The Edge is What I Have
- davidwperk
- Jun 6, 2023
- 5 min read
Devotional Reflection, Tuesday, June 6,3032
The week of Trinity Sunday (Proper 4)
The Rev. David W Perkins, Th.D.
Daily Office Lectionary readings: (BCP, 968)
AM Psalm 45; PM Psalm 47, 48
Deuteronomy 12:1-12; 2 Corinthians 6:3-13(14-7:1) ; Luke 17:11-19
Today we celebrate The Feast of Ini Kopuria. (See below.)
Daily Office Gospel, Luke 17:11-19
11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. 12As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, 13they called out, saying, ‘Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!’ 14When he saw them, he said to them, ‘Go and show yourselves to the priests.’ And as they went, they were made clean. 15Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. 16He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. 17Then Jesus asked, ‘Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? 18Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ 19Then he said to him, ‘Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’
David’s Reflections
Theodore Roethke wrote these lines in his poem “In a Dark Time.”
What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have. *
In Roethke’s words, today’s Gospel has Jesus walking on the edge, on the border between Samaria and Galilee. There he finds marginalized people, people forced to live on the edge of the social and religious cultures because they suffered a skin disease (not the leprosy that we know today). That disease rendered them unclean, in the view of the religious leadership, and forced them to remain at least three feet away from every person. They lived outside the villages and were not able to pursue their vocations nor live in community with their villages or their families. Jesus found them there, on the edge, healed them, and instructed them to show themselves to the priest so they could be reintegrated into society.
We normally think of boundaries and edges as separating countries or regions within countries. Yet, a boundary also can be thought of as the place of union and connection. As William Countryman has said: “We will imagine it best if we think of the border not as dividing 'natural' from 'supernatural' or 'this world' from 'the world to come' or even 'creation' from 'God,' but rather as connecting the 'everyday' with the 'transcendent.' The 'transcendent' may as easily be 'within' the everyday as beyond or under or over or next to or otherwise 'outside' it.” +
Jesus was an edge person. He lived on the edges of his culture, seeking connection with those he found there, the undesirables and untouchables. He received them, served as a channel of God’s saving love to them, and called on those who rejected them to be reconciled to them and to connect with them. That life on the edge, an edge official Judaism was not willing to share as a place of connection, proved one of the chief motivations for Jesus’ death. He shared the rejection and marginalization of the outcasts with whom he identified.
Jesus takes us to the edges. He stretches us and calls us out of our comfort zones to new spiritual experience, to new insight, to new behaviors, to new connections with people we previously might have despised and avoided. Each Sunday in Holy Eucharist, Jesus brings us to a new edge. We receive his presence in bread and wine. God works on an edge, and that edge is the visible world. Yet, a God of pure spirit has shown that such an edge is not a fence or barrier; rather, it is a place of connection and union of two realities. In Jesus, God crossed that edge and lived among us.
What edges exist for you? What people intimidate you? What behaviors threaten you? What ideas stretch your capacity to embrace them? What forms of service and worship stretch you out of your comfort zone? Roethke said, “The edge is what I have.” The Jesus of the edges calls us to walk those border areas with him and embrace all to which he introduces us there. He knows those boundary territories only too well and will guide and encourage us as we entrust ourselves to him.
*The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke (New York: Doubleday, 1966), p. 231.
+ L. William Countryman, Living on the Border of the Holy: Renewing the Priesthood of All (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 1999), p. 11.
Collect of the Day, Trinity Sunday
Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP, 228)
Today we celebrate The Feast of Ini Kopuria, founder of the Melanesian brotherhood (died 1945 CE).
Collect of the Feast of Ini Kopuria
Loving God, we bless your Name for the witness of Ini Kopuria, founder of the Melanesian Brotherhood: Open our eyes that we, with these Anglican brothers, may establish peace and hope in service to others; for the sake of Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. 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)
For the Departed
Almighty God, we remember before you today your faithful servant N.; and we pray that, having opened to him the gates of larger life, you will receive him more and more into your joyful service, that, with all who have faithfully served you in the past, he may share in the eternal victory of Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and 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
O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh, and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 100)
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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