Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, for she said, ‘God has appointed for me another child instead of Abel, because Cain killed him.’ To Seth also a son was born, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to invoke the name of the Lord.”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, September 14, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
“At that time people began to invoke the name of the Lord.” I find that interesting. Adam and Eve and their first generation somehow didn’t need to do this. Perhaps it was because they were so close to their creator, they accepted God’s presence as a foregone conclusion. But the further away from the garden the generations got, the more they needed to be deliberate about staying connected to God. And here we are countless generations later, two millennia after God’s incarnation in Jesus, invoking the name of God in our congregations and (hopefully) in every area of our lives. We need to constantly remind ourselves who we are and whose we are, lest we forget that God is not still back in some distant past at the beginning of creation, but is here in our midst, vital, visceral, sharing every intimate aspect of our existence. Thus we invoke the name of God in prayer, meditation, acts of service, participation in community, and in any way that helps recenter us in the fact of God’s presence with us.
How do I stay connected to the God who created me on a daily basis?
