How Far Your Wonders Are Known--Aug. 2, 2019

[From July 31, 2009 archive]

Are your wonders known to us when we have

passed into the darkness and forgetfulness of death?

Are the dead excluded from your house, as David

in his sarcasm excluded the blind and lame?

The wonders that Jesus performed did not escape notice,

not even the notice of foreigners, and you denied your love

neither to a poor Gentile woman nor to Greeks of high standing.

Why should we place limits on how far your wonders are known?

Lectionary Readings

Ps. 88; 148; 6; 20

2 Sam. 5:1-12

Acts 17:1-15

Mark 7:24-37

Selected Verses

Ps. 88:12

Are your wonders known in the darkness,

            or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?

2 Sam. 5:8

David had said on that day, “Whoever wishes to strike down the Jebusites, let him get up the water shaft to attack the lame and the blind, those whom David hates.”  Therefore it is said, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.”

Acts 17:1-15

Many of [the Jews in Beroea] therefore believed, including not a few Greek women and men of high standing.

Mark 7:24b-26a

[Jesus] entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there.  Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.  Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin.