Meditation On The Word: Lectio Divina And Moravian Daily Text Series

March 1, 2023

Lent 2023 Lenten Sermon Series on Prayer

Hope Lutheran Church

Rev. Mary Erickson

Psalm 119:105; Romans 10:17

Meditation on the Word: Lectio Divina and Moravian Daily Text

Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

The scriptures tell us that within them we encounter the word of God. As we read and meditate on the Bible, the word of God feeds our soul and kindles faith.

In a very real way, reading and meditating on the scriptures is a fundamental form of prayer. Orthodox Jews literally will strap small leather boxes to their foreheads and left arms when they pray. The boxes contain a passage of the Torah, the Hebrew Bible. The practice is inspired by the verse from Deuteronomy:

“You shall bind them as a sign upon your hand and they shall be a reminder between your eyes.”

They very literally strap the Bible to their bodies as a physical reminder of God’s word.

We are urged to meditate on God’s word. Now, there are different ways of reading. Our objective determines the character of our reading. When we read the scriptures prayerfully, we’re engaged in what we might call spiritual reading. This is different than reading to comprehend and learn information.

There are times that we do read the Bible to gain information. When we engage in Bible study, we’re very left-brain about it. We want to unpack what the passage is trying to convey. We want to place it within the context of the historical arch of the biblical narrative.

But spiritual reading is different. Father Henri Nouwen put it this way:

“Spiritual reading is not only reading about spiritual people or spiritual things. It is also reading spiritually, that is, in a spiritual way! Reading in a spiritual way is reading with a desire to let God come closer to us.

“The purpose of spiritual reading … is not to master knowledge or information but to let God’s Spirit master us. Strange as it may sound, spiritual reading means to let ourselves be read by God!”

With that in mind, I’d like to leave you this evening with two tools for reading the scriptures prayerfully.

The first one comes from the Moravian community. The Moravians have very close ties to the Lutheran church. They’re probably our closest cousins. Their origins parallel those of the Lutheran reformation in the area of Moravia, which is in the Czech region.

In the 1700s a community of Moravian refugees settled on the estate of Count von Zinzendorf. He took them under his wing and gave them direction.

One of the things they developed was what they called the Daily Text. For each day, Zinzendorf selected a Bible verse. It was to be their Losung, or password. They were to read the text in the morning and then simply meditate on in during the day. Each day a watchword is selected from the Old Testament, and then a companion verse is also selected from the New Testament.

It’s a pretty simple practice. Engagement with the Daily Text has been going on uninterrupted since then. The daily watchword is published now in 50 languages. It becomes a form of unity within the Moravian community and is used by many other people.

For instance, today’s watchword from the New Testament is from Daniel 2:47 –

The king said to Daniel, “Truly, your God is God of gods and Lord of kings.”.

It’s a pretty simple practice. The point is to let that word, that message, sink inside of you, just the same way a plant receives a drink of water. You keep it in your consciousness during the day. If you’re interested in knowing more, look to the link on tonight’s handout. It will take you to the Moravian website. You can subscribe to the daily reading or download an app for your phone.

The second practice is called Lectio Divina. It has deep roots in western Christianity, going back to the 6th Century in Benedictine communities.

The name Lection Divina means Divine Reading. It’s a meditative process for prayerful reading of the scriptures. It involves four steps, the Four R’s, which you can see on your handout.

The first step is simply to READ the text. Read it slowly and thoughtfully. We’ll try it with today’s watchword. Just read it over. Notice what rises up for you. Is there a certain phrase or a word that grabs your attention? Just take note of it. I’ll give you a moment.

The second step is to REFLECT on that passage. Read through it a second time. The spiritual fathers used the metaphor of a cow chewing on its cud. Let the passage interact with where your life is at right now. What feelings arise within you? How does it interact with your life circumstance, with your past or present or concerns for the future? I’ll give you a moment to engage in this Reflect stage.