Daily Lesson for August 31, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Ezekiel chapter 22 verses 23 through 31:

23 The word of the Lord came to me: 24 Mortal, say to it: You are a land that is not cleansed, not rained upon in the day of indignation. 25 Its princes within it are like a roaring lion tearing the prey; they have devoured human lives; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows within it. 26 Its priests have done violence to my teaching and have profaned my holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they taught the difference between the unclean and the clean, and they have disregarded my sabbaths, so that I am profaned among them. 27 Its officials within it are like wolves tearing the prey, shedding blood, destroying lives to get dishonest gain. 28 Its prophets have smeared whitewash on their behalf, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, “Thus says the Lord God,” when the Lord has not spoken. 29 The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery; they have oppressed the poor and needy, and have extorted from the alien without redress. 30 And I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one.  31 Therefore I have poured out my indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath; I have returned their conduct upon their heads, says the Lord God.

As we move through the book of the prophet Ezekiel we see his interpretation of the events to befall the city of Jerusalem and Judah as a whole.  What comes around goes around, Ezekiel says; and all the nation's tolerance of cruel leaders, sham priests, whitewash prophets, the ongoing acceptance of the oppression of the poor and the extortion of aliens will fall back upon them.  What they have done to others will soon be done to them.

And the LORD is left to look and lament: Is there no one to stand in the breach?  Is there no one to build back the wall again -- the wall of community and peace?

But the princes are like roaring lions.  And death is a simple calculation in somebody's hedge fund.  And there are a four pay day lenders on every corner. 

And 587 BC doesn't seem that far away.

And God is still looking for someone to stand in the breach.

NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible through this year.  Tomorrow's Lesson will come from Ezekiel 25-27.

Daily Lesson for August 28, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Ezekiel chapter 16 verses 48 though 50:

48 As I live, says the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. 49 This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.

If you ask the man on the street why Sodom was destroyed he will probably tell you it was because of homosexuality.  But let me tell you something I hope you already know, the average man on the street doesn't have a clue about the Bible, what's in it, and the why of what happened in it.

But Ezekiel did.  He was no average man on the street.  He was a Prophet -- a true seer and knower.  And Ezekiel knew why Sodom fell. 

For Sodom's crime was not loving and consensual relations between same-sex persons.  It's crime was rape -- rapacious sexuality, and economy, and utter lack of mutuality or care in its city.  It was a city founded upon exploitation of labor, of bodies, of women, of aliens, and of the poor.  It was an economy and society tolerant of abject abusiveness and utter carelessness.

So, the next time the man on the street starts talking about Sodom -- because usually you don't really have to ask him, but he just starts talking -- ask him two things:

1) How often he reads the Bible

2) Why he doesn't talk about what the Bible actually says about Sodom, rather than what he thinks it says

And the answer to those questions are probably:

1) Little to none

2) Because blaming everything on the gays is a lot easier than dealing with the real sins in Sodom and also in us.

NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible through this year.  Over the weekend we will read Ezekiel 18-24.

Daily Lesson for August 27, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Ezekiel chapter 13 verses 8 through 12:

8 Therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you have uttered falsehood and envisioned lies, I am against you, says the Lord God. 9 My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations; they shall not be in the council of my people, nor be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel; and you shall know that I am the Lord God. 10 Because, in truth, because they have misled my people, saying, “Peace,” when there is no peace; and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets smear whitewash on it. 11 Say to those who smear whitewash on it that it shall fall. There will be a deluge of rain, great hailstones will fall, and a stormy wind will break out. 12 When the wall falls, will it not be said to you, “Where is the whitewash you smeared on it?”

The whitewashed wall of lies cannot stand.  The LORD will not abide it.  In the end the wall falls, its whitewash no longer a defense for the shoddiness of its substance.  The whole thing was built on flimflam; and when the storm came it could not stand.

Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount that anyone who built their lives on the truth would be like a house built upon a firm foundation.  The wind blows and the storm comes, but the truth stands.

But all the lies, all the deception, all the prevaricating machinations of the propaganda machine and its court of so-called prophets, they will not stand.  The whitewash will be washed away; and so too those who smeared it.

Thus says the LORD to the House of Judah and all others built on either truth or falsehood.

NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible this year.  Tomorrow's Lesson will come from Ezekiel chapters 16 and 17.

Daily Lesson for August 26, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Ezekiel chapter 10 verses 15 through 19:

15 The cherubim rose up. These were the living creatures that I saw by the river Chebar. 16 When the cherubim moved, the wheels moved beside them; and when the cherubim lifted up their wings to rise up from the earth, the wheels at their side did not veer. 17 When they stopped, the others stopped, and when they rose up, the others rose up with them; for the spirit of the living creatures was in them.

