Wednesday • 1/18/2023 •
Week of 2 Epiphany
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 38; Isaiah 44:24–45:7; Ephesians 5:1–14; Mark 4:1–20
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1–3,11a,14c,18–19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68–79, BCP, p. 92)
Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Wednesday of the second week of Epiphany. We are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary, and today I am struck by one of the most magnificent “Epiphany”-aspects of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.
Sleeper awake! (Ephesians 5:14)
There’s one thing the reading of Scripture keeps bringing me back to: the Bible is a book of hope.
And the apostle Paul’s words radiate that hope.
In the second half of Ephesians 4 and the first half of Ephesians 5, Paul elucidates all the ways that it’s possible, even for those who profess Christ, to think that they can continue in the “walking death” and social alienation of sin (recall both halves of Ephesians 2): fornication, greed, lying, stealing, wrangling, slander.
I think we are all entirely too familiar with the powerful downward dragging forces of those impulses—vestiges of what Paul calls “the old self” (Ephesians 4:22). But he really does seem to think that the people he’s writing to don’t have to stumble around in the dark. They don’t have to succumb to the spiritual death that pervades the world around them, and that once controlled their being. “That is not the way you learned Christ!”, he says (Ephesians 4:20).
Paul truly believes that Christ’s light has begun to shine on these believers, that Christ’s own resurrection life is something that he shares with them. And so, Paul calls to them: “Sleeper awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you!” (Ephesians 5:14).
I’ve thought a lot about what these words mean for me. Paul’s “Sleeper awake!” challenges my bent towards “Eeyore-ness”—that is, my assumption that it’s best to prepare for the worst to happen. Paul’s “Sleeper awake!” challenges me to look for Christ to bring goodness and to show redemptive purpose in any situation.
Paul’s “Sleeper awake!” challenges my bent to sink into ultimately self- and relationship-destroying sources of solace when I’m tired or discouraged (you can fill in the blanks as to what those temptations might be for you—I know what they are for me). Paul’s “Sleeper awake!” challenges me, instead, to “thanksgiving” (Ephesians 5:4, that is, taking stock of how much there is to be encouraged about), and to “building up” (Ephesians 4:29, that is, to looking outside myself to those who need encouragement).
Finally, as I live through a time of deep distrust in our civic life (I know you feel it too), Paul’s “Sleeper awake!” challenges my bent to throw up my hands in despair at the political, social, and economic divides in our society and in our world. Paul’s “Sleeper awake!” challenges me to care more deeply about truthfulness in the public square, and about the possibilities for “being ready for every good work,” as Paul puts it when he contemplates believers taking their place in their social world (Titus 3:1).
I pray that we find Paul’s “Sleeper awake!” giving us hope, strength, and resources beyond our imaginations. I pray we find Christ himself shining upon us, as Paul says, radiating his own joy at his life in you and in me.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+