Call and Response

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 -- Week of 7 Easter, Year One
Augustine, First Archbishop of Canterbury, 605

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 964)
Psalms 97, 99, [100] (morning) 94, [95] (evening)
Ezekiel 7:10-15, 23b-27
Hebrews 6:13-20
Luke 10:1-17

Today's readings taste the back and forth of God's call and our response. God continually reaches out to us. Sometimes we grasp God's hand and realize the divine blessing. Sometimes we are proud, presumptuous and faithless, and we reap only trouble.

Ezekiel's vision imagines the Day of the Lord as a day of disaster and destruction, when the land and the people suffer the consequences of their actions. Pride, insolence and greed are the capital vices. The business leaders and merchants are thrown into chaos. Ezekiel faults the leaders, saying that God "will put an end to the arrogance of the strong."

The letter to the Hebrews extols our hope which is grounded in Jesus who is now our great High Priest. The writer urges us to look to Abraham as our model, and to be patient as we await the fulfillment of God's blessing through Jesus.

And Luke tells of the mission of the seventy (or other manuscripts read seventy-two). Jesus sends them into the countryside, traveling light. They bring healing with them. They announce God's reign. However they meet with ambiguous results.

There is no advantage for the places that have been privileged with the Gospel. Unless they respond energetically, they are less blessed than the outsiders. "Woe to you Rome and Canterbury. For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tehran and Kabul, they would have repented long ago. At the judgment it will be more tolerable for them than for you."

The seventy return from their mission elated. They have seen God's power overcome the destructive powers.

Jesus places his own message and mission into his disciples' hands. We are to be the instruments of God's recurring call. "Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me."

The story goes on and on. God reaches out to us through prophet or disciple or through the Son, our great High Priest. God's hand touches us through the hands of countless faithful people. We hear the call. We are invited into the life that brings healing and wholeness. But pride and greed get in our way. Or we simply fail to respond, going on with ordinary, unresponsive life like Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, blind to the glory that has come among us.

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

The mission continues. How shall we respond?

Lowell

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Audio podcast: Listen to an audio podcast of the most recent Morning Reflections from today and the past week. Click the following link: Morning Reflection Podcasts

About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas