Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“The rest of humankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands or give up worshipping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their fornication or their thefts.”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, August 21, 2025
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
We are a stubborn bunch. Right now I am reading through the Bible with my partner and we are in Deuteronomy. In Deut. 9:24, God says (through Moses), “You have been rebellious against the Lord as long as he has known you.” I laughed out loud. Talk about an exasperated God. This passage from Revelation kicks that up to new extremes. Even in the face of these unbelievable natural disasters and plagues and tortures wrought on humanity in punishment for their crimes, the people just keep on keeping on in being complete screw-ups.
And I’m sorry to wax pessimistic, but may I just bring up climate change for a moment? I mean, just as one single example of a spiritual sickness in our society that runs so unbelievably deep we are literally trying to wipe ourselves out with it? We’re seeing the results of the last 50+years of brazenly pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere when we knew it would come back to haunt us. And now we’re obsessed with finding some kind of scientific workaround that would allow us to maintain our ridiculously resource-draining lifestyles rather than looking honestly at ways we can change to dramatically reduce our impact. The answers are right in front of us and literally no one at any level of power wants anything to do with making them happen (and as one individual, my decision not to eat meat and live a minimalist lifestyle isn’t going to do much on any grand scale).
And so we suffer the natural consequences of our “sin,” if you will, and absolutely no one can claim to know what is going to happen if we don’t stop. But… we don’t stop. We don’t need a vengeful God to torture and destroy us. We’re doing fine at that all by ourselves, thank you very much.
So can I make this little reflection more hopeful? Truthfully, I can’t. All I can say is that God is bigger than all of this, and I—we—are a part of God. Ultimately, it will be “okay” but likely in a sense none of us can imagine from our limited perspective. How do I keep on living without collapsing into despair? I put my trust in God.
How does God’s love help me navigate this troubling time we’re living in?
