Reflections on Scripture through the Daily Office (8)
We are now caught up to the present day in devotionals. These were written for this week, beginning with today, Sunday April 6, 2025. This means postings of devotionals will slow down now, as I write them about every 9 weeks or so. Blessings!
Sunday: Psalm 118; Jeremiah 23:16-32, 1 Corinthians 9:19-27, Mark 8:31—9:1
“How long? Will the hearts of the prophets ever turn back—those who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart? They plan to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, just as their ancestors forgot my name for Baal…See, I am against the prophets, says the LORD, who use their own tongues and say, ‘Says the LORD.’ See, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, says the LORD, and who tell them, and who lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or appoint them; so they do not profit this people at all...” — Jeremiah 23:26-27; 31-32
We think we can do better than be honest, in our interactions with ourselves and with others, and this is a terrible mistake. Others suffer, at the expense of our dishonesty.
“Thus says the LORD of hosts: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you; they are deluding you. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. They keep saying to those who despise the word of the LORD, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to all who stubbornly follow their own stubborn hearts, they say, ‘No calamity shall come upon you.’ — Jeremiah 23:16-17
We think we can bring about peace or prosperity by talking about it—but only deny reality by doing so, and fail the true work of peace that alone leads to true prosperity.
“Am I a God near by, says the LORD, and not a God far off? Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? Says the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? Says the LORD.” I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’ — Jeremiah 23:23-25
We do not like that God is detail-oriented. We wish He would let us skip the pain, and bless our generalized well-wishing.
And so. For the sake of our good and for the sake of our lives, God has made His light to shine upon us, because He is good, and because His love endures forever (Psalm 118:27; 29).
Prayer: Dearest Father, I’m not sure why it always goes downhill, why broken cisterns never could stay filled. Why, despite of my years of singing gravity away, the water keeps on falling from the sky. Heaven knows, heaven knows, I’ve tried to find a cure for the pain. But oh, my Lord, to suffer like you do…it would be a lie to run away. Help us, pray for us, let your mercy be seen and known amongst us. Amen. (Jon Foreman, adapted to prayer from the song “The Cure For Pain”)
Monday: Psalm 31; Jeremiah 24:1-10, Romans 9:19-33, John 9:1-17
As he [Jesus] walked along, he saw a man born blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ — John 9:1-2
Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use?...What then are we to say? Gentiles, who did not strive for righteousness, have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith; but Israel, who did strive for the righteousness that is based on the law, did not succeed in fulfilling that law. Why not? Because they did not strive for it on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works. — Romans 9:21, 30-32
We have Romans and John all of this week (and not to mention the epic-ness of Jeremiah)! These are two of the richest, most dense writings that make up our New Testament. We have the apostle Paul at his most complex, and the apostle John (purposefully known by the church as Saint John the Theologian) presenting his unique gospel as a compliment, but a very intentionally distinct one, to the other gospel accounts of Jesus Christ. These readings placed together present a wonderful feast, and also a daunting one—let us proceed thoughtfully, lest we get a stomach ache from eating too quickly and undiscerningly of such a rich fare!
Holy Spirit, discerner of our hearts, guide of our minds, pray-er of the Prayer that is the life of Jesus—help us today and this week, as we meditate on these Your Scriptures, of which You have been a part of from the start and into this present moment. Amen.
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ the disciples ask Jesus as they walk along (John 9:2). Woah woah woah there! is Jesus’ reply. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:3-5). This correction of Jesus’ is, I think, pivotal and complimentary to the middle of Paul’s dialectic that we have here in Romans 9 (“dialectic” is a fancy word for an argumentative style that pits opposing viewpoints against each other in order to take an audience somewhere). For all of the points Paul is making here and throughout Romans, it is not the case that simply some people are “in” and some people are “out” of God’s mercy and favor (or worse, that those who are “in” and “"out” are exclusively chosen by the arbitrary will of God—a resounding no!). All have sinned, yes. But God is not arbitrary, nor is He a tease. All of us suffer in every kind and manor of horrible ways in this life, some deservedly and some undeservedly—but this suffering is the very work of Jesus Christ, taken up and into His life.
