Daily Devotions and Podcasts

SCRIPTURE  Acts 7:35-42 It was this Moses whom they rejected when they said, “Who made you a ruler and a judge?” and whom God now sent as both ruler and liberator through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. He led them out, having performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years. This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, “God will raise up a prophet for you from your own people as he raised me up.” He is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai and with our ancestors, and he received living oracles to give to us. Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him; instead, they pushed him aside, and in their hearts they turned back to Egypt, saying to Aaron, “Make gods for us who will lead the way for us; as for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.” At that time they made a golden calf, offered a sacrifice to the idol, and reveled in the works of their hands. But God turned away from them and handed them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘Did you offer to me slain victims and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? No; you took along the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; so I will remove you beyond Babylon.’ WORDS OF HOPE In this passage, Stephen is reminding a crowd in Jerusalem of how their ancestors had given up on Moses after he had disappeared on the mountain. They called upon Aaron to make a God for them to worship and to follow. Since this comes following Pentecost, Stephen’s implication, (and in the next verse, his direct accusation), is that the people to whom he is speaking have essentially done the same thing with the power of the Holy Spirit who has come among them. We think of ourselves as beyond that kind of idol worship that the Israelites fell into in the time of Moses and again at this juncture, in the new life that Jesus and the Holy Spirit have brought. How often, however, do we create idols, ideas or things that we “worship” and forget the God who guides us? How often do we unconsciously think God has abandoned us and we replace our worship of God with some other focus? We, perhaps, do not think of it in that way. But whenever we overlook or ignore the call of God in our lives for anything of this world; we have created an idol. And while we tend to think of these idols as physical, like the golden calf or money in our time, we can create idols of most anything. Anytime anything stands between us and God, or in some way replaces God; we have created an idol. It might be technology; it might be the busy times of our day; it might even be Family. So, for our reflection today, we should take some time to stop whatever we are doing, close off all noise, and external stimulation and take a moment to simply sit with God. This too is a form of worship. And hopefully it will bring God into the focus of our worship. PRAYER Gracious God be with us always so that we can worship you in fullness. Forgive us when we doubt you and replace you in our hearts and our minds with idols of our own creation. Fill us with your Holy Spirit. Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Weber Baker. Order of Saint Francis and Saint Clare

SCRIPTURE Gensis 13:18 Then Abram moved his tent and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and there he built an altar to God. Now the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day. Gensis 18:1 WORDS OF HOPE I used to say—only half-jokingly—that I hoped I died before she did. Over the years our relationship had become, well, intimate in a way I hadn’t thought possible. I’d always loved her long-limbed beauty, the way her branches stretched across space as if she were yearning for the light. But I think that it was after the arborist broke the news that she had a disease that would eventually take her down that my heart opened to her even more deeply. I ordered special organic nutrients to be injected into the soil several times a year to bolster her system. As with any other loved one, I would try to extend her life as long as I could. Greeting her every morning as Sage and I go for our walk, I speak my love and gratitude for her strength and beauty. She has endured for 65 years through thunder storms with strong winds, lashing rains, and even hail. Sometimes I slide my palm over her rough bark and tousle the leafy green clusters which wave their greeting. And oh, how her fall glory electrifies! Perhaps my Irish heritage imbued me with the blood of Druids, a people for whom the great oaks are sacred sanctuaries. Last week while talking to a neighbor, I heard a lightening-scale crack and thunderous thud as the fissure in her massive trunk split open and she crashed to the ground. When we arrived at the house, the great sheltering canopy of Grandmother Red Oak lay splayed and broken all over the yard. That night, after a skilled tree removal person had been secured, grief came. Tears fell and memories surfaced—like the summer a mother owl and her four fledglings held vigil in her branches at night. At dusk I walked among the beautiful wreckage and prayed and spoke to her. Tears washed my cheeks again in the morning while Isidoro and his son set about their work. I asked him if he would cut me a few pieces to keep. He did not think that was foolish and produced strong, solid, beautifully grained sections.  Sometime in the second day of my grief, I thought: This is not just my loss. The Mississippi Kites who have been perching in some bare branches before their morning flight have had to relocate. The blue jays who year after year raise their families there have lost their home—and the squirrels who rest in the heat of the day on her broad branches and scramble about in play and harvest her acorns for food are displaced. All have lost something. Even the young cotton tail who finds shade and water underneath her looks confused as she sits on the edge of the yard and peers into a transformed landscape. As I pray for these creatures, the lessons of adaptability and resilience come to mind, teaching me as well. And I take some comfort in the one remaining section of Grandmother that is still alive and green and in the hope that even after the terrible breaking she will thrive. A new sitting area graces the front yard—centered around the large oak sections cut for me, and now holding aloe vera and summery petunia, with small agaves at the base. It will be a kind of outdoor altar for the sacred oak, for all the beauty and strength and grace and blessing she brought. At the thought of the welcome this new setting offers, I smile in gratitude. Receive this blessing: “Blessed are the ones who trust in the LORD, whose confidence is in God. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. They do not fear when heat comes; their leaves are always green.” Jeremiah 7-8 adapted DEVOTION AUTHOR Dr. Pat Saxon