Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
November 24, 2021
Invitatory
“Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be always 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.
Praise ye the Lord.
The Lord's Name be praised.
Reading: I Peter 2:9-10
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Meditation – Peter Vanderveen
I want to set this text against all the prevailing wisdom of our current age.
In John’s account of the raising of Lazarus, when Lazarus emerges from the tomb, Jesus instructs those standing around to “unbind him and let him go.” One might assume that Jesus meant the shroud in which Lazarus was wrapped, which itself was an indication of death. And neither Jesus nor John expound on this. It’s left as a simple command, and, as such, it serves as a general marker for what the promise of God does. We are unbound by it.
We are unbound: it’s worth considering this for a while. Because the general perspective both inside the church and among those who want nothing to do with religion is that God saddles the faithful with responsibility. God is demanding. Faith is a discipline. Even more, it requires sacrifice. And salvation depends on meeting a minimum bar of approval -- whether in works or in believing the right things. In one way or another, this is the usual party line. But it’s a shroud that holds us in death.
In just two sentences from Peter’s Epistle this is all upended. For us, the terms “race,” “priesthood,” and “nation” delineate and divide. They set up competing relations and inform us that we are always engaged in some kind of cold war with one another. But Christ undoes this. “Race,” “priesthood,” and “nation” are all transformed -- the divisions they cite are canceled, one might say -- by the final announcement that we are now all “God’s own people.” And this was not by our achieving; it was purely God’s decree and action.
“Once you were not a people,” Peter declared. What does this mean? It may be that we choose too often to live a certain kind of death, bound to loyalties that set us at odds. Race, religion, and nation all pass away with us. So why do we invest ourselves so heavily and aggressively in them? Why do we get ourselves in such knots over these things? For we are all recipients of God’s mercy, and this sets us as equals. This provides us the freedom to stand before one another without accusation because we have all received the mercy of God that calls us out of death to life. So we can stand with one another.
God unbinds us. We are unbound. Remember 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.
