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Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost

September 28, 2022

Invitatory

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

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.

Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness: Come let us adore him.

Reading: Luke 5:27-32

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax-collection station, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up, left everything, and followed him. Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house, and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Then they said to him, “John’s disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink.” Jesus said to them, “You cannot make wedding attendants fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you?

Meditation – Peter Vanderveen

I have lost my appetite for fasting. It no longer attracts me as it once did, when at some level it felt a bit self-congratulatory – even if no one else knew that I was fasting. I was, nonetheless, doing something that required discipline solely on account of my religious commitment. Fasting felt virtuous.

This is not to say that I’m not aware of the potential benefits of the refusal that any form of fasting entails, whether it’s literally not eating or it’s refraining from any of the other habits of consuming that occupy us. Fasting can be a method of decluttering our lives and paring back, by which we can recognize and newly acknowledge the more essential aspects of living that are easily forgotten. For we tend to be far more attentive to what we can acquire rather than to what we have already been given.

My loss of interest, however, doesn’t stem from fasting itself, either its practice or its theory. I’ve simply become evermore convinced that what we really don’t know how to do – and this is absolutely central to Christian faith – is feasting rather than fasting. In Gospel terms, we have no idea how to live as if the bridegroom were in our midst.

Most of the time, the way we imagine feasting is that it’s simply the opposite of fasting. It’s eating without any direct references to limit – “all you want,” or, as many restaurants invite, “all you can.” Feasting is simply taken as the delight of gorging, of excess, of indulging in such a way that we truly do experience it as a confirmation of “having it all.” For a time.

But feasting as the Gospel sets it out is altogether different than this; feasting is the natural result of our realization of how fervently God is for us. For all of God’s energy is turned to seeking us out, in order that we may be the recipients of God’s unwarranted grace. When Levi was called – minding his own business sitting at work – he responded by throwing a party. He invited friends. It was an occasion of rejoicing. To which the Pharisees objected. For they couldn’t loose themselves from the idea that it is God who must be sought and that the response of God is his demanding sacrifice from us. Faith had to be costly in order to be true.

And we’re stuck with the same conviction today. It just doesn’t seem possible or right or just that God would act with such benevolence, or that we could be astounded by mercy without begging for it first. This free grace granted by God is always a step too far. Repentance must precede it, and it must involve beating one’s chest and groveling in apology. But Jesus never asks for this. And repentance isn’t the task of taking the measure of our failures; it’s the amazement that comes from receiving God’s favor without our asking.

Mention church and for many people their thoughts immediately turn to the heavy baggage of duty, obligation, obedience, etc. It seems we just can’t shake this off, even after more than 300 years of reciting Thomas Cranmer’s phrase that the only sacrifice that we can owe is one of “praise and thanksgiving.” I can be all in with this.

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.