Today's Readings and Stuff-- Thursday 18 February 2021

yeah, I know it's late.

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Leviticus 26, 27

LEVITICUS 26

Covenant Blessings and Discipline

1“Do not make idols for yourselves,  set up a carved image or sacred pillar for yourselves, or place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am Yahweh your God. 2You must keep My Sabbaths and revere My sanctuary;  I am Yahweh.

3“If you follow My statutes and faithfully observe My commands, 4I will give you rain at the right time, and the land will yield its produce, and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. 5Your threshing will continue until grape harvest, and the grape harvest will continue until sowing time; you will have plenty of food to eat and live securely in your land.  6I will give peace to the land, and you will lie down with nothing to frighten you. I will remove dangerous animals from the land, and no sword will pass through your land.  7You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before you by the sword. 8Five of you will pursue 100, and 100 of you will pursue 10,000; your enemies will fall before you by the sword. 

9“I will turn to you, make you fruitful and multiply you, and confirm My covenant with you. 10You will eat the old grain of the previous year and will clear out the old to make room for the new. 11I will place My residence  among you, and I will not reject you.  12I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be My people.  13I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, so that you would no longer be their slaves. I broke the bars of your yoke  and enabled you to live in freedom. 

14“But if you do not obey Me and observe all these commands — 15if you reject My statutes and despise My ordinances, and do not observe all My commands — and break My covenant, 16then I will do this to you: I will bring terror  on you — wasting disease and fever that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away. You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it. 17I will turn  against you, so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even though no one is pursuing you. 

18“But if after these things you will not obey Me, I will proceed to discipline you seven times for your sins.  19I will break down your strong pride. I will make your sky like iron and your land like bronze, 20and your strength will be used up for nothing.  Your land will not yield its produce, and the trees of the land will not bear their fruit.

21“If you act with hostility toward Me and are unwilling to obey Me, I will multiply your plagues seven times for your sins.  22I will send wild animals against you that will deprive you of your children, ravage your livestock, and reduce your numbers until your roads are deserted. 

23“If in spite of these things you do not accept My discipline, but act with hostility toward Me, 24then I will act with hostility toward you; I also will strike you seven times for your sins. 25I will bring a sword against you  to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a pestilence among you, and you will be delivered into enemy hands. 26When I cut off your supply of bread, 10 women will bake your bread in a single oven and ration out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied. 

27“And if in spite of this you do not obey Me but act with hostility toward Me, 28I will act with furious hostility toward you; I will also discipline you seven times for your sins. 29You will eat the flesh of your sons; you will eat the flesh of your daughters.  30I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your dead bodies on the lifeless bodies of your idols;  I will reject you. 31I will reduce your cities to ruins and devastate your sanctuaries. I will not smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices.  32I also will devastate the land, so that your enemies who come to live there will be appalled by it. 33But I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw a sword to chase after you. So your land will become desolate, and your cities will become ruins.

34“Then the land will make up for its Sabbath years during the time it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time the land will rest and make up for its Sabbaths. 35As long as it lies desolate, it will have the rest it did not have during your Sabbaths when you lived there.

36“I will put anxiety in the hearts of those of you who survive in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a wind-driven leaf will put them to flight, and they will flee as one flees from a sword, and fall though no one is pursuing them. 37They will stumble over one another as if fleeing from a sword though no one is pursuing them. You will not be able to stand against your enemies. 38You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you. 39Those  who survive in the lands of your enemies will waste away because of their sin; they will also waste away because of their fathers’ sins along with theirs.

40“But if they will confess their sin and the sin of their fathers — their unfaithfulness that they practiced against Me, and how they acted with hostility toward Me, 41and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies — and if their uncircumcised hearts will be humbled,  and if they will pay the penalty for their sin, 42then I will remember My covenant with Jacob. I will also remember My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43For the land abandoned by them will make up for its Sabbaths by lying desolate without the people, while they pay the penalty for their sin, because they rejected My ordinances and abhorred My statutes. 44Yet in spite of this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or abhor them so as to destroy them and break My covenant with them, since I am Yahweh their God.  45For their sake I will remember the covenant with their fathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God; I am Yahweh.”

46These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws the Lord established between Himself and the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.

LEVITICUS 27

Funding the Sanctuary

1The Lord spoke to Moses: 2“Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When someone makes a special vow  to the Lord that involves the assessment of people, 3if the assessment concerns a male from 20 to 60 years old, your assessment is 50 silver shekels  measured by the standard sanctuary shekel.  4If the person is a female, your assessment is 30 shekels.  5If the person is from five to 20 years old, your assessment for a male is 20 shekels  and for a female 10 shekels. 6If the person is from one month to five years old, your assessment for a male is five silver shekels,  and for a female your assessment is three shekels of silver. 7If the person is 60 years or more, your assessment is 15 shekels for a male and 10 shekels for a female. 8But if one is too poor to pay the assessment, he must present the person before the priest and the priest will set a value for him. The priest will set a value for him according to what the one making the vow can afford.

9“If the vow involves one of the animals that may be brought as an offering to the Lord, any of these he gives to the Lord will be holy. 10He may not replace it or make a substitution for it, either good for bad, or bad for good.  But if he does substitute one animal for another, both that animal and its substitute will be holy.

11“If the vow involves any of the unclean animals that may not be brought as an offering to the Lord, the animal must be presented before the priest. 12The priest will set its value, whether high or low; the price will be set as the priest makes the assessment for you. 13If the one who brought it decides to redeem it, he must add a fifth to the  assessed value. 

14“When a man consecrates his house as holy to the Lord, the priest will assess its value, whether high or low. The price will stand just as the priest assesses it. 15But if the one who consecrated his house redeems it, he must add a fifth to the  assessed value, and it will be his. 

16“If a man consecrates to the Lord any part of a field that he possesses, your assessment of value will be proportional to the seed needed to sow it, at the rate of 50 silver shekels for every five bushels  of barley seed.  17If he consecrates his field during the Year of Jubilee,  the price will stand according to your assessment. 18But if he consecrates his field after the Jubilee, the priest will calculate the price for him in proportion to the years left until the next Year of Jubilee, so that your assessment will be reduced. 19If the one who consecrated the field decides to redeem it, he must add a fifth to the  assessed value, and the field will transfer back to him. 20But if he does not redeem the field or if he has sold it to another man, it is no longer redeemable. 21When the field is released in the Jubilee, it will be holy to the Lord like a field permanently set apart; it becomes the priest’s property.

22“If a person consecrates to the Lord a field he has purchased that is not part of his inherited landholding, 23then the priest will calculate for him the amount of the  assessment up to the Year of Jubilee, and the person will pay the assessed value on that day as a holy offering to the Lord. 24In the Year of Jubilee the field will return to the one he bought it from,  the original owner. 25All your assessed values will be measured by the standard sanctuary shekel, 20 gerahs to the shekel. 

26“But no one can consecrate a firstborn of the livestock, whether an animal from the herd or flock, to the Lord, because a firstborn already belongs to the Lord.  27If it is one of the unclean livestock, it must be ransomed according to your assessment by adding a fifth of its value to it. If it is not redeemed, it can be sold according to your assessment. 

28“Nothing that a man permanently sets apart to the Lord from all he owns, whether a person, an animal, or his inherited landholding, can be sold or redeemed; everything set apart is especially holy to the Lord. 29No person who has been set apart for destruction is to be ransomed; he must be put to death. 

30“Every tenth of the land’s produce, grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord;  it is holy to the Lord. 31If a man decides to redeem any part of this tenth, he must add a fifth to its value. 32Every tenth animal from the herd or flock, which passes under the shepherd’s rod,  will be holy to the Lord. 33He is not to inspect whether it is good or bad, and he is not to make a substitution for it. But if he does make a substitution, both the animal and its substitute will be holy;  they cannot be redeemed.” 

34These are the commands the Lord gave Moses for the Israelites on Mount Sinai. 

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Mark 2

MARK 2

The Son of Man Forgives and Heals

1When  He entered Capernaum  again after some days, it was reported that He was at home. 2So many people gathered together that there was no more room, not even in the doorway, and He was speaking the message  to them. 3Then they came to Him bringing a paralytic,  carried by four men. 4Since they were not able to bring him to  Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above where He was. And when they had broken through, they lowered the mat on which the paralytic was lying.

