Monday • 11/27/2023 •
Monday of the Twenty-sixth Week After Pentecost (Proper 29)
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 106; Joel 3:1–2,9–17; 1 Peter 1:1–12; Matthew 19:1–12
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)
Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. This Monday in the Season After Pentecost our readings finds us in Proper 29 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.
A friend recently said to me, “I’m living in a state of liminality right now.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, I guess I mean I feel stuck between two worlds. It’s as though at work and at home, some old things needed to die. But it’s still not clear where life is on the other side. I feel caught in pre-dawn, and I long for daylight. It’s like I’m playing a piece on the piano, and I can’t move past the next to last chord. It’s a 7th chord that keeps going and going. It won’t resolve to that splendid, final 1-chord. I don’t feel like I really belong to my old world, even though I still live in it. But I’m not sure what the new world I seem to be moving into looks like either. I’m caught in this weird transitional place, at home in neither the old nor the new.”
It so happens that my friend’s plight is every Christian’s plight. We live in a place of transition from death to life, from darkness to light, from turbulence to peace. We live in the liminal, at home neither in the old world any longer nor in the new quite yet.
Over the course of this week and the next, we will read through the two letters of Peter. Nobody describes the liminal state of the Christian life better than this especially attentive disciple of Jesus.
Image: "musical fingers" by vl8189 is licensed under CC BY 2.0
1 Peter: chosen and destined, but also resident aliens. I once heard a preacher explain this letter as a dance between two terms Peter puts together in the very first verse. We are “select strangers” (eklektoi parepidēmoi). We have been “selected” by a sovereign God for “salvation” and “sanctification.” Meanwhile, we are “strangers” to this world, and are called to “submission” and “suffering.”
That’s the Christian life as Peter unpacks it. That’s the liminality of our existence—yours, mine, and my friend’s.
What it is to be “select” Peter works out in terms of a “salvation” that God has accomplished for us (1 Peter 1:3–13) and a “sanctification” that God is working in us (1 Peter 1:14–2:10)
What it is to be “strangers” Peter works out in terms of Christlike “submission” in various relationships (1 Peter 2:11–3:8; 5:1–10) and of Christlike “suffering” in a hostile world (1 Peter 3:9–4:19).
We don’t entirely belong here, because we are on our way to our homeland. Nonetheless, Peter will instruct us as we move through this first epistle of his that we are called to be good citizens of countries that don’t fully claim us, and faithful family members, even of families that don’t fully “get” us.
In his opening chapter of this gem of a letter, Peter offers hints as to what gets us through.
“…even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials…” (1 Peter 1:6). We know that suffering is real, but that it won’t last.
“…so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:7–8). We know that the testing of our faith through trials only strengthens our faith.
“In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials … you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy…” (1 Peter 1:6,8b). We know that there is a joy which only faith-under-suffering can produce.
“Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours made careful search and inquiry, 11 inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory” (1 Peter 1:10–11). We know that we are part of a story that has been unfolding for millennia. It’s the drama of redemption that the Bible narrates from cover to cover. And at its core, it is a glorious tale that draws us into the pageantry of, and into our share in, the sufferings and glory of God’s Messiah, the Savior and Redeemer of the world. Our small bit parts take on gigantic import as they contribute to the glorious tale they help to tell: a tale of the transformation of suffering into triumph, of shame into glory, and of ugliness into beauty.
Back to my friend. The Christian life, as sketched by Peter, is a lot like a long pre-dawn or an extended 7th chord. What Peter would have us understand is that pre-dawn has its own beautiful, subtle, and promissory hues of light. And a penultimate 7th chord carries exquisite tones of poignant memory and eager expectation. The Christian life is learning to live well in the period between darkness and light, old and new. I pray we find in Peter’s wise words what the hymn writer calls “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.” Great, indeed, is his faithfulness.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+