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Morning Devotion for the Season of Lent

March 13, 2023

The Invitatory

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: 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: Deuteronomy 6:20-25

When your children ask you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that the Lord our God has commanded you?’ then you shall say to your children, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. The Lord displayed before our eyes great and awesome signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household. He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land that he promised on oath to our ancestors. Then the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our lasting good, so as to keep us alive, as is now the case. If we diligently observe this entire commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, we will be in the right.’

Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones

Families of all nationalities, ethnicities and religions value their heritage. Their heritage traces their movement through history. It speaks into the present providing grounding and guidance. It provides an identity for a family and for a people. It also heralds a future that is both anticipated in the past and revealed sometimes beyond expectations when it comes to pass. Sometimes this heritage revolves around a particular, singular experience. For the children of Israel in this passage it is the Sinai experience at which time Moses finds himself in God’s presence and receives the Ten Commandments. Moses appeals to the people to remember this foundational event. The community is called upon to experience this anew in a different place and time.

This foundation enables every parent to respond to the questions children may raise about their heritage and their faith. As one generation speaks to a younger one, faith begins and renews itself with each new child. One cannot stress enough the importance of these exchanges or the responsibility placed upon each parent. It is a daunting prospect and yet it may prove to be an energizing and gratifying experience to assure that faith and identity maintain their integrity, strength and vibrancy.

For the great lesson to be passed on is that loyalty and faithfulness to God are directly linked to the peoples’ prospering and fruitfulness in the land. This is not a call to provide for material benefits or profits. Rather this is a call to provide for life itself, writ very, very large. As it is written, “I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” This call is proclaimed with such strength that it takes on what one might sense in it a liturgical aspect, like a prayer of thanksgiving awaiting God’s response.

I personally do not read the call to fear God as a call to be afraid of God. If one were to add love in fear to the response to God then I read this as being in awe of and deeply respectful of God. God is not set apart. This does not entirely resolve the heightened contradiction of love and fear. It does hold the two in tension. It does place upon us a call for commitment in our hearts, our being and our might.

One of the lasting aspects of this heritage is the Ten Commandments. The text is quite clear in its exhortation that the people observe all these statutes. What an intimidating and inevitably an impossible task! And yet one cannot simply shrug it off, as if it were of no moment. There is a need to pause and reset, to think anew about this particular call and what the observance of these commandments means. God’s gift of the law was an act to God’s grace, that people might have life and have it more abundantly. The problem of God’s future redemption arises, not because the gift was wrong or the law bad, but because the sin of man which the law exposed. We will always be dependent upon God’s grace. This, too, is a wonderful part of the heritage, in times past, the present and for the future.

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.