Fr Peter Helman

Dear beloved of Christ,

If you’re of the custom of joining the church via livestream for Morning Prayer each day, you’ll notice we read two lessons from holy scripture, one from the Old Testament and one from evangelists. The Daily Office, though, actually provides for three lessons each day, in addition to the psalm(s), over a two-year cycle. At Morning Prayer we skip the lesson from the epistles. There’s good reason to do so; we’re not just thumbing our noses at Saint Paul and the other epistlers! Both Morning and Evening Prayer traditionally accommodate two biblical lessons each for a total of four per day. In my experience, the Old Testament and Gospel are read together at Morning Prayer, and the Epistle and Gospel are read together at Evening Prayer. Thus the Gospel is read twice daily.

I admit that I pray Evening Prayer less frequently than I do Morning Prayer, and so I often miss the appointed epistle lessons. The epistles are marvelous works, and today we find ourselves reading from Saint Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae in Asia Minor.

Paul founded the church at Colossae during his third and final missionary journey. I remembered that last week when I had an itch to find maps again of his missionary routes. Paul set out from Antioch three times around the Mediterranean. The first journey spent two years, from 46 to 48 CE; the second three, from 49 to 52 CE; and the final four, from 53 to 57 CE. Over a decade found Paul hoofing it or on brief furlough.

The distances stagger me to consider all the walking he did. And consider too the lengths of resolve to hazard everything, life itself, with each step to tell every person along the road—every man, every woman, every child—of Jesus raised from the dead. More than zeal told Paul to go, and more than zeal stayed the course.

My mental frame of reference last week shifted in how I see the trips Paul made. I’ve always thought of them on the grandest scale…how momentous, how unprecedented, how unattainable in their scope. Western civilization would be shaped for all time by Paul’s journeys. In view of this we might feel that our own ministry seems so small, so insignificant, so trivial. What difference can it make in view of the world’s problems to phone someone we know just to check in and say we’re praying for them, or to bring several cans of food to the food bank, or any given thing with seemingly small result?

Last week reading the maps of Paul’s missionary routes, something changed in me like a vision. I saw Paul on the road, spending time here and there with one man, with one woman, with one household and family. And I saw how small things really matter. The world changed because Paul gave his time to small companies of men and women. I remembered a quote from a favorite author of mine: “The infinite worth of the one is the key to the Christian understanding of the many.”

The truth is the simplest expressions of the gospel lived out in and through us, proclaimed to others in love by word and deed, affects the salvation of the world, and the simplest acts may help those around us influence the world’s problems.

In whatever we do today, wherever we may find ourselves, and with whomever God may bring into our paths, let us look for Jesus there, in the small things, among the very few, with the one man, the one woman, the one child.

Yours in Christ,
Peter+

p.s. If you've not joined us before for Morning Prayer, please do! The link can be found at the Saint Philip's homepage. Just scroll down until you find the button.