Thursday • 5/25/2023 •
Week of 7 Easter 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105; Ezekiel 18:1–4,19–32; Hebrews 7:18–28; Luke 10:25–37

This morning’s Canticles are: before the Psalm reading, Pascha Nostrum (“Christ Our Passover,” BCP, p. 83); following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moss,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); 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 consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Today is Thursday of the 7th (and final) week of Easter, and I’m grateful to be with you. “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!”

It’s our next to last day of a quick trip through some of the main themes of the Book of Ezekiel and of the first half of the Book of Hebrews; meanwhile, we continue our way through the Gospel according to Luke. 

Image: Vincent van Gogh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Ezekiel: “the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own.” I once had a professor who said that in the Old Testament what counts is the group, while in the New Testament what counts is the individual. For instance, the entire nation of Israel gets “baptized” at the Red Sea, while each person individually goes “into the water” in Christian baptism.

Today’s passage in Ezekiel is proof that my professor wasn’t entirely right. In today’s passage, Ezekiel has to speak up, because some people had gotten the impression that their individual decisions and behavior didn’t matter. They believed they were being held accountable “for the sins of the fathers.” So it didn’t matter how they behaved, good or ill, because they were fated to suffer punishment anyway at the hands of a vindictive God. 

Not so, insists Ezekiel. If punishment is being meted out, it is not for somebody else’s sins. Each person bears punishment for their sins alone. Conversely, blessing for any individual is as near as a sincere prayer of repentance. The genius of biblical faith—Old Testament as well as New—is that each of us is made in the very image and likeness of God. Each of us is a masterpiece of his love. None of us is the sole product of our genetic pool, our family of origin, or mysterious societal forces. None of us is unable to rise above “the sins of the fathers.” “Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!” (Ezekiel 18:31). That’s part of what Ezekiel says to a generation of slothful, self-pitying shirkers. 

The other part of Ezekiel’s message is that God is not a vindictive tyrant or an unfeeling, punishment-dispensing machine. Abraham had asked Yahweh: “Will not the judge of the whole earth do what is right?” (Genesis 18:25). It is of the very nature of God’s being that he works (albeit in his own time and in his own way) to set all things to rights. This passage in Ezekiel makes it clear that the joy for Yahweh lies in bestowing blessing in the face of repentance and faith. He takes no joy in leaving to their just deserts anyone who fails to respond to the overtures of his love. 

Hebrews: “he ever lives to intercede.” The writer to the Hebrews has the advantage, as do we, of living in “these last days” when God has given his Son to secure a relationship with us (Hebrews 1:1–4). The Son of God, Apostle and High Priest of God’s love, has made a perfect and final sacrifice for our sins “once for all when he offered himself” (Hebrews 7:27b). And now, resurrected from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father, “he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). Though I may falter, Jesus won’t. Though my zeal may flag, Jesus’s won’t. Though my love may cool, Jesus’s won’t. Though I may drift, Jesus will hold me tight. That’s what has changed as we move from the Old Testament to the New—we have a friend in a high place, holding each of us tighter and closer than we can possibly imagine.   

Luke: becoming the Good Samaritan. From one angle of vision, the Parable of the Good Samaritan points to Jesus who rescues us when we were cast aside and left for dead on the side of the road.

But the real thrust of Jesus’s parable is to encourage us to neighborliness, that is, to be like the Good Samaritan ourselves, not like the uncaring people who walked past the castoff man on the side of the road. Love calls us, like the Good Samaritan, to refuse to be a party to societal attitudes. Our Samaritan, considered “less than” by the Jews in his world, ignored the cultural hostilities of his day. Instead, he went out of his way to extend help and compassion to someone he chose to see, not as a Jew, but as a human being in need. Martin Luther King, Jr., describes this heart-attitude as  “the strength to love”—answering cruelty with kindness, rejection with acceptance. The Parable of the Good Samaritan calls upon us to be strong, bold, and extroverted in our love.

The most powerful meditation on this parable of which I am aware is Vincent Van Gogh’s painting of it. Van Gogh portrays a ginger-bearded, virile Samaritan lifting the battered roadside victim onto his donkey. Van Gogh imagines himself as the Samaritan. The painting was aspirational for Van Gogh, for he saw himself as a failure in relationships—he had failed as a missionary, he had failed in his attempt to “rehabilitate” a prostitute, he had failed in his attempt to create an artist colony around Gaugin, he had failed to sell his art (in his entire he life, he sold only one painting). His painting becomes a prayer: Lord, don’t let me be defined by my failures, in my own eyes or in the eyes of others. Give me grace and strength to be this guy. Give me your strength to love. 

May our Heavenly Father give you and me—each of us—grace to know we are personally loved and uniquely crafted to bear his image. May the Lord Jesus hold us close to the Father’s heart in his prayers of intercession for us. May the Spirit of strength and power embolden us to be neighbor to those around us. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+