Prayer: Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, my faithful God. I trust in you, O LORD; I say ‘You are my God.’ Blessed be the LORD, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was beset as a city under siege. Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the LORD. Amen. (Psalm 31:5, 14, 21, 25)
Tuesday: Psalm [120], 121, 122, 123; Jeremiah 25:8-17, Romans 10:1-13, John 9:18-41
…the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue…So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, ‘Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.’ He answered, ‘I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.’ They said to him, ‘What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?’ He answered them, ‘I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?’ Then they reviled him, saying, ‘You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.’ The man answered, ‘Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’ They answered him, ‘You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?’ And they drove him out. — John 9:22, 24-34
Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. I can testify that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes…For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ — Romans 10:1-4, 12-13
Why does Jesus stoop to make mud with his spit, when he heals the blind man? So that it might be seen that God is all about the good activity of making each of us into human beings—“Irenaeus [of Lyons] notes that the action by which Jesus healed the man born blind…parallels the action by which God created human beings at the beginning, taking clay from the earth and mixing his own power with it, so that, as this is done ‘that the works of God might be manifest in him’, Irenaeus can conclude ‘the work of God is fashioning the human being’.”1
And, as the blind man grows more and more in his faith, from claiming Jesus as an unknown prophet to being the very Son of Man who ought to be worshiped…the Pharisees go on an opposite journey, until it is clear they are the ones who are completely blind (see p. 169, Behr).
Is this difference between the man born blind and the Pharisees, then, an example of Paul’s delineation between those who are destined to believe and those who are destined not to? Oh no! For, "Christ is the end of the law SO THAT there may be righteousness for everyone who believes” (Romans 10:4). Jesus tells us in John 9:40-10:1 and 10:31-39 (and elsewhere) that the Pharisees are choosing blindness through their unwillingness to be directed to the very Scriptures they claim to know and teach and be devoted to. Though they too are in the presence of their Clay-Master, they are unteachable, despite the fact that Jesus gives reason and proof time and again that the Scriptures are being upheld and honored by him.
Let us each one of us listen to the True Human Being, Jesus of Nazareth, who is the one chosen by God to be Christ for all: first to the Jew, then to the Greek.
Prayer: Lord, our God, you know who we are: People with good and bad consciences; satisfied and dissatisfied, sure and unsure people; Christians out of conviction and Christians out of habit; believers, half-believers, and unbelievers. You know where we come from: from our circle of relatives, friends and acquaintances, or from great loneliness; from lives of quiet leisure, or from all manner of embarrassment and distress; from ordered, tense, or destroyed family relationships; from the inner circle, or from the fringes of the Christian community. But now we all stand before you: in all our inequality equal in this, that we are all in the wrong before you and among each other; that we all must die some day; that we all would be lost without your grace; but also in that your grace is promised to and turned toward all of us through your beloved Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. We are here together in order to praise you by allowing you to speak to us. We ask that this might happen in this hour in the name of your Son, our Lord. Amen. (Karl Barth, p. 1 Fifty Prayers)
Wednesday: Psalm 119:145-176; Jeremiah 25:30-38, Romans 10:14-21, John 10:1-18
With my whole heart I cry; answer me, O Lord.
I will keep your statutes.
I cry to you; save me,
that I may observe your decrees.
I rise before dawn and cry for help;
I put my hope in your words.
My eyes are awake before each watch of the night,
that I may meditate on your promise.
In your steadfast love hear my voice;
O Lord, in your justice preserve my life.
Those who persecute me with evil purpose draw near;
they are far from your law.
Yet you are near, O Lord,
and all your commandments are true.
Long ago I learned from your decrees
that you have established them for ever…
…Princes persecute me without cause,
but my heart stands in awe of your words.
I rejoice at your word
like one who finds great spoil.
I hate and abhor falsehood,
but I love your law.
Seven times a day I praise you
for your righteous ordinances.
Great peace have those who love your law;
nothing can make them stumble.
I hope for your salvation, O Lord,
and I fulfill your commandments.
My soul keeps your decrees;
I love them exceedingly.
I keep your precepts and decrees,
for all my ways are before you.
