This Is A Hard Saying: Lent Daybook 37
Take a few deep breaths, settle your body, mind, and heart into a quiet space, and let’s begin with prayer.
Opening prayer: Heavenly Father, make me more like Jesus and more like the true self you’ve created as I savor your loving presence today. Please guide my thoughts and impressions by your Holy Spirit. Amen.
Look: ‘For he had great possessions’, 1894, George Frederic Watts - Source | Commentary
Listen: Silver and Gold, Sufjan Stevens - Lyrics | Spotify | YouTube
Read: Psalm 131-132; Psalm 140, 142; Exodus 7:25-8:19; 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; Mark 10:17-31
Excerpts:
Those who surround me lift up their head, let the mischief of their lips overwhelm them! Let burning coals fall upon them! Let them be cast into pits, no more to rise! Let not the slanderer be established in the land; let evil hunt down the violent man speedily!
I know that the Lord maintains the cause of the afflicted, and executes justice for the needy. Surely the righteous shall give thanks to thy name; the upright shall dwell in thy presence.
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Seven days passed after the Lord had struck the Nile. Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your country with frogs…
Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron, and said, “Entreat the Lord to take away the frogs from me and from my people; and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the Lord.” Moses said to Pharaoh, “Be pleased to command me when I am to entreat, for you and for your servants and for your people, that the frogs be destroyed from you and your houses and be left only in the Nile.” And he said, “Tomorrow.” Moses said, “Be it as you say, that you may know that there is no one like the Lord our God. The frogs shall depart from you and your houses and your servants and your people; they shall be left only in the Nile.” So Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh; and Moses cried to the Lord concerning the frogs, as he had agreed with Pharaoh. And the Lord did according to the word of Moses; the frogs died out of the houses and courtyards and out of the fields. And they gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank. But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart, and would not listen to them; as the Lord had said.
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I cry with my voice to the Lord, with my voice I make supplication to the Lord, I pour out my complaint before him, I tell my trouble before him. When my spirit is faint, thou knowest my way!
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For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his habitation: “This is my resting place for ever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it. I will abundantly bless her provisions; I will satisfy her poor with bread. Her priests I will clothe with salvation, and her saints will shout for joy. There I will make a horn to sprout for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed. His enemies I will clothe with shame, but upon himself his crown will shed its luster.”
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Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not see the end of the fading splendor. But their minds were hardened; for to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their minds; but when a man turns to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
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And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.” And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” At that saying his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions.
And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.” Peter began to say to him, “Lo, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many that are first will be last, and the last first.”
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O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul.
O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and for evermore.”
Pray & Do: Read out loud as a prayer Malcolm Guite’s sonnet in your meditation on Mark 10:17-31. (Or click the title link to hear the author read it himself.)
‘Sell all you have…and follow me’
To whom, exactly, are you speaking Lord?
I take it you’re not saying this to me,
But just to this rich man, or to some saint
Like Francis, or to some community,
The Benedictines maybe, their restraint
Sustains so much. But I can’t bear this word!
I bought the deal, the whole consumer thing,
Signed up and filled my life with all this stuff,
And now you come, when I’ve got everything,
And tell me everything is not enough!
But that one thing I lack, I cannot get.
Sell everything I have? That’s far too hard
I can’t just sell it all… at least not yet,
To whom exactly, are you speaking Lord?
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David's Crown: Sounding the Psalms by Malcolm Guite
*Sunday Scripture readings are taken from Year C of the Book of Common Prayer 2019 (Anglican Church of North America). Daily Scripture readings are taken from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and include both Morning and Evening Psalms (Year 2).