5Seeing their faith,  Jesus told the paralytic, “Son, your sins  are forgiven.” 

6But some of the scribes  were sitting there, thinking  to themselves:  7“Why does He speak like this? He’s blaspheming!  Who can forgive  sins  but God alone? ” 

8Right away  Jesus understood in His spirit  that they were thinking like this within themselves and said to them, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?  9Which is easier:  to say to the paralytic,  ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your mat, and walk’?  10But so you may know that the Son of Man  has authority  on earth to forgive sins,”  He told the paralytic, 11“I tell you: get up,  pick up your mat, and go home.”

12Immediately he got up, picked up the mat, and went out in front of everyone. As a result, they were all astounded  and gave glory  to God,  saying, “We have never seen anything like this! ” 

The Call of Matthew

13Then  Jesus went out again beside the sea. The whole crowd was coming to Him, and He taught  them. 14Then, moving on, He saw Levi  the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office,  and He said to him, “Follow Me! ”  So he got up and followed  Him.

Dining with Sinners

15While He was reclining at the table in Levi’s house, many tax collectors  and sinners  were also guests   with Jesus and His disciples, because there were many who were following Him. 16When the scribes  of the Pharisees   saw that He was eating  with sinners  and tax collectors,  they asked His disciples, “Why does He eat  with tax collectors and sinners? ”

17When Jesus heard this, He told them, “Those who are well don’t need  a doctor,  but the sick  do need one. I didn’t come to call the righteous,  but sinners.” 

A Question about Fasting

18Now  John’s  disciples  and the Pharisees   were fasting.  People came and asked Him, “Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but Your disciples do not fast? ”

19Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests  cannot fast while the groom  is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they cannot fast. 20But the time  will come  when the groom is taken away from them,  and then they will fast  in that day. 21No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new patch pulls away from the old cloth,  and a worse tear is made. 22And no one puts new wine  into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst  the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the skins.  But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”

Lord of the Sabbath

23On  the Sabbath He was going through the grainfields, and His disciples  began to make their way picking some heads of grain. 24The Pharisees  said to Him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful  on the Sabbath? ”

25He said to them, “Have you never read what David  and those who were with him did when he was in need  and hungry  — 26how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar  the high priest  and ate the sacred bread  — which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests  — and also gave some to his companions? ” 27Then He told them, “The Sabbath was made for  man and not man for  the Sabbath.  28Therefore, the Son of Man  is Lord  even of the Sabbath.”

Today's Readings and Stuff -- Sunday, 21 February 2021

 Happy Sunday!  

Kind of a weird, out-of-cycle day.  Due to the really nasty ice storms this past week, ice that largely hasn't melted and is an inch or so thick in many places, the usual gathering for church services was converted into an on-line event today.  Doesn't help that ice melt salt etc. is simply not available, and lots of us have been looking.   So the decision was the correct one, but we meet that closeness.  We're supposed to be going into a warming/ less arctic period this coming week, or so the (frequently wrong) "experts" are prognosticating.  We shall see.  But it does kind of throw our weekly routines out of sync.  Not the worst problem, that, but its real.

We have this past week entered into the period we call "Lent".  This is the 40-day run up to Easter, which is of course closely tied to Passover.  We often lose track of that, unfortunately, but this period of time also has significance for the Jews, and certainly that was true during and before the appearance of Jesus.  It's an excellent thing to treat this period carefully and reverently and, yes, prayerfully.  

And it doesn't help that I got word last evening that one of my cousins'  fathers had passed over Friday night.  Ernest had long been the pastor at the church I grew up in, and he was awfully good to me even though I was one of those kids (including in high school) that all the teachers tried to avoid.  He planted seeds on some pretty stony ground, and I am grateful.  Very.  With all stuff attendant to the "Wuhan flu" that have been sitting on the land for more than a year now, arrangements are not yet public.  But then, my own brother passed in late December and we've not been allowed to have any memorial gathering, and there are many other cases.  So we shall see.

