The Narrow Path

  Thursday, June 1, 2023 Psalm 74 Ruth 2 Acts 2:37-47 Observances: Justin, martyr at Rome (d. c. 167); Week of Prayer for Reconciliation; Ember Day May you have a full reward from the LORD, under whose wings you have come for refuge! As members of the Church, we are members of a local church. In those local churches something we do is pray for each other. Usually this will involve, in part, being on a prayer chain-style setup. A member of our Christian family will ask for specific prayers, and the word goes out to the entire body to pray into that situation. Quite often we will see the result of our prayers through a mysterious third party: prayers for healing are fulfilled by a medical professional; prayers for financial support are fulfilled by an employer or charity, for example. Prayers are powerful, and they work. Something that prayers do is bless. These blessings, made in the name of the one true and living God, are powerful, and they work. Something we

  Wednesday, May 31, 2023 Psalm 83 Ruth 1 Acts 2:22-36 Observances: The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth; Week of Prayer for Reconciliation; Ember Day This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. How is your faith? Not on a level from one to ten (if such a thing were even possible), but how do you perceive the things of God? Thomas’ faith was “hands on”, but Jesus blesses us because we believe, even though we do not stand next to Peter on the street in ancient Jerusalem as eyewitnesses. Ask a Christian who has walked with Jesus for many years and you will see a look in their eyes as they smile gently and quietly but confidently affirm the power of God in their life. Sometimes our faith can be rocked, not by disbelief, but by a perception of distance from God. Sometimes it gets hard to follow God’s plan, and it no longer seems like His face is shining upon us. To feel like God has turned His back is worse than anything else:

  Tuesday, May 30, 2023 Psalms 148; 149 Deuteronomy 6:4-25 Acts 2:14-24 Observances: Week of Prayer for Reconciliation; Ember Day Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Keep the love of God in your heart. Not in the hands; they can only work, but if they are directed from a loving heart, they can work miracles. If the love of God is kept only in the head, then that love is brittle, and shatters at the first strain. But if the head is directed from a heart that loves, then the intellect is set on fire and is infused with the power of God. To love God is a commandment: it is not something to choose to follow or not. There is a direct one-to-one relationship between loving God and fulfilling the call on us to be a human being. Loving God does not start as a feeling, it starts as a duty (albeit the most honourable duty we are called to). When we follow our duty to love God, then that love flames into a blaze of desire. That is to say, love

  Monday, May 29, 2023 Psalm 145 Deuteronomy 5:22-6:3 Acts 2:1-13 Observances: Week of Prayer for Reconciliation; Ember Day; Prayers for the ordained ministry of the Church are appropriate this Ember week. God’s greatness is unsearchable. God’s nature as spirit is a wonder. He is always with us, but we cannot reach out and touch Him like we can a friend. Many Christians will say God is to be found in looking at His creation, and it is true that simply by looking out the window we can see the reflection of God in His handiwork. Other Christians might say that God is found in other people. As Anglicans, we hold the Incarnation as one of the greatest of God’s revelations to us, and when people image Christ to us we rightly consider that to be holy. The note above this Psalm is that it is by David. David went to plenty of different places, and met plenty of different people. His formative years were as a shepherd out in the bush; his rite of initiation was on the bat

  Saturday, May 27, 2023 Psalm 140 Deuteronomy 5:1-21 Acts 1:15-26 Observances: Week of Prayer for Christian Unity; Week of Prayer for Reconciliation – May 27 to June 3 “ Friends, the scripture had to be fulfilled…” One of the reasons why God is such a rich object of our worshipful study is because He has so many dimensions. Everything God does is laden with meaning; every piece of fabric of human history is strung together into a beautiful and dense whole. Religious history is filled with people who tried to make a one-to-one connection between an action of God and its meaning, but God just turns around and says “have you also considered this?” Peter was the wisest theologian who ever lived: he both learnt directly from the mouth of God in Christ, and he had the human experience to back up what was true and what wasn’t. Even he, however, looked at the number of apostles and realised that there had to be twelve, because wasn’t it plain to see, there had to be

