Morning Devotion for Epiphany
Friday January 7, 2022
The Invitatory
I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.
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.
The Lord has shown forth his glory: Come let us adore him.
Reading: Deuteronomy 8:1-3
This entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase, and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
Meditation – Michael Palmisano
For better or for worse, I learned more about the workings of English grammar during seminary than I had during any other portions of my formal education. I probably ought to attribute this to my accumulation of some basic Hebrew and Greek language and their respective grammatical sequences and structures. Thankfully, this grammatical awakening has aided me in the work of literary-theological criticism of Scripture. By this awakening I have become aware of the jarring theological challenges in Scripture, not least of which is the Israelites’ interpretation of the conditionality of God’s promises to them.
The Israelites recorded many of God’s promises to them in the structure of protasis and apodosis – in the structure of “if… then…” statements. If the Israelites would keep the Lord’s commandments, then the Lord would be faithful to them. This might be an accurate description of human relations but seems out of step with the way Christians have come to understand God’s relating to them in the person of Christ.
However, this chapter of Deuteronomy subtly holds the extremities of competing conditions in perfect tension with one another. When reading or listening to this text we must not forget that the conditions of future prosperity in the Promised Land and the prediction of the Israelites’ resulting abandonment of God is set within the context of their prior poverty and same abandonment of God. In both the conditions of poverty and prosperity the people of God have chosen protest and abandonment over faithfulness. The notion that humankind could ever adequately live into a relationship of conditionality with God is ludicrous.
The subtext of this passage is that both poverty and prosperity have been and will be the conditions in which the Israelites will abandon God. Therefore, whatever might appear as a conditional “threat” by God to punish the Israelites “if” they abandon Him is a mere reiteration of history and reaffirmation of human nature. There will be no such thing as the perfect conditions under which our obedience to God will be most likely. We live under the real and constant threat of choosing faithfulness to our own appetites over faithfulness towards our Creator.
We constantly create arbitrary conditions under which we might more readily accept what God is communicating to us. “I would believe more if only… I would serve more if only… I would trust more if only…” Regardless, God communicates Himself to us equally in poverty and in prosperity – of this we can be certain from the exiled Israelites who, for forty years, stood upon the precipice overlooking the Promised Land.
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.
Closing Prayer
O God, the creator and preserver of all mankind, we humbly beseech thee for all sorts and conditions of men; that thou wouldest be pleased to make thy ways known unto them, thy saving health unto all nations. More especially we pray for thy holy Church universal; that it may be so guided and governed by thy good Spirit, that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of truth, and hold the faith in unity of spirit, in the bond of peace, and in righteousness of life. Finally, we commend to thy fatherly goodness all those who are in any ways afflicted or distressed, in mind, body, or estate; that it may please thee to comfort and relieve them according to their several necessities, giving them patience under their sufferings, and a happy issue out of all their afflictions. And this we beg for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.
