Tuesday • 6/6/2023
Tuesday of the First Week After Pentecost (Proper 4)
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 45; Deuteronomy 12:1–12; 2 Corinthians 6:3–13(14–7:1); Luke 17:11–19
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 1st Week After Pentecost, and our readings come from Proper 4 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.
Taken together, today’s readings in Deuteronomy and 2 Corinthians put before us the tremendous responsibility of saying “No” and “Yes.”
Deuteronomy calls for the destroying of idols, and for the renouncing of an independent spirit when it comes to the worship of Yahweh. Specifically, Moses forbids refusing to come to “the place” that Yahweh will choose for his worship: “But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes as his habitation to put his name there. You shall go there, … And you shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your households together, rejoicing in all the undertakings in which the Lord your God has blessed you” (Deuteronomy 12:5,7).
This command looks forward to God’s choice of Jerusalem and its future temple as the center for his people’s worship. Together there in God’s house, a redeemed people make their offerings (including their, ahem, tithes) in utter gratitude for deliverance from slavery. Together there they eat and drink in the delighted presence of one another and in the delightful presence of the “beauty of the holiness” of God (Psalm 29:2).
Paul has come to understand that the church is now God’s new temple: “For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, ‘I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people’” (2 Corinthians 6:16, quoting Leviticus 26:11). This new temple is made up of people within whom and among whom the Spirit of God (that is, God himself) dwells. The church is sacred space that is not to be violated, profaned, taken for granted, or used for the building up of egos or personal fortunes.
The situation on the ground in Corinth. Paul has been taken aback by the accusations that have come at him from the Corinthian church, his own spiritual children. Some people have risen among them claiming to be “super-apostles” (2 Corinthians 11:5), alleging that their miracles are more spectacular, their credentials more superlative, and their personal impressiveness more the mark of the victorious Christ.
In fact, they have infected the Corinthian church with a spirit of triumphalism that claims to be living in the power of Christ’s resurrection, but which Paul knows to be bogus. He names these polluters of the church for what they are: “false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is not strange if his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 11:13–15).
Their chief complaints against Paul are that he is unreliable (remember that he had changed travel plans), weak in demeanor, and unimpressive in rhetoric. He is at pains, therefore, to let the Corinthians know that Christ’s life is manifest in the very places where the super-apostles have gotten it wrong. The triumph of Christ lies in endurance of “afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger” (2 Corinthians 6:4b–5). The character of Christ is revealed in “purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God” (2 Corinthians 6:6–7a). Christ’s kingdom is manifest not when its subjects parade themselves as “winners,” but rather when they “are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:8b–10).
And so, the necessary “No” and “Yes”:
“No” to a religion of “whatever,” of “to whom it may concern.” “No” to using God for self-aggrandizement or the propping up of self-image. “No” to relationships that blur the line between good and evil, justice and injustice, lawfulness and lawlessness. Or, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 7:1, “no” to relationships and practices that “defile the body” (like sexual immorality or drunkenness or gluttony), or to relationships and practices that “defile the spirit” (like alliances of bitterness or envy, or practices that hybridize or dilute the faith).
“Yes” to worshiping God, and doing so his way. “Yes” to a commitment to Jesus that is just like the wedding vow: “for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health.” “Yes” to spiritual relationships that promote the true faith, and that support godly, just, and holy living.
These are some of the most arresting and poignant words Paul ever wrote. I hope they got the Corinthians’ attention! They certainly got the attention of the artist Vincent Van Gogh, who built his own life around the phrase “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” The result was an artistic corpus presenting one of the most radiant visions of Christ’s upside-down Kingdom anybody has ever seen. I pray that you and I catch that vision.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+