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Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost

June 19, 2023

Invitatory

Send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me, and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

Reading - Acts 1:6-8

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Meditation - Winnie Smith

This week, twelve youth and five adults from the Redeemer are at St. Christopher’s Mission in Bluff, Utah, part of the Episcopal Church in Navajoland. The experience this week will be different than on previous Youth Work Trips; this trip is largely about learning Navajo culture and the interconnectedness of Indigenous spirituality with Episcopal tradition, rather than about “working” and “serving” as we have done in the past.

Often when we hear descriptions of the early church and of the apostles being sent out, the focus is on productivity. In Matthew, the command is to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19); in Mark, “go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). Jesus is commanding his followers to go out and make more followers. A crucial message and call to Christians, no doubt, but today’s text from Acts takes a slightly different approach: it is less a directive than a description of what will come to pass. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). To serve as witnesses of Jesus does not simply or exclusively mean action. Sometimes, one witnesses by simply being present with others, by listening to and learning from them, by really making the effort to know them. After all, that is what Jesus did best: he saw people fully and treated them as equals.

My hope for our trip this week is that we witness to Christ in that way, that we serve God by listening to and learning from others. We may not end up leaving Utah with a long list of accomplishments in the traditional sense, having repaired a roof or put up siding on a house – or maybe we will. Whatever the outcome, God has empowered us to be witnesses wherever we go. Perhaps the best way we can do that this week is by immersing ourselves in another way of life and through that experience, learning more about our own. Life on the Main Line is not any more “normal” than life in Navajoland. The Holy Spirit is alive in both, and it is our responsibility as Christians to remember that and to spread the Good News of God in Christ wherever we are, through words, presence, and action.

Prayer for Mission:

O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that all people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.