Daily Lesson for August 11, 2014

Today's daily lesson is from John chapter 3 verses 17 and 18:

 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already . . .

Read that again not only with your eyes and your brain but also with your heart. Let its good news be heard down in the hidden and dark depths of your soul: "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world."

We live with enough condemnation. We know who we are in the secret recesses of ourselves. We know what we think. What we feel.  What we've done. What we've wanted to do. What we want to do. What we do not want to do but know that we will do. And we know what we've left undone.  To think on these things and be weighed down by them is to live a life of guilt, and judgement, and condemnation. It is a living hell.

God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world. Imprisoned by our own condemnation, we already know what it is to be "damned". God sent his Son not to condemn us to yet more damnation, but to release us from damnation's chains.  He came to unshackle us and set us free. "And if the Son has set you free - you are free indeed," (John 8:36).

"Who then is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus who has died for us, who has been raised, and is seated at the right hand of God, and who indeed intercedes for us," (Romans 8:34).

In other words, if Christ -- who suffered the full weight of our sin -- has not condemned us, who are we to condemn ourselves?

The Son has set us free; so let us be free.

Daily Lesson for August 8, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from John 2, the wedding feast at Cana:

6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.”

The last time the story of the wedding feast at Cana came around in the lectionary a friend of mine posted this on face book:

"Jesus turned the water into wine.
180 gallons of water into wine.
180 gallons of purification water into wine.
That's 900 bottles.
And it was the good stuff.
This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Don't you think this story is telling us something about how life ought to be lived?  Not dour, not dismal, not with that tightly fastened anal retentiveness of Puritanism which H.L. Mencken defined as "the haunting suspicion somebody somewhere is having a good time."

No. Jesus came to bring some life to the party - a little joy, a lot of laughter.  Wine.

And it wasn't really the wine that did it. The wine was just the sign. It was Jesus himself who did it. And he wants to do it in us.

Let Him. Let go. Unwind. Drink it in. Celebrate those around you. Get out on the dance floor and dance like nobody's watching.

And do it today - it's Friday, so it's legal!

This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Daily Lesson for August 7, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 145 verses 8, 9 and 15-18:

8 The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9 The Lord is good to all,
and his mercy is over all that he has made.
15 The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food in due season.
16 You open your hand;
you satisfy the desire of every living thing.
17 The Lord is righteous in all his ways
and kind in all his works.
18 The Lord is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.

Whether we are Christian, or Jew, or Muslim, or any other religion, we must be very careful when we speak of ourselves as God's "chosen people".  Without doubt, some are indeed chosen by God for certain tasks or callings. Jews we believe were chosen to be "a light for all the nations." Christians we believe were chosen to help carry that light forward. But to be chosen for the sake of the nations is very different from being chosen over and against them.

We can say, "God is on our side" but we must never forget that in a very profound way God is on the other side also. God is on all sides because God is always on the side of those who are hurt and wounded and grieving and suffering.  We must never lose sight of this and it must chasten us whenever we are in any conflict with any other person or people. God is with them too.

There is a famous commentary in the Jewish Talmud where God chastises the angels as they begin to sing at the drowning of the Egyptians at the Red Sea.   “My handiwork is drowning in the sea," God says, "and you utter songs before me!” (Sanhedrin 39b). 

We are all -- Hebrew and Egyptian, Jew and Gentile -- pieces of God's handiwork, made in God's image; and God cares for us each and all. He hears our prayers -- and He listens to them. He knows our names.  He has numbered the hairs of all our heads. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without him knowing it; nor a single child of any nation. We are all children of our Heavenly Father, and His desire is to save us all -- even our enemies.

Perhaps what I am trying to say is best summed up in a poem German clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote from his prison cell before being executed by the Nazis. It was said that before his execution Bonhoeffer was a gentlemen to his guards and treated them with the kindness becoming of a Christian pastor.

All people go to God in need
For help and calm and food they plead
For sickness and fear and death to cease
All people pray for peace

But some turn to God in God's need and dread
A God poor, despised without roof or bread
By sin's harm weakened and by death distressed
Christians stand steadfast by their God oppressed

But God, God goes to all in their need and dread
Their souls' loving grace and their bodies' bread
By the crucified one who for them was slain
Both Christians and pagans God's pardon gain

Daily Lesson for August 6, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from John 1 verses 38 and 39:

38 Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him . . .

