Mad Padre: Daily Devotional for Monday, 20 July

Monday, July 20, 2020

Daily Devotional for Monday, 20 July

Prayers at Mid-day for Monday, 20 July, 2020 (Proper 16, Trinity 6)

Invitatory

O God, make speed to save us.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:

as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever.

Amen.

The Lord is our refuge and our strength: O come, let us worship.

Hebrew Scriptures

Joshua 7:1-13 (The Sin of Achan and its Punishment)

http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=462120922

Psalm

Psalm 41¹ (Assurance of God’s Help and a Plea for Healing)

Happy are those who consider the poor;

the Lord delivers them in the day of trouble.

² The Lord protects them and keeps them alive;

they are called happy in the land.

You do not give them up to the will of their enemies.

³ The Lord sustains them on their sickbed;

in their illness you heal all their infirmities.

⁴ As for me, I said, ‘O Lord, be gracious to me;

heal me, for I have sinned against you.’

⁵ My enemies wonder in malice

when I will die, and my name perish.

⁶ And when they come to see me, they utter empty words,

while their hearts gather mischief;

when they go out, they tell it abroad.

⁷ All who hate me whisper together about me;

they imagine the worst for me.

⁸ They think that a deadly thing has fastened on me,

that I will not rise again from where I lie.

⁹ Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted,

who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me.

¹⁰ But you, O Lord, be gracious to me,

and raise me up, that I may repay them.

¹¹ By this I know that you are pleased with me;

because my enemy has not triumphed over me.

¹² But you have upheld me because of my integrity,

and set me in your presence for ever.

¹³ Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,

from everlasting to everlasting.Amen and Amen.

Epistle

Romans 13:8-14

http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=462121254

Gospel

Matthew 26.36-46 (Jesus Prays in Gethsemane)

36 Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’ ³⁷He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated. ³⁸Then he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.’ ³⁹And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.’ ⁴⁰Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, ‘So, could you not stay awake with me one hour? ⁴¹Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ ⁴²Again he went away for the second time and prayed, ‘My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.’ ⁴³Again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. ⁴⁴So leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words. ⁴⁵Then he came to the disciples and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. ⁴⁶Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.’

Commentary (Father Michael)

I’m not sure if I’ve ever realized this before, but the three times that Jesus returns from his prayers to find the disciples sleeping mirrors Peter’s three denials of Jesus later that night in the high priest’s courtyard (Mt 26.69-75). This use of threefold structure may be nothing more than Matthew using repetition for emphasis, and is not uncommon elsewhere in the Bible (eg, Balaam’s donkey in Num 22). This repeated use of threes here in Matthew 26 does however seem intentional to me, particularly as both incidents involve Peter.

That Peter (and James and John, the sons of Zebedee) can’t remain awake as requested underscores the bitter loneliness of Jesus’ prayer vigil, but it also feels like a lesser betrayal. All hat Jesus has asked of them is company, and yet they aren’t capable of complying. Perhaps their repeated falling into sleep is deliberate, a narrative divide to bring the focus close onto Jesus, highlighting his loneliness and the sense that only he can do what God the Father is asking of him, but it also serves effectively to show the disciples’ fallible humanity, which Jesus in his rueful comments to Peter ("So, could you not stay awake with me one hour?”) seems well aware of.

In this respect the disciples’ inability to remain awake mirrors the parable of the ten bridesmaids that Jesus only recently told them (Mt 25.1-10). In that story all ten bridesmaids fall asleep, but when the master returns only five are ready for his coming. In the Gethsemane story, sleep seems to stand for the complete dependence of humanity, even of Jesus’ chosen disciples, on Jesus for salvation. I love how in today’s readings we hear Paul in Romans telling us all to wake up because the night is almost over and “salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers” (Rom 13.11). As I write this, early on a Sunday morning as my brain slowly comes to life, I think I’ll spend much of today thinking about what spiritual wakefulness might look like in my life.

Questions

What could you do to be more spiritually wakeful? What other questions come to mind in today’s passages?

Intercession

In peace let us pray to the Lord, saying “Lord, hear and have mercy.”

We pray for all who confess the name of Christ. In our Anglican Communion cycle of prayer, we pray for the clergy and people of Northern Uganda and their bishop The Rt Revd Johnson Gakumba, of Bauchi (Nigeria) The Rt Revd Musa Tula, and
Kansas (The Episcopal Church) The Rt Revd Cathleen Bascom