"Be on your guard against all kinds of greed."
Monday musical meditations on God's good news
An opening prayer:
Lord, be my vision, supreme in my heart,
Bid every rival give way and depart:
You my best thought in the day or the night,
Waking or sleeping, your presence my light.
Lord, be my wisdom and be my true word,
I ever with you and you with me, Lord:
You my great Father and I your true child,
Once far away, but by grace reconciled.
Lord, be my breastplate, my sword for the fight:
Be my strong armor, for you are my might;
You are my shelter and you my high tower—
Raise me to heaven, O Power of my power.
I need no riches, nor earth’s empty praise:
You my inheritance through all my days:
All of your treasure to me you impart,
High King of heaven, the first in my heart.
High King of heaven, when battle is done,
Grant heaven’s joy to me, bright heaven’s Sun.
Christ of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all. Amen.
Luke 12:13–21
- Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
16And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
Good news questions
- Jesus was rich toward God in your place. He made himself poor to make you rich.
- How?
- What does that mean now? Forever?
For others pray
- That God spreads the good news of the kingdom of the Son he loves in Côte d'Ivoire
J.S. Bach's beautiful music for today
- BWV 94 (YouTube, "What do I ask for from the world?")
- In this cantata we have a talk with ourselves:
- Like the man in Jesus's parable who wanted to build bigger barns, we observe in the cantata that some people build splendid palaces.
- But can they last? No.
- Our Jesus is our wealth:
- True, lasting wealth.
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