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WE PRAY

Father in heaven, who sent your Son to redeem the world and will send him again to be our judge:
Give us grace so to imitate him in the humility and purity of his first coming that when he comes again, we may be ready to greet him with joyful love and firm faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

WE READ

Based on today ’s readings, religious hypocrisy is a temptation as old as the world. As we noted yesterday, talk is cheap, especially when it comes to matters of faith. It is far too easy to hide what ’s in the heart. As you read today ’s texts, be on the lookout for the hypocritical actions of God ’s people. In the Matthew, Amos, and Revelation texts, it should be easy to spot. Place yourself in each text and ask whether you have behaved similarly. Psalm 38 stands out in contrast to the other texts, as it is a heart-wrenching prayer for salvation that acknowledges the psalmist ’s sins. Here, too, you might place yourself in the text. If you’ve had occasion to utter a prayer like Psalm 38, reflect on that experience and its aftermath.
While hypocrisy is a central theme in today’s texts, so is God’s all-knowing presence. What is easily hidden from others is plainly seen by God. The previous statement isn’t an attempt to scare you, as if to say that God is always watching, waiting, and ready to smite us for our mistakes and hypocrisy. Instead, we are laid open before God with an invitation to humble repentance. Keeping up the pretence of religious dogoodism is exhausting. Today is an invitation to find peace, rest, and grace in the arms of God.

Psalm 38

1 Please, Lord, don’t punish me,
when you are mad;
don’t discipline me
when you are furious.
2 Your arrows have pierced me;
your fist has come down hard on me.
3 There ’s nothing in my body
that isn’t broken
because of your rage;
there’s no health in my bones
because of my sin.
4 My wrongdoings are
stacked higher than my head;
they are a weight
that ’s way too heavy for me.
5 My wounds reek; they are all infected
because of my stupidity.
6 I am hunched over, completely down;
I wander around all day long, sad.
7 My insides are burning up;
there’s nothing in my body
that isn’t broken.
8 I ’m worn out, completely crushed;
I groan because of my miserable heart.
9 Everything I long for
is laid out before you, my Lord;
my sighs aren’t hidden from you.
10 My heart pounds;
my strength abandons me.
Even the light of my eyes is gone.
11 My loved ones and friends
keep their distance
from me in my sickness;
those who were near me
now stay far away.
12 Those who want me dead lay traps;
those who want me harmed utter threats,
muttering lies all day long.
13 But I ’m like someone who is deaf,
who can’t hear;
like someone who can’t speak,
whose mouth won’t open.
14 I’ve become like a person
who doesn’t hear what is being said,
whose mouth has no good comeback.
15 But I wait for you, Lord!
You will answer, my Lord, my God!
16 Because I prayed:
“Don’t let them celebrate over me
or exalt themselves over me
when my foot slips,”
17 because I ’m very close to falling,
and my pain is always with me.
18 Yes, I confess my wrongdoing;
I’m worried about my sin.
19 But my mortal enemies are so strong;
those who hate me for no reason
seem countless.
20 Those who give, repay good with evil;
they oppose me for pursuing good.
21 Don’t leave me all alone, Lord!
Please, my God, don’t be far from me!
22 Come quickly and help me,
my Lord, my salvation!

Amos 8:1–14

This is what the Lord God showed me: a basket of summer fruit. 2 He said, “Amos, what do you see?”
I said, “A basket of summer fruit.”
Then the Lord said to me,
“The end has come upon my people Israel;
I will never again forgive them.
3 On that day, the people
will wail the temple songs,”
says the Lord God;
“there will be many corpses,
thrown about everywhere.
Silence.”
4 Hear this, you who trample
on the needy and destroy
the poor of the land, 5 saying,
“When will the new moon
be over so that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath
so that we may offer wheat for sale,
make the ephah smaller,
enlarge the shekel,
and deceive with false balances,
6 in order to buy the needy for silver
and the helpless for sandals,
and sell garbage as grain?”
7 The Lord has sworn
by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget
what they have done.
8 Will not the land tremble on this account,
and all who live in it mourn,
as it rises and overflows like the Nile,
and then falls again,
like the River of Egypt?
9 On that day, says the Lord God,
I will make the sun go down at noon,
and I will darken the earth
in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your feasts into sad affairs
and all your singing into a funeral song;
I will make people
wear mourning clothes
and shave their heads;
I will make it like the loss
of an only child,
and the end of it like a bitter day.
11 The days are surely coming,
says the Lord God,
when I will send hunger and thirst
on the land;
neither a hunger for bread,
nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the Lord’s words.
12 They will wander from sea to sea,
and from north to east;
they will roam all around,
seeking the Lord ’s word,
but they won’t find it.
13 On that day the beautiful young women
and the young men
will faint with thirst.
14 Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria,
and say, “As your god lives, Dan,”
and, “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”—
even they will fall
and never rise again.

