Today in the Spirit: Proper 9A
In Year A, having finished three consecutive weeks of Jesus’ hard instructions to his disciples going out on mission, the character of our worship in Proper 9A takes on a more peaceful tone.
The Gospel reading from Matthew 11:25-30 is a bridge assignment between the end of Matthew’s second teaching discourse and the third discourse, which consists of a string of Jesus’ parables in Matthew 13. For Proper 9A, the reading begins with our Lord’s prayer to the Father, praising him for his choice to reveal gospel truth to “little children” (humble-hearted people) and not to “the wise and learned” (25). Then, turning from prayer to an address to a crowd, Jesus delivers one of his most cherished invitations in the Gospels: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (28).
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The OT reading from Zechariah 9:9-12 will prepare us to hear Jesus’s description of himself, that he is “gentle and lowly in heart” in the Gospel reading (Mt. 11:29). In this reading, we hear a prophetic oracle concerning the coming of the messiah into Jerusalem: “Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble [or “gentle,” NIV] and mounted on a donkey” (9).
In the assigned Psalm 145:1-13(14-21), God is King of the people of Israel, exhibiting the same character traits as the messiah foretold in Zechariah: “The Lord is gracious and merciful, long-suffering, and of great kindness. The Lord is loving to everyone, and his mercy is over all his works (8-9).
Continuing with the Year A sequence of NT lessons from the first half of Romans, the assigned reading for this Sunday, Romans 7:21-8:6, brings together two well-known sections of Paul’s letter often separated in church teaching due to the separation of chapters: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (7:21-8:2).
This week’s collect petitions God to “grant us…the spirit to think and do always those things that are right,” and this with the stated assumption that “we…can do no good thing apart from you.” But the prayer specifies that “right” thinking and actions should not conform to our own self-understanding, or that of the culture, but to the Lord’s will, that “by you [we] may be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The Collect
Grant us, O Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always those things that are right, that we, who can do no good thing apart from you, may by you be enabled to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Humble and Mounted on a Donkey (Zechariah 9:9-12)
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Zechariah 9:9-12
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
11 As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
12 Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
today I declare that I will restore to you double.
In this oracle addressed to exiles who have returned to rebuild Jerusalem (or possibly a later generation of Israelites protecting the temple), the king of peace comes into the city promising: 1) divine protection from Israel’s enemies (“I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem,” 10a); and 2) a reign from Zion which will extend worldwide (“his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth, 10b). Once inside, we hear the command of the king to “return to your stronghold” (12), as if to come from outside into the city walls. There they are called by the messiah “prisoners of hope (12).” In our liturgy for the day, this command will serve as the front-end of a parallel to our Lord’s saying in the Gospel reading ‘‘Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest’” (Mt. 11:28).
Devotionally, we find Jesus inviting us to come to him: he himself is our Zion and our temple in whom we take refuge. He is our stronghold. But how does the idea of coming into a “stronghold” (or “fortress” NIV) strike you? It can present as much a symbol of confinement as protection. The allusion to confinement is found in the transition of the people from being “prisoners [of] the waterless pit” (11) outside Zion to “prisoners of hope” inside. In both places, we are “prisoners;” in both situations, we are hemmed in (see Ps. 139:5). Beloved, it is preferable to be confined by God than by evil. So Paul says in the Romans passages it is infinitely better to be “slaves of righteousness” than “slaves of sin” (see Rom. 6:17-18).
Friends, beware of the doors and windows we find from inside the “stronghold” of our life in Christ. Those passageways to the outside are necessary for us to have association with the world for the sake of the gospel, but if we are not careful, we can find ourselves staring too longingly at what we see there. Instead of recalling the waterless pits, we can easily be coaxed by mirages of flowering fields that seem better than what we might be experiencing as the dreary insides of God’s fortress walls.
Today, Holy Spirit, let us hear the prophet’s oracle to come into the “stronghold” of Christ, and by grace remain firm in our belief that being his “prisoners of hope” is the best confinement available to us now, until the day we will never be confined again.
All Your Works (Psalm 145:1-13(14-21))
1 I will magnify you, O God my King, *
Psalm 145:1-21, New Coverdale Psalter (BCP 2019)
and I will praise your Name for ever and ever.
2 Every day will I give thanks to you, *
and praise your Name for ever and ever.
3 Great is the Lord, and most worthy to be praised; *
there is no end of his greatness.
4 One generation shall praise your works to another, *
and shall declare your power.
5 As for me, I will be talking of the glorious splendor of your majesty, *
and of all your wondrous works.
6 They shall speak of the might of your marvelous acts, *
and I also will tell of your greatness.
7 The remembrance of your abundant goodness shall they proclaim, *
and they shall sing of your righteousness.
8 The Lord is gracious and merciful, *
long-suffering, and of great kindness.
9 The Lord is loving to everyone, *
and his mercy is over all his works.
10 All your works praise you, O Lord, *
and your faithful servants give thanks to you.
11 They speak of the glory of your kingdom *
and talk of your power,
12 That your power may be known to the children of men, *
even the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, *
and your dominion endures throughout all ages.
[14 The Lord upholds all those who fall *
and lifts up all those who are bowed down.
15 The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord, *
and you give them their food in due season.
