Divine Love and Providence
- davidwperk
- Jul 9, 2024
- 6 min read
Devotional Reflection, Tuesday, July 9, 2024
Proper 9, the week of the seventh Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.
Key phrases for reflection from today’s reading:
35Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
You will find the full text of today’s epistle reading at the end of this reflection.
Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 975)
AM Psalm 5, 6; PM Psalm 10, 11
Num. 35:1-3,9-15,30-34; Rom. 8:31-39; Matt. 23:13-26
David’s Reflections
How can we speak meaningfully of God's love and providence in a world brimming with disorder, chaos, pain, and innocent suffering? The chalice of the world's suffering threatens to slosh over onto each of us daily. I think of Nell, the spouse of my major professor in seminary, one of the most gentle and genuine Christians I've ever known. She suffered horribly from Alzheimer's and her disorientation finally progressed to the point where Malcolm no longer could continue caring for her. He moved into a retirement center with an Alzheimer’s unit. She died in 2006, leaving him a grieving widower after more than sixty years together. Malcolm died Thanksgiving Day 2015 after his own brief bout with dementia.
Just beneath the surface, between the words, of Malcolm’s emails, and between his tears on the phone, I heard that groaning of which we spoke yesterday, and something within me groaned in answer. Perhaps all such groanings are none other than the suffering love of God, the Spirit of God’s own self groaning within us.
Paul begins this last paragraph of Romans 8 with a sentence affirming that God is for us. The NRSV translates, "If God is for us, who is against us?" Actually, the grammar would permit one to translate, "Since God is for us. . ." Paul intends to affirm just that and to affirm the futility of anyone being against us. God's being for us makes any such opposition futile.
Yet, such opposition does exist in the human and spiritual realms. The next verse reminds us that God has met similar opposition, most especially in the person of God’s Son. God’s response to that opposition was not some sort of cosmic thunderbolt that annihilated the forces of human and demonic rebellion. Rather, God’s response was to come in Christ and respond with love that suffered and triumphed through that suffering.
Jesus of Nazareth lived among us as one of us, subject to all the limitations of our frailty. He groaned under the weight of the world's pain and sin and carried that weight to his death. God's love burned so brightly in Christ that there God took our evil unto God’s self and burned it up in the fire of that love, robbing it of its power to generate a response of evil in God. (to paraphrase Anglican theologian Leonard Hodgson.)
In Romans 8:32-34, Paul summarizes that suffering and underlines what it means about the nature of our own response to pain and evil. God did not deliver Jesus from those sufferings. Rather, God delivered him through them. Jesus became fully vulnerable to innocent suffering and bore it, triumphing over sin, pain, death, and the demonic in his death and resurrection. Paul's point, it seems, is that we share Jesus' vulnerability.
Paul’s litany of sufferings--hardship, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword (martyrdom)--infers that all these do come into Christian experience. His litany of dangerous threats--death, life, angels (evil powers), rulers (human), height, depth--infers that we share Christ's vulnerability to attack from human and demonic powers. So, how are we to understand God's love? If we are not delivered from our vulnerability, if we are not rescued from suffering and temptation and persecution and death, just what is God's providential care all about?
First, God remains fully present with us in every situation, groaning with and in us. Jesus' coming, with its attendant sufferings, demonstrates that. Second, God's love remains constant, energizing us, healing us, sustaining us, emboldening us, embracing us. God's love brings us through suffering and hardship into a larger, deeper, transformed existence. It is not that God “allows” evil for the purpose of making us better. Evil exists and functions in its own random way. Rather, it is that God robs evil of its power to destroy us and forces it to serve God’s purposes for our lives. We will share in God’s ultimate triumph over death itself in resurrection and new creation.
In a sermon on this text, theologian Paul Tillich said:
. . . let us drop the word providence with all its false connotations and look at what it really means. It means the courage to accept life in the power of that which is more than life. Paul calls it the love of God. . . . This love is the ultimate power of union, the ultimate victory over separation. Being united with it . . . gives us the certainty that no moment is possible in which we can be prevented from reaching the fulfillment toward which all life is striving. This is the courage to accept life in the power of that in which life is rooted and overcome. *
*Paul Tillich, The New Being, (New York: Scribner's, 1955,) p. 58.
Collect of the Day, Proper 9, the week of the seventh Sunday after Pentecost
O God, you have taught us to keep all your commandments by loving you and our neighbor: Grant us the grace of your Holy Spirit, that we may be devoted to your with our whole heart, and united to one another with pure affection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP, 230-31)
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)
For the Church
Give to your Church, O God,
a bold vision and a daring charity,
a refreshed wisdom and a courteous understanding,
that the eternal message of your Son
may be acclaimed as the good news of the age;
through him who makes all things new,
even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(This Franciscan-inspired prayer was offered by our chaplains during this meeting of the House of Bishops.. House of Bishops, ECUSA, March 2008
In the Evening
O Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in thy mercy, grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last. Amen. (BCP, 833)
A Collect for Mission
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before you for all members of your holy Church, that in their vocation and ministry they may truly and devoutly serve you; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (BCP, 100)
Daily Office Epistle, Romans 8:31-39
31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? 33Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’ 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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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