Thoughts for Monday 4th May, 2020

Psalm 100; Ezekiel 34:17-23; 1 Peter 5:1-5

 Monday 4 May - Rev. Jerry Eve

 Our psalm today must be my second favourite in ‘The Scottish Psalter’ of 1929. This was a significant date in Scottish Church history, as it was then that the United Free Church of Scotland and the Church of Scotland merged. Although there was to be a further merger in 1956 of the Original Secession Church and the Church of Scotland, the OSC’s origins had been in a schism that had taken place in 1822. 1929 was a far more significant event because, after 86 years, it by and large reversed the Disruption that had taken place in 1843 when in May of that year one third of the commissioners at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland left to found the Free Church of Scotland.

 This psalm emphasises that, whatever our divisions, splits and schisms, the Christian faith is for ‘all people’.

 Turning now to a consideration of our passage from Ezekiel, verse 18 reminds me of something once said by the American economist, Mancur Olson (1932 – 1998). He wrote a book in 1965 called, ‘The Logic of Collective Action’, in which he explained that we have a problem when the benefits of an activity are enjoyed by everyone while the costs are borne only by some.

 What he meant by this was that it’s little use, for example, for some countries to ‘go green’ while others continue to 'trample down what they don’t eat and muddy what they don’t drink.' The same, of course, is true of this pandemic. It’s little use some countries doing all they can to prevent COVID-19 unless every country does.

 Christians believe that Ezekiel 34:23, along with a great many other passages in the Old Testament, is prophetic of Christ; who Peter, in our New Testament reading, refers to as the Chief Shepherd. This appeal to those of us who are elders to be shepherds of the flock, though, is one we do need to be wary of. In the 1970s and early 1980s a so-called shepherding movement emerged from within some charismatic churches leading to controversial abuses of power at that time. The shepherds I think we all need to be are of our own self as sheep.

 For our prayer, today, on ‘May the Fourth’, I came across a Jedi website with a quotation from 2 Corinthians, as well as this from the native American, Black Elk (1863 – 1950). Let us pray:

 As you walk upon the sacred earth, treat each step as a prayer, Amen.

 

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