Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
September 27, 2024
Invitatory
Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen
Luke 4:31-37
He went down to Capernaum, a city in Galilee, and was teaching them on the sabbath. They were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority. In the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Let us alone! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ When the demon had thrown him down before them, he came out of him without having done him any harm. They were all amazed and kept saying to one another, ‘What kind of utterance is this? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and out they come!’ And a report about him began to reach every place in the region.
Meditation-Rebecca Northington
Could you imagine if you could just say: ‘unclean demon—“come out!”’, and it would happen? Seriously, take a moment and consider all the people you might heal, right now, today……
Within our own families we all have people who work with a little bit of an unclean spirit. They expect too much, have an unhealthy level of jealousy, bitterness, entitlement, inflated sense of ego, you name it. They are just off. Perhaps you have tried to heal them, through therapy, through meds, through boundaries, but how well has that worked? Imagine if you had God’s power to heal? It’s kind of mind blowing, all of the relationships that could be so much healthier and happier. Imagine if folks had the ability to heal themselves, and could just say “heal thyself!” What a world we would live in.
I think many Christians operate with this assumption: if you know God, you can be healed. If you choose love, all will be well. There are so many shades of gray within this formula. I believe it is far more complicated.
This past Sunday evening the Youth Group cleaned out the cottage across from the rectory where a former parishioner has been staying while the Church has attempted to help him to connect with the necessary resources to get back on his feet. I do not want to say that we were unsuccessful but the damage and detritus we found over there was so significant as to suggest that our limited human power is…limited. We can try to help those in need; and as disappointing as it can be, we may not always be effective.
We have talked quite a bit about surrender in RYG this last year; contextualized in an understanding that after full lamentation comes surrender, resulting in joy. This means surrendering to God, and to all of the helping hands extended to you. I still think this is a critical formula, but I believe we need to find a place to add forgiveness. As simple humans, we may not be able to use the power of God or Jesus to call out the demons-and have them listen. We must forgive ourselves, our perceived understanding of God’s role in the offending agent, and the one possessed by unclean spirits.
As I finished David and Goliath, by Malcolm Gladwell I was struck by this emphasis on forgiveness. Gladwell reverses our perceived sense of strength and weakness in countless examples throughout the book. He points out that often the David’s in our world have more power than we realize. One example Gladwell gives of a Mennonite woman who loses her daughter to abduction and murder, finds herself contemplating the many ways to pursue justice, and ultimately realizes that all of those paths will come up short, with unimaginable consequences to herself and her family. She chooses forgiveness and in that moment leans into a different kind of power than the one the abductor had. It is a heart wrenching example of a kind of surrender, but in some cases forgiveness is our only human tool for rooting out evil in others. We are not God. We can offer our love, our limited ability to heal, and our forgiveness; relentlessly, as is the Mennonite tradition, and frankly as the Gospels direct, should be all Christians tradition also.
Prayer
I pray that God's forgiving love, brought to us through the power of the Holy Spirit, may lead us to truly become communities of grace, joy, and peace, so that God's healing and hope flow through us to the world. Amen
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