Devotion for the Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany (Ackerman)

Above:   Rahab, by Frederick Richard Pickersgill

Image in the Public Domain

Deliverance and Liberation

JANUARY 28, 2024

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Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning:

Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them,

that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of life,

which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ,  who lives and reigns

with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

—The Book of Common Prayer (1979), page 236

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Joshua 2:1-9, 12-16

Psalm 117

Acts 9:23-31

Mark 8:22-26

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Praise the LORD, all you nations;

laud him, all you peoples.

For his loving-kindness toward us is great,

and the faithfulness of the LORD endures for ever.

Hallelujah!

–Psalm 117, The Book of Common Prayer (1979)

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David Ackerman, in Beyond the Lectionary (2013), explains the unifying theme of these lections as how the deliverance of spies (in Joshua 2) and St. Paul the Apostle (in Acts 9)

leads to the liberation of Gentile people

–page 29

Rahab and her family become part of the Hebrew community.  She is a foreigner, yes, but, as Psalm 117:1 says,

Praise the LORD, all you nations.

St. Paul the Apostle, recently converted, survives to preach to Gentiles.  Both he and Rahab escape over city walls.  (That shared element is a nice touch.)

With regard to the reading from Mark 8, the formerly blind man sees clearly–literally.  Rahab sees clearly–metaphorically–also.  So does St. Paul, after his long-term spiritual blindness and short-term physical blindness.  Sometimes clear vision of the spiritual variety places one at great risk, as in the case of St. Paul.

The themes of light and of the inclusion of Gentiles fit well into the Season After the Epiphany.  For we who are Gentiles this might not seem scandalous.  Yet we read in the Bible that such radical inclusion was quite controversial.  This fact should prompt us to ponder prayerfully whom we exclude wrongly.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MAY 3, 2017 COMMON ERA

THE FEAST OF SAINT MARIE-LEONIE PARADIS, FOUNDER OF THE LITTLE SISTERS OF THE HOLY FAMILY

THE FEAST OF WILLIAM WHITING, HYMN WRITER

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https://blogatheologica.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/deliverance-and-liberation/

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