Dealing With Our Legacy
- davidwperk
- Jan 10, 2024
- 6 min read
Devotional Reflection, Wednesday, January 10. 2024
The week of the first Sunday after Epiphany
The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.
Key phases for reflection from today’s reading:
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
You will find the full text of today’s Gospel at the end of this reflection.
Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 943)
AM Psalm 119:1-24; PM Psalm 12, 13, 14
Gen. 4:1-16; Heb. 2:11-18; John 1:(29-34) 35-42
Today we celebrate the Feast of William Laud. (See below.)
David’s Reflections
In “Richard II” Shakespeare has Bolingbroke invite Mowbray to confess his treason before departing into permanent banishment with these words.
"Confess thy treasons ere thou fly the realm.
Since thou hast far to go, bear not along
The clogging burden of a guilty soul.” +
Those words certainly speak to us about our life journey. We still have far to go and some of the circumstances created by our sinfulness cannot be altered. As with Mowbray, we all live in exile from some relationships and situations in our past to which we can never return. Best not to bear along the clogging burden of a guilty soul.
What are we to do with the nagging anxieties and feelings of inadequacy and failure that linger, that pursue us into our places of exile? We struggle to forgive ourselves. That remedy eludes us. We could spend our lives trying to atone, trying to make up for our pasts, but that would be another form of captivity to what cannot be changed. Much of the energy that generates religious deeds and observances arises from that complex set of feelings and motives.
What can we do? John invites us to bring the burden of our lives to Jesus. He describes him here as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The biblical witness presents Jesus as one who suffered innocently under the burden of the sinful blindness and rejection of his own people; the wound of divine love that is the cross opens the font of mercy to forgive us.
The folk song asks the question, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” The biblical answer is “yes.” In Jesus of Nazareth’s suffering, we see the eternal suffering of divine love wrought by our blindness and ignoring of God The suffering of that innocent one overflows to bless the guilty and to deliver us from alienation and powerlessness into the experience of the love of God. We stand on the shoreline of mystery here; understanding lies far beyond the horizon of our vision. With our theological binoculars we focus that horizon a bit more in detail but can only wonder at what truth lies beyond.
So, we bring our sense of guilt and shame, our flawed and unalterable pasts to God. Jesus has suffered to free us and to cleanse us from the guilt and shame. We release ourselves to that inexplicable mystery of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection and find God in that moment of release freeing us from captivity to what we cannot alter. We cannot deal with our legacy of a misspent life by any action we might take. Only God’s forgiveness frees us from that legacy. That forgiving love comes as a gift in response to whatever tattered fragment of faith and trust we might muster in response to God’s invitation, an invitation that innervates our spiritual muscles to dare trusting in God’s mysterious love.
The closing lines of one of W. S. Merwin’s poems get at it.
Let my ignorance and my failings
Remain far behind me like tracks made in a wet season,
At the end of which I have vanished,
So that those who track me for their own twisted ends
May be rewarded only with ignorance and failings.
But leave me my cry stretched out behind me like a road
On which I have followed you.
And sustain me for my time in the desert
On what is essential to me.*
+William Shakespeare, The Complete Works, 2d. ed. Stanley Wells & Eric Taylor, gen ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 2005), Act 1, Scene 3, line 190, p. 345.
*W. S. Merwin, The Second Four Books of Poems (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1993), pp. 13-14.
Collect of the Day, First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of our Lord
Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. (BCP, 214)
Today we celebrate the Feast of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury (died 10 Jan 1645).
Collect of the Feast of William Laud
Keep us, O Lord, constant in faith and zealous in witness; that, like your servant William Laud, we may live in your fear, die in your favor, and rest in your peace; for the sake of Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen
A Collect for Grace
Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought us in safety to this new day: Preserve us with your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 100)
For a Church Convention
Almighty and everlasting Father, you have given the Holy Spirit to abide with us for ever: Bless, we pray, with your grace and presence, the bishops and the other clergy and the laity to be assembled in your Name, that your Church, being preserved in true faith and godly discipline, may fulfill all the mind of him who loved it and gave himself for it, your Son Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 255)
A Prayer for Light
Grant us, Lord, the lamp of charity which never fails, that it may burn in us and shed its light on those around us, and that by its brightness we may have a vision of that holy City, where dwells the true and never-failing Light, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 110)
A Collect for Mission
Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen. (BCP, 101)
Daily Office Gospel, John 1:29-42
29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” 31I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ 32And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” 34And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’ 35The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’
37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ 39He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. 40One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). 42He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).
Daily Offices in The Book of Common Prayer
Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, The Book of Common Prayer
Noonday Prayer, page 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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