Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.”
NL Daily Devotion for Monday, March 3, 2025
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
God came to us as an infant. A helpless child in a manger, wholly dependent upon others to care for his human needs. Truly the least. Not just in terms of dependence, or even the poverty God chose to inhabit. But children were considered possessions at the time, and it was perfectly acceptable to leave a child out to die if it wasn’t wanted by the father. And God, of course, was…is…well, know, God.
We, of course, grow up into adults, and there’s an awful lot we have to do, including caring for other people who are sometimes our own children. And it helps us to take care of ourselves and others when we are financially stable. But that basic level of stability is enough. This insatiable drive for some materially-defined goal of “success” that our culture impresses upon us day after day after day, for some kind of “greatness” as measured by public opinion, is entirely unnecessary. Not only unnecessary, it causes great harm to us and to those around is in myriad big and small ways. Frankly, we should be jettisoning it completely.
I am not saying we ought to live lives of dependence on others. I am merely saying that we can live simple lives of interdependence with family and community that meet everyone’s needs and allows us all to flourish. Setting aside our own drive for selfish gain at all costs frees us for the enduring work of life, which is love and service. It is this love and service from a place of genuine humility that leads to “greatness,” a greatness that may never be acknowledged by others, and that is as it should be. God sees and knows.
How do I feel about “greatness?” Is it a goal of mine? What does it look like to me?
