As We Delight in Your Great Goodness--Nov. 23, 2017

[From Nov. 21, 2013 archive]

You have relieved our shoulder of the burden,

O God, and freed our hands from the basket.

We eat and are filled and become fat;

we delight in your great goodness.

Lest we become too self-satisfied,

remind us that we will not enter

your kingdom unless we change

and become like little children.

Remind us too, your goodness

is meant not only for us; it is

for the healing of the nations.

Lectionary Readings

Ps. 143; 147:12-20; 81; 116

Neh. 9:1-25

Rev. 21:22-22:5

Matt. 18:1-9

Selected Verses

Ps. 81:6

 "I relieved your shoulder of the burden;
          your hands were freed from the basket.  …"

[A voice 'I had not known']

Neh. 9:25b

"…so [our ancestors who possessed the land] ate, and were filled and became fat, and delighted themselves in your great goodness."  [Ezra's prayer in front of the assembled people of Israel]

Rev. 22:2b

On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Matt. 18:2-3

[Jesus] called a child, whom he put among them, and said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  …"  [Jesus to his disciples]