Sweeter than Honey - September 23

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 119:97-120; PM Psalm 81, 82; Esther 6:1-14 ;  Acts 19:1-10; Luke 4:1-13

Today’s Reflection

“How sweet are your words to my taste! They are sweeter than honey to my mouth.”

—Psalm 119: 103

Throughout August and September, we have enjoyed having a couple of hummingbirds buzzing around our backyard deck. You may have even seen them flying around behind me if you’ve been online when I have livestreamed Morning Prayer or Noonday Prayer from outdoors.

The hummingbirds are drawn to our deck because of the flowers we have had there at the end of the summer. A blue plumbago we brought with us from Texas drew their attention first. And then, once we knew the hummingbirds were stopping by, we bought a couple more plants whose blooms we knew they would like—salvia and porter weed plants with bright red, tubular blooms perfect for those thin, straw-like hummingbird beaks. Hummingbirds are drawn to these blooms’ sweet nectar, giving them the energy they require to keep buzzing around like tiny, silent helicopters.

In two of the Psalms appointed for today, we hear the psalmist using the imagery of honey to talk about how God provides for those he loves. In the portion of Psalm 119 appointed for this morning (vss. 97-120), we read of how much the psalmist loves the law of the Lord: “all the day long it is in my mind” (vs. 97). The psalmist is drawn to God’s words—for the same reason the hummingbird and the honeybee are drawn to the flowers’ nectar. God’s words give sustenance and sweetness as they provide what we and the psalmist need most to keep hovering through each day: wisdom, understanding, and joy (vss. 98-111).

And then, in Psalm 81 appointed for us to read together this afternoon, the psalmist is recounting moments from the story of the people of Israel, especially those moments when God was present with them and provided for them—moments when they had been starting to wonder whether God was still there with them: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and said, ‘Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.’ And yet my people did not hear my voice, and Israel would not obey me. So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their hearts, to follow their own devices” (vss. 10-12). God was always there, offering to provide for them, to fill them up with what was needed for the journey, but his people still needed to wander for a while before they would wander back to him. At the end of the psalm, we find God is still waiting, still standing by to sustain them, and not just with the basics, but with what was finest and sweetest: “Israel would I feed with the finest wheat and satisfy him with honey from the rock” (vs. 16).

A vivid memory I have of visiting Saint Stephen’s for the first time this summer, when I was discerning whether I was being called here, is tramping through the white clover to go visit the beehives in Billy’s Lot across the street. I love that we embrace the way of the bees here at Saint Stephen’s, because when we ponder the ways of hummingbirds and honeybees, we can learn a few things about our own journey with God and how we can be sustained by God’s lifegiving sweetness.

These creatures love nectar and they know that they are sustained by it—so they are constantly seeking it out. It is rare that you spot a honeybee that is not either pollinating a flower or buzzing around the hive. What I learn from this, and what I suspect the psalmist knew, is that God’s wisdom, understanding, and joy are there for us—to give us the sweetness and energy that we need to propel us through this life. But first we have to search for it—and then be willing to carry it back and share it with the others who, when we work together with them, will create something sweet that will feed and sustain us all.

—Becky+

Questions for Self-Reflection

In what ways do you experience God’s sweetness sustaining you in your daily life? How do these moments of sweetness sustain you later, when you are out further afield from the hive?

Daily Challenge

Think of a tangible, specific way you can share some of the sweetness God has given to sustain you with someone in your life this week.