Back to the BCP
I had almost forgotten that I started this blog a few years ago, but I was just getting into the Book of Common Prayer again, after being away from it for a long time. All of a sudden, I remembered having started a blog about journeying through the Bible with the BCP. So here I am. I don’t suppose anyone else is actually reading this, but the online journal format is a lot handier than writing on paper.
My intention when I started this blog a few years ago was to get back into more systematic Bible study with the aid of my favorite Bible reading system: the Daily Office readings from the Book of Common Prayer (1979). I don’t recall what happened back then to throw me off my schedule, but here I am, ready to start it up again. But first, just a little background…
I am a 47-year old, happily married, and the father of two daughters, ages 5 and 10. I serve as Director of Music Ministries at a Methodist church in Mt. Juliet, TN. I’m not officially a Methodist, as I’ve never gone through the liturgy of joining the UMC, or joining the church for which I work. But I’ve spent almost a decade serving Methodist churches, so I’m almost a de facto Methodist. As I mentioned in my first blog post awhile back on this blog, I rediscovered my faith in my mid-20s in the Episcopal Church, and that’s where I “discovered” the Book of Common Prayer. Anyway, enough about me, and on to today’s readings from the BCP…
Week of 3 Easter, Year One: Thursday
The psalter reading is from Psalm 37: what a great opening line it has! “Do not fret yourself because of evildoers…” Good advice, in this day and age. It seems as if, every time I look at Google News, I see the work of people I would consider “evildoers.” (I’m not going to get into specifics, and honestly, the people I see as evildoers may not be the same people some of my fellow Christians would see as evildoers.) Anyway, the injunction not to “fret” myself is a good one, I think. A couple verse later, it says, “Put your trust in the Lord, and do good.” That’s what I try to do, and I don’t always succeed.
One more line in this Psalm sticks out to me: “The wicked draw their sword and bend their bow to strike down the poor and needy…” I think some of our nation’s leaders would do well to remember this warning. But I digress…
Another resource that I just acquired today, to help me with these readings, is a little 4-volume set called Daily Office Readings: it compiles all of the Scripture readings from the Daily Office in four handy volumes. (They don’t provide the Psalter readings, as those continually repeat, but they do provide page numbers for all of the Psalter readings, so that’s cool.) So, moving right along, the first reading is from the fifth chapter of Daniel…
Ah yes! The story of Belshazzar, son of Nebuchadnezzar! I am reminded instantly of the William Walton oratorio, Belshazzar’s Feast, which I shall listen to as I write the rest of this entry. We sang this difficult work when I was in graduate school. It’s the famous tale of Belshazzar seeing “the writing on the wall,” as it’s come to be known, and he calls in Daniel to interpret the writing. At which point, Daniel explains to the king that his days are numbered, and sure enough, the king dies. Kind of a stark, scary story, but an effective warning to those who would rule through oppression and hoarding of others’ wealth. “You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting…” as the story goes.
The next reading is from 1 John:13–21. “And this is the confidence which we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him.” We have to be careful with passages like this, don’t we? So many prosperity preachers have used statements like this one to turn God into some kind of genie in a lamp. Rub the lamp, and make a wish. I don’t think for a second that God works that way. It’s a difficult balance to believe in the efficacy of our prayers, but to also accept that we are not always answered in the affirmative.
The Gospel reading today is from Luke’s gospel, and it’s the familiar story of the apostles trying to fish without catching anything. Jesus tells them to let their nets out in the deepest part of the lake, and when they do, the amount of fish they catch almost ends up sinking the boat! On the heels of that reading from 1 John, it’s like “be careful what you wish for” kind of thing. The disciples want to catch fish, and when Jesus helps them do so, it ends up being a little too much for them to handle. But then the focus shifts, as Jesus utters those famous words, “henceforth you will be catching men…” (RSV) So the way I’m reading this today, it occurs to me that, when we are blessed with abundance, rather than hoarding it as Belshazzar did, we need to spread it around, which will hopefully draw more people into the Kingdom of God. The image breaks down a little bit if we simply look at spreading our wealth as some sort of bait to get “nonbelievers” to join the church. I think the idea is that we share the gospel with other, and we share our abundance with others, not to lure them in, but because it’s the right thing to do. It’s what God demands of us. Lord knows, I often fall short of that demand, but it’s certainly worth it to remind myself of how short I fall.
It feels good to be back in the Book of Common Prayer again, and I hope I can sustain it a little better than I did a few years ago. May God help me attain that goal! Amen.
