• Isaiah 49:14-15
• Psalm 62: 2-3, 6-9
• 1 Corinthians 4:1-5
• Matthew 6:24-34

From time to time, all of us have doubtless felt utterly abandoned by God. Next Sunday’s readings may speak to you next time you find yourself in that alarming plight. The first reading is probably addressed to those Israelites who found themselves, first exiled to Babylon and then, equally uncomfortably, invited to return across a thousand miles of desert to Jerusalem. These are the ones who are claiming that “the Lord has forsaken me; the Lord has forgotten me”. To them the poet-prophet uses an audacious image, that of God as Mother, and “even if a mother could forget the child of her womb”, says God, “I will never forget you”.

• Ecclesiasticus 15:15-20
• Psalm 119:1-2, 4-5, 17-18, 33-34
• 1 Corinthians 2:6-10
• Matthew 5:17-37

There is a danger that we may be rather grudging in our attitudes to “Law”. Unless we are careful, we can find ourselves regarding it as an imposition, a burden that we have to shoulder, like those who keep the speed limit only because there is a camera waiting to catch us. The readings for next Sunday show quite a different attitude on the part of God’s people.

Zephaniah 2:3; 3:12-13

Psalm 146:6-10

1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Matthew 5:1-12

One of the things that we human beings can find ourselves getting up to, repeatedly, is thinking that we know all about God. If we did, then it wouldn’t be God; but the temptation is a real one, because we long for the power that sort of knowledge brings. And each of next Sunday’s readings carries a Health Warning against this temptation.