18 Then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house and stopped above the cherubim. 19 The cherubim lifted up their wings and rose up from the earth in my sight as they went out with the wheels beside them. They stopped at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the Lord; and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.

The glory of the LORD leaves the Temple.

This is a sad and sorrowful story, and a byword for all nations, institutions, and peoples.  God will not be mocked.  God's presence will not be shamed.  No place -- country, school, or church -- is above God's laws and commands.

God left the so-called holiest place in the world when it became unholy.  And so there is no excuse for any of us with a "holier than Thou" attitude among our own Nation or institutions. 

We hear of so-called "American exceptionalism"; but there is no exception for us to this rule.  The glory of the LORD does not take its cues from American hubris.

The prophet Ezekiel was not confused about this.  He knew his nation was in trouble.  Would that they had listened to him.

Would that we all.

NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible through this year.  Tomorrow's Lesson comes from Ezekiel chapters 13-15.

Daily Lesson for August 25, 2020

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Ezekiel chapter 4 verses 1 through 8:

 And you, O mortal, take a brick and set it before you. On it portray a city, Jerusalem; 2 and put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a ramp against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all around. 3 Then take an iron plate and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; set your face toward it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.

4 Then lie on your left side, and place the punishment of the house of Israel upon it; you shall bear their punishment for the number of the days that you lie there. 5 For I assign to you a number of days, three hundred ninety days, equal to the number of the years of their punishment; and so you shall bear the punishment of the house of Israel. 6 When you have completed these, you shall lie down a second time, but on your right side, and bear the punishment of the house of Judah; forty days I assign you, one day for each year. 7 You shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and with your arm bared you shall prophesy against it. 8 See, I am putting cords on you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.

As we are reading through the Hebrew prophets we have seen some pretty wild and attention-grabbing things designed to grab headlines and call attention to the issues at hand. 

We’ve seen temporary occupation of the Temple Courtyard (something Jesus also did), protest in front of the King’s home, and now we see Ezekiel,  in an act of prophetic demonstration, lying on his side in the public square, a model of besieged Jerusalem set before him.

These are not acts of arrogance or show, as I’m sure those who were opposed dismissed them as. These are attempts to dramatize the seriousness of what is taking place in the nation, and call its people to repentance. For, as Ezekiel says, 

“the rod has blossomed, pride has budded. Violence has grown into a rod of wickedness. 

None of them shall remain,

Not their abundance, not their wealth,

No pre-eminence among them.”

There is an old tradition that only Jewish men of 30 years of age or more could read Ezekiel, for fear that the young would take his acts too seriously. 

It’s interesting that Jesus was thirty years old when he began his ministry. And I have to wonder if there was a connection. 

NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible through this year.  Tomorrow’s Lesson comes from Ezekiel 9-12.

Daily Lesson for August 24, 2020

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Lamentations chapter 1 verse 1:

“How lonely sits the city

    that once was full of people!

How like a widow she has become,

    she that was great among the nations!

She that was a princess among the provinces

    has become a vassal.”

Yesterday I walked through a wing of our Church which has sat unused since March. The silence of the space on Sunday morning was eery and sad and I wondered if the sadness was in me or the building itself. 

After, I went into the sanctuary for worship where there was thankfully more life, but still very few people. The sanctuary was made to hold 1,300 people; there were less than ten present for our online worship recording.  When the two singers joined with the organ for the hymn the sanctuary itself seemed to come to life. It is an instrument built to be played, but how lonely it sits day by day all by itself. 

This morning’s Lesson is from Lamentations. It is a call to lament — to sorrow and recognition. It is a call to honor what was lost. The city sat desolate. It’s broken walls desolate. The nation, once so storied and prideful, was now like all the others — a puppet for some other people and their dictator.

Lamentation comes when there are no answers, when there is not yet the assurance of a path forward. It comes when the City sits silent, and mournfully so. 

“Do not try to build back the City today,” Lamentation seems to say. Acknowledge what was lost first. Honor it. Sit in the City, and let its silence speak. Let the empty buildings speak.

For they have much to teach us about our own emptiness. They have much to teach us about our own sorrow.

And the term we have for all of this acknowledging of what has been lost and is void is what we call: Good Grief. 

NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible through this year.  Tomorrow’s Lesson comes from Ezekiel chapters 1-8.

