BCP Daily Office Lectionary for Oct. 11, 2004

  Source: http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/index.htm

Morning Psalm(s): AM Psalm 1, 2, 3

Evening Psalm(s) PM Psalm 4, 7

Old Testament: Micah 7:1-7

Epistle: Acts 26:1-23

Gospel Luke 8:26-39

Micah describes a situation in which human community has broken down at every level, for lack of trust. They "all lie in wait for blood,/and they hunt each other with nets" (Micah 7:2). The leaders are totally corrupt, "the official and the judge ask for a bribe,/and the powerful dictate what they desire" (v. 3). You cannot trust even friends or family (vv. 5-6). The prophet's one consolation is in looking to the LORD. "I will wait for the God of my salvation;/my God will hear me" (v. 7). You and I probably haven't faced situations where trust has broken down between persons at every level and human community seems ruptured beyond repair, but we may be called upon to minster to some who feel that way. It may be we who must represent God to them, the God who is the key to hope.

Paul speaks to defend himself before Festus and Agrippa. He claims to have "lived as a Pharisee" [the strictest sect of the Jews] (Acts 26:5), and to be on trial for preaching "hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors . . . that God raises the dead" (vv. 6, 8). He tells the story of his zealous persecution of Christians, until his Damascus road experience (Acts 9:1-19), when the Lord Jesus spoke to him and called him "to open their [i.e. the Gentiles'] eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me" (Acts 26:18). He adds a brief summary of his missionary work up to the time when "the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me" (v. 21). The responses of Festus and Agrippa to Paul's speech come in Tuesday's reading.

Luke reports Jesus' healing of the Gerasene demoniac, and his account is very similar to Mark's (Lk. 8:26-39; cf. Mk. 5:1-20). Matthew's account (Mt. 8:28-34) has similar details but also differences of place (Gadara, not Gerasa) and number (two demoniacs). Some see these as accounts of two different events, others of varying accounts of the same event. But it is important to note that few scholars now try to explain the events away in the manner of the eighteenth and nineteenth century rationalists. Even a rather critical "Jesus scholar" such as Marcus Borg, speaking of exorcisms and healings in general, says "Behind this picture of Jesus as a healer and exorcist, I affirm a historical core," and in that he claims to be "in common with the majority of contemporary scholars" (The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, p. 66). For Borg, this is extraordinary, but not the result of supernatural intervention in the course of nature. But for many of us, though we cannot explain the details, we see these accounts as signs of the power of God that "was reconciling the world to himself" (2 Cor. 5:19.

Ronald D. Worden, Ph.D.