Reflecting on the Tenth
Sunday after Pentecost

Year C

Prayer

Psalm 74

Rise up, O God, plead your cause

 

O God, why do you cast us off forever?

Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?

Remember your congregation, which you acquired long ago,

which you redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage.

Remember Mount Zion, where you came to dwell.

Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;

the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary.

Your foes have roared within your holy place;

they set up their emblems there.

At the upper entrance they hacked

the wooden trellis with axes.

And then, with hatchets and hammers,

they smashed all its carved work.

They set your sanctuary on fire;

they desecrated the dwelling place of your name,

bringing it to the ground.

They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”;

they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.

We do not see our emblems;

there is no longer any prophet,

and there is no one among us who knows how long.

How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?

Is the enemy to revile your name forever?

Why do you hold back your hand;

why do you keep your hand in your bosom?

Yet God my King is from of old,

working salvation in the earth.

You divided the sea by your might;

you broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.

You crushed the heads of Leviathan;

you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.

You cut openings for springs and torrents;

you dried up ever-flowing streams.

Yours is the day, yours also the night;

you established the luminaries and the sun.

You have fixed all the bounds of the earth;

you made summer and winter.

Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs,

and an impious people reviles your name.

Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild animals;

do not forget the life of your poor forever.

Have regard for your covenant,

for the dark places of the land are full of the haunts of violence.

Do not let the downtrodden be put to shame;

let the poor and needy praise your name.

Rise up, O God, plead your cause;

remember how the impious scoff at you all day long.

Do not forget the clamor of your foes,

the uproar of your adversaries that goes up continually.

 

Isaiah 5:8-23

Song of a barren vineyard

 

Ah, you who join house to house,

who add field to field,

until there is room for no one but you,

and you are left to live alone

in the midst of the land!

The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing:

Surely many houses shall be desolate,

large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.

For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath,

and a homer of seed shall yield a mere ephah.

Ah, you who rise early in the morning

in pursuit of strong drink,

who linger in the evening

to be inflamed by wine,

whose feasts consist of lyre and harp,

tambourine and flute and wine,

but who do not regard the deeds of the Lord,

or see the work of his hands!

Therefore my people go into exile without knowledge;

their nobles are dying of hunger,

and their multitude is parched with thirst.

Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite

and opened its mouth beyond measure;

the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitude go down,

her throng and all who exult in her.

People are bowed down, everyone is brought low,

and the eyes of the haughty are humbled.

But the Lord of hosts is exalted by justice,

and the Holy God shows himself holy by righteousness.

Then the lambs shall graze as in their pasture,

fatlings and kids shall feed among the ruins.

Ah, you who drag iniquity along with cords of falsehood,

who drag sin along as with cart ropes,

who say, “Let him make haste,

let him speed his work

that we may see it;

let the plan of the Holy One of Israel hasten to fulfillment,

that we may know it!”

Ah, you who call evil good

and good evil,

who put darkness for light

and light for darkness,

who put bitter for sweet

and sweet for bitter!

Ah, you who are wise in your own eyes,

and shrewd in your own sight!

Ah, you who are heroes in drinking wine

and valiant at mixing drink,

who acquit the guilty for a bribe,

and deprive the innocent of their rights!

 

1 John 4:1-6

False prophets are in the world

 

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world. Little children, you are from God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.