Way of Life

Daily Devotional • August 28

A Reading from Acts 10:1-16

1 In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called. 2 He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God. 3 One afternoon at about three o’clock he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius.” 4 He stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” He answered, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. 5 Now send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter; 6 he is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside.” 7 When the angel who spoke to him had left, he called two of his slaves and a devout soldier from the ranks of those who served him, 8 and after telling them everything he sent them to Joppa.

9 About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while it was being prepared he fell into a trance. 11 He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. 12 In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. 13 Then he heard a voice saying, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” 14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.” 15 The voice said to him again, a second time, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” 16 This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.

Meditation

 At Caesarea there was man named Cornelius, a centurion… (Acts 10:1)

 The Church’s sanctoral calendar celebrates the witness of Cornelius the Centurion on February 4. Nevertheless, the Office lectionary brings the story of Cornelius and his household to the attention of the reader this morning. His devotion, his prayers, and almsgiving lead to an appearance of the angel of the Lord. That encounter, characterized by fear, curiosity, and divine assignment, then sets in motion a whole new trajectory for Gospel proclamation. 

Peter’s preaching had been shaped by the call to leave his nets, by the haunting three-times question “Do you love me?”; by his testing in the shadow of Christ’s Passion, and his witness to the Resurrection: The Messiah had come to save him and the People of Israel. But the Cornelius-challenge and the divinely inspired dream of Peter would ask, was the Good News of Jesus Christ meant only for those in the blood-line of the Blessed Mother? 

Though a gentile, Cornelius’ way of life — his fear of God, his almsgiving, his habit of prayer — show him to be the exception that anticipated a new and coming rule. A world where “God shows no partiality” begins to unfold for all in the testimony of Cornelius. Linger with Cornelius and Peter this morning. Consider the devotional commitments of your life as memorial offerings to God — fear of God, almsgiving, the habit of prayer. 

For by these, as magnified by the dream of the large sheet and the course and content of  the Good News, proclamation comes to fulfill God’s plan for the world’s salvation. The effectual fervent prayer of the righteous avails much (James 5:16). 

The Very Rev. Timothy Kimbrough is the director of the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies and the Jack and Barbara Bovender Professor of the Practice of Anglican Studies at Duke Divinity School. He was previously dean of Christ Church Cathedral, Nashville, Tennessee.

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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:

The Diocese of Ijesha North – The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion)
St. Anne’s Parish, Annapolis, Maryland