Open-ended,
Life-centred,
Gospel-Focused Explorations of the Hebrew Bible
Eucharistic Readings from the Australian Prayer Book.
Deuteronomy 26:1-11... 1st S. in Lent, Year C .... (For LK 4:1-15
scroll on site.)
NOTES: 1]Always read the Hebrew Bible in the light
of our Christian understanding of God revealed in Jesus in the New
Testament.2] Deuteronomy (Gk for 'second law')
centres on preaching 'the old cultic & legal traditions relevant
for their time' [von Rad, DEUT, p.23]. Referred to in 2KINGS 22:8,
& 23:24-5 (622BC) it may have reached the form in which we know it
in Exile in 6th C. Babylon. It was probably the book Ezra read to the
people (NEH 8). 3] Here we're
dealing with instructions for celebrating the end of the long Exodus
from Egypt & settling into the Promised Land.
WARMING UP: Do we have a
preferred version of the Scriptures?
TREASURES OLD & NEW:
Identify God at work in anything this week?
ENTERING INTO THE STORY:
1-4 Do we normally consider
our possession of wherever we live an inheritance from God, from our
forbears, or by dint of our own labours? Would seeing it as a
possession from God alter the way we live in & on the land? What
about others who may have been dispossessed in the process of
making the land ours? Do we take adequate account of that,
make adequate provision for those dispossessed? Is it only land people
become dispossessed of? Is there a connection between offering
the 'firstfruits', 'saying grace', 'harvest festivals', & other
similar practices we can identify? Whether or not we keep 'harvest
festival' in our church, might it be useful to devise some simple
ceremony to offer the firstfruits from our own garden crops formally to
God before we eat them or give them away?
4-10 Do we have any understanding, like the
Hebrews are instructed to have here, of where we've reached now having been
secured through struggle? Is this where the
so-called 'protestant work ethic' stems from? Do we see connections
between our story & those of our personal & national forbears,
or are we too central to our own picture? If we can`t see such
connections, can we make any real response to God as the Hebrews are
instructed to do here? Do we really need instructions to be able to
respond to God, or is there ample evidence that we do indeed?! Are we
aware of God ever 'bringing us out' from anywhere, anyone, or anything
'with an outsretched hand & a mighty arm, with terrifying power
& signs & wonders'? Or doesn't that sit too well with the way
we see things today? If so, is that in itself evidence that it's time
for an urgent return to God's way of seeing things? Do we find it
easier to respond to God when our land is 'flowing with milk &
honey' or when the going's hard & times are tough?
11
How inclusive is our celebrating of God's bounty, God's grace? If we
were to take what's said here seriously, might this be a better recipe
for multi-cultural, multi-faith relations than the flawed recipes we
invent for ourselves, governments invent for us, or not even bothering
about them?
What connections can we see between
Jesus' testing in the wilderness, the positive outcome by God's grace,
& the message he lives out?
