Week of 2 Epiphany: Monday, Year 2

Above:  A Flock of Sheep

This is Bad!?!

JANUARY 15, 2024

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Holy Women, Holy Men:  Celebrating the Saints (2010), of The Episcopal Church, contains an adapted two-years weekday lectionary for the Epiphany and Ordinary Time seasons from the Anglican Church of Canada.  I invite you to follow it with me.

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1 Samuel 15:16-23 (Revised Standard Version–Second Catholic Edition):

Then Samuel said to Saul,

Stop!  I will tell you what the LORD said to me this night.

And he said to him,

Say on.

And Samuel said,

Though you are little in your own eyes, are yo not the head of the tribes of Israel?  The LORD sent you on a mission, and said,

“Go, utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.”  Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD?  Why did you swoop on the spoil, and do what was evil in the sight of the LORD?

And Saul said to Samuel,

I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, I have gone on the mission on which the LORD sent me, I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.  But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal.

And Samuel said,

Has not the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,

as in obeying the voice of the LORD?

Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,

and to listen than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is as the sin of divination,

and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.

Because you have rejected the word of the LORD,

he has also rejected you from being king.

Psalm 50:7-15, 24 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):

7 Hear, O my people, and I will speak:

“O Israel, I will bear witness against you;

for I am God, your God.

8 I do not accuse you because of your sacrifices;

your offerings are always before me.

9 I will take no bull-calf from your stalls,

nor he-goats out of your pens;

10 For all the beasts of the forest are mine,

the herds in their thousands upon the hills.

11 I know every bird in the sky,

and the creatures of the fields are in my sight.

12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you,

for the whole world is mine and all that are in it.

13 Do you think I eat the flesh of bulls,

or drink the blood of goats?

14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving

and make good your vows to the Most High.

15 Call upon me in the day of trouble;

I will deliver you, and you shall honor me.”

24 Whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me;

but to those who keep in my way will I show the salvation of God.”

Mark 2:18-22 (Revised Standard Version–Second Catholic Edition):

Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him,

Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?

And Jesus said to them,

Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?  As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast.  The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.  No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; if he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.  And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but new wine is for fresh skins.

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The Collect:

Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever.Amen.

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Some Related Posts:

Week of 2 Epiphany:  Monday, Year 1:

https://adventchristmasepiphany.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/week-of-2-epiphany-monday-year-1/

Matthew 9 (Parallel to Mark 2):

http://ordinarytimedevotions.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/week-of-proper-8-saturday-year-1/

http://ordinarytimedevotions.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/week-of-proper-17-friday-year-1/

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The Amalekites were traditional enemies of the Hebrews.  Saul led his military forces against them and captured the king and spared his life, but killed civilians, including women and young children.  This did not offend Samuel.  No, the fact that Saul’s forces kept the best livestock for themselves, and therefore did not consecrate these first fruits of victory to God, annoyed Samuel.

The Old Testament contains bloody stories of what I can describe only as genocide and wholesale slaughter.  The authors of these narratives think that God condoned this killing.  But I have just one question:

Which population would Jesus order killed?

KRT

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