  Friday, May 26, 2023 Psalms 137; 138 Deuteronomy 4:25-42 Observances: Week of Prayer for Christian Unity; Augustine of Canterbury, missionary and bishop (d. 605) How could we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? In the heavenly places, God ascends His throne and holds court. Voices from all across creation ring out, clamouring to be heard, both friend and foe. The Accuser steps forward and points in our direction: “Look at this person you have made, and how they falter under my attack! As I must die, so must they!” Our spirit falters under the hateful gaze of the Enemy who only wishes us harm. Is this true? We are under attack, and we do suffer under the weight of evil that this world throws at us. Daughter Babylon the Devastator has come and brought down our walls, and they dashed our little ones against the rock. How could we sing the Lord’s praises in the face of such horror? All those instructions from Jesus to stand firm, to be courageous, to stay faithful

  Thursday, May 25, 2023 Psalm 135 Deuteronomy 4:9-24 John 17:20-26 Observances: Week of Prayer for Christian Unity; Bede of Jarrow, priest and teacher (d. 735) “ I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.” Intelligence is knowing when to keep one’s mouth shut; wisdom is knowing that this is almost always the case. This is particularly applicable when making plans: one’s head can be filled with all sorts of wonderful ideas and terrifically clever schemes, but when they are spoken, they gain the weight of expectation. Intentions are safer in the mind than the air. Our most tragic example is that of Saint Peter, who famously boasted of standing by Jesus even if it meant he also would be led to the hill of execution, but when the rubber hit the road, his words went up in smoke. It is no wonder that the Bible repeatedly marvels at the solid guarantee of God’s word. When God sp

  Wednesday, May 24, 2023 Psalms 130; 131; 133 Deuteronomy 3:18-4:8 John 16:25-17:5 Observances: Week of Prayer for Christian Unity; John (d. 1791) and Charles (d. 1788) Wesley, evangelists How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! Yesterday we reflected on how conflict is unnatural. Today, we get the opposite of conflict: familial unity. But it is not a perfect opposite, because while conflict is unnatural, familial unity is not natural: it is supernatural. Read down to the end of Psalm 133. For kindred to live in unity is so beautifully transcendent and divine for the author that they compare it to two things: the sacred oil that anoints priests, and the dew found on the holy mountain. When God rested on the mountain, He came as a storm, as lightning and thunder and clouds. The dew that is left over from that kind of storm is unique, blessed: there is nothing else like it, because there is no other storm like the coming of th

  Tuesday, May 23, 2023 Psalms 124; 125; 126 Deuteronomy 2:24-3:5 John 16:25-17:5 Observance: Week of Prayer for Christian Unity “ But take courage; I have conquered the world!” There is something unnatural about conflict. Perhaps in the abstract sense, but more obviously in the practical. To be brought to violence (of any kind) requires a change of mentality: we “see red”; our peripheral vision darkens; the roar of white noise builds up in our hearing. Men of war have written about how bravery is not the absence of fear, but being able to overcome fear through sheer willpower. Conflict is not in our nature. This is why those who would follow Jesus must follow the way of peace. While those who live by the sword will die by the sword, those who life by the word will live by the Word. Jesus made this one of the core teachings of His sermon on the mount; the prophet saw into heaven and gave Him the name “The Prince of Peace”. The violence of the world is co

  Monday, May 22, 2023 Psalm 118:1-18 Deuteronomy 1:46-2:19 John 16:12-24 Observance: Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (until Eve of Pentecost) “ When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth.” There is a little game I like to play sometimes when I hit a red traffic light. It involves taking a common nugget of wisdom and attempting to “Christianise” it. Today’s readings give us a chance to play this game. I’m sure we have all heard (and groaned at) the statement “when God closes one door, He opens another”. I hope we are all aware that this sentence appears no-where in the Bible. However, it seems reasonable enough; lived experience would seem to prove it as a true rule of the universe. Is that what was happening to the Israelites in the wilderness, however? Did they find God closing the door to the land given to the descendants of Esau? Did they spy an open door to the land of the Moabites, only to have it shut in their face? W

  Saturday, May 20, 2023 Psalms 114; 115 Deuteronomy 1:22-45 John 15:26-16:11 “ I have said these things to keep you from stumbling.” When we are in the midst of what seems like a delayed response from God, the world gets very dark and grim. The Bible is full of promises from God to come and rescue us from suffering and trials – but the wait is unbearable. There are plenty of pithy statements that, like the “advice” from Job’s friends, come to mind and make things worse: ‘good things come to those who wait’; ‘God prefers to marinade rather than microwave’. Consider the deep wound of the broken hearts of the Israelites in the wilderness, who let their impatience get the better of them: after witnessing some of the most spectacular and terrifying signs God has ever performed, they continued to grumble. Like spoilt children, when they didn’t get what they wanted, they turned around and tried to rewind God’s instructions and invade the promised land on their own. Loss

