TUESDAY, May 19 (Dunstan) Rogation Day

The notion that God does not change comes from Greek philosophy. There is some truth in it, as this verse affirms. In his divine essence, God is entirely  self-sufficient, neither acted upon nor affected by events and beings outside himself. This God of the philosophers is eternally the same and is not subject to any of the limitations which bind us--he is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omni- everything, eternally, forever. The philosophers' God is so different from us that it's hard to imagine  relating to him--or rather, it--in any way beyond  being stunned by its absolute otherness.

Apparently God didn't like it that way. So this omni-everything, "absolutely other" God did something most ungodlike by the philosophers' reckoning: God became human. He laid aside all his "omnis" and  took on our limitations, even to the point of dying. If you were God, would you have done that? Why would God have done such a thing? What was in it for him?

PRAY for the Diocese of Minnesota (Province VI, U.S.)

Ps 78:1-39 * 78:40-72;  Deuteronomy 8:11-20; Luke 11:1-13

View the daily Lectionary Readings at Satucket.com.
Or view the Bible passages at Biblegateway.com.