Week of Proper 7, Year Two
[Go to Mission St Clare for an online version of the Daily Office including today’s scripture readings.]Today’s Readings for the Daily Office:
Psalms 80 (morning) // 77, [79] (evening)
Joel 1:1-13
Revelation 18:15-24
Luke 14:12-24
I always thought that John the Baptist’s diet of locusts and wild honey was simply an eccentric sign of his wilderness ministry. But in light of today’s reading from the prophet Joel, someone who consumes locusts might be a sign of hope that we can finally bite back against the forces consuming us.
The prophet Joel has a grim message of destruction for his people. Four successive waves of locusts have damaged the people’s crops, vines and trees: “What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.” One by one, new species of locusts gnaw away until nothing is left.
When John the Baptist came eating locusts, people must have known that things were finally taking a turn. While Joel prophesied destructive swarms of locusts, John the Baptist devoured the locusts themselves. Joel envisioned devastated fields, destroyed grain, and ruined crops. Farmers wept, and the ground itself mourned. But there is hope in voices crying out in the wilderness, in prophets like John who call us to life-giving waters. We can turn against the plagues and ferocious hungers that seek to consume us.
Lora Walsh blogs about the Daily Office readings at A Daily Scandal. She serves as Priest Associate of Grace Episcopal Church in Siloam Springs and assists with adult formation and campus ministry at St. Paul’s in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
All Content © 2017 Episcopal Café
It’s interesting that God gave Moses instructions about eating insects..
‘…all flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hoping on the ground. Of these you may eat any kind of locusts, katydid, cricket or grasshopper. But all other winged creatures that have 4 legs you are to detest.’ [lev11.20-23.]
Wow, thanks for bringing that to my attention!
And they’re crunchy too! Ate some ‘hoppers during AF survival training.
Good to know!
“We can turn against the plagues and ferocious hungers that seek to consume us.”
So exactly how do we turn against the destructive swarm consuming us and our native American breatheran at Standing Rock? How exactly do we devour oil and the Wall Street bull before the completely devour us?
Standing Rock was exactly the situation in my prayers this morning. I don’t know how successful we will be, but I believe the coalition at Standing Rock is bearing faithful witness. At least we’re biting back.