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Morning Devotion for the Season After Pentecost

November 8, 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: Romans 13:8-10

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet’; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones

There was a time that one petition in the Lord’s Prayer was expressed in this fashion: Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors…. One could so feel the press of obligation that such obligation seemed inescapable. It almost blotted out whatever joy one might take in life. The burden was oppressive, relentless and sucked the joy out of living. Imagine then the weight of the Ten Commandments and the realization that one could never keep them faithfully and consistently. And God never, in truth, intended that any of us could or would. What they pointed to was the love that God extended to us, to free us to live into freedom from our sins so that we might explore more deeply how we would live into God’s love for us and for all his creation.

To owe nothing but love to one another is to own the reality that we all are completely dependent on God’s grace for not only our forgiveness, but for our very existence, and it reframes how we live in relation to one another in our everyday interactions. It also reframes life so that other obligations become significantly less reality defining than formerly. For it is love that “fulfills the law.” Law introduced both obligation to performance and it undergirded obligation culture, creating distinctions while operating on the basis of the distinctions it created.

If love is loving one another, it obliterates making and drawing lines of distinction between Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free, benefactor and beneficiary. Love of one another, understood through the lens of the cross, means giving up our claims to ourselves and our claims over others, however they might seem “right” and “just” according to our own narratives and priorities. This not only recalibrates obligation culture, but it recalibrates how the law — the foundation of obligation and rights culture and the foundation of life — should be understood.

We are invited to live in the present and into a new life made possible through the cross. We are encouraged, moreover to “let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” This is not the light of our own performance, of our hard work, or even of our status as good citizens. One of the prefaces used in Holy Eucharist acknowledges God, “For you are the source of light and life, you made us in your image and called us to new life in Jesus Christ our Lord. We who have died to our old lives are now obligated to offer nothing but love. What is at stake here has far less to do with strict adherence to the Law and more to do with attention to and discerning of the gracious and generous circumstances and condition of one’s life, through the loving and forgiving presence and activity of God in one’s life

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.