  Friday, May 19, 2023 Psalms 110; 111 Deuteronomy 1:1-21 John 15:12-25 Observance: Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 988) “ See, the LORD your God has given the land to you; go up, take possession, as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has promised you; do not fear or be dismayed.” It is amazing that anyone manages to learn anything in high school. Getting the certificate at the end is almost an afterthought; the primary concerns are having to learn how to fit into a system, and how to get along with other people. Everyone has a different high school experience, but everyone also knows how difficult it can be trying to figure out how to “fit in” while also figuring out how to stay true to one’s self. The journey of the Christian pilgrim through this life has to wrestle with that paradox on a spiritual and an eternal scale. We traverse through this wilderness, through this world that hates us because it hated Jesus, looking to the promised land of perfec

  Thursday, May 18, 2023 Psalm 97 Daniel 7:9-14 John 14:12-29 Observance: Ascension Day “ I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.” The Ascension is one of those events in the Bible that stick out more than most others. Water into wine is pretty miraculous, but not beyond the realm of supernatural possibility; the multiplication of loaves and fishes likewise, while not achievable by us mere mortals, seems a fairly straight-forward miracle. Even Christ’s resurrection is believable by most Christians, as indeed it should be, as its uniqueness confirms Christ’s divinity as well as securing our confidence in eternal life. But when we consider the Ascension, of the resurrected Jesus ascended up through the clouds and into heaven, the mind’s eye begins to throb and bend. Because where is heaven? Is it a geographical location “up there”? The Russian cosmonaut went into space and scoffed about how he saw no angels, only more space. Many theologians nowadays

  Wednesday, May 17, 2023 Psalm 106:1-24 Exodus 40:17-38 John 15:1-11 “ ...and their anointing shall admit them to a perpetual priesthood throughout all generations to come.” As Christians, we have a living hope of a physical resurrection to imperishable bodies; combine this with the fact that the kingdom of heaven and our life in abundance is here and now, it has hard not to wonder what aspects of this life will continue on into the next. For example, I like to play the trumpet. Having to make myself do at least a little practice every day can be difficult. There are a number of specific and obscure face and stomach muscles that are not really used in any other activity, and to be able to play as well as I know I can requires daily exercise to “keep my chops”. At times, I regret to admit, I go through periods where I do not play at all, and picking the instrument back up again means pushing through weak lips and a soft tummy for several days before I am happy wi

  Tuesday, May 16, 2023 Psalm 105:1-22 Exodus 35:20-36:7 John 14:8-31 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. It might have been an old Enid Blyton story, where two children were talking about the deep mysteries of God. One was a Christian, and she was bringing her friend to faith. They spoke about what Jesus promised about the power of prayer – that our heavenly Father knows all the good things we need and will give them to us – but had run into problems on the practical side of things. The friend was complaining to the Christian child that, while she had asked Jesus very seriously and often for a pet pony, no animal had yet been forthcoming. In Enid Blyton’s story there was a wholesome ending with a sensible and hopeful moral. We are grown-ups, however, and looking for a silver-lining in the cloud of our disappointments tend to have higher stakes than whether Santa gives us what we want for Christmas or not. Jesus wraps today’s sentence in a long mo

  Monday, May 15, 2023 Psalm 104:1-25 Exodus 34:27-35:9 John 13:36-14:7 Observance: Matthias, apostle and martyr [ If not observed on February 24 ] I am the way. There is a certain way of looking at the journey of discipleship that many of us struggle to get past. Many of us imagine that God is somewhere “over there” (wherever that may be), whereas I am “here”, and I need to work on my spiritual life to travel closer towards God. Catherine of Siena, whose day we observed earlier this year, once reflected that “the soul is in God and God in the soul, just as the fish is in the sea and the sea in the fish.” A wise spiritual director explained that we can think of ourselves as fish swimming in the presence of God, in whom we all have our being, but sometimes we stop using our gills, and so we forget that God is so intimately present with us that we don’t have any further to go in order to reach Him. Admittedly, the title of this devotional doesn’t help: we w