16 You open wide your hand, *
and fill all things living with plenteousness.
17 The Lord is righteous in all his ways *
and merciful in all his works.
18 The Lord is near to all those who call upon him, *
to all who call upon him faithfully.
19 He will fulfill the desire of those who fear him; *
he also will hear their cry and will help them.
20 The Lord preserves all those who love him, *
but he will destroy all the ungodly.
21 My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord; *
and let all flesh give thanks unto his holy Name for ever and ever.]
Read this psalm out loud with emphasis on the repetition of “all” and “every.” “David,” in the Spirit, is caught up in the universality of the LORD’s power together with his compassion. God, full of power, is all-loving; and God, full of love, is all-powerful. How can this be? Far from feeling neglected or passed over in the far-flung everlastingness and graciousness of God’s revelation of himself, David feels compelled throughout to offer his personal praise, as one who has experienced up close the help of YHWH: “My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord; and let all flesh give thanks unto his holy Name for ever and ever” (21)
We praise you, Lord, with David, because you are both an all-powerful and all-loving God. We confess that we need you to be both for us. Indeed, we know many people who are loving but not powerful, and many who are powerful but not loving. We ourselves know that we are deficient in both, and thank you for the ways time and time again you show yourself to be in ways that are inexplicable to us “righteous in all [your] ways” (17). Therefore, we present to you, as the people of God, all our adversities and pain. We take on the confidence of David to declare that you are “God and King” (1), infinitely willing and able to meet every need and bring us safely home to you.
Today, in the Spirit, filled with faith, we open the eyes of our hearts to see the fullness of things that David sees, and to wonder and rejoice.
Deliver Me…Set You Free (Romans 7:21-8:6)
7:21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
Romans 7:21-8:6
Commentators are divided over whether Paul, at the end of Romans 7, is describing a pre- or post-conversion experience. Paul does not specify, and his use of the present tense in Greek throughout could represent either an emotional re-living of his thinking as a zealous Pharisee before meeting Christ on the road to Damascus or a vivid, painful confession of what he experiences as a seasoned apostle of the Lord even as he pens the words.
What we do know is that thus far Paul has spent much ink in his letter to the church in Rome explaining through careful logic and his vast knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures the “righteousness from God apart from the law” (3:21). Now, halfway through the epistle, he casts aside a measured tone to burst forth with a description of his own experience of the thrill of salvation. Sin does its worst in him: “Wretched man that I am” (7:24). But, then, all at once, with a suddenness that can only be explained by revelation from God: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (8:1).
Hallelujah! Paul’s great claim is that what is true for him is true for all. We are set free! And, let this be understood–we are set free together as a people of God, not just individually but corporately, with the purpose of serving together. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin’s use of “we” and “our” can similarly be seen to highlight a corporate meaning to justification by faith:
“For what accords better and more aptly with faith than to acknowledge ourselves divested of all virtue that we may be clothed by God, devoid of all godlessness that we may be filled by him, the slaves of sin that He may give us freedom, blind that He may enlighten, lame that He may cure, and feeble that he may sustain us; to strip ourselves of all ground of glorifying that He alone may shine forth glorious, and we be gloried in Him?”
Today, in the Spirit who is working in us—separately and together—true joy over the liberating work of the Father and the Son, assist us in catching the thrill of the apostle in this passage and walk with undying gratitude to the God who saves.
Gentle and Lowly in Heart (Matthew 11:25-30)
25 At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:25-30
Look carefully at the prayer of our Lord in vv. 25-27 before rushing ahead to those beloved words of invitation, “Come to me” (28). Luke records Jesus praying something similar but under very different circumstances: in Luke, he addresses the Father God after the seventy-two disciples return from a successful missionary campaign (see Lk. 10:21f). Here, while the context is less clear, Jesus appears to be praying while he teaches a crowd; then, having perceived in a moment with eyes of faith the work of the Father among the people, he turns his physical eyes on the crowd to pronounce the immortal invitation. “Little children” (25) is his respectful and affectionate term for those, mainly poor and uneducated people in society, who are wide open to the kingdom message, as opposed to “the wise and understanding” (25) who are educated, wealthy, and influential, but most often prideful and unresponsive.
What we must not miss in this passage in Matthew is the connection between the humility of the hearers and the teacher in this passage: the people he addresses are humble, and so is he, “for I am gentle and lowly in heart” (29). The humble mindsets of the “little” ones and Jesus form a connection, like an open circuit, through which the kingdom of God advances forcefully. It is the humility in the messenger and the hearers of the message that moves the divine enterprise forward from one generation to another until the gospel work is completed.
Devotionally, this insight speaks a rebuke to me and other Christian leaders who tend to favor the “movers and shakers” in our communities, those whom we believe will make the ministry grow. As Samuel does with the elder brothers of David, we look last to the “simple” folk who show up at every event, receive knowledge with faith, but appear to lack the means to be “of use.” We need to be careful here. Remember the disarming question in James’ letter: “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?” (2:5).
Today, by your Spirit, Lord Jesus, help us discern clearly in this week’s Gospel reading the critical connection between the humility of the people you most love and your own gentleness of heart. Grant us that blessed poverty of spirit by which we might, in the words of the collect, “be enabled to live according to your will.”
Today in the Spirit
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