Wednesday • 7/12/2023 
A Wednesday in the Season After Pentecost (Proper 9) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:1–24; 1 Samuel 16:1–13; Acts 10:1–16; Luke 24:13–35 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives 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. This Wednesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 9 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Who I essentially am—what at bottom my basic life assumptions and drives and loves are—the Bible’s shorthand for all that is “heart.” The Bible’s message to me, further, is that my “heart” is set in one direction or another: it is set on God, or it is not.  

In the “not” column can stand many things: myself, my “people,” my country, a cause, money, nothing in particular (which I can cover by binging or by busy-ness)—just not God.  

In the “on God” column stand a host of graces, summed up in one: love … love of God and love of neighbor.  

Today’s readings provide a wonderful opportunity for a “heart” checkup.  

1 Samuel. What God is looking for in Saul’s replacement as king over his people is someone who is notable not for their physical impressiveness (like Saul) or their claim of birth (like Jesse’s first born, Eliab). “[T]he Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).  

In David, Yahweh sees someone who has learned, in the first place, the humility to be overlooked for kingship. More fundamentally, Yahweh sees in David someone who has learned, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” (Psalm 23)—that’s the kind of person with the heart for shepherding His people. Such a shepherd will know how to nourish and protect God’s flock, for he himself has experienced Yahweh’s nourishing and protecting grace. Despite the glaring flaws (of which we will read shortly), David’s whole being is defined by his love for and dependence upon Yahweh—and Yahweh can work with that (1 Samuel 13:14; 16:7).  

“[F]rom that day forward…” — 1 Samuel 16:13c. In contrast to the sporadic, even spasmodic, experience of Saul, David’s experience of the Spirit of God is permanent and abiding (see Psalm 51:11–12). It’s almost as though Saul’s experience of God’s Spirit had been a series of “possessions” — it certainly was not an indwelling. Saul’s heart simply had no room for the living God.  

Sidebar: The difference between “Spirit-possession” and “Spirit-indwelling” is something to keep in mind when miracle workers arise. Do their lives testify to the Spirit’s “indwelling” presence and remolding work. Or is their experience more like a “possession” that leaves the person unaffected? Does a person with flashy signs also evidence the deeper fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5)? Or are the signs accompanied, instead, by the fruit of the world, the flesh, and the devil (lawlessness, deceit, lust, greed, pride, arrogance, envy, bitterness—see Galatians 5:19–20; 1 John 2:15–16)? Just asking.   

In Acts, we are treated to a study in the way God the Father has been preparing for the pouring out of his Spirit upon “all flesh.” Over the course of his life, the Roman centurion Cornelius’s heart has become aligned with that of the God of the Bible. Presumably from a pagan background, Cornelius has been attracted to Israel’s God. “He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God” (Acts 10:2). That heart-orientation and those practices put him in a position to respond well when God’s angel visits him: “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. Now send…” (Acts 10:4b–5a).  

Luke tells us about two disciples who confess, “Were not our hearts burning within us?” Theirs had been broken hearts at the beginning of today’s passage. But these were hearts that had been able honestly to acknowledge their disappointment and dismay at the dashing of their hopes and dreams for Israel’s redemption when Jesus was executed.  

Their hearts, in other words, had already been set in the right direction. What was needed, and what was supplied, was for Jesus to meet them with healing power for their receptive yet broken hearts. He tells them, at length (it probably took a couple of hours to walk the 7 miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus), the whole biblical backstory to that weekend’s events: “‘Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:26–27).  

What grace! Even so, more grace than the mere telling of the story is required—and more grace is given! At the table, Jesus repeats the fourfold acts of the Eucharist he had shared with his disciples that last night—“he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them” (Luke 24:30; see Luke 22:19). It’s this combination of Word and Table that breaks through the gloom … and begins the restoration of hope and the rebuilding of despairing hearts.    

May your heart and mine be ever set, like David’s, on the love of God. May your heart and mine be shaped, like Cornelius’s, by the disciplines of devotion, of poor-relief, and of prayer. May your heart and mine be ever ready, like Cleopas’s and his companion’s, to be joyfully surprised when Jesus meets us in our deepest grief, with his life-giving Word and his Body and Blood.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+