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Numbers 5, 6

NUMBERS 5

Isolation of the Unclean

1The Lord instructed Moses: 2“Command the Israelites to send away anyone from the camp who is afflicted with a skin disease,  anyone who has a bodily discharge,  or anyone who is defiled because of a corpse.  3You must send away both male or female; send them outside the camp, so that they will not defile their camps where I dwell among them.” 4The Israelites did this, sending them outside the camp. The Israelites did as the Lord instructed Moses.

Compensation for Wrongdoing

5The Lord spoke to Moses: 6“Tell the Israelites: When a man or woman commits any sin against another, that person acts unfaithfully toward the Lord  and is guilty.  7The person is to confess  the sin he has committed. He is to pay full compensation, add a fifth of its value to it, and give it to the individual he has wronged.  8But if that individual has no relative  to receive compensation,  the compensation goes to the Lord for the priest, along with the atonement ram by which the priest will make atonement for the guilty person.  9Every holy contribution the Israelites present to the priest will be his.  10Each one’s holy contribution is his to give; what each one gives to the priest will be his.”

The Jealousy Ritual

11The Lord spoke to Moses: 12“Speak to the Israelites and tell them: If any man’s wife goes astray, is unfaithful to him, 13and sleeps with another,  but it is concealed from her husband, and she is undetected, even though she has defiled herself, since there is no witness against her, and she wasn’t caught in the act; 14and if a feeling of jealousy  comes over the husband and he becomes jealous because of his wife who has defiled herself — or if a feeling of jealousy comes over him and he becomes jealous of her though she has not defiled herself — 15then the man is to bring his wife to the priest. He is also to bring an offering for her of two quarts  of barley flour. He is not to pour oil over it or put frankincense on it because it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering for remembrance that brings sin to mind.

16“The priest is to bring her forward and have her stand before the Lord. 17Then the priest is to take holy water in a clay bowl, and take some of the dust from the tabernacle floor and put it in the water. 18After the priest has the woman stand before the Lord, he is to let down her hair  and place in her hands the grain offering for remembrance, which is the grain offering of jealousy. The priest is to hold the bitter water that brings a curse. 19The priest will require the woman to take an oath and will say to her, ‘If no man has slept with you, if you have not gone astray and become defiled while under your husband’s authority, be unaffected by this bitter water that brings a curse. 20But if you have gone astray while under your husband’s authority, if you have defiled yourself and a man other than your husband has slept with you’ — 21at this point the priest must make the woman take the oath with the sworn curse, and he is to say to her — ‘May the Lord make you into an object of your people’s cursing and swearing when He makes your thigh  shrivel and your belly swell.  22May this water that brings a curse enter your stomach, causing your belly to swell and your thigh to shrivel.’

“And the woman must reply, ‘Amen, Amen.’

23“Then the priest is to write these curses on a scroll and wash them off into the bitter water. 24He will require the woman to drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and it will enter her and cause bitter suffering. 25The priest is to take the grain offering of jealousy from the woman’s hand, wave the offering before the Lord, and bring it to the altar. 26The priest is to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial portion  and burn it on the altar. Then he will require the woman to drink the water.

27“When he makes her drink the water, if she has defiled herself and been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings a curse will enter her and cause bitter suffering; her belly will swell, and her thigh will shrivel. She will become a curse among her people. 28But if the woman has not defiled herself and is pure, she will be unaffected and will be able to conceive children.

29“This is the law regarding jealousy when a wife goes astray and defiles herself while under her husband’s authority, 30or when a feeling of jealousy comes over a husband and he becomes jealous of his wife. He is to have the woman stand before the Lord, and the priest will apply this entire ritual to her. 31The husband will be free of guilt, but that woman will bear the consequences of her guilt.”

NUMBERS 6

The Nazirite Vow

1The Lord instructed Moses: 2“Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When a man or woman makes a special vow, a Nazirite vow,  to consecrate himself to  the Lord, 3he is to abstain  from wine and beer.  He must not drink vinegar made from wine or from beer. He must not drink any grape juice or eat fresh grapes or raisins. 4He is not to eat anything produced by the grapevine, from seeds to skin,  during his vow.

5“You must not cut his hair  throughout the time of his vow of consecration. He must be holy until the time is completed during which he consecrates himself to the Lord; he is to let the hair of his head grow long. 6He must not go near a dead body during the time he consecrates himself to the Lord.  7He is not to defile himself for his father or mother, or his brother or sister, when they die, because the hair consecrated to his God is on his head. 8He is holy to the Lord  during the time of consecration.

9“If someone suddenly dies near him, defiling his consecrated head of hair, he must shave his head on the day of his purification; he is to shave it on the seventh day.  10On the eighth day he is to bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting.  11The priest is to offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering  to make atonement on behalf of the Nazirite, since he sinned because of the corpse. On that day he must consecrate  his head again.  12He is to rededicate his time of consecration to the Lord and to bring a year-old male lamb as a restitution offering.  But do not count the previous period, because his consecrated hair became defiled.

13“This is the law of the Nazirite: On the day his time of consecration is completed, he must be brought to the entrance to the tent of meeting.  14He is to present an offering to the Lord  of one unblemished year-old male lamb as a burnt offering, one unblemished year-old female lamb as a sin offering, one unblemished ram as a fellowship offering,  15along with their grain offerings and drink offerings,  and a basket of unleavened cakes made from fine flour mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers coated with oil. 

16“The priest is to present these before the Lord and sacrifice the Nazirite’s sin offering and burnt offering. 17He will also offer the ram as a fellowship sacrifice to the Lord, together with the basket of unleavened bread. Then the priest will offer the accompanying grain offering and drink offering.

18“The Nazirite is to shave his consecrated head at the entrance to the tent of meeting, take the hair from his head, and put it on the fire under the fellowship sacrifice. 19The priest is to take the boiled shoulder from the ram, one unleavened cake from the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and put them into the hands  of the Nazirite after he has shaved his consecrated head. 20The priest is to wave them as a presentation offering before the Lord.  It is a holy portion for the priest, in addition to the breast of the presentation offering and the thigh of the contribution.  After that, the Nazirite may drink wine.

21“This is the ritual of the Nazirite who vows his offering to the Lord for his consecration,  in addition to whatever else he can afford; he must fulfill whatever vow he makes in keeping with the ritual for his consecration.”

The Priestly Blessing

22The Lord spoke to Moses: 23“Tell Aaron and his sons how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:

24May Yahweh bless you and protect you; 

25may Yahweh make His face shine on you

and be gracious to you; 

26may Yahweh look with favor on you 

and give you peace.  

27In this way they will pronounce My name over  the Israelites, and I will bless them.”

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Mark 4:1-20

MARK 4

The Parable of the Sower

1Again  He began to teach  by the sea, and a very large crowd gathered around Him. So He got into a boat on the sea and sat down, while the whole crowd was on the shore facing the sea. 2He taught them many things in parables,  and in His teaching  He said to them: 3“Listen! Consider the sower who went out to sow.  4As he sowed, this occurred: Some seed fell along the path,  and the birds came and ate  it up. 5Other seed fell on rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil, and it sprang up right away,  since it didn’t have deep soil. 6When the sun came up, it was scorched, and since it didn’t have a root, it withered.  7Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it didn’t produce a crop. 8Still others fell on good ground and produced a crop that increased  30, 60, and 100 times what was sown.”  9Then He said, “Anyone who has ears to hear should listen! ” 

Why Jesus Used Parables

10When He was alone with the Twelve,  those who were around Him asked Him about the parables.  11He answered them, “The secret  of the kingdom of God  has been given to you, but to those outside,  everything comes in parables 12so that

they may look and look,

yet not perceive;

they may listen and listen,

yet not understand; 

otherwise, they might turn back —

and be forgiven.”   

The Parable of the Sower Explained

13Then  He said to them: “Don’t you understand this parable?  How then will you understand any of the parables? 14The sower sows  the word.  15These  are the ones along the path  where the word is sown: when they hear, immediately Satan  comes and takes away the word  sown in them.  16And these are  the ones sown on rocky ground: when they hear the word, immediately they receive it with joy.  17But they have no root in themselves; they are short-lived. When pressure  or persecution comes because of the word, they immediately stumble.  18Others are sown among thorns; these are the ones who hear the word, 19but the worries  of this age,  the seduction   of wealth,  and the desires  for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.  20But the ones sown on good ground are those who hear the word,  welcome it, and produce a crop:  30, 60, and 100 times what was sown.”