Frigidaire of the Soul

Spiritual Frididaire: What’s that horrible smell?

Week of Last Epiphany (BCP p. 950)

Tuesday	26, 28	v	36, 39
	Deut. 6:16-25	Heb. 2:1-10	John 1:19-28

Having done my early morning time on the treadmill, and remembering my assertion that the +Time blog is for my mental exercise, who cares that nobody is going to read all of this -- my nonsense is my term for it, though not the scriptural part, μὴ γένοιτο. In all the perturbation about the Pope stepping down, no one will notice me casting spells, so as for those who skip today’s post as too biblical, let them be anathema, eh? A pox upon them and may their pancakes have weevils.

For any who do not understand the sense of Shrove Tuesday, today’s Scripture might help, though Psalm 26 does bring to mind Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, the smug self-righteous at prayer and praise, oh my goodness.

Deuteronomy 6:16-25 (NRSV)

16 Do not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. 17 You must diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his decrees, and his statutes that he has commanded you. 18 Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may go in and occupy the good land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give you, 19 thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised.

20 When your children ask you in time to come, “What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that the Lord our God has commanded you?” 21 then you shall say to your children, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 The Lord displayed before our eyes great and awesome signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household. 23 He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land that he promised on oath to our ancestors. 24 Then the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our lasting good, so as to keep us alive, as is now the case. 25 If we diligently observe this entire commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, we will be in the right.”

Psalm 26

Vindicate me, O Lord,
for I have walked in my integrity,
and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.

Prove me, O Lord, and try me;
test my heart and mind.

For your steadfast love is before my eyes,
and I walk in faithfulness to you.

I do not sit with the worthless,
nor do I consort with hypocrites;

I hate the company of evildoers,
and will not sit with the wicked.

I wash my hands in innocence,
and go around your altar, O Lord,

singing aloud a song of thanksgiving,
and telling all your wondrous deeds.

O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell,
and the place where your glory abides.

Do not sweep me away with sinners,
nor my life with the bloodthirsty,

those in whose hands are evil devices,
and whose right hands are full of bribes.

But as for me, I walk in my integrity;
redeem me, and be gracious to me.

My foot stands on level ground;
in the great congregation I will bless the Lord.

Hebrews 2:1-10

2 ... we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. 2 For if the message declared through angels was valid, and every transgression or disobedience received a just penalty, 3 how can we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? It was declared at first through the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, 4 while God added his testimony by signs and wonders and various miracles, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, distributed according to his will.

5 Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. 6 But someone has testified somewhere,

“What are human beings that you are mindful of them,
or mortals, that you care for them?

You have made them for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned them with glory and honor,

subjecting all things under their feet.”

Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, 9 but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

10 It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

Someone has testified somewhere? It’s Psalm 8 and Psalm 144, Nutbrain, check your concordance. Or go online and Google it. Actually what verse 6a says is “one in a certain place did testify fully, saying” (YLT), a better translation that doesn’t leave the Hebrews author looking half-informed.

Whatever. The sense of today is that we are to clean out the refrigerator of our soul and start humming Psalm 51.

TW+