  Saturday, May 13, 2023 Psalms 101; 102:1-11 Exodus 34:11-26 John 13:21-35 Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in Him. One of the nicknames given to the gospel of John is “the gospel of glory”. When Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding at Cana, it was when He first revealed His glory. Raising Lazarus from the dead was not simply Jesus making Himself feel better by bringing back His friend, but so that those who believed would see the glory of God. When God’s glory was displayed to Moses and the Israelites, it was in the pillars of smoke by day and fire by night. God’s glory descended upon Mount Sinai; there it was thunder and lightning, fire and smoke. The word itself is, in the Hebrew, related to a sense of weighty heaviness; God’s magnificence is a girthy magnificence. God is very magnificent, and describing God as having glory is our way of emptying our vocabulary in an attempt to get somewhere in describing that.

  Friday, May 12, 2023 Psalms 99; 100 Exodus 33:18-34:10 John 13:12-20 Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” Recently I did some air travel. In the past, I have always enjoyed it – the thrill of a massive hunk of steel and exhaust zooming up in to the sky seems ridiculous, impossible, absurd – even with a rudimentary understanding of the physics of flight. But this was the first time I had flown at a stage in my life where I had dependants. This time, I felt the wonder of flight hidden under furious muttering of prayers for safety. I realised also that my time of riding roller coasters was probably coming to an end, too. In the past I had done these things – air travel, thrill rides, new experiences with minimal planning – out of a sense of youthful abandon. Now I find myself having to ask the question: am I brave enough? When we were young Christians, still being bottle-fed spiritual milk by our spiritual wet-nurses, these words sounded exciting: our story ha

  Thursday, May 11, 2023 Psalms 95; 96 Exodus 33:1-17 John 13:1-11 Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. There are three ways to communicate with God. Everyone communicates with God; believer, unbeliever, and everyone in between: and it all falls into one of three categories. One way is like those with stiff necks and hard hearts. God speaks to them, as God speaks to us all, but they turn their back. They refuse to honour God and give thanks, in spite of the fact that God’s eternal power and divine nature is plain to see and understand through the things God has made. This conversation is held face-to-back. The second way is like the Israelites at the door to their tents, when Moses would go into the tent of meeting. Terrified of the power of God, wielded so dreadfully against His enemies, they bow to the ground. This is not so bad; God is our creator, and to show Him deference is perfectly reasonable and could almost

  Wednesday, May 10, 2023 Psalms 92; 93 Exodus 32:15-35 John 12:44-50 “ But now, if you will only forgive their sin – but if not, blot me out of the book that you have written.” On what basis do you divide groups of people? In a country like ours, it can be difficult: while the original ANZACs fought for a British Commonwealth, their contemporaries may find an institution like the recent coronation of Charles III more of an entertaining anachronism than a nationally sacred moment. In a multicultural melting pot, what defines a people? Is there really anything more than a government-issued slip of paper that can tell us who is in – and who is out? Moses’ identity with a people stands out in this passage as that which is most alien. The pogrom that saw three thousand Israelites put to the sword is more relatable (sadly) than the idea of someone asking to be numbered with his countrymen even if it meant losing his salvation. But if we can wrap our heads around

Tuesday, May 9, 2023 Psalm 89:38-52 Exodus 32:1-14 John 12:34-43 They loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God. There is a gag about priorities, and it comments that “no-one lies on their deathbed and regrets not spending more time in the office”. Sensible chuckle aside, it is true that we only get one shot at this life, and that there are eternal implications for everything we do. Christ has manifested Himself truly and sufficiently as the Messiah, as the Lord God. He has called every human being to repentance and discipleship. How much of that information can we honestly ignore? How much of our response to that claim can we relegate off into the “too hard” basket; as something to worry about some other time? There is also the dangerous temptation for us to keep on doing the same thing we always have; following a certain career, or advocating for a certain cause. It may seem noble and just and very Christian; and if we squint hard enough,