Revelation 1:17–2:7

17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. But he put his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid. I ’m the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I was dead, but look! Now I’m alive forever and always. I have the keys of Death and the Grave. 19 So write down what you have seen, both the scene now before you and the things that are about to unfold after this.
20 As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven gold lampstands, here is what they mean: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
2 “Write this to the angel of the church in Ephesus:
These are the words of the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven gold lampstands: 2 I know your works, your labor, and your endurance. I also know that you don’t put up with those who are evil. You have tested those who say they are apostles but are not, and you have found them to be liars. 3 You have shown endurance and put up with a lot for my name ’s sake, and you haven’t gotten tired. 4 But I have this against you: you have let go of the love you had at first. 5 So remember the high point from which you have fallen. Change your hearts and lives and do the things you did at first. If you don’t, I ’m coming to you. I will move your lampstand from its place if you don’t change your hearts and lives. 6 But you have this in your favor: you hate what the Nicolaitans are doing, which I also hate. 7 If you can hear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. I will allow those who emerge victorious to eat from the tree of life, which is in God ’s paradise.

Matthew 23:1–12

Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and his disciples, 2 “The legal experts and the Pharisees sit on Moses ’seat. 3 Therefore, you must take care to do everything they say. But don’t do what they do. 4 For they tie together heavy packs that are impossible to carry. They put them on the shoulders of others, but are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5 Everything they do, they do to be noticed by others. They make extra-wide prayer bands for their arms and long tassels for their clothes. 6 They love to sit in places of honor at banquets and in the synagogues. 7 They love to be greeted with honor in the markets and to be addressed as ‘Rabbi. ’
8 “But you shouldn’t be called Rabbi, because you have one teacher, and all of you are brothers and sisters. 9 Don’t call anybody on earth your father, because you have one Father, who is heavenly. 10 Don’t be called teacher, because Christ is your one teacher. 11 But the one who is greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who lift themselves up will be brought low. But all who make themselves low will be lifted up.

WE THINK

  • What stands out to you from today’s reading?
  • Are you confused or stumped by what you’ve read?
  • Is there anything you encountered that makes you think, “I don’t know about that…”?
  • What resonated with you as particularly meaningful?
  • What has typically been your response to someone who is plainly hypocritical (religious or otherwise)?
  • What areas in your life might someone else accuse you of being hypocritical? How would you handle being accused of hypocrisy in your own life?

WE FEEL

  • In general, what emotions seem to be dominant at this moment?
  • How have those emotions affected the relationships you have with those around you?
  • What are you doing, or have you done, to submit those emotions to the Lordship of Jesus Christ?
  • If you’ve ever felt like the psalmist in Psalm 38, spend some time reflecting on those feelings and your response to the situation.
  • What does laying bare your sinfulness before God feel like for you?

WE BELIEVE

A tenet of the Christian faith is God ’s all-knowing presence. Growing up, I struggled with the implications of God seeing and knowing all I had done. It’s not that I have loads of salacious bits to hide; it ’s just that my fear of judgment and its accompanying shame were too much to handle. It wasn’t until I began to develop a fuller picture of God ’s character that I was able to purposefully lay open my soul before God. The gracious and loving nature of Israel ’s God is something that the psalmist knew, and it allowed him to expose his hurt, feelings, and guilt before God so that forgiveness and salvation might be found.
Instead of God’s all-knowing presence being something to be feared, it is an invitation to surrender, leading to an abundant life. Today’s readings make it plain that hiding who we are and what we’ve done only brings about judgment and our demise, but there is freedom in surrender.

WE PRACTICE

Throughout your waking day, every hour, recite the following prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” When possible, contemplate your behavior over the last hour, confessing what you should not have done and what you should have done.

PRAYER

Oh God, we lay bare our souls before you today. There are no secrets from you, so grant us the eyes to see what we might try to hide from you and the strength to confess and repent of those things so that we might walk in newness of life with you. Amen.