9th Week of Pentecost

Acts 20:17-24,28,32,35
From Miletus he had the presbyters of the church at Ephesus summoned. When they came to him, he addressed them, “You know how I lived among you the whole time from the day I first came to the province of Asia. I served the Lord with all humility and with the tears and trials that came to me because of the plots of the Jews, and I did not at all shrink from telling you what was for your benefit, or from teaching you in public or in your homes. I earnestly bore witness for both Jews and Greeks to repentance before God and to faith in our Lord Jesus. But now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem. What will happen to me there I do not know, except that in one city after another the holy Spirit has been warning me that imprisonment and hardships await me. Yet I consider life of no importance to me, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to bear witness to the gospel of God’s grace. Keep watch over yourselves and over the whole flock of which the holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, in which you tend the church of God that he acquired with his own blood. And now I commend you to God and to that gracious word of his that can build you up and give you the inheritance among all who are consecrated. In every way I have shown you that by hard work of that sort we must help the weak, and keep in mind the words of the Lord Jesus who himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.'”

Matthew 23:1-12
Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens (hard to carry) and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’ As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

What does it take for someone to say, “I consider (my) life of no importance to me.” What zeal, passion, and love must Paul have to seek first the kongdom of God. Paul knows that death is as nothing in the face of eternity and the resurrection. The scribes and the Pharisees have made life everything, have made earthly pride everything. It is holy selflessness which is able to enact change and bring about conversions. What can I count as nothing today? How can I pursue holy selflessness and the kingdom of God.

Lord, have mercy on us and save us.
Lord, you are the Most High who humbled yourself
to overcome our weakness;
the free One who gave yourself up to death
to free us from the penalty of sin.
O Source of life,
shine your face upon us and renew us
on the Day of your glorious coming.
Praise be to you, now and forever.
Amen.