Week of 6 Epiphany: Monday, Year 2

Above:  Enron Logo

Enron, of course, has ceased to exist, but here is where I found the image: link

Trust in God; All Else is Transitory

FEBRUARY 14, 2022

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Holy Women, Holy Men:  Celebrating the Saints (2010), of The Episcopal Church, contains an adapted two-years weekday lectionary for the Epiphany and Ordinary Time seasons from the Anglican Church of Canada.  I invite you to follow it with me.

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James 1:1-11 (Revised English Bible):

From James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Greetings to the twelve tribes dispersed throughout the world.

My friends, whenever you have to face all sorts of trials, count yourselves supremely happy in the knowledge that such testing of your faith makes for strength to endure.  Let endurance perfect its work in you that you may become perfected, sound throughout, lacking in nothing.  If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God and it will be given him, for God is a generous giver who neither grudges nor reproaches anyone.  But he who asks must ask in faith, with never a doubt in his mind; for the doubter is like a wave of the sea tossed hither and thither by the wind.  A man like that should not think he will receive anything from the Lord.  He is always in two minds and unstable in all he does.

The church member in humble circumstances does well to take pride in being exalted; the wealthy member must find his pride in being brought low, for the rich man will disappear like a wild flower; once the sun is up with its scorching heat, it parches the plant, its flower withers, and what was lovely to look at is lost for ever.  So shall the rich man fade away as he goes about his business.

Psalm 119:65-72 (1979 Book of Common Prayer):

65  O LORD, you have dealt graciously with your servant,

according to your word.

66  Teach me discernment and knowledge,

for I have believed in your commandments.

67  Before I was afflicted I went astray,

but now I keep your word.

68  You are good and you bring forth good;

instruct me in your statutes.

69  The proud have smeared me with lies,

but I will keep your commandments with my whole heart.

70  Their heart is gross and fat,

but my delight is in your law.

71  It is good for me that I have been afflicted,

that I might learn your statutes.

72  The law of your mouth is dearer to me

than thousands in gold and silver.

Mark 8:11-13 (Revised English Bible):

Then the Pharisees came out and began to argue with him.  To test him they asked for a sign from heaven.  He sighed deeply and said,

Why does generation ask for a sign?  Truly I tell you:  no sign shall be given to this generation.

With that he left them, re-embarked, and made for the other shore.

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The Collect:

O  God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers; and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

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A Related Post:

Week of 6 Epiphany:  Monday, Year 1:

https://adventchristmasepiphany.wordpress.com/2010/10/21/week-of-6-epiphany-monday-year-1/

Faith in Romans vs. Faith in James:

http://ordinarytimedevotions.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/week-of-proper-23-tuesday-year-1/

Finding God in Silence:

http://gatheredprayers.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/finding-god-in-silence/

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One of the recurring themes in the Bible is the imperative of trusting in God first and foremost.  This does not preclude making good decisions; indeed, it leads to doing this.  Hebrew prophets counseled leaders to trust in God, not international alliances with double-dealing empires, and not to become overly confident in military strength.  Such things, they said, were idols.  And, like all other idols, they come and they go.

Jesus, in Mark 8, complained about yet another demand for a dramatic sign.  We humans like signs and wonders, for they are easy to identify.  Yet Elijah, in 1 Kings 19:12, found God in “a faint murmuring sound,” not an earthquake, a strong wind, or a fire.  That was not very dramatic, was it?  We ought to trust God because God is God, not because of signs and wonders.

In James 1 we read about becoming “perfected.”  The original Greek word maturity.  And completeness refers to a blemishless state, as in that present in a sacrificial animal.  So, in context, endurance produces spiritual maturity, suitability in service to God, and a continuing state of spiritual growth.  Other factors, such as wealth and prestige (or lack thereof) are transient, so we ought not become attached to them and define ourselves according to them.

Maybe Douglas Adams said it best on page 1 of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979):

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

The planet has–or rather had–a problem, which was this:  most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time.  Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

And so the problem remained; lots of people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place.  And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how how the world could be made a good and happy place.  This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.

Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terrible, stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost for ever.

This is not her story.

Our identity, my theology tells me, ought to have its root in God alone.  Each human being bears the image of God, who loves, who woos, and who has sacrificed for everyone.  This is God, whom we can trust.  Money, when it is physical, is pieces of paper and metal, used properly for paying our bills, purchasing our necessities, and helping others–but not functioning as a barrier between us and God.

Here ends the lesson.

KRT

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