Jeremiah 28:5-9

How to respond to prophecy? This exchange in the contest between Jeremiah and his challenger speaks the dilemmas of responding to the prophets of our contemporary age, who claim divine support for this or that initiative or rally criticism of some position or another on grounds of apostasy. Jeremiah responds to Hananiah’s call for divine delivery from exile, saying in effect, ‘fine, pursue your earthly goals in the name of the Lord and possibly the Lord will respond with favor.’ But Jeremiah reminds us that such prophesies do not come from God (as Hananiah would soon find out!), and that true prophecy is known by its commitment to peace, by its commitment to fulfulling God’s will, not our own.

Psalm 89: 1-4, 15-18

The Holy One of Israel is our King. And so we are invited to put aside the daily distractions of life and celebrate God’s everlasting faithfulness by which we are in covenant with the Lord our ruler. In this period following Trinity Sunday, we are reminded that when we put Christ first, we put God first. We make the Holy One of Israel the centre of our faith even as we worship the dominion of Christ the Son. With this in mind, might we begin to consider our relations with Jews and Muslims, who also worship the God of Abraham, the ruler of us all.

Romans 6:12-23

We are all living on borrowed time – time borrowed through the saving ministry of Jesus Christ. Considering sin as being separated from God (the list of no-no’s that we commonly associate with sin is quite secondary – more like a flawed list of examples), we are invited to rejoice in our delivery from sin through grace. And that grace is what gives us strength to continue living in the world by dedicating ourselves to God. And so we dedicate our passions, our energy, our initiative, ourselves to God’s purpose, because we have been delivered by God from death to life.

Matthew 10:40-42

In preparing his disciples for ministry, Jesus encourages them to bear up against oppression and resistance, confident in the power and righteousness of the one who sent them. Echoing the social practices of a time in which people were assessed in light of their connections with superiors, Jesus reminds the disciples to understand and celebrate their role as emissaries of God and Christ. And so we too take strength and comfort in our knowledge of the One in whose name we minister.