Daily Office Readings for Thursday of Proper 3: Year 1
Morning, Psalm 37:1 to 18; Evening, Psalm 37:19 to 42;
Deuteronomy 4:32 to 40; 2nd Corinthians 3:1 to 18; Luke 16:1 to 9:
“And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.” (Luke 16: 9)
I’ll be honest, this Luke reading is not one I wanted to tackle, I would much rather take the cowardly way out and go to an easier reading. But I decided to take it on anyway.
After prayer I have pondered or reasoned that this lesson is about putting people before profit. There some business practices that sometimes have to be relaxed in order to help those in real need. It is perhaps better to just let a customer have some bread and milk than refuse them because of their lack of money. Business practices teach that not only should we receive the value of a product, but we are due the “markup” as well in order to cover “overhead and put away some money for future investments and personal savings.
This Luke writing teaches that when we betray business practices in order to help the poor we put away something for ourselves more valuable than money. We store up for ourselves treasures in heaven.
Today we remember Bertha and Ethelbert, Queen and King of Kent, 616.
Yesterday I shared with you a little bit about Augustine of Canterbury, First Archbishop of Canterbury. Bertha and Ethelbert are connected to this history in that Ethelbert actually met Augustine and assisted him in his desire developing the Church for the English. As I have said, this is a part of my own spiritual history. But more than that, I believe this is God’s hand at work in the continuation of the Gospel, in England, and later, to the Colonies and America. It is God, not the devil, in the details. Ethelbert put the faith and call of Augustine above any monarchial protocols he had in place, putting the spiritual faith of his people before his kingly policies. While not a Christian at his initial meeting with Augustine, he was baptized on the Day of Pentecost of the following year. Bertha and Ethelbert made the love of their people their first priority.
Let us live to love, more than just love to live, listening to what the Spirit is saying to, and through, the saints of God, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
onewhoponders 