Monday • 10/4/2021
Monday of the Nineteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 22) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 106; 2 Kings 21:1–18; 1 Corinthians 10:14–11:1; Matthew 8:28–34

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

Everybody I know is experiencing decision fatigue. Of course, there are all the issues that have to do with living through a pandemic, complicated by our uncivil political and social climate: Is it safe to go to a restaurant? Do I get a vaccine or not? Do I wear a mask in the grocery store or not? Which news services do I trust? 

But there’s more to it than that. I realized the other night that I was spending more time scrolling through Netflix or an infinity of offerings on cable,  looking for something to watch, than it would have taken to watch something. I found myself wistfully (if naively) recalling “the good old days” of the 1950s and 1960s when you had four choices: ABC, CBS, NBC, and if all else failed PBS.

Just a parable of the feeling that there are too many decisions and too few guidelines, too few rules. 

Most of us simply have to learn how to live with this reality. Sociologist Peter Berger calls it “the heretical imperative,” the fact that in our world we must make a multitude of choices that for previous generations were pre-determined. You were born into them (class, status, occupation, whom you were going to marry, where you were going to live). 

Without the anchor of the Bible’s perspective, I’m lost. In fact, the Bible seems like it’s written to help people like us. 

“All things are lawful,” acknowledges the apostle Paul. But he’s watched the Corinthians abuse the freedom Christ has won for them. They are suing each other. Some of them are sleeping around. Some are refusing to sleep with their spouses. They are pompously parading their spiritual and temporal blessings. 

In today’s passage from 1 Corinthians, Paul counters with two considerations: 

What benefits other people? — “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up. Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other” (1 Corinthians 9:23–24). On many matters, this consideration makes the calculus simple: I’ll get vaxxed, and I’ll wear a mask in the grocery story, because I care about my neighbor. 

What brings glory to God? “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 9:31). The truth is — I know that reading a good book or playing the piano or working on a drawing project makes me more the person God has called me to be than does sitting in front of a screen. Maybe I’ll put down the remote control. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Adapted from Pedalito, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons