Friday • 10/13/2023 •
Friday of the Nineteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 22)

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 140; Psalm 142; 2 Kings 23:36–24:17; 1 Corinthians 12:12–26; Matthew 9:27–34

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives 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 Friday in the Season After Pentecost. We are in Proper 22 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.

2 Kings: The final years of the Davidic line in Jerusalem are inglorious. Josiah’s reforms are reversed by his son Jehoiachim (609–598 BC) and grandson Jehoiachin/Jeconiah (615/605–597 BC). The curses of Mount Ebal (Deuteronomy 27:15–26; 28:15–68) come upon the nation in its conquest by Babylon: “The LORD will bring you, and the king whom you set over you, to a nation that neither you nor your ancestors have known, where you shall serve other gods, of wood and stone. You shall become an object of horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you” (Deuteronomy 36–37). 

The Babylonians leave behind only “the poorest people of the land,” while carrying away “the elite of the land” and their puppet king, Mattaniah/Zedekiah, Jehoiakin’s uncle (2 Kings 24:14,15,17). 

While, as we will read in days to come, there will be an initial return and restoration of sorts under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, a deeper-seated problem has surfaced. Like all the rest of the nations, Israel is as subject to sin and death as is the rest of the human race. What’s needed is a fix for the universality of our spiritual death, that is, our moral incapacity and our religious rebelliousness. When it comes to the things of God and of finding the capacity to live out what it is to bear his image, we—all of us, Jew and Gentile alike—are diseased, blind, deaf, mute, and lame. 

Matthew: Enter Jesus Christ. The point of Matthew’s account of Jesus’s healing ministry is to show how “Emmanuel” (God-with-us) takes it all into himself, turning disease into health. In today’s accounts, Jesus turns blindness into sight and gives voice to the mute. It’s a part of his fulfillment of Isaiah 53: “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases” (Isaiah 53:4; Matthew 8:17). In his victory at the cross, ultimately, he turns death into life. 

1 Corinthians: Living in the “new creation.” In consequence of which, there is what Paul calls “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15). It’s a reality the Corinthians celebrate but only partially understand. In their “new creation,” they (or at least many of them) act like spoiled brats, basking in a presumed spiritual superiority. They think they’ve arrived at final Kingdom bliss, and they baptize the inequities of this world as though they were God’s confirmation of the superiority of the “haves” and the inferiority of the “have nots.” Paul wants them to see that reality is just the opposite: God chooses the foolish over the wise, the weak over the strong, the low over the high, the despised over the favored, and the “nobodies” over the “somebodies” (1 Corinthians 1:29). 

Therefore, as Paul says, “God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another” (1 Corinthians 12:25). Let the Babylonians pay attention to the elites with their puppet king, and ignore the poorest of the land. Just the opposite prevails in the Kingdom of God, by the mystery of the loving wisdom of God. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+