Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
June 8, 2022
The Invitatory
Send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me, and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
The earth is the Lord’s for he made it: Come let us adore him.
Reading: Ecclesiastes 9:11-18
Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favour to the skilfull; but time and chance happen to them all. For no one can anticipate the time of disaster. Like fish taken in a cruel net, and like birds caught in a snare, so mortals are snared at a time of calamity, when it suddenly falls upon them.
I have also seen this example of wisdom under the sun, and it seemed important to me. There was a little city with few people in it. A great king came against it and besieged it, building great siege-works against it. Now there was found in it a poor, wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man. So I said, ‘Wisdom is better than might; yet the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heeded.’
The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded
than the shouting of a ruler among fools.
Wisdom is better than weapons of war,
but one bungler destroys much good.
Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones
To a Mouse by Robert Burns describes Burns' remorse at having destroyed the nest of a tiny field mouse with his plough. He apologizes to the mouse for his mishap, for the general tyranny of man in nature and reflects mournfully on the role of fate in the life of every creature, including himself. The mouse's homelessness and hunger prompt the writer to feel compassion for all vulnerable creatures and also to reflect on the unpredictability and pain of human life. From this poem comes the famous line, “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.” Or the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry. A proverbial expression used to signify the futility of making detailed plans when the ability to fully or even partially execute them is uncertain.
While the theme of the unpredictability of life is central to this pastoral setting, its characterization in the passage from Ecclesiastes is broader and darker. Here the human condition is set in the broader perspective and reality of life, that there will always be uncertainty in what we make of our fortune in life, particularly in the larger contexts of time and adversity. Time and chance are common to all. Human accomplishment does not shield or render anyone immune to the happenstance of disaster, misfortune or calamity. The passage calls us to face this hard truth that is framed within the challenge to believe in the God who holds time in his hands. This gives life a certain texture as we wrestle with what happens and our understanding of what happens or the pattern we seek to create and the one created for us by a power that is not ours. And we weave a pattern out of all that is given to us, through all the circumstances of life.
And yet, we must come to grips with the hard truth that ability alone does not sustain one. When we are laboring under the burdens of life, God, and God alone, can sustain us. Our personal skills last only as long as life does, and even their sharpness dwindles and dulls, as they must over time. We can pursue them and hone them as tools that may help us to persevere, but what might be ultimately more sustaining is to trust God to guide us through all life’s adversities and to address what we cannot. And most mysteriously and unexpectedly, but with great joy when we emerge from such exigent and sometimes frightening circumstances we experience a certain happiness that is the gift of God. And it is quite a mystery, that even if happiness is denied, one may inexplicably receive God’s blessing from its denial.
The Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
