Ezra Was Wrong--Nov. 10, 2019

Your precepts are right,

O God, rejoicing the heart.

Jesus taught that we should affiliate

with people very different from ourselves—

the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.

And Jesus also taught that divorce was wrong.

Paul’s accusers were wrong in bringing him to trial,

and surely Ezra was wrong to insist that all marriages

to foreign wives had to be dissolved, a precept

that brought no joy to any heart.

Lectionary Readings

Ps. 19; 150; 81; 113

Ezra 10:1-17

Acts 24:10-21

Luke 14:12-24

Selected Verses

Ps. 19:8a

…the precepts of the LORD are right,
          rejoicing the heart…

Ezra 10:10-11

Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have trespassed and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of Israel.  Now make confession to the LORD the God of your ancestors, and do his will; separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.” 

Acts 24: 21

“…unless it was this one sentence that I called out while standing before them, ‘It is about the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you today.’”  [Paul, before the governor]

Luke 14:12-13

[Jesus] said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.  But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  …”