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Morning Devotion for the Season After Pentecost

September 11, 2023

The Invitatory

The mercy of the Lord is everlasting: O come, let us adore him.

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.

Reading: Philippians 1:1-11

To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that on the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones

“Friendship is essential to the soul.”

This is the motto of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, an African American Greek-letter organization of men founded at Howard University in 1911. Why might this be the case? I invite my readers to revel for a while in the friendships that you have established and nurtured over the span of your life. Celebrate the mutuality, the shared interests, the knowing glances over some familiar experience or lesson learned. There are many times of shared confidences that occur freely and without embarrassment because the relationship is so well-grounded in trust, respect and desire for the other’s well-being. There is history and there are fun times. Yes, there have been arguments but you and your friend have always found your way back to the other. You and your friend have extended forgiveness and admitted causing hurt when it was needed and deeply appreciated. One always looks forward to seeing one’s friend or speaking to her and receiving, in this day and time, a supportive text message. All of these shared experiences and qualities are felt and treasured in a friendship. One can sense immediately how they touch our soul for this is the place within us where we are joined with God.

The love that is philia is what makes true community (koinōnia) possible, especially as described by Aristotle in his Politics. It involves activities that express commonality, thinking and sharing things in common. As described by the apostle, Paul, friendship is a spiritual matter.

It is possible to make a similar statement about the opening of Paul's letter to the Philippians. Much of this letter is about reconnecting and strengthening a relationship that is important to both sender and recipient. This relationship appears to be particularly important to the apostle since he is in prison: “for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.” How often do we comfort ourselves when we find ourselves alone and cut off from family and friends by relishing the close relationships that we have cultivated. We recall shared good times and the intimacies that tied us together.

These good times and the intimacy that arises from them arouses gratitude in us, similar to Paul’s expression of thanksgiving. in koinōnia, which in this context refers to the community and its participants. What is the bedrock of this sharing within the community and among its participants is that friends hold all things in common. This is why one might suggest that friendship is at the heart of this letter. The church is a community of active participants, each holding a similar status (whether “brothers and sisters” or “friends' ', (most basically human beings), and holding fundamental things in common. And so it is that the church in Philippi is a community established in the friendship between Paul and the Philippians when he says, “for all of you share in God’s grace with me.”

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.