October 22, 2007

I. Readings
Psalms 47, 57, 85
Jeremiah 44:1-14
1 Corinthians 15:30-41
Matthew 11:16-24

II. Selections
Psalm 57:4
I lie down among lions
that greedily devour human prey;
their teeth are spears and arrows,
their tongues sharp swords.

Jeremiah 44:10
They have shown no contrition or fear to this day, nor have they walked in my law and my statutes that I set before you and before your ancestors. [ The LORD, speaking through Jeremiah to the Judeans in Egypt]

1 Corinthians 15:37-38
And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.

Matthew 11:20
Then [ Jesus] began to reproach the cities in which most of his deeds of power had been done, because they did not repent.

III. Meditation: Among lions

We lie down among lions
whose teeth are spears and arrows,
whose tongues are sharp swords.
Sometimes we are lions ourselves,
and our teeth are spears and arrows,
our tongues are sharp swords.

And when we do not repent,
when we show no contrition,
when still we ignore your way,
we experience your reproach.
May your reproach cause us
to consider the seed we sow.

Make of the seed we sow
one body, as you choose,
appropriate to the seed;
protect us from lions;
and, if we are lions,
pull our teeth.