Wednesday, 31 December, 2003

This series of devotions are focused around Soren Kierkegaard’s “Christian Discourses etc.” The biblical text to consider during these devotions is: Matthew 6:24-34.



So the rich Christian has abundance but is ignorant of it, and that then is something he must have become. For it requires no art to be ignorant, but to become ignorant, and by becoming so, to be ignorant, that is the art. To this extent the Christian is different from the bird, for the bird is ignorant, but the Christian becomes ignorant; the bird begins with ignorance and ends with it, the Christian ends by being ignorant – and Christianly the question is never raised what a (person) s/he was, but what s/he became, not about the beginning, but about the end.



We teach the faith. We teach what it is to be a follower of Jesus. Yes, we are grabbed by the story. Yes, the Holy Spirit takes us and shakes us and wakes us and makes us into the followers of Jesus, but…in the meantime…in the everyday time from here to there, we teach the faith. We teach about what it is to trust in God alone in the midst of the push and pulls within our lives. In that teaching, you could say we become ignorant of the anxieties of abundance for we find out that there is much more to the precious gift of life within the Reign of God than the things we possess. We set our eyes to the promise of what will come…the gift that is ours already but will come it its fullest expression in the age to come – the great banquet feast! Therefore, the treasure at hand cannot match up with the promise of the treasure of what will be.



Connection: To learn what it is to be a follower of Jesus, we must let ourselves be with others who follow our Lord and do not let any allegiance to any power or object of affection pull us into trusting something other than the one who promises to bring us life both now and forever.



Take us by the hand, O God, and show us the way of your gentle rule so that we may not be anxious about what stand all around us. Encourage our living by setting our eyes on your gracious and loving Reign. Amen.