Devotions for the Week of the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

Monday of Pentecost 9 – Prayer for the week

Almighty and everlasting God, give us an increase of faith, hope, and love, that, receiving what You have promised, we may love what You have commanded; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Imagine this scene. He walks in the front door after work, holding a bouquet of beautiful flowers which he promptly presents to his wife of some years. They are not newlyweds. Surprised by this gift, she beams at him and thanks him. He responds by saying that he is just doing his duty.

Ugh! What a terrible thing for him to say! But look at this prayer again and notice what we are praying for. We ask God, having given us what he promises, that we would love what he commands. We should ask whether commanded love is really love. Is it not like that husband above? He does the right thing in bringing his wife flowers but spoils the deed it by locating the gift in duty. Yet, at several places in Scripture, God commands us to love. How can he do that?

With God, all things are possible. Remember this is the God who simply said, “Let there be light.” And there was light! God’s command to love is spoken in the same way. It too creates that which it demands, not a dutiful non-love which would be keeping some command, but the real thing, the upwelling, natural, beautiful thing we call love. We want that love to focus on the good things which God would have us love, people, world, and God himself. If you are human, there is someone whom you find difficult to love. Look at that person anew. God has commanded you to love him or her. God gives you that gift. Do the dutifully loving deed today. You will find that soon it is no longer a duty but a delight.

Tuesday of Pentecost 9 – Deuteronomy 7:6-9

6 “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

He did not think much of himself in high school. He was a big kid. He found himself most at ease in two places, on the football team where he played on the line and again on the speech team. His Fridays saw him helping others win glory on the football field. He spent his Saturdays bringing to life the dramatic and humorous words of others. He thought this was just right. He did not want the focus on himself, because he did not like what he saw in the mirror. One Saturday, in yet another otherwise vacant public school, a pretty girl whom he had never known before sat down beside him and just talked to him for a while.

I heard this man relate this story to me many years later. I thought about how his story was probably the story of many of us, or at least I pray it is the story of many of us. We all go through times in life when we do not think much of ourselves. We do not like who we are and cast our eyes longingly at others whom we think to be more successful, better looking, wealthier, or just better than I am. And then someone loves or is kind to us. That changes everything.

The man told me he had never seen this pretty girl again in his life. But she had changed him significantly with this conversation. He still remembered her name. He went on to happily marry and have a family and a career. But he credited much to that day when a pretty girl sat by a very insecure young man in a school cafeteria and just talked.

The reading today tells us that God has set his love on us. It was not because we were special or great. He just does it. He promised but even that promise is located in the simple fact of God’s nature. He loves. God’s love for you is not found in your loveable character, righteous deeds, or even some anticipated response on your part. God just loves you. It is as simple as that. He does not need a reason. It is who he is.

Wednesday of Pentecost 9 – Psalm 125

1 Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion,

which cannot be moved, but abides forever.

2 As the mountains surround Jerusalem,

so the LORD surrounds his people,

from this time forth and forevermore.

3 For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest

on the land allotted to the righteous,

lest the righteous stretch out

their hands to do wrong.

4 Do good, O LORD, to those who are good,

and to those who are upright in their hearts!

5 But those who turn aside to their crooked ways

the LORD will lead away with evildoers!

Peace be upon Israel!

The Gestapo officer glowered at the man who sat in the chair across from him. The object of that animus was Eivind Berggrav, the Bishop of Norway who was determined not to cooperate with the occupying Nazis.

“Don’t you know that I have the power to have you killed!?” hissed the officer.

“And what will you do to me then?” replied the Bishop calmly.

Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion which cannot be moved. The Nazi’s applied pressure to Berggrav and he was not moved, not for the long years of the Nazi occupation of Germany. Even from prison he communicated with the resistance. Berggrav trusted the promise of God. Christ has risen and that changes everything. Despite appearances, peace is upon Israel. Evil will not win the day.

In these days of wars, economic uncertainty and political turmoil, there will be pressure to do the expedient but wrong thing. It will not be a gestapo officer applying the pressure, but it will take some other form. The psalmist notes that the scepter of wickedness shall rest upon the righteous lest they “stretch out their hands to do wrong.” He knows this is possible for us too. It was possible in 1941, and it is in twenty-first century. So be not moved from the principles of what God tells you in those Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, or the exhortations of Paul in his Epistles. God’s kingdom will operate in ways other than the expediencies of the world. It starts with the rock-solid truth of Mount Zion where Jesus died for your sins and rose again for your justification. No one can take that away from you. Established in that, do the good, love the neighbor, give glory to God, no matter what happens or is threatened to happen.

Thursday of Pentecost 9 – Romans 8:28-39

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Is there a better reading for these days? Christians, I think, should print these words of Paul in some bold font and put them on their bathroom mirror or some other prominent spot. They should read them every day. The world would have you forget these words. Indeed, our ancient foe wants nothing better than to see us forget what Paul asserts in this magnificent passage in his letter to the Romans.

The world would have us think that our lives do not matter, that God has forgotten about us, or, worse, that God simply does not exist. The world wants to constrain us in the dismal realities of the genes we have inherited, the social constructs which we are forced to live within, and the political and economic forces of a world which seems to be careening toward a cliff. The world wants to deny us hope.

Paul draws our eyes upward toward God. He does not deny the reality of the suffering we endure. He says we are at times like sheep to be slaughtered. But he will not allow the suffering to have the last word. In all these things we are conquerors and the world cannot change that. Christ, who died for us, has risen, and is seated at the right hand of God, pleading for us. He has endured suffering so that he might rescue us from suffering. Can any suffering now be the end? No, our trajectory points toward a life rooted in the love of God. That is our goal, our end, our final word. Praise be to God! Nothing shall separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus!

Friday of Pentecost 9 – Matthew 13:44-52

44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46 who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. 48 When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

51 “Have you understood all these things?” They said to him, “Yes.” 52 And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

In the ancient world, war was a much more ponderous thing. There were no cruise missiles or paratroopers. There were men on horses who kicked up a cloud of dust which could be seen for days before they arrived. When a city was threatened, the wealthy would sneak out at night and hide their treasures in clay jars, digging deep holes in plowed fields, noting the place. If the city fell, they could probably escape and reclaim their treasure. If the city withstood the assault, then they could recover their wealth. But sometimes people died, or were enslaved, or they simply could not remember where the treasure was buried.

As a result, men plowing in a field would occasionally strike a clay pot and discover a cache of coins or other treasure. There were no serial numbers. No one knew how long the money had been buried. The rule was simple: Finders keepers!

Read again that first verse of this reading. It is a parable in one verse. The man does something odd. He sells all he has in order to buy that field. He already owns the treasure, why does he do that? I used to hate this parable of Jesus. I thought it meant that I was supposed to lose everything for Christ. There are other places where he says things like that. I thought this was another one of those. But then someone pointed out to me that there is no “must,” “ought,” or “should” in this parable. The man who finds the treasure is not me. It is Jesus. He happily loses all (the cross) to gain the treasure he already owns by rights (He made it!). And that makes me the treasure.

It is easy to forget this, but God really does love you. You are his treasure. Like your mom or grandmother, he has stuck the crude art which is your life on his refrigerator door, so you are always before him. Rest in that simple truth today. God loves you. You are his treasure.