What Are We Doing Here?--Sept. 15, 2019

You ask us, O God, what we are doing.

We do not know how to answer.

Not that we haven’t given the matter thought—

indeed we have considered it carefully,

but we are in distress about it.

How foolish we are.

If we call, you

answer.

Lectionary Readings

Ps.19; 150; 81; 113

1 Kings 19:8-21

Acts 5:34-42

John 11:45-57

Selected Verses

Ps. 81:5b-7a

 I hear a voice I had not known:
^“I relieved your shoulder of the burden;
          your hands were freed from the basket.
In distress you called, and I rescued you…”

1 Kings 19:13b

Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

Acts 5:35

Then [Gamaliel] said to [the council], “Fellow Israelites, consider carefully what you propose to do to these men.  …”

John 11:47-48

So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, “What are we to do?  This man is performing many signs.  If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.”