Justice: Week 14 of Ordinary Time
Look: Two boys comfort each other in the parking lot of Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital. Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times - Source
Listen: Psalm 10, Poor Bishop Hooper - Spotify | YouTube w/lyrics
I made us a new playlist! Listen here: Ordinary Time, pt. 2: Love My Neighbor & Myself
Read: (Sunday) Deuteronomy 4:1-9; Psalm 15; Ephesians 6:10-20; Mark 7:1-23
Readings for the rest of the week*: 2 Samuel 11:1-12; 25; Psalm 10; Psalm 113; Amos 5:10-24; Matthew 23:1-36; Luke 18:1-17
Pray: Book of Common Prayer, Collect for the Fourteenth Week After Pentecost
O Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow after us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Do: For this middle seven weeks of Ordinary Time, we’ll consider a cycle of God’s love that alternates between permission to love ourselves and the imperative to love our neighbor.
This week, hold prayerfully the two sides of loving our neighbors: responding to need and addressing the cause of the need. As you hear God’s heart for justice through the scripture passages, consider these questions:
What person or group of people do you know that suffers some form of injustice?
How can you pray for them this week?
What perhaps could you do for them this week?
*During Ordinary Time this year, I’ll be sharing readings from the excellent devotional guide, Living the Christain Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God by Bobby Gross. While it’s not necessary to purchase the book to follow along with us, it’s an excellent resource we’ve dog-eared so often the pages are falling out of our copy!