Tag Archives: Daily Office

Re the Daily Office Readings 4/2/2020

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The Daily Office Readings of the Episcopal Church (USA) are available at a number of websites including Mission St Clare (https://www.missionstclare.com/english/) as part of Morning Prayer.


The good news: the glory of the Lord repeatedly enters the world that Pharaoh/Caesar/The Powers That Be presume to control. To those shepherds in the fields outside Bethlehem: “Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified” (Lk. 2:9). The glory of the LORD, like being in the middle of those thunder and lightning storms that shake the earth—but present to Elijah in that “sound of sheer silence” (1 Ki. 19:12). And this glorious G-d desires our freedom.

So veils—and the synagogue has no monopoly on veils—can only be provisional. Ditto anything—like the man’s possessions in Mark—to which we attach for freedom. Can we detach? Jesus: “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible” (Mk. 10:27). So Paul speaks of a life-long process: “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). There’s always fresh work to be done each Lent.

And prudence also suggests attention to the process:

“All things (e.g., a camel’s journey through
A needle’s eye) are possible, it’s true.
But picture how the camel feels, squeezed out
In one long bloody thread from tail to snout.”
C. S. Lewis Poems p.134

Re the Daily Office Readings 3/31/2020

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“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me…” A sharp warning, with no guarantee that it’s not also applicable to us hearers. So let’s chew on it a bit.

Today’s reading is part of a unit that perhaps starts in v.30 with Jesus warning the disciples “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands” (v.31). And we think “the hands of the priests, Romans, etc.” But then Mark tells us about the disciples arguing over who’s the greatest, John rebuking an unaffiliated exorcist, and (later) the disciples rebuking the folk bringing little children to Jesus—so maybe Jesus’ “human hands” isn’t about them.

Stumbling blocks look like one of the ongoing topics in Jesus’ arguments with the Pharisees and scribes, e.g., hand-washing, where Jesus cites Isaiah: “This people honors me with their lips, / but their hearts are far from me; / in vain do they worship me, / teaching human precepts as doctrines” and concludes “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition” (7:6b-8).

And there’s the challenge, because from the inside it can be really hard to distinguish between the commandment of God and human tradition. It’s easy to assume that our human traditions faithfully reflect God’s commandment.

So Jesus’ warning isn’t superfluous. Ironically, tragically, we have an example in today’s epistle: “women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church” (vv.34-35). Our Lectionary omits these verses, for on text-critical grounds they’re “almost certainly an early gloss” (Hays), not to mention flatly contradicting Paul’s earlier words (11:2-16). It’s those stumbling blocks we put in place with the best (?!) of motives…

The psalmist got it right: after eloquently praising the Law, “But who can detect their errors? / Clear me from hidden faults” (19:12).

Re the Daily Office Readings 3/30/2020

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The Daily Office Readings of the Episcopal Church (USA) are available at a number of websites including Mission St Clare (https://www.missionstclare.com/english/) as part of Morning Prayer.

What’s the Church for, anyway? I ask because Paul introduces a new word, “building up” into his argument (vv. 3, 5, 12, 26). And “building up” is usually for something. In our first reading it’s the Exodus; in the New Testament it’s… Well, Presiding Bp. Curry talks about the Jesus Movement (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcipDDJoiIs); a sort of Exodus 2.0.

If something on that scale is the project, it’s important that Moses and Aaron work well together, that the folk in Corinth use their gifts in ways that build the church up, that the disciples stop arguing about who’s the greatest.

Paul’s argument about tongues and prophecy is, I think, more broadly about the difference between gifts that primarily benefit me (tongues) and those that primarily benefit those around me (prophecy). So Paul wants me to pay attention. Yes, I enjoy using my gifts. But am I using them in ways that best equip my community for its work?

BTW, Exod. 4:24-26 has long been a puzzle to interpreters. Propp in his Anchor Bible commentary (1999) may have made some progress. Here’s his summary: “Although Yahweh commands Moses to return to Egypt (4:19), he still holds him accountable for the death of the Egyptian. Zipporah sheds the blood of their son and dabs Moses’ penis with it, thereby expiating her husband’s sin.” Why’s that important? It’s easy to misread Exodus in a nationalistic way (Hebrews good, Egyptians bad). Here, on the eve of the exodus, that murdered Egyptian’s blood (2:11-12) is so important to God that God jeopardizes the whole project—until Zipporah finds a resolution.

Re the Daily Office Readings 3/29/2020

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The Daily Office Readings of the Episcopal Church (USA) are available at a number of websites including Mission St Clare (https://www.missionstclare.com/english/) as part of Morning Prayer.

So on this 5th Sunday in Lent when many of us would really like to be coming together at St. Dunstan’s, 6205 University Avenue, Madison WI, we get this from Paul:

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom 12:1-2)

All of life is worship. That’s Paul’s, and, I think, Scripture’s vision of our human vocation, expressed universally at the beginning of Genesis and in psalms like 8, 103, and 104, expressed for Israel at the foot of Mt. Sinai: “you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation” (Exod. 19:6). Commentators generally agree that these first two verses introduce a major chunk of Romans running through chapter 15, so all the questions addressed there—living together in the parish, relating to the government, building bridges across ethnic divides—are questions of worship. And, in this season of too many dislocations, it’s worth remembering that the worship is equally honorable whether we come with full or empty hands. (It’s the poor widow’s two small copper coins that Jesus notices—and praises (Mark 12:41ff).)

Translators struggle with the end of v.1 (NRSV’s “spiritual worship”; Greek logikēn latreian). ‘Spiritual’ suggests interior or immaterial, but Paul’s talking about presenting our bodies. Perhaps KJV’s ‘reasonable’ is better, in the sense of a worship that matches / mirrors / corresponds to the mercies of God with which Paul has started the appeal.

We’d prefer to be gathered with Rev. Miranda at the altar. Paul reminds us that it’s at least equally important to God what we do at our own altars (worlds!), presenting all of our interactions as living, holy, acceptable sacrifices. Which makes me wonder: what transformation(s) (v.2) in my life might bring the biggest smile to G-d’s face?