— Psalm 119:145-152, 161-168
What, in today’s daily section of John we begin with 10:1 and not 9:41? “Jesus begins a speech in 9:41, and editors of the New Testament, going back to Stephen Langton (1150-1228 CE), have rudely interrupted him with a chapter break. In John’s original Greek, of course, there is no white space between “your sins remain” and “truly, truly I say to you”. The Good Shepherd Discourse…is a continuation of Jesus’ sharp rebuke to the Pharisees, which actually begins with Jesus announcing judgement on those who see (v. 39).”2
I share this as a playful reminder that we’re ever in a balancing act. A balancing act of trusting and relying upon tradition (such as the tradition of how our Bibles have been handed down to us by our ancestors, verse and chapter and section breaks being designed as aids to help us), and recognizing our own legitimate and dignified role as interpreters of Scripture and actors in the Good Story of God today. If we over-emphasize tradition, we lose how God wishes to use us today, but if we forget or malign our traditions, we cut ourselves off from our heritage, our inheritance, and our identity.
On a different note, let us remember that when we pray the Psalms, we pray with Jesus. He knew the Psalms intimately, and certainly prayed them to His heavenly Father (yes, that means that God was praying to God…a fun puzzle to ponder and discuss elsewhere). It’s powerful, reading Psalm 119:145-176 from Jesus’ perspective. And to recall that it is this Jesus who speaks, who is ever calling to each of us, who in turn can only have faith by first hearing from Him (Romans 10:14-17). That it is this Jesus who is the Good Shepherd, and who lays down his life for us his sheep, and of his own will and accord, only to then again take it up again (John 10:11, 17-18).
Prayer [from the perspective of Jesus the Christ]:
Oh all ye, who passe by, whose eyes and minde
To worldly things are sharp, but to Me blinde;
To Me, who took eyes that I might you finde:
Was ever grief like mine?
The Princes of my people make a head
Against their Maker: they do wish me dead,
Who cannot wish, except I give them bread;
Was ever grief like mine?
Without me each one, who doth now me brave,
Had to this day been an Egyptian slave.
They use that power against me, which I gave:
Was ever grief like mine?
Amen. (George Herbert, “The Sacrifice,” Stanzas 1-3)
Thursday: Psalm 131, 132, [133]; Jeremiah 26:1-16, Romans 11:1-12, John 10:19-42
So I ask, have they [Israel] stumbled so as to fall? By no means! But through their stumbling salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their stumbling means riches for the world, and if their defeat means riches for Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!
— Romans 11:11-12
The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus replied, ‘I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?’ — John 10:31-32
When the officials of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king’s house to the house of the Lord and took their seat in the entry of the New Gate of the house of the Lord. Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and to all the people, ‘This man [Jeremiah] deserves the sentence of death because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.’ — Jeremiah 16:10-11
To be chosen is to be a Suffering One. When one is elected by God, it is on behalf of others that they are chosen, and they suffering accordingly.
We see this in Romans, John, and Jeremiah today. Paul is deep in his engagement with the Roman church’s confusion around whether or not God has dispensed with the Jewish people, or instead honored and fulfilled His promises to them. Elected Jews (such as King David, or the prophet Elijah [Romans 11:2-3; 9-10]) spoke out against Israel, God’s elected nation. So too does Jesus—the Jewish Pharisaical sect is well advanced into their commitment to arrest or stone Jesus, the Jewish healer and proclaimed Messiah who says he is at one with God, just as a son is with a father (John 10:22-39). Jesus speaks and teaches and heals so that he might be received as the promised Messiah…but the Pharisees have already chosen not to believe, asking if he is the Messiah only so that they might arrest him.
Jeremiah is only spared his life when he prophesies to the priests and officials and people in the temple because Ahikam son of Shaphan remembers the words of their Scriptures (Jeremiah 16:18-19), and defends Jeremiah (Jeremiah 26:24). A prophet with the same message as Jeremiah’s meets the opposite fate—though he flees all the way to Egypt, he is hunted down, brought back, and executed by King Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 16:20-23). Yes indeed, it is great and good and desirous to be elected by God…but it is also hard, and perilous.
Are our heads spinning yet? Is this all too much? Let us then cloister and take a rest in Psalm 131. Let us make a habit of doing so often, too, so that we might regain our courage in order to venture out with God, again.
