Called to Purpose and Possibility
- davidwperk
- Jan 2
- 6 min read
Devotional Reflection, Thursday, January 2, 2025
The week of the first Sunday after Christmas
The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D
Key verses for reflection from today’s Genesis reading:
12:1Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’
You will find the full text of today’s Genesis reading at the end of this reflection.
Today we celebrate the Feast of Vedanayagam S. Azariah
Daily Office Lectionary Readings: BCP, 940
AM Psalm 34; PM Psalm 33
Gen. 12:1-7; Heb. 11:1-12; John 6:35-42, 48-51
David’s Reflections
In a Peanuts cartoon, Charlie Brown lies in bed, with stars showing in the darkened window and Snoopy on his lap on top of the covers. Charlie muses: “Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, ‘What is the meaning of life?’ In the next frame, Snoopy, still asleep has rolled onto his back. Brown continues: “Then a voice comes to me that says, :’I before e except after c.’” *
Like Charlie Brown, the questions can haunt us. Carl Jung, the pioneering analytical psychologist, once reported that the questions most frequently asked of him were: "What is life?"; "Why am I here?"; "Where am I going?" Today’s Old Testament reading provides answers for Abraham. Life is responding to God in a personal way. To worship and serve that God is the meaning of life. I am going where God calls me to go.
How do we translate that into our experience today? For one thing, I believe that we share Abraham’s experience of call. God revealed Godself to Abraham personally . That revelation involved a radical threefold call: leave your homeland; leave your clan; and, leave your family. This revelation brought a different understanding of God than Abraham had known. Calling always redefines our understanding of God and our ways of responding to God.
Abraham learns that God was on the move and intended to bless the earth through Abraham. Abraham was called to respond to that God in a new way--follow God and God’s leading, leave his home, and go to a place he'd never seen. He would go with the promise that he would be fruitful and multiply and that a people would descend from him.
Any new light about God changes our sense of responsibility, of how we respond to that newer, fresher vision of God. We must receive that light about God, alter our lives accordingly, and share what God has given with others. For Abraham this was quite risky, uprooting himself for a place never seen. Our new understandings of God will call us to walk paths we’ve not trodden and let go of previous views of God and ourselves as well as let go of attachments that hinder our pushing out into new territory.
Mary Oliver put it this way in her poem “In Blackwater Woods,”
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go. *
As we enter 2025, what new light about God thrusts you forward into this new year? In what ways does that new light demand different responses and different behaviors? What risks does that involve? Of what vision of yourself and of God must you relinquish? What hindering attachments must you let go? How will your life be impoverished if you did not say “yes” to God and commit to God’s call?
* Charles Schultz, "Peanuts," Cited by Barry L. Bandstra, Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1995), p. 455.
+ Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems (Boston: Beacon, 1992), pp. 177-178
Collect of the Day, The First Sunday after Christmas Day
Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 212)
Today we celebrate the Feast of Vedanayagam S. Azariah, first Anglican Indian bishop (died 1 Jan 1945 CE).
Collect of the Feast of Vedanayagam S. Azariah’
Emmanuel, God with us, making your home in every culture and community on earth: We thank you for raising up your servant Samuel Azariah as the first indigenous bishop in India. Grant that we may be strengthened by his witness to your love without concern for class or caste, and by his labors for the unity of the Church in India, that people of many languages and cultures might with one voice give you glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.
A Collect for Guidance
O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people; Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP 100)
A Collect for Peace
Most holy God, the source of all good desires, all right judgments, and all just works: Give to us, your servants, that peace which the world cannot give, so that our minds may be fixed on the doing of your will, and that we, being delivered from the fear of all enemies, may live in peace and quietness; through the mercies of Christ Jesus our Savior. Amen. (BCP, 123)
In the Order of Worship for Evening
Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our fathers, creator of the changes of day and night, giving rest to the weary, renewing the strength of those who are spent, bestowing upon us occasions of song in the evening. As you have protected us in the day that is past, so be with us in the coming night; keep us from every sin, every evil, and every fear; for you are our light and salvation, and the strength of our life. To you be glory for endless ages. Amen. (BCP, 113)
A Collect for Mission
Merciful God, creator of all the peoples of the earth and lover of souls: Have compassion on all who do not know you as you are revealed in your Son Jesus Christ; let your Gospel be preached with grace and power to those who have not heard it; turn the hearts of those who resist it; and bring home to your fold those who have gone astray; that there may be one flock under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 280)
Daily Office Old Testament Reading, Genesis 12:1-7
12:1Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’*
4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, 6Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak* of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, ‘To your offspring* I will give this land.’ So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.
Daily Prayer Offices in The Book of Common Prayer
Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, Book of Common Prayer
Noonday Prayer, p. 103, Book of Common Prayer
Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p. 109, Book of Common Prayer
Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer
Compline (Night Prayer), Page 127, Book of Common Prayer
Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer
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