Devotion for Wednesday After the Fifth Sunday After Epiphany, Year A (ELCA Daily Lectionary)

Above:  Design Drawing for Stained-Glass Window, “I Am the Light of the World,” After William Holman Hunt

Window Designed by J. & R. Lamb Studios, Circa 1907

Image Source = Library of Congress

Responsibility to Others

FEBRUARY 8, 2023

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The Collect:

Lord God, with endless mercy you receive

the prayers of all who call upon you.

By your Spirit show us the things we ought to do,

and give us the grace and power to do them,

through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.  Amen.

–Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2006), page 22

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The Assigned Readings:

Proverbs 6:6-23

Psalm 119:105-112

John 8:12-30

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The wicked have laid a snare for me,

but I have not strayed from your commandments.

–Psalm 119:110, The Book of Common Prayer (2004)

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The reading from Proverbs 6 contains maxims regarding how to and how not to behave toward others ethically.  None of our actions affect just us, for, as John Donne told us centuries ago,

No man is an island.

So we ought to consider carefully how our attitudes, which fuel our actions and inactions, affect those around us.  They are, after all, our neighbors.  And God is watching us.

Sometimes our perfidy–even violence or threats or promises thereof–flow from the motivation to confirm in our own imaginations our illusory righteousness.  Those whose words and mere existence make plain our wretchedness offend us, so they threaten our self-images.  And we might, if we are honest with ourselves, know this to be true.  Nevertheless, acknowledging our sin and repenting of it is more difficult than deepening that sin.  But we must, if we are to obey God, do the former, not the latter.

May we not sacrifice others on the altar of our ego structures or anything else.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

OCTOBER 17, 2013 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF ALL CHRISTIAN ARTISTS

THE FEAST OF SAINT IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH, ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP

THE FEAST OF JULIA WARD HOWE, ABOLITIONIST

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http://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/responsibility-to-others/

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