  Monday, May 8, 2023 Psalm 89:1-18 Exodus 31 John 12:20-33 Observance: Julian of Norwich, holy woman and mystic (d. 1417) Happy are the people who know the festal shout. Recently, a certain former politician who was also a Christian gave a talk to a gathering of lay and ordained ministers. She described how, when she first entered Parliament, her spirit was full of excitement for all of the policy areas in which she could serve: industrial relations, business, trade, foreign affairs, and so on. Pretty quickly, however, people caught on that she loved the Lord, and instead she became known only as someone with Christian insight. Initially, she was offended, perceiving that she had been reduced from an individual to her faith. However, after only a short time experiencing the brutally personal world that is Australian politics, she learned that to be known as a Christian first and everything else second gave her immense reserves of strength and comfort. If it i

  Saturday, May 6, 2023 Psalm 86 Exodus 30:11-38 John 12:9-19 Observance: John, apostle and evangelist [ If not observed on December 27 ] The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less. There is a certain supermarket chain that, as part of their orientation program for new employees, includes a session with a representative of the relevant trade union. This trade union representative comes in to the tea room and hands all the new employees a booklet and then works through it, showing them all their legal workplace entitlements. At the very end of this booklet there is a table, and it is a rather grim one, listing all the different body parts one might lose and injuries one might suffer while at work, and shows the monetary compensation for each. While losing a digit might equate to somewhere between three and four figures, other body parts can be valued up to six. One cannot help but wonder who decided those numbers, and how. One also gets the sense

  Friday, May 5, 2023 Psalms 82; 84 Exodus 29:38-30:10 John 11:55-12:8 It is most holy to the LORD. When St Peter told us that all disciples of Jesus (including you and me) are members of a royal priesthood, he would have had in mind someone like Aaron to communicate his illustration. It is a very special thing to be a priest. Biblically, it would appear that, in some sense, everyone is a priest. We can picture Aaron, bedecked in jewels and gold, bowing under the weight of his metal and stone vestments, slaying animals and splashing their blood on everything, then proceeding past the curtain into the direct presence of God and speaking personally with the Most High, standing between God and God’s people, praying and pleading for blessings. This is the role that Christ performs now in heaven: having splashed His own blood He now speaks face-to-face with our heavenly Father, discussing how best to bless us, His people. This was the role performed by Mary, when

  Thursday, May 4, 2023 Psalm 80 Exodus 28:1-6; 29:1-9 John 11:45-54 You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth! While working our way through this section of Exodus, with all its close attention to detail on things that seem irrelevant for Christians several thousands of years later, we might almost be able to forgive the compilers of the lectionary for letting us skip over so much of it. Indeed, through the death of Christ we have been released from the need to offer animal sacrifices day after day before the physical representation of the ark of God. Our High Priest, Jesus Christ, offered the one true and final sacrifice for sins; and as for His priesthood, He is in the order of Melchizedek, not of Aaron and his sons. But the specifics of the rituals and worship of the ancient Israelites in the wilderness is contained in the inspired words of scripture, which means we have them to be able to read today for good reason. One of those good reasons was id

  Wednesday, May 3, 2023 Psalm 78:16-38 Exodus 25:31-40; 27:20-21 John 11:38-44 [Philip and James may be observed today] So that a lamp may be set up to burn regularly. The word “god” just on its own is such a frightfully abstract concept. Ancient pagans defined “god” as beings like us humans, just with a little bit more magical power. Some modern types have tried to define a “god” as a generic desire of the flesh, like career, or relationships. There are also biblical scholars who have observed that in the Old Testament we find one word for “god” that seems to define a category, or type of being: elohim; and that the God who is above all those other gods has a name: YHWH . What is so important however is that God is revealed in the specifics. There is only one God above all other gods, and that God is Triune. The second Person condescended to veil His glory as that ultimate God in human form, behaved in a way consistent with the ultimate God above all gods,

  Tuesday, May 2, 2023 Psalm 77 Exodus 25:1-22 John 11:17-37 Observance: Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, teacher (d. 373) Jesus wept. As the letter to the Hebrews teaches, we have permission to go digging through the Old Testament to look for shadows, or sketches, of Christ and the kingdom of heaven. Everything that God has done (and continues to do) is deliberate and done thoughtfully of the fact that all things have been created through and in Christ: He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Therefore, we can hear the conversation between God and Moses on the mountain as the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who were taught all the things about Jesus in the scriptures. When Jesus taught that all the law and the prophets were summed up in the two great commandments, we look at these rules laid down by God in Exodus and see how the intended result is that we would love Him and one another. Then we come to the dwelling place of Yahwe