Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
August 1, 2022
Invitatory
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
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.
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: Come let us adore him.
Reading: Acts 2:40-47
And [Peter] testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Meditation – Peter Vanderveen
The film director Sydney Pollack once commented that when making a movie, it’s very easy to keep the audience’s attention by showing people falling in love. It’s easy, too, he said, to keep us attentive on the other end, when love fails and people drift apart from one another. Ninety-nine percent of film direction, Pollack stated, is a breeze. The only really taxing part – the fiendishly difficult part – he warned, is showing people who are in love. Once their love is mutually recognized and affirmed, film audiences have little patience for this happy stasis. And film directors have yet to find an effective and engaging way to represent it. Pollack claimed the outside limit was two minutes: love stretched to its maximum. Two minutes is the maximum amount of time we’ll allow before we get bored or restless or super-saturated with unrealistic bliss. Two minutes: anything more, Pollack said, and the story will flop.
I’ve often thought that the sweep of Christian history has followed this rule. There was the long time of Israel’s covenantal development — that crescendoing period of awaiting the fruition of God’s promise. And there is now the time of the church, fraught with continual divisions stemming from endless arguments regarding the right understanding of the faith. And between these, there was perhaps the equivalent of two-minutes of grace when God’s love seemed to be made ecstatically manifest. We may have realized and celebrated this love for a moment… but we have since dispensed with it, falling back into the dynamics of the world with which we’re more familiar – maybe looking over our shoulder nostalgically at what once happened for a very short duration of time.
The reading today from the book of Acts expresses that two minutes as it was idealized for the early church. After hearing the message of Christ’s resurrection as preached by Peter, everything seemed to drop smoothly into a most uncommon harmony for those who chose to be baptized. All sorts of wonders were occurring. People looked after one another without the merest thought of the cost. And all without argument or assessment or any calculation of who were gaining and who were losing and whether any of this redistribution was fair or helpful to the long term health of the community. This simply happened. And many would like to believe that the same should happen today.
But trouble already lies around the edges of this story. Peter urged the people to “save themselves.” He described those who did not follow his instruction as “crooked and corrupt.” Some were designated as the elect. Others were relegated to the reprobate. Before a community could even be gathered, it was already marked by division: a division that had only metastasized through the ages.
I’ve often heard people speak glowingly of these verses, as if creating this kind of community is not only our goal; it’s our Christian imperative and responsibility. It’s God’s command. But this is a dream that immediately divides us. And it’s a vision that, paradoxically, can do great harm. God’s kingdom may have the characteristics described in this passage, but it’s not within our capabilities to establish or sustain such a kingdom. We wait for God to grant it. That’s God’s drama.
And in the meantime we rejoice when love arises and we grieve when we can no longer find a way to keep it lively. That’s our drama.
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,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
