Friday • 11/22/2024 •

Proper 28 Year 2

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 102; Malachi 3:1-12; James 5:7-12; Luke 18:1-8 

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. I’m Reggie Kidd, and every Monday through Friday, I offer devotional observations on some portion of that day’s readings for Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. Thanks so much for joining me this Friday of Proper 28 in Year 2 of the Daily Lectionary.  

This line from Psalm 102 hits me hard every time I come across it: “…you have lifted me up and thrown me away” (v. 10b). The psalmist describes himself not just as one of life’s discards, set upon by enemies and detractors (which he is—see verse eight). No. He can’t eat, he can’t drink, and he can’t sleep, because he feels like God is so mad at him that He has simply picked him up and tossed him aside. Like a piece of trash. Like an unwanted deuce in a game of Rummy. Who hasn’t felt that way? I have, and I imagine you have as well.  

What makes our anonymous psalmist’s song worth including in Israel’s hymnal is the way he processes his angst about God’s anger by letting his petition turn to praise. He begins with, “Hear my cry … answer me speedily…” (Psalm 102:1-2). But he transitions to, “But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever…” (Psalm 102:12). And he ends with, “The children of your servants shall live secure…” (Psalm 102:28).  

Today’s passages are a study in pressing in to the Lord’s presence, even when the Lord seems threatening or distant or aloof. Today’s passages provide courage and resources for those times when you feel you may have been “thrown away.”  

Malachi & self-inventory. Malachi addresses people who are too quick to call on the Lord to aid them in their distress. They are people of the covenant. That means they know the God of the exodus, Yahweh who rescues. That also means they know the God who has bound himself to them, and who has provided them with the terms of covenant life. Those terms include loving him as he has loved them, with exclusive and lavish love. It means protecting the marriage bed, dealing in truth, caring for dependents and the needy. And it includes giving to Yahweh “the full tithe” (i.e., ten percent) on produce and earnings (Malachi 3:5,8-10).  

There’s nothing about these stipulations that earn anybody a relationship with God. There’s no merit to these requirements. There’s nothing about them that makes God love anybody. These practices are simply the way people who have been loved from eternity love in return. The stipulations of the covenant are how those who have been rescued and cared for in their distress reflect that care for those around them who are in similar need. The covenant calls for gratitude’s response to grace.  

As it is, however, Malachi judges Israel to be living out of sync with covenant life. Thus, he says, when “the messenger of the covenant” comes as they hope he will, he will not come in the way they had hoped. He will come to refine and to purify: “For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offering to the Lord in righteousness” (Malachi 3:2-3). In other words, the Lord will come to make things right—just not in the way they had expected!  

And so, Malachi calls for self-inventory, lest the children of the covenant discover the coming of “the day of the Lord” is an unpleasant experience. “Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of Hosts” (Malachi 3:7). Renounce sorcery—which is a kind of manipulative mock-worship. Maintain faithful and loving marriages. Speak truth. Deal justly with workers and aliens. Be generous, and present as worship “the full ten percent” of your produce and income—symbolic of your full self-offering to the God who purchased you out of slavery (again Malachi 3:5,8-10).   

The season of Advent is right around the corner, a time when we remember the way John the Baptist came as just such a messenger of the covenant, crying: “Prepare the way of the Lord!” It is a good time for redemptive self-inventory, so that Christ may be born anew in our hearts.  

James & patience. James provides example after example of the need for patient endurance. Farmers plant, and then wait. Prophets prophesy, and then wait. Job waits and waits and waits (even if, as we read a few weeks ago, not especially patiently). But wait he does—and eventually the Lord shows himself to be compassionate and merciful.  

Jesus & persistent prayer. Jesus’s parable about the unjust judge (which does not intend for us to draw false inferences about God) teaches that it’s not just a matter of patient endurance—it’s prayerful patient endurance. That’s an important lesson for me. I can hold a “spiritual plank position” for a long time, gritting my teeth, willing myself to hang on, not letting my back buckle. I can wait and wait and wait for the Lord to show up and do his thing. What’s not so easy for me to do is pray and pray and pray while I’m holding that plank. That’s something for me to work on.  

And that takes us back to Psalm 102. The psalmist shows us how not to let ourselves get stuck in a rut of feeling rejected by God. The psalmist determines to cling to the faith—he assumes a “spiritual plank position”—despite his feelings. Then he composes this beautiful song that begins with petition, transitions to praise, and ends on a note of hopefulness. What a great example for you and for me.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+