Wednesday of 1 Lent, Year Two

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:49–72; Genesis 37:25–36; 1 Corinthians 2:1–13; Mark 1:29–45

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)

Genesis 37 and twenty pieces of silver. Everyone who has ever felt like an exile on the “Island of Misfit Toys” has a friend in Joseph. Filled with envious spite, his brothers sell Joseph to Midianite traders. The brothers pull him “out of the pit” and hand him over for twenty pieces of silver (Genesis 37:28) — a chilling forecast of Judas Iscariot’s thirty pieces of silver. 

At the same time, the picture of an innocent agent of redemption being brought out of a pit will become a powerful image of God’s saving love. Joseph will be delivered from Potiphar’s prison and set “over the land of Egypt” (Genesis 41:14,43,45). Daniel will be lifted out of the lion’s den (Daniel 6:23). Jeremiah will be pulled up from a cistern (Jeremiah 38:13). David will celebrate being delivered from “the desolate pit” (Psalm 40:2). Finally, God’s own Son will be raised up from the grave to be “declared to be Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness” (Romans 1:4).

God loves “misfit toys.” He watches over them, and even uses one to save the world: 

1 Corinthians and God’s upside-down wisdom. There is no more powerful a picture of God’s saving love than Paul’s “crucified Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8). One of the things that makes the story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer so poignant is the fact that Rudolph’s red nose makes him a “misfit.” In an updated movie version, Rudolph finds himself on the Island of Misfit Toys. He identifies with the misfit toys and eventually becomes their rescuer. How much richer is the story of a “Lord of glory” who, though himself not a sinner, comes among sinful people and gives himself over to “become sin” in order to make sinful people righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21). In doing so, Jesus breaks the power of sin over all of us who know there’s a misfit between ourselves and God, between ourselves and the world around us, and between a true and a false self within ourselves. 

Paul calls the logic of this story “the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 2:7). It’s not a logic understood by people who fit in with “the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age” (1 Corinthians 2:6). In the story that “the wisdom of this age” tells, the rules of power, of beauty, of self-aggrandizement, and of resume-padding apply. In the story governed by “the wisdom of God,” the logic of grace, of frailty, of self-surrender, and of humility apply. It’s a logic that does not come naturally, for it is a mindset that God’s Holy Spirit must impart to our spirit. It’s the work of the Spirit of God “interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual” (1 Corinthians 2:13b). 

May God give us grace during this Lenten season to carve out time for quiet listening, for opening our spirit to hear God’s Spirit reminding us of God’s wisdom, rather than the world’s. May God grant us a holy sense that we are misfits in a rebellious world that says, “I’m going to do what I want, when I want, and exactly how I want to do it.” May God increasingly mold us for heaven’s life, teaching us to say, “God, your will not mine, on your timetable not mine, and your way not mine.” 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Rankin Bass, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons