Reflecting on the Second
Sunday after Pentecost

Year C

Prayer

Psalm 135

Idols do not speak or hear

 

Praise the Lord!

Praise the name of the Lord;

give praise, O servants of the Lord,

you that stand in the house of the Lord,

in the courts of the house of our God.

Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good;

sing to his name, for he is gracious.

For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself,

Israel as his own possession.

For I know that the Lord is great;

our Lord is above all gods.

Whatever the Lord pleases he does,

in heaven and on earth,

in the seas and all deeps.

He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth;

he makes lightnings for the rain

and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

He it was who struck down the firstborn of Egypt,

both human beings and animals;

he sent signs and wonders

into your midst, O Egypt,

against Pharaoh and all his servants.

He struck down many nations

and killed mighty kings—

Sihon, king of the Amorites,

and Og, king of Bashan,

and all the kingdoms of Canaan—

and gave their land as a heritage,

a heritage to his people Israel.

Your name, O Lord, endures forever,

your renown, O Lord, throughout all ages.

For the Lord will vindicate his people,

and have compassion on his servants.

The idols of the nations are silver and gold,

the work of human hands.

They have mouths, but they do not speak;

they have eyes, but they do not see;

they have ears, but they do not hear,

and there is no breath in their mouths.

Those who make them

and all who trust them

shall become like them.

O house of Israel, bless the Lord!

O house of Aaron, bless the Lord!

O house of Levi, bless the Lord!

You that fear the Lord, bless the Lord!

Blessed be the Lord from Zion,

he who resides in Jerusalem.

Praise the Lord!

 

Ezekiel 8:1-18

Idols in the temple, violence in the land

 

In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house, with the elders of Judah sitting before me, the hand of the Lord God fell upon me there. I looked, and there was a figure that looked like a human being; below what appeared to be its loins it was fire, and above the loins it was like the appearance of brightness, like gleaming amber. It stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the gateway of the inner court that faces north, to the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy. And the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I had seen in the valley.

 

Then God said to me, “O mortal, lift up your eyes now in the direction of the north.” So I lifted up my eyes toward the north, and there, north of the altar gate, in the entrance, was this image of jealousy. He said to me, “Mortal, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? Yet you will see still greater abominations.”

 

And he brought me to the entrance of the court; I looked, and there was a hole in the wall. Then he said to me, “Mortal, dig through the wall”; and when I dug through the wall, there was an entrance. He said to me, “Go in, and see the vile abominations that they are committing here.” So I went in and looked; there, portrayed on the wall all around, were all kinds of creeping things, and loathsome animals, and all the idols of the house of Israel. Before them stood seventy of the elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had his censer in his hand, and the fragrant cloud of incense was ascending. Then he said to me, “Mortal, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in his room of images? For they say, ‘The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land.’” He said also to me, “You will see still greater abominations that they are committing.”

 

Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the house of the Lord; women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O mortal? You will see still greater abominations than these.”

 

And he brought me into the inner court of the house of the Lord; there, at the entrance of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men, with their backs to the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east, prostrating themselves to the sun toward the east. Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, O mortal? Is it not bad enough that the house of Judah commits the abominations done here? Must they fill the land with violence, and provoke my anger still further? See, they are putting the branch to their nose! Therefore I will act in wrath; my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity; and though they cry in my hearing with a loud voice, I will not listen to them.”

 

Acts 8:26-40

The gospel is shared with an Ethiopian

 

Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:

 

“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,

and like a lamb silent before its shearer,

so he does not open his mouth.

In his humiliation justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation?

For his life is taken away from the earth.”

 

The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.