Devotions for the Second Week after Pentecost
Monday of Pentecost 2 – Prayer of the Week
O God, You have prepared for those who love You such good things as surpass our understanding. Cast all sins and evil desires from us, and pour into our hearts Your Holy Spirit to guide us into all blessedness; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
In his short fantasy book entitled “The Great Divorce,” C. S. Lewis imagines that there is a bus line which runs from hell to heaven. People can board the bus, driven by an angel, and ride to the gates of heaven. There they will meet someone from their own past, but who is a resident of heaven. It is a fanciful story. The grass in heaven is so much more real that the people of hell have a hard time walking on it. It pokes their feet. At the end of the story, the narrator is given to turn around and see hell. It is nothing but a little crack in the ground outside the gates of heaven.
Lewis is asking us to imagine heaven. What do you imagine will be the most different about heaven from earth? Let us dispense with the silly notions of many people that it will be a place of clouds, harps, haloes, and transparent, ethereal people singing in eternal choirs. That is not a biblical picture at all. Indeed, the Scriptures point us toward Eden restored, a place with lions, tigers, and bears, but no one is afraid of them.
I think, though, that the greatest changes we will notice about heaven will be those inside ourselves. We pray in this prayer that God would cast out from us all sins and evil desires, replacing them with a fullness of the Spirit to guide into blessedness. We will simply no longer be fighting or succumbing to the greed, self-interest, and warped understanding of this world. Can you even imagine a world in which people simply keep the Ten Commandments and other rules because they want to? What about a world in which we really did think it was better to give than to receive? What would living in that sort of a world look like?
God has begun a good work in us which he brings to completion on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6). He is making you ready for heaven itself.
Tuesday of Pentecost 2 – Isaiah 65:1-9
1 I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me;
I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, “Here I am, here I am,”
to a nation that was not called by my name.
2 I spread out my hands all the day
to a rebellious people,
who walk in a way that is not good,
following their own devices;
3 a people who provoke me
to my face continually,
sacrificing in gardens
and making offerings on bricks;
4 who sit in tombs,
and spend the night in secret places;
who eat pig's flesh,
and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels;
5 who say, “Keep to yourself,
do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.”
These are a smoke in my nostrils,
a fire that burns all the day.
6 Behold, it is written before me:
“I will not keep silent, but I will repay;
I will indeed repay into their lap
7 both your iniquities and your fathers' iniquities together,
says the Lord;
because they made offerings on the mountains
and insulted me on the hills,
I will measure into their lap
payment for their former deeds.”
8 Thus says the Lord:
“As the new wine is found in the cluster,
and they say, ‘Do not destroy it,
for there is a blessing in it,’
so I will do for my servants' sake,
and not destroy them all.
9 I will bring forth offspring from Jacob,
and from Judah possessors of my mountains;
my chosen shall possess it,
and my servants shall dwell there.
When I was in high school, my parents regularly took my younger brother and me on road-trip vacations. We had made several similar trips west but had never gone east. We decided to take a Great Lakes tour. Our extreme eastern point was Niagara Falls near Buffalo, New York. I had grown up in the plains of the Midwest. We had some very large rivers near our home, but not a lot of very large waterfalls. I must say that I was impressed with this one. It thundered and roared and the volume of water that tumbled over the edge was stunning.
I think of God’s love like that. The children of Israel had foolishly tried to dam that flow. They had rebelled time and again against the love of God for them. They had done exactly what He had asked them not to do. Not once, not twice, but generations had done so. In the final verses of this reading God expresses his persistent, unrelenting love for us. Though they have been foolish and rebellious, He does not dispossess them or reject them. For His Servant’s sake, that would be Jesus, he brings forth new life and gives His people a home.
Do not try to dam up the love of God. Let it flow over you. But if you have occasion to look back upon your life, as all of us do, and see many times when you have spurned His love, rejected Him, wandered as far away from Him as you thought you could get, do imagine that your sins are greater than His love. That waterfall of His love has never stopped flowing for you. You cannot stop it. Nothing you can do will stop it. Let it flow.
Wednesday of Pentecost 2 – Psalm 3
1 O Lord, how many are my foes!
Many are rising against me;
2 many are saying of my soul,
there is no salvation for him in God. Selah
3 But you, O Lord, are a shield about me,
my glory, and the lifter of my head.
4 I cried aloud to the Lord,
and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah
5 I lay down and slept;
I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.
6 I will not be afraid of many thousands of people
who have set themselves against me all around.
7 Arise, O Lord!
Save me, O my God!
For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;
you break the teeth of the wicked.
8 Salvation belongs to the Lord;
your blessing be on your people! Selah
On November 5, 1858, the Scotsman and missionary John G. Paton landed on the Island of Tanna in what was then called the New Hebrides but today is known as the nation of Vanuatu. Tanna is one of many islands in that south pacific nation. John came with his wife Mary and they were soon joined by a newborn son, Peter. But Mary soon grew ill and died, followed shortly by their son. Surrounded by a hostile and cannibalistic native population, John slept on their graves until he was sure they would not be dug up and eaten. John’s efforts to bring the Gospel seemed to fall on deaf ears. Tensions erupted and Paton was barely saved by the timely arrival of a ship which carried him and another missionary couple to safety.
He returned to Scotland and started raising money, eventually enough to build a steamship and return. He married, had ten more children, but returned to that island nation which had driven him away. His second wife, Maggie, soon began teaching the women of the island, both to read and to sew. John had created an alphabet and translated the Scriptures. By persistence he gradually won their trust and eventually those who had sought to devour him became his friends.
He loved this psalm. Its words of God’s care, despite many foes surrounding him, gave him hope. You are not likely surrounded by cannibals today, but we are always confronted by an ugly triumvirate of sin, death, and devil who wish us ill. Our salvation belongs to God. We go to sleep, are vulnerable and helpless, and yet we arise for the Lord sustains us too. Whatever foes you face today, be these enemies within or without, stronger than you can possibly face, know that the Lord fights for you. Not even death will hold you, but with His strong voice Jesus shall slap the grave and break its teeth and free you from its grasp.
Thursday of Pentecost 2 – Galatians 3:23-4:7
23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
One day Jesus was approaching the little village of Nain, it is a tiny place. As he drew near the village a procession of people came out, bearing the body of a young man. The deceased had been the only son of a widow. You can read about this story in Luke 7. Jesus looked at the grieving mother and he had compassion on her and raised her son for her. We like to think that He saw her sorrow, which He surely did, but Jesus also saw the reality of her world. Being a widow in the ancient world was tough. There were no pensions or social security programs, no survivor benefits or even food stamps. She was utterly dependent on her family. In a conservative village in Galilee, if her husband had owned any property, she could not inherit it. It had to be held by a male relative, and now her son was dead. She was at the mercy of her husband’s family who probably saw her as a liability and may have seen the death of her male relatives as a curse upon her. Jesus has compassion on her in her miserable situation.
This was what it was like to be a woman in the first century. It was not an easy thing. Did you hear what Paul says in vs 28? Before God there is neither male nor female. Yes, there are men and women, but God’s love is not differentiated. He does not have two categories of heirs. He does not make a distinction in his love for Jews or gentiles, men or women, slave or free.
This does not mean that gender, status, and race disappear, and we are rendered into some homogenized uniformity, faceless and identical. It is a statement about God’s love. In fact, He delights in our uniqueness, diversity, and differences. But He loves us all the same. The earliest churches of Christianity were filled with slaves and women. In a world which only saw their inferior status, Paul’s words of equality before God resonated in their aching hearts. Know and believe this today. God’s love for you is never based on the color of your skin, your gender, your past, or your present status. God’s love for you is always based in the objective truth that Jesus died for you. Nothing you are or have done can ever change that fact.
Friday of Pentecost 2 – Luke 8:26–39
26 Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. 27 When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. 28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” 29 For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) 30 Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. 31 And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. 32 Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.
34 When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. 35 Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 36 And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed. 37 Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.
Our world doesn’t put much stock in the demonic. We will watch a film like The Exorcist but consign it to the genre of Horror, a fictive narrative which has an emotional effect on us, but not something real. Yet, I am not sure that the natural reasons which abound to explain he mass murderers and acts of violence which fill our screens really is able to account for all that we see. Can we honestly hear the account of some young person shooting up their school and believe that it was only because they were mistreated at some point by another? Or is there something deeper and darker involved with that monstrous act?
In 2016 Chris Buckley was filled with hate, serving as a security guard for the KKK in Georgia. He is no more. A forced encounter with an African-American woman in which he could only simply listen to her along with the friendship of a Syrian refugee has completely changed this army veteran. He has repudiated the KKK and covered up the hateful tattoos which once proclaimed his views. Now he works inside the community of racists to bring people out of that trap.
Jesus cast out a legion of demons in the man who raged in today’s reading. But when the man wanted to leave with Jesus, Jesus denied his request. Instead, he sent the man back to the very people whom he had once terrorized and who surely feared and hated him. He told him to tell the wonderful things which God has done for him. Mr. Buckley can speak to racists far better than I can. He knows them. I am sure the demoniac could speak to the people of his community with a certain authenticity. He must have had a great story to tell, and I am sure everyone wanted to hear it.
I read in Philippians 1:23 that even the Apostle Paul wanted to leave and be with Jesus. It is OK to wish that we could get in the boat and go with him to a better place. But Jesus has sent us back into the difficult places of this world, to tell what God has done for us. Heed His call when it comes to you too. Tell what He has done for you. Through sinners He often changes sinners.