tune ii)
- To God be the glory (708)
(We will also sing Abba Father after the confession this morning No. 3)
Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead.
A call to worship. We come not because we are able by our own right, but because we know our need of God. We come not because we are able by our own deeds, but because we are summoned in God’s love. We come in our need and hope. We come because of all that God has done. We come in thanksgiving.
A prayer for going out. Loving God as we go into your world in the power of your Spirit, help us to live justly and work for justice, to love and practise kindness and to walk humbly with You.
Father, all loving and most tender, we confess the hardness of our hearts and our want of compassion for our neighbour. Grant us the grace of true pity, the ministry of compassion and the gift of consoling the broken-hearted. Teach us to love with your own forbearance and never harshly or unlovingly to judge another; for your own mercies' sake. Amen Johann Arndt, 1555-1621