This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news

EUROPEAN ECONOMY MORIBUND, DEAD IN 10 DAYS

Canadian Bank Bales out Europe

AMOS 4: 9-5:2

I scorched your gardens and your vineyards;

Locusts devoured your figs and your olive-trees,

And yet, says the Lord, you have not returned to me.

I sent an Egyptian plague upon you.

While your horses were captured

I cut down your young men with the sword;

And I made the stench of your camps fill your nostrils.

And yet, says the Lord, you have not returned to me.

I overthrew some of your cities,

As Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown,

Till you were like charred sticks snatched from the blaze.

And yet, says the Lord, you have not returned to me.

Therefore this is something which I will do to you, Israel,

And because I am going to do this thing

Make yourselves ready to meet your God, Israel.

Remember it is the One who forms the mountains and creates the wind,

The One who explains Man’s thoughts to man,

The One who turns dawn into darkness,

And strides upon the high places of the earth

And the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name!

Bank of England warns of crisis

Amos tells the people that military defeat and natural disasters are providential requests from God that they should return to faithful worship and obedience. Nothing is better for the people than to live this way which is the way of the creator. Some scholars question whether the powerful lines about the creator God are really by Amos, who seems to favour history as the place of God’s self-revelation rather than nature.

Certainly that’s where the modern reader is most likely to find Amos difficult. If God works by intervening to influence the outcome of historical events, why does he not do so more often and with greater consistency? And does this doctrine mean that nations which enjoy prosperity and peace are God’s favourites?

Perhaps we can say that Amos’ poetry tells us that societies which abandon the One God and God’s justice are themselves abandoned to the consequences of their own decisions and the vagaries of natural events without the guidance of God.

How about:

 “I destroyed the currency of your neighbours

 Giving you unemployment in all your cities

And global warming to disrupt your climate

And yet, says the Lord, you have not returned to me.”

Matthew 21:33-46

33 (Jesus said) ‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. 34When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 37Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” 38But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” 39So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ 41They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’

42 Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:

“The stone that the builders rejected, has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes”?

43Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. 44The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. 46They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

Galaxy-who owns it?

Jesus’ parable is not meant to tell us that God is an absentee landlord, but that if repeated outrages eventually arouse a strangely passive landlord to furious action, it will certainly be the case that God will act in the face of the outrages of his people and their religious leaders. Jesus characterises this action of God as the calling of a new people to live fruitfully for God in the world. The people that rejects the true God is itself rejected.  Note that God does not bring supernatural punishment on the people. God permits their rejection of his love which means they choose to live without it.

The new people, Jesus hints, are being called to God through his ministry. They, because so many of them will be Gentiles, are like a stone rejected by the (Jewish) builders as unfit to be part of God’s dwelling, but now revealed as its cornerstone. Jesus also used this image of his own ministry, but here I think it refers to the new people of God. It’s clear that such words would make Jesus an apostate in the eyes of strict Jews and may have been the immediate cause of his arrest.

The question raised by Jesus is, “Who owns the earth/universe?” His answer is also clear. It belongs to God who gives it for his people to inhabit, to exercise his care for all and to be fruitful. Those who respond to God reflect his care for the universe and all living things and for this very reason are always being rejected by those who want to build prosperity for themselves alone. Those who attack God’s “new people”, Jesus warns, will be like a falling body smashed on a rock.