Daily Office Readings for Monday of the Last Week after the Epiphany: Year 2
Morning, Psalm 25; Evening, Psalm 9 and 15;
Proverbs 27:1 to 6 and10 to 12; Philippians 2:1 to 13; John 18:15 to 18 and 25-27:
Let another praise you, and not your own mouth – a stranger, and not your own lips. (Proverbs 27:2)
This is a primary election year, so every day we will hear more and more of the rhetoric of political candidates telling us how good they are and how unfit their competitors are for that same office.
If I were running for an elected office I would want my campaign manager, or those who want me to run for an elected position to boast about my fitness for the office, and not myself. But this is the way of the world today. Even in the election of a Bishop for a Diocese in our Episcopal Church, each candidate priest is presented with an opportunity to say how good he or she is for the office. However, and to their credit, such priests do not put down their competitors, thank God. For politicians however, we encourage narcissism rather than the instruction of humility as taught in our Proverbs reading for today.
Perhaps it would be better if computers did the hard work of tabulating information and then recommend candidates best suited for office based on experience, education and history. After a short list, candidates are identified, “sponsors” can then promote their person of choice for the office. In this way all persons interested in a future elected position will have to do, is do the best they can every day, so that the computer collecting the information can put the best qualified person’s names forth for nomination and election.
In any case, those who want a certain person to be in an elected office should be the ones boasting about how their choice is best suited for the position, not the person him, or herself. We all should be doing the best we can in everyday life. While education and experience carry a lot of weight, one’s history of doing good in their respective community and party affiliation is probably the most valuable marker of what kind of person a candidate is.
Wait a minute! Isn’t collecting our life’s moral information what God is doing now? All we have to do is be the best we can be every day. God sees us and nothing else matters.
Today we remember Charles Todd Quintard, Bishop of Tennessee, (1898) and information about him may be found at: Charles Quintard. (I struggled with whether or not to submit this but decided to do so after reading some of the additional attachments).
As we listen to what the Spirit of God is saying to us, let us live to love and to serve, and to teach others to love and to serve, while pondering anew what the Almighty can do. John
Let us pray: A Prayer of Self-Dedication (BCP p. 832)
Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to thee, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly thine, utterly dedicated unto thee; and then use us, we pray thee, as thou wilt, and always to thy glory and the welfare of thy people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
onewhoponders 