Psalm 119:1-24; Isaiah 2:12-22; Luke 20:19-26
Listen to the author read their meditation and prayer:
Rebecca Bridges Watts, PhD, Advent Meditation
In Psalm 119, the lyricist extols the benefits of learning the ways of the LORD. “Happy” and “blessed” are they “who keep his decrees, who seek him with their 
whole heart.” By guarding our hearts in God’s word, our way is kept pure; by treasuring the word in our hearts, we may avoid sin. Our Father gives us his statutes to provide us with wise counsel: “Even though princes sit plotting against me, your servant will meditate on your statutes. Your decrees are my delight, they are my counselors.”
In Luke 20, we find Jesus in a similar rhetorical situation. Teaching in the temple, he told the parable of the vineyard and the tenants with his powerful coda about the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone. “When the scribes and chief priests realized that he had told this parable against them,” they wanted to harm Jesus because his teachings threatened to change the established order and their place within it. Rather than contemplating how they could change, they instead set a trap for Jesus. However, he “perceived their craftiness” and “being amazed by his answer they became silent.” When we make space in our busy lives to meditate on God’s word, we are more likely to follow Christ in the way we respond in uncomfortable situations.
I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.
Rebecca Watts, PhD
Diocese of Central Florida
Master of Divinity, Class of 2019
SEMINARY OF THE SOUTHWEST
Before beginning the M.Div. program at the Seminary of the Southwest this fall, Rebecca Watts was associate professor and chair of Communication and Media Studies at Stetson University, a liberal arts university in Florida. She is the author of Contemporary Southern Identity: Community through Controversy (University Press of Mississippi, 2008) and an alumna of Stetson, Clemson, and Texas A&M. Her sending parish is St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Lake Mary, in the Diocese of Central Florida, where she is a Candidate for Holy Orders.
