Seeing the Light Cuts Both Ways
- davidwperk
- Sep 21, 2024
- 6 min read
Daily Office Devotional, Friday, September 21, 2024
Proper 19, the week of the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.
Key phrases for reflection from today’s reading:
36While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.’
After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them. 37Although he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him. 38This was to fulfill the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah:
‘Lord, who has believed our message,
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’
You will find the full text of today’s Gospel at the end of this reflection.
Daily Office Lectionary Readings
AM Psalm 69:1-23(24-30)31-38; PM Psalm 73
Esther 1:1-4,10-19 or Judith 4:1-15; Acts 17:1-15; John 12:36b-43
Today we celebrate the Feast of John C. Patteson. (See below.)
David’s Reflections
The last strophe of W. S. Merwin’s poem “Finally” reads:
Come, as a man who hears a sound at the gate
Opens the window and puts out the light
The better to see out into the dark,
Look, I put it out. *
That image haunts me--someone peering out into the dark in response to a sound at the gate and turning out the light to improve their vision into the darkness. Jesus’ contemporaries were like someone hearing a sound outside in the darkness without the ability to see who was coming in the gate.
All four Gospels, The Book of Acts, and Paul in Romans quote from this same passage in Isaiah 6 (verse 38). It obviously played a fundamental role in clarifying for them why so many of Jesus’ own country and religious background rejected him and rejected those sent as missionaries after his resurrection.
Jesus called on his listeners to believe while they had the light—an obvious reference to the brevity of his ministry among them and the limited opportunity for faith. Yet, the readers of the Gospel would hear those words against a different backdrop, the missionary venture of the early church after the resurrection.
What are we to make of the passage from Isaiah and its prevalence in the early church’s understanding? (See verses 39-40 below.) Is it that God blinds people so that they will not respond to the message of his saving love in Christ? Did Isaiah believe that people would reject his message because God hindered their understanding?
The answer may not be obvious at first. But, the overwhelming witness of both Old and New Testaments says that God seeks our salvation and reveals the light to us to effect a positive response. However, if we push against the message of saving love with its demand for faith and loyalty, we do not remain morally neutral. We sin against our own ability to see the light and diminish our capacity for seeing and responding. The truth from God has that double-edged effect—it enlightens and stimulates faith in those who welcome it but it hardens and blinds those who resist it.
Light shining cuts both ways. It can stimulate a response of faith or it can confirm one’s resistance and lack of faith. The very truth that can effect our deliverance, forgiveness, and transformation can create an increasingly stubborn resistance so long as we are resisting. Such resistance puts us at risk of losing our sensitivity. The invitation to receive God’s love becomes less appealing because we have resisted it so successfully that our sensitivity has given way to stubbornness.
Something analogous can happen in human relationships. Another person loves and cares for us and expresses that in verbal and nonverbal messages. If we delay or resist those “noises at the gate,” we will find ourselves suffering an internal disconnect from that person, a disconnect created by our own dulled sensitivity. The one attempting to express love can only continue doing so for just so long without losing themselves and their integrity in the process.
It’s time to turn out the backlights of distraction and resistance so that we can see who is making the noise at the gate and invite the approaching one into our life and experience. That obviously applies to those without faith. Yet, those of us with faith are cautioned against pushing against the light that continues to come to us. We, too, have our backlight of distraction and anxiety that can make it tough to see out the windows at the one making fresh noises at our gate.
*W. S. Merwin, The Second Four Books of Poems (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1993), pp. 13-14.
Collect of the Day, Proper 19, the fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 233)
Today we celebrate the Feast of John C. Patteson, bishop of Melanesia and his companions, martyrs (died 20 Sep 1871 CE).
Collect of the Feast of John C. Patteson
Almighty God, who called your faithful servant John Coleridge Patteson and his companions to witness to the gospel, and by their labors and sufferings raised up a people for your own possession: Pour out your Holy Spirit upon your church in every land, that, by the service and sacrifice of many, your holy Name may be glorified and your kingdom enlarged; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
A Collect for Fridays
Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death: Grant to us your servants so to follow in faith where you have led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness; for your tender mercies' sake. Amen. (BCP, 123)
For those in the Armed Forces of our Country
Almighty God, we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad. Defend them
day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 823)
A Prayer for Light
Almighty God, we give you thanks for surrounding us, as daylight fades, with the brightness of the vesper light; and we implore you of your great mercy that, as you enfold us with the radiance of this light, so you would shine into our hearts the brightness of your Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 110)
A Collect for Mission
Everliving God, whose will it is that all should come to you through your Son Jesus Christ: Inspire our witness to him, that all may know the power of his forgiveness and the hope of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 816-817)
Daily Office Gospel, John 12:36-43
36While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.’
After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them. 37Although he had performed so many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him. 38This was to fulfill the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah:
‘Lord, who has believed our message,
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’
39And so they could not believe, because Isaiah also said,
40‘He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart,
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and understand with their heart and turn—
and I would heal them.’
41Isaiah said this because* he saw his glory and spoke about him. 42Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; 43for they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God.
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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