Sabbath Reflection: July 5th, 2015

I pray you hear God's invitation to you to come sit with Him a while.

The Collect for today:
O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to you with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 The lectionary readings appointed for today:

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10

Psalm 48

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

Mark 6:1-13

Psalm 48 

^1-3 God majestic praise abounds in our God-city! 

    His sacred mountain, breathtaking in its heights—earth’s joy. 

    Zion Mountain looms in the North, city of the world-King.
    God in his citadel peak impregnable.  

^4-6 The kings got together, they united and came.
     They took one look and shook their heads, they scattered and ran away.
     They doubled up in pain like a woman having a baby.

^7-8 You smashed the ships of Tarshish with a storm out of the East.
     We heard about it, then we saw it with our eyes—
      In God’s city of Angel Armies, in the city our God
      Set on firm foundations, firm forever.

^9-10 We pondered your love-in-action, God, waiting in your temple:
      Your name, God, evokes a train of Hallelujahs wherever
       It is spoken, near and far; your arms are heaped with goodness-in-action. 

¹¹ Be glad, Zion Mountain;
    Dance, Judah’s daughters!
    He does what he said he’d do! 

^12-14 Circle Zion, take her measure, count her fortress peaks,
        Gaze long at her sloping bulwark, climb her citadel heights—
        Then you can tell the next generation detail by detail the story of God,
        Our God forever, who guides us till the end of time.