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| "The Anacapas at Sunset" by Brian Hawkins |
Acts 13 & 14
Water, Earth
†
A Greeting
O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
(Psalm 8:1)
A Reading
'Friends, why are you doing this?
We are mortals just like you, and we bring you good news, that
you should turn from these worthless things to the living God,
who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in
them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to follow their
own ways; yet he has not left himself without a witness in doing
good—giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and
filling you with food and your hearts with joy.’
(Acts 14:15-17)
Music
The hymn is sung in Hebrew and in English.
Meditative Verse
He built his sanctuary like the high heavens,
like the earth, which he has founded forever.
(Psalm 78:69)
A Poem
Out on the broad lake a breeze will find us
That’s wafted around the planet to cool our divinity.
The clouds will hover above us in a giant halo
As we watch our brother, the sun, descend,
His gentle face turned toward us, his godly expression
Undarkened by accusation or disappointment
Or the thought of something he’s left undone.
from "Days of Heaven" by Carl Dennis
Verses for the Day
Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God,
who made heaven and earth, the sea,
and all that is in them; who keeps faith forever.
(Psalm 146:5-6)
†
The stories of Acts 13 and 14 nearly all take place in or near synagogues, as Paul and Barnabas move among the Greek islands and mainland evangelizing the Jewish communities there. Inside the synagogues, it seems, things go well: they speak and are heard. But outside the temple, they are spurned and persecuted by leaders and the elite. As they move from place to place, they encounter false prophets, enact healing and proclaim the gospel, and the number of followers grows. Some of these new followers even believe that Paul and Barnabas are Greek gods in human form: in today’s reading Paul hurries to correct them. He does so by referring to God’s role as the primary creator: the one who made the heavens and the earth and the seas between them, which no mortal can do. Heaven and earth and seas come together often in scripture, echoing their place at the beginning of the biblical story. ‘Water’ (‘mayim’ in Hebrew) makes up the last two syllables of ‘heaven’ (’shamayim’). And 'land’ (‘adamah’) contains the name of the first biblical human being, ‘Adam’. The seas that are between heaven and earth contain the waters of life, and the breath of the Holy Spirit that moved over them at the start of Genesis. Paul reminds us of how the rains that fall, and the food that is eaten, are part of how God witnesses to the link between heaven and earth. So what happens to that link when we defile water, and let it become poisoned? In today’s video, a First Nations community describes what it is like to live permanently with untreated, undrinkable lake water. In pointing to the physical effects of poisoned water on the body, they help remind us that the waters of heaven and earth are inside us. "Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy", the cantor sings. If we can heal the poisoned waters in some of our peoples, we are better able to
become that sanctuary.
The next devotional day is Friday, June 10th.
LC† Acts of the Spirit is a project of
Lutherans Connect / Lutheran Campus Ministry Toronto.
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