Daily Reading for October 19 • The Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
Almighty and everlasting God, in Christ you have revealed your glory among the nations: Preserve the works of your mercy, that your Church throughout the world may persevere with steadfast faith in the confession of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Collect for Proper 24)
This prayer links the glory of God not only to Christ but to the church, the body of Christ. The church is the primary means by which God’s glory is manifest in the world today, but Christians must be careful not to take that truth for granted. The glory of God is not automatically or always found in the Christian church. When the church devotes more energy to maintaining her institutional privileges than to walking humbly in the footsteps of her Lord, more time bickering over secondary things than proclaiming primary things, the church cannot reflect the glory of God to others. The glory of God shines on; it is not within the church’s power to diminish or extinguish it, but the church can exclude herself from it. At such times God does not abandon his church; it is the church that abandons God. . . .
The glory of God is broader than the church. We must not think too narrowly of that glory, limiting God’s domain to the places and people where we expect to find him. All things shine with the glory of God, and when we pray to God to “preserve the works of your mercy,” we ask his blessing on all things, seen and unseen, good and evil. . . . To “persevere with steadfast faith” is to trust God when no one else does and when we cannot see him clearly, to sing his praises when every other voice is singing a different song.
From A Gracious Rain: A Devotional Commentary on the Prayers of the Church Year by Richard H. Schmidt. Copyright © 2008. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com