Emulating the Forerunner
- davidwperk
- Sep 24, 2024
- 6 min read
Devotional Reflection, Tuesday, September 24, 2024
Proper 20, the week of the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.
Key verses for reflection from today’s reading:
15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
You will find the full test of today’s Gospel at the end of this reflection.
Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 9850
AM Psalm 78:1-39; PM Psalm 78:40-72
Esther 5:1-14 or Judith 8:9-17, 9:1, 9:7-10; Acts 18:12-28; Luke 3:15-22
Today we celebrate the Feast of Anna Ellison Butler Alexander. (See below.)
David’s Reflections
In the Gospel accounts, John the Baptist served as the forerunner to Jesus, one whose preaching and baptizing created a sense of expectancy for the arrival of Messiah. Jesus himself was one of John’s followers and was baptized by John. But, Jesus soon began his own ministry of preaching, teaching, and healing (and baptizing, according to John 3:26) and many of John’s disciples became Jesus’ followers.
The thought intrigues me that our lives can serve to prepare others for the coming of Jesus as did John’s. If Christ abides in my life and I desire that others receive him and begin to follow him, then each day can be framed differently. Who among my coworkers, neighbors, friends, and acquaintances might be hungering for God’s love and forgiveness? Their hunger may be secret and unacknowledged, even to themselves. The desires they do express in words and manifest in behavior and lifestyle might be layering over and expressing a deeper desire for God.
If we were to reframe each day and look at it through the window of that particular question, how would it alter our approach to the day and to those people? If we are feeling intolerant of a particular person because of behavior or lifestyle that feels inappropriate, looking at them through the window of that question might just reveal someone sharing our own deep desire for God’s love but manifesting that desire in a very different way. It helps me to say about every person I encounter, “Jesus loves that person in the same way Jesus loves you.”
Were we asking this particular question about those we regularly encounter or those with whom we have random encounters, we would be living toward one of the promises made in the baptismal vows, “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself.” If we were to look for spiritual interest in those around us and only converse with those whose interest revealed an openness, we would be faithful witnesses without being intrusive. And, we would wait until that person broached the subject before we responded. That would be our positive response to another baptismal promise, “Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?” We answer, “I will with God’s help.”, to both questions.
As Episcopalians, many of us have been involved in the church since infancy. It is easy to be unaware of how many unbaptized adults, teens, and older children we are coming into contact with regularly. At All Souls, the new church in Richmond I served as start up priest, we baptized numerous older children, teens and adults; several times we baptized a parent and child together. Over the years as an Episcopal priest, I’ve had the joy of baptizing older adults, once a grandfather in his 70’s with his elementary-aged grandson.
You might never be aware how God’s love has reached through something you said or did to touch someone and begin their journey toward God. Or, you might be fortunate enough to know and to witness that person’s conversion and to feel the surge of joy over someone lost to God but now returning. In either case, you would be tasting something of the joy John must have felt in prison as news of the growing response to Jesus reached him. The forerunner had run well and prepared people for the one coming after.
Leonard Hodgson, Oxford scholar and Anglican theologian of the previous generation touched me with these lines.
When . . . we rise from the altar rail after making our communion, and turn west to go back to our seat in church or chapel, we should in our mind's eye look out beyond the walls of the building to all the world around, the world in which the Father's will is waiting to be done, reminding ourselves that we are in Christ and He in us in order that, enlightened by the Spirit, we may see that world as He sees it and find and do that work and offer it to the Father in Him. We need to practice ourselves in this attitude towards life until it becomes a second nature, as it was that of St. Paul and the other Christians of the New Testament.*
*Leonard Hodgson, Christian Faith and Practice: Seven Lectures. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1952), pp. 83-84.
Collect of the Day, Proper 20, the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP, 233-234)
Today we celebrate the Feast of Anna Ellison Butler Alexander, deaconess and teacher (died 24 September 1947 CE).
Collect of the Feast of Anna Ellison Butler Alexander
Loving God, who called Anna Alexander as a deaconess in your church: Grant us the wisdom to teach the gospel of Christ to whomever we meet, by word and by example, that all may come to the enlightenment that you intend for your people; through Jesus Christ, our Teacher and Savior. Amen
A Collect for Peace
O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 99)
Of the Departed
Eternal Lord God, you hold all souls in life: Give to your whole Church in paradise and on earth your light and your peace; and grant that we, following the good examples of those who have served you here and are now at rest, may at the last enter with them into your unending joy; 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, 253)
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
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 Gospel, Luke 3:15-22
15 As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’ 18So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people. 19But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, 20added to them all by shutting up John in prison.
21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’
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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