Weekly Devotion
Hymn for the Week
Make me a channel of your peace,
Where there is hatred let me bring your love,
Where there is injury your pardon Lord
And where there’s doubt true faith in you.
O Master let it be that I may never seek,
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved and to love with all my soul ...
Hymns and Psalms 776
Prayer for the Week
Lord, where people are judged by their ancestry or creed
bring peace and acceptance.
Where people are judged by the colour of their skin
bring peace and acceptance.
Where nation rises against nation
enable the men and women of peace to prevail.
In the name of the Prince of Peace
Amen.
Readings for the Week
| Isaiah 56: 1 + 6-8 | Here Isaiah challenges the people of Israel to consider that God will include the blessings of the Covenant to all who obey Him. |
| Psalm 67 | All the nations of the earth are invited to worship and to praise God. |
| Romans 11: 1-2a 29-32 | Some Jewish Christians were wondering if Paul had turned his back on his nation. Paul in Chapter 9; 1 says no! Here he declares that God is merciful to all people. |
| Matthew 15: 10-28 | Jesus has been teaching the disciples that the food laws are secondary to the most important law. The importance of washing hands is not so important as consideration of what comes out of the mouth of a person in conversation with other people. |
Thought for the Week
It is usually easier to
persecute a people or nationality if they are ‘demonised’ or
de-humanised first. This was so in the pogroms of the Middle Ages
and in Europe in the time prior to the Second World War. A
people or person who is of a different race or creed can be seen as
‘outside’ of normal society and therefore open to abuse, or at least
suspicion. This was so with the Canaanite woman in the Gospel
reading. She was not of the ‘house of Israel’ and therefore in
the eyes of the religious Jews, outside of the covenant love of God.
Jesus challenges the woman to declare her faith – He never healed the
sick or cast out evil spirits without the presence of faith in those
around Him - by telling her that He had come to the ‘children’ [of
God]. He then releases the child from the grasp of the evil spirit.
The link of the love of God for all that He has made is a clear line
throughout scripture. The readings from Isaiah and the Psalms point
to this truth. However, the experience of the Jewish people when
they were sent into exile was a bitter one. In response, when they
do return to the land of Israel, they see all the other nations as
apostate and under the judgement of God. Paul in Romans Ch 9 wants
to point out that all people everywhere, regardless of nationality or
creed are under the judgement of God in order that He can show compassion
and forgiveness to all people.
With this understanding of the love of God, we are all equal in the sight
of God and no person or persons dare boast of who or what they are.