Monday 20 July 2020

Today is Monday the 20 July, in the 16th week of Ordinary Time.  

Molly Pardon, with Bifrost Arts, sings a setting of Psalm 126. As you listen and prepare for prayer, use the words, the melody, the rhythm to allow a sense of hopefulness to arise in your heart today.   

Today’s reading is from the Prophet Micah.    

Micah 6:1-4, 6-8

Hear what the Lord says:
   Rise, plead your case before the mountains,
   and let the hills hear your voice.
Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord,
   and you enduring foundations of the earth;
for the Lord has a controversy with his people,
   and he will contend with Israel.
‘O my people, what have I done to you?
   In what have I wearied you? Answer me!
For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
   and redeemed you from the house of slavery;
and I sent before you Moses,
   Aaron, and Miriam.
‘With what shall I come before the Lord,
   and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,
   with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
   with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
   the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
   and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
   and to walk humbly with your God?

What does the Lord require of me? To do justice. What is my reaction to injustice in the world around me?  Who are the people calling out for justice right now?   

To love kindness. Think back over the last couple of weeks to when someone showed kindness to you.  How did that action, or those words, make you feel?  

To walk humbly.  Can you think of someone you know who is humble?  What is it about them that makes them humble?  How could we put it another way?  Are they unassuming or unpretentious, perhaps, or simply genuine?    

As you hear the passage again listen out for what God is asking from us, and just as importantly, what He is not at all interested in.  

Talk to God about what you have heard today.  What might God be challenging you to do, or say, or change in your way of thinking?   

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.