Prayer: On land you have been in search of a home. On land what may come out of searching for a home?… Footless I walk, my head in the stone, I am homelessness. What am I without a home? Footless I walk, my body on the cloud, I am madness, a bee and a boar. Where is here, O Lord? This geometric maze, this twisting, thorny path, this voyeuristic city…let me hope in the Lord, for he has sworn a sure oath from which he will not turn back. Amen. (Psalm 131:3 and Psalm 132:11 combined with an excerpt from the poem “From Sea to Dawn” by Vahid Davar, turned into prayer)
Friday: Psalm 95 & 22; Jeremiah 29:1, 4-13, Romans 11:13-24, John 11:1-27 or 12:1-10
Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your ancestors tested me, and put me to the proof,
though they had seen my work. — Psalm 95:8-9
For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted;
He did not hide his face from me,
but heard when I cried to him…
To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
even he who cannot keep himself alive/and I shall live for him [either translation valid].
Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord,
and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,
saying that he has done it.
— Psalm 22:24, 29-31
Will we trust our Maker to unmake us? Only to make us back up again?
That is what is at play here; I see it in our texts today. We do not see or understand right away, but will we trust the process, guided by our Lord’s hand? The disciples (and Mary and Martha) have no idea what Jesus is up to, allowing Lazarus to experience the pain and sorrow of natural death through sickness…but they do show courage, saying ‘let us also go with him, that we may literally die and be killed by the Jews with him’ (John 11:16). And then, Jesus is shown to be trustworthy—Lazarus experiences resurrection, and will be one of the few who experiences it twice, when we all are raised from the dead. This was done so that we all, each of us, might believe (John 11:14).
Meanwhile Paul is at great pains to illicit humility in all of us, both the Jews and us, the Greeks. He uses the metaphor of the olive tree in the garden (and not too unlike the same metaphor Jesus will use in John’s gospel in just a few more chapters, with the vine). Who is the holy root who makes the entire tree holy? And who is the one who cuts off branches in order to graft others in? And who is the one who has cut and grafted, only so that the dead branches that were disobedient might be won back (Romans 11:30-31)? “For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all” (Romans 11:32).
In Jeremiah—the Israelites are captured and taken into Babylon, just as Jeremiah prophesied. And God promises goodness for them in exile, even as a witness to and against the Babylonians in their midst. Then, even more than this is promised—while the exile will play its restorative role upon them, the Israelites will win back their own hearts, so that they might desire and once again seek and know their God. And then there is this promise, that this exile is not final (Jeremiah 29:14).
Will we let our Maker do the necessary work of unmaking us? Only so that He might make us back up again?
Prayer: Let us sing a new song to the Lord. Sing through the skin of your teeth, sing in the code of your blood, sing with a throat full of earth. Sing to the quick of your nails, sing from the knots of your lungs, sing like a dancer on coals, sing as a madman in tongues. Sing as if singing made sense, sing in the caves of your heart, sing like you want them to dance, sing through the shades of your past. In your name oh Lord, Amen. (Michael Symmons Roberts, “A New Song,” adapted into prayer)
Saturday: Psalm 137:1-6(7-9), 144; Jeremiah 31:27-34, Romans 11:25-36, John 11:28-44 or 12:37-50
O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever. Amen. — Romans 11:33-36
With these words, Paul concludes this section of Romans, as scholars section together chapters 9-11 as a thematic unit, much like a third movement within a symphony. The letter to the Romans is a cohesive whole, no doubt about it; but Paul is focused on certain select purposes between chapters 1-4, 5-8, 9-11, and 12-16.
And are these words meant as a declaration against human understanding? Is Paul saying that ultimately we can’t know or understand anything, because God’s mind is ultimately un-knowable? Not quite so.
Rather, Paul is amazed to the point of praise that God can use the foolishness, stubbornness, and even wickedness of us human beings for his redemptive purposes. God can turn our very rejections into opportunities. God is greater and mightier, wiser and more loving, than we humans imagine him to be or give him credit for (e.g. Jonah 4:1-2, Ephesians 3:14-21). We get to live life in participation with this God, who is indeed knowable because He has made himself so through his Incarnate Son.
Prayer: Lord, give us weak eyes for things of little worth, and eyes clear-sighted in all of your truth. Amen (Bishop Albertini, Handbuch deutcher Beredsamkeit (1845), p. 293. Provided by Søren Kierkegaard as a forward to his book Sickness Unto Death)
p. 168, John the Theologian & his Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology (2019), John Behr.
pp. 167-168ff, John the Theologian & his Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology (2019), John Behr.
Beautiful… Love the Irenaeus & John the Theologian nod.