Thursday • 8/17/2023 
Thursday of the Eleventh Week After Pentecost (Proper 14) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105; 2 Samuel 15:1–18; Acts 21:27–36; Mark 10:32–45 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” 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, and I’m grateful to be with you. On this Thursday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 14 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Samuel 15: Absalom makes his move. Gradually, Absalom starts showing up at the city gates (the places where judges settled disputes) and saying to plaintiffs:  

“‘See, your claims are good and right; but there is no one deputed by the king to hear you. … If only I were judge in the land! Then all who had a suit or cause might come to me, and I would give them justice.’ Whenever people came near to do obeisance to him, he would put out his hand and take hold of them, and kiss them. Thus Absalom did to every Israelite who came to the king for judgment; so Absalom stole the hearts of the people of Israel” (2 Samuel 15:2–3).  

Four years later, Absalom has won such a following that he can muster an army at Hebron (David’s original capital) and prepare to march on Jerusalem. It’s at this point that King David decides to flee rather than risk the destruction of the City of God — he leaves behind 10 concubines to satisfy the lusts that David himself had awoken in Absalom back in the days of Bathsheba. As in the days when he was on the run from Saul, David heads back into the desert for refuge, this time from his own son.   

Acts 21: For his part, the apostle Paul is wrongly accused of bringing Gentiles into the inner precincts, beyond the limits of the Jerusalem Temple’s Court of the Gentiles. The first century Jewish historian Josephus tells us that multiple inscriptions around the Temple area warned that such infractions meant death.  

(A complete tablet was discovered in 1871 and now hangs in the Istanbul Archaeology Museum. In 1936 a fragment of another inscription was found and is held in Jerusalem’s Israel Museum. The text is as follows: “No stranger is to enter within the balustrade round the temple and enclosure. Whoever is caught will be himself responsible for his ensuing death.”* To this day, visitors to the Temple Mount [now the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque] can well understand how explosive a violation of purification sensibilities there would be. [I accidentally nearly caused an incident myself on the Temple Mount, some years ago. But that’s a story for another time.]) 

Jews who are from Ephesus and who are hostile to Paul have been looking to trip Paul up. They’ve observed him being accompanied around Jerusalem by their fellow Ephesian Trophimus. Trophimus is a Gentile. Then they see Paul taking men they do not recognize into the inner precincts of the Temple. They don’t know these men are Jewish believers whose purification rites Paul is sponsoring. Paul’s detractors wrongly assume that Gentile-friendly and Law-transcending Paul is brazenly breaching boundaries (Acts 21:29). They seize him and begin to drag him out. The only thing that prevents them from immediately stoning him (as had happened with Stephen—and recall Paul’s complicity in that act!), is that the Roman garrison is alerted and comes to Paul’s rescue.  

To me, the most arresting line in this account is: “…and immediately the doors were shut” (Acts 21:30). Paul has done everything he possibly can to keep his fellow countrymen from closing the door on their own Messiah. His missionary modus operandi is “to the Jew first, and then to the Greek” (Romans 1:16–17; Acts 3:26; 13:46). Hear his heart for them as he writes to the Gentile Christians in Rome who have become dismissive of Jewish non-Christians, “Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all” (Romans 11:30–31). Paul refuses to turn his back on his people, even as they definitively and finally shut him out of the Temple.  

Add Mark’s perspective. It has been sobering to read today about Absalom, the narcissist who wants to elevate himself by virtue of his “great hair” and his false kisses. And it’s shocking as well to read about the disciples of Christ (James and John) who try to make a similar power-grab: “Let us sit on your right hand and your left”! Praise be, Absalom and James and John don’t get the last word. Jesus does.  

Jesus explains for the third time that the trip to Jerusalem will eventuate in his death and resurrection. Dealing with James and John’s lust for power, Jesus lays down perhaps the most memorable line in all of Mark’s gospel: “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). And to God’s glory, that is the cruciform pattern we’ve seen in Paul. By reason of his missionary career, he has endured a definitive rejection from his countrymen. Knowing that you have been loved by the One who “came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many” makes all the difference in the world. I pray that that is true for you and for me.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+