Proper 20 "The Son of Man Handed Over"
Notes
Transcript
Collect: O God, whose strength is made perfect in weakness, grant us humility and childlike faith that we may please You in both will and deed; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Jer 11.18-20
The Lord made it known to me and I knew; then thou didst show me their evil deeds. But I was like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter. I did not know it was against me they devised schemes, saying, “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit, let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more.” But, O Lord of hosts, who judgest righteously, who triest the heart and the mind, let me see thy vengeance upon them, for to thee have I committed my cause.
notes: Plots against Jeremiah, verse 20 reads like the psalms. The men of Anathoth are the ones who wanted Jeremiah dead.
Gradual: Psalm 34:9, 19, alt.
Fear the Lord, you his saints / for those who fear him lack nothing! / Many are the afflictions of the righteous, / but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
Jam 3.13-4.3
Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good life let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This wisdom is not such as comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity. And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.
Jam 4.7-8a
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
notes: (L makes it simple, 3.13-4.10)* True wisdom comes from God. If you have a lot of fleshly thoughts, desires, etc. don't cover them up by boasting and lying but expose them to the light and truth, and walk away from that, receiving instead true truth, true wisdom. Stop the war that is in your own heart. Don't lust after things and position and prestige but if you want something, ask God for it. He will gradually renew your mind so you stop asking for and even desiring the things of the world.
Mrk 9.30-37
They went on from there and passed through Galilee. And he would not have any one know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to ask him. And they came to Caperna-um; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” But they were silent; for on the way they had discussed with one another who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve; and he said to them, “If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” And he took a child, and put him in the midst of them; and taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”
notes: wo parts, a) Jesus predicts his death a second time, the first time it was preceded by Peter's confession of Christ and followed by Peter, not listening to God and truth, said to Jesus that he would never let that happen. Here b) what follows Jesus prediction of his passion is the lesson of the child in their midst, that we ought to firstly have childlike (not childish) faith, and secondly that the greatest and the first is the last and the servant of all.
*don't just automatically go along with RCL, some of the changes made from the first "release" in 1969 or thereabouts, were to take parts out thought too violent, too what they misunderstand as anti-Semitic, and acc. to F West, feminism brought in and took out certain verses, maybe "wives, submit to your husbands."