(Extra)Ordinary Love: Sixth Sunday of Epiphany
Blessed Epiphany, friends!
I'm looking forward to sharing with you a weekly Epiphany Daybook devotional post for these weeks of revelation and witness.
You can read here for a brief description of the liturgical season of Epiphany.
Look: Maria Michael, a Lakota elder from San Francisco, middle, embraces US Army veteran Tatiana McLee, right, during an emotional forgiveness ceremony at the Four Prairie Knights Casino and Resort on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 5, 2016 in Fort Yates, North Dakota. Native Americans conducted a forgiveness ceremony with U.S. veterans at the Standing Rock casino, giving the veterans an opportunity to atone for military actions conducted against Natives throughout history. The ceremony was held in celebration of Standing Rock protesters' victory Sunday in halting construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline. - Helen H. Richardson, photographer, The Denver Post - Source
Listen: Ordinary Love, U2 - Lyrics | Spotify | YouTube
Listen to the Sermon on the Mount playlist.
Read: Ecclesiasticus 15:11-20; Psalm 119:9-16; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37
Pray: Book of Common Prayer, Collect for the Sixth Sunday After Epiphany
O God, the strength of all who put their trust in you: Mercifully accept our prayers; and because in our weakness we can do nothing good without you, give us the help of your grace, that in keeping your commandments we may please you both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Do: Read Practicing the Sermon on the Mount by Richard Foster and then ask yourself: How can I make the kingdom of God available to individuals who are humanly hopeless? Then as you go about your days, learn to take time to point out the natural beauty of every human being.
“In the “beatitudes” Jesus takes up various kinds and classes of people that in his day were thought to be unblessed and unblessable, and he shows how the Kingdom of God is available to them and how they too can be blessed. No wonder the poor heard him gladly! As the Simon and Garfunkel song goes, “Blessed are the sat upon, spat upon, ratted on.”
In The Divine Conspiracy Dallas Willard gives contemporary expression to these “unblessed and unblessable-–the physically repulsive … the bald, the fat, and the old … the flunk-outs and drop-outs and burned outs. The broke and the broken. The drug heads and the divorced. The HIV-positive and herpes-ridden. The brain-damaged, the incurable ill. The barren and the pregnant too-many-times or the wrong time. The overemployed, the underemployed, the unemployed. The unemployable. The swindled, the shoved aside, the replaced… .” (pp. 123-124).
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You can find other activities for Epiphany at this post: 12 Ways to Celebrate Twelfth Night & Epiphanytide
*Sunday Scripture readings are taken from Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary. Daily Scripture readings are taken from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and include Morning and Evening Psalms (Year 1).