Tuesday • 6/20/2023
Tuesday of the Third Week After Pentecost (Proper 6)
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 78; 1 Samuel 1:21–2:11; Acts 1:15–26; Luke 20:19–26
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); 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, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. Today is Tuesday of the 3rd Week After Pentecost, and our readings come from Proper 6 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.
The Bible’s basic premise is that from Genesis 3 on, everything is upside down…and that God is in the business of putting things right side up again.
We’ve recently read Deuteronomy’s warning about making idols out of human figures: “…take care and watch yourselves closely, so that you do not act corruptly by making an idol for yourselves, in the form of any figure—the likeness of male or female” (Deuteronomy 4:15b–16). The reason for this particular proscription is that we humans ourselves bear God’s image. We are not made to worship ourselves, but instead to worship the Lord. We do so in no small part by offering ourselves as emissaries of his presence and rule. It is a high dignity. And the whole thing gets subverted when we reverse things.
Luke. One of the ways the Roman Caesars projected their own presence and rule over their empire was through coinage that bore their image and name. Jesus’s enemies try to get him to declare himself to be either a collaborationist or an insurrectionist: support the despised Roman overlords by affirming Roman taxation and lose the support of the people, or throw in his lot with the revolutionaries and get himself arrested. It seems like a clever ruse.
Let Caesar have his coins, Jesus asserts, and by implication, his pretense of presence and his time-limited rule. But the tagline is even more significant: “…and to God the things that are God’s” (Luke 20:25). Each one of us bears the image of the ruler of the universe. Each one of us has God’s name inscribed into the fabric of our being. The fealty, tribute, service, obeisance, honor, worship, and praise we owe to him is far more significant than whatever demands an earthly ruler may impose upon us. God’s presence is ubiquitous, and his rule inescapable.
Because humans have made idols out of lesser things, including “the likeness of male or female,” the universe has been knocked off its axis. No sooner, though, did Adam and Eve start us on this sad path than God began the slow, but inexorable, process of putting things back into kilter.
1 Samuel. Biblical saints have recognized God’s commitment to fix things from the very beginning—they recognized it, especially, in the calling of Israel to be a people of God’s possession and a blessing to the nations. Hannah, the grateful mother of Samuel, realizes that the birth of her son, Israel’s future kingmaker, represents a turning point in the great drama of redemption. For that reason, she lauds the God who lifts up the lowly and turns the table on the tyrants. Her song serves as the template for Mary, mother of Jesus.
Hannah’s “My heart exults in the Lord” is a perfect set up to Mary’s “My soul magnifies the Lord” (compare Luke 1:46 with 1 Samuel 2:1). Mary’s “he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:51–53) crisply summarizes themes announced by Hannah. The arrogant will not carry the day. The feeble will defeat the mighty. The rich and the poor, and the fruitful and the barren, will exchange roles. All this the Lord will do, says Hannah, when he gives “strength to his king, and exalt[s] the power of his anointed” (1 Samuel 2:10). This very thing the Lord has now begun through his son, Jesus the Messiah-King.
Acts. It is thrilling to see Peter and the band of 120 or so followers of Jesus (and witnesses to his resurrection) faithfully doing as they had been told: waiting in Jerusalem for power from on high. Even as they wait, they are conscious that they participate in the great story of God’s restoring, through a renewed Israel, all that had been lost in the Garden. To that end they ask God to bring the number of the inner circle of disciples back up to twelve.
They faithfully wait—which is what we find ourselves doing a lot. But we do so, faithfully and prayerfully, for we know that the idols will fall, the Caesars will ultimately yield the field, the barren will bring forth children, and the weak will be made strong.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+