Daily Lesson for August 21, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Jeremiah chapter 52 verses 7 through 16:

7 Then a breach was made in the city wall;[a] and all the soldiers fled and went out from the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, by the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. They went in the direction of the Arabah. 8 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered, deserting him. 9 Then they captured the king, and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he passed sentence on him. 10 The king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and also killed all the officers of Judah at Riblah. 11 He put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in fetters, and the king of Babylon took him to Babylon, and put him in prison until the day of his death.

12 In the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month—which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard who served the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem. 13 He burned the house of the Lord, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down. 14 All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down all the walls around Jerusalem. 15 Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile some of the poorest of the people and the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon, together with the rest of the artisans. 16 But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left some of the poorest people of the land to be vinedressers and tillers of the soil.

So we come to the end of the story.

The walls are breached.  The soldiers run and hide and probably try to disguise themselves as poor farmers and herdsmen.  They desert the king in the desert because it is obvious he can do nothing for them now.  They only supported him when he was powerful.  Now that he is powerless they despise him.  The Chaldeans overrun the king.  They make him watch as they execute his sons and then they gouge out his eyes that he may shed no tears.  They burn his house.  They level the house of the LORD.  A sudden and swift end to a long and anxious siege.  This is war.  And it is the end of the story.

But it is not the end.  A long captivity awaits.  Seventy years in Babylon.  The people will have to learn to live in exile.  But it will not be the end.

For as the Prophet said, God knows the plans God has for the people, "Plans to prosper and not to harm them, plan for hope and a future."

Sometimes it may be hard to believe in hope.  Surely it was for those who were sent into exile.  And it is hard for many of us right now.  It may get harder for all of us.

But believe it or not, see it or not, we have one single task before us in our exile; and that is to survive.

NOTE: We're reading the whole Bible through this year.  We've concluded Jeremiah and now.  Over the weekend we will read the book of Lamentations and then begin chapters 1-4 of Ezekiel on Monday.  Have a good weekend and try to hold your hopes.

Daily Lesson for August 20, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Jeremiah chapter 50 verses 4-7:

4 In those days and in that time, says the Lord, the people of Israel shall come, they and the people of Judah together; they shall come weeping as they seek the Lord their God. 5 They shall ask the way to Zion, with faces turned toward it, and they shall come and join themselves to the Lord by an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.

6 My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray, turning them away on the mountains; from mountain to hill they have gone, they have forgotten their fold. 7 All who found them have devoured them, and their enemies have said, “We are not guilty, because they have sinned against the Lord, the true pasture, the Lord, the hope of their ancestors.”

We nearing now to the end of the book of Jeremiah.  And he we have the vision: the people put back together.

For too long bad shepherds have guided them.  They've fleeced the flock and led them astray.  They have brought them into a place of lostness and calamity.  Those who devour them do so with self-justification.  They point the finger with derision.  "They deserve everything," they say.  "For they are no more noble than we."  It is a nation torn apart at the seams and its enemies pulling them apart smugly and shrewdly.

But then the vision comes.  The nation being stitched back together.  The people coming together:

"The people of Israel shall come, they and the people of Judah together."

They come together, and together they find their way home.

Let the vision remain.  We may be in Babylon now.  The people were when Jeremiah spoke.  But he didn't let go of the vision.  It remained.  It spoke.  It sustained.  For it was true.  Hope and a Future were true.

And they still are; even now, they still are true.

NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible through this year.  As we are coming to the end of Jeremiah tomorrow we will read chapters 51-52.

Daily Lesson for August 19, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Jeremiah chapter 46 verses 7 and 8:

7

Who is this, rising like the Nile,

    like rivers whose waters surge?

8

Egypt rises like the Nile,

    like rivers whose waters surge.

It said, Let me rise, let me cover the earth,

    let me destroy cities and their inhabitants.

"Who is this?"

That is the question the LORD puts upon Jeremiah's tongue as the nation of Egypt rose up in mighty arms like the raging waters of the Nile at its rise.

It is rises and rages for a while, but then it recedes, contingent not upon its own strength but by the contingencies of storm and wind and the mysterious vagary of the weather.

Egypt rose up in arms and indeed appeared mighty in battle.  But so too did Babylon.  And in the end Egypt's "swift could not flee, nor could its warriors escape".  The strength of the waters dried up.  The  flood receded in fear.

Armies reveille with might, but are then put to flight.  Nations rise with sudden strength, but then fall just as fast.  ISIS was going to take over the world five years ago.  Where is it now?

The Prophet Jeremiah knows these things.  He knows that it is God who controls the winds, and he knows that the "best laid plans of mice and men often go awry" and that the force of even a mighty army can be felled by the flapping of the wings of a single butterfly.

Be at peace, friends; God is still in control.

NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible through this year.  Tomorrow's Lesson comes from 49 and 50.