Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Friday, February 27, 2009
Psalms 26, 90; Deuteronomy 7:12-16; Titus 2:1-15; John 1:35-42
Meditation: Virtue is underrated. There are times when I resist it, to be sure. For instance, I can feel my own tension with it rise when I read from Titus. It’s misses what is liberating with its strictures and judgments. The modern age did away with slavery: Thank God! So why do we go back to letters like Titus for advice like wives should be “submissive to their husbands,” with the oppressive “so that the world of God may not be discredited,” to follow?
Most scholars of the mainline sort paste warning labels all over Titus (and the Timothy letters) telling us: “This is written by a circle-the-wagons, nervous-Ned who wants to doesn’t want the new grace-liberated church to lose its moorings. It is not an authentic letter of Paul! (It’s by a supposed disciple of Paul, who wants to continue the church Paul began, be as it may in a truncated form.” Nevertheless, I am sticking with my opening statement: “Virtue is underrated.”
The Body Project, a book by Joan Jacob Brumberg, compared diaries between girls in the 19th century and now, finding that “girls today grow up believing that ‘good looks’ -- rather than ‘good works’ -- are the highest form of female perfection.” The same could well be said of boys as well, where commercials and television hype camaraderie around beer, sports and sexual gratification as life’s highest goods. Somehow, in our liberation, we have left out the gifts that community, boundaries and wisdom can bring.
One might wonder if a global economy can crash on the underrating of virtue. Probably not, but the excesses which have led to our recession may well give us thought about what is really most valuable and sustainable. There’s no virtue in oppression, to be sure. Slavery’s demise, egalitarianism between women and men, hostilities between the two groups “us” and “them,” embody the liberation message of the real Paul who writes in Galatians that in Christ “there neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, not male and female” (3:28). Yet, there is a quiet place of virtuousness that is also supported in the way we follow Christ. Perhaps we can take that from Titus, at least.
Prayer: Lord, we remember the story of Andrew, today. On finding Jesus, he sought out his brother Peter, urging him to “come and see,” whether this teacher might be the Messiah, the Lamb of God. Let us follow you today, with similar anticipation that being with you holds the possibility of great joy, as your presence and teaching change us into those we were always meant to be. Amen.
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