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Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
September 22, 2023
Invitatory
You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.
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.
Reading - 1 Corinthians 3:16-23
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written,
‘He catches the wise in their craftiness’,
and again,
‘The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise,
that they are futile.’
So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
Meditation - Rebecca Northington
As a first year in college, I will never forget the day my lacrosse coach told all of us that our bodies were our temples. We were having an indoor meeting in the doldrums of January after an early morning lifting session, when she relayed to us the value of our bodies. As an eighteen-year-old I had never really thought much about my body beyond how it could serve me. I certainly had not thought about serving my body, or treating it as a temple: something sacred. Reflecting on that lesson I can understand today that she wanted us to care for our bodies with the utmost attention, so that our bodies could perform for our team and for her. But intentionally or not, this leader whom we all adored, told us that we were sacred-something I try to communicate to the youth of this parish week after week.
In his letter to the Corinthians Paul is also trying to communicate the sacred value of each and every follower of Jesus, regardless of their ethnicity, religious background, education or socio-economic status. “For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple”. Do we truly believe we are holy? Do we assess ourselves through the measure of God’s love, or through our own human achievement? Do we live and breathe as though God’s spirit resides in us, or do we accept ourselves more realistically, solely on the basis of our own success, still stumbling as we try to walk in faith?
Later in this same letter Paul reminds us that all worldly things will pass away, but love will remain, along with faith and hope. These words are often spoken at wedding ceremonies on the precipice of a shared lifetime, reminding a couple, and anyone else who is paying attention, that life is full of ups and downs, wins and losses; but love should endure, especially when paired with hope and faith. I would contend that it is faith, love and hope that are needed to convince any of us that we are God’s temple, and that we alone are enough. The character Ken in the new Barbie movie also has this realization, albeit in secular terms, that has garnered the #”Ken-nough”, which has gone viral. It is not what we have accomplished or who we are partnered with, it is that we are God’s; that is what makes us a temple of God’s love.
Lastly Paul also reminds us that it’s not which team we are playing for that matters, whether it’s for him, for Apollos or Cephas-they all work for God. Perhaps this admonition can be applied to today’s world when many of us use any opportunity to feel superior-also not a great God look. Our friends in faith are our friends in faith, and are also “God’s temple”, and therefore our transient wisdom or success or sense of righteousness should all be warning signs of more stumbling, and an opportunity to reflect on the givenness of God, to all people, and most gratefully, to each one of us.
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.
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