My first semester in seminary I took a class with the then dean of the divinity and he had us read Augustine's Confessions. I remember one day in class he dean asked us when Augustine was converted from his philosophical hedonism to Christianity.  Some said it was in the garden when a voice told him to "take and read" Holy Scripture. Others said the real conversion was obviously after that, when he found a model for Christian life in St. Anthony of the Desert. Still others said the heart change began before all of that - when Augustine began listening to the reasoned argumentation of St. Ambrose's lectures on the Christian faith.  The point of the Sean's question was now evident - conversion to the ways and things of Christ is a process which takes place over time.

In today's Scripture it says the first followers of Jesus "stayed with him." That word "stay" is very important to John the Gospel writer. He uses it over 30 times.  It is translated "stay" or "remain" or "abide" as in "Abide with me." Following Christ means staying with him, remaining with him, and abiding in Him.  It doesn't all happen at once. It mostly unfolds like a flower unfolds - in the beauty of God's timing.

One of my favorite stories comes from Pastor Eugene Peterson's church. A man started coming who was himself an unbeliever but who wanted to raise his kids in a church community.  At first he stood but remained silent when the congregation recited the Apostles' Creed. But then after a while Pastor Peterson noticed the man was saying the first line of the creed: "I believe in God the Father, the maker of heaven and earth."  The man stopped there, but Pastor Peterson kept watching. After a month or so he saw the man's lips add a second line: "I believe in God the Father, the maker of heaven and earth - and in Jesus Christ His only Son."  Pastor Peterson kept watching as over the months the man began to add unto the credo line by line until he was able to recite it all.

Now when exactly did his conversion take place? Somewhere in the staying.

Daily Lesson for August 5, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Acts chapter 3 verses 

 4 And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” 5 And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 6 But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” 

"You was the onlyest person that looked past my skin and past my meanness and saw that there was somebody on the inside worth savin...We all has more in common than we think. You stood up with courage and faced me when I was dangerous, and it changed my life. You loved me for who I was on the inside, the person God meant for me to be, the one that had just gotten lost for a while on some ugly roads in life." Denver Moore, Same Kind of Different as Me

A hundred faces packed outside the doors, beneath the awning where the sign says "St. Benedict's Chapel - Feeding Body and Soul". Some faces are dirty and sunburnt, looking tired and empty beneath a canopy of matted hair - these are unmistakably the faces of the least of the least of these.  Other faces are young, some still tender and smooth-skinned.  Some children.  Some child-like.  

A toothless, black man edges his face close to the window and rattles the door.  "When you gonna pray for us preacher?  I'm hungry."  Another face rides in on his bike, his pantleg tied up with a rubber band so as not to get caught in the chain.  His hair is silver and course.  He cannot hear; but there is life in his eyes.   Is he 80?  85?  How far has he ridden?  A mile?  Five miles?  An eternity?  In the corner is the face of one who makes me uneasy.  Shaded in glasses and talking gibberish to himself - a schizophrenic?  Then there is the face of the prostitute. And the pimp. And the pusher. And the four Saliz girls - all eight and under - living in the shelter not far from here. Their father is at work. Their mother is going back for her GED. They will get extra dessert tonight - along with a secret prayer.  

These are the faces waiting at the door. Waiting to be seen. Waiting to be known. Waiting to be welcomed and served as the sign behind the counter says, "As Jesus."

We serve the meal. My daughter serves along with me plus a dozen others from our church. It's Thursday - meatloaf night.  Everyone loves meatloaf night.

Well, almost everyone. Words break out between a man and a woman. I walk toward my daughter. De Stotts steps in between the man and woman. They each outweigh her by 150lbs.  But she is bigger than life. "Do ya'll not like the meatloaf?" she asks.  "Do you want more dessert?" 

After breaking up the fight De says, "Let's sing," and she hops onto the piano and plays "I've Gotta River of Life".  Everyone sings - including the two who had almost come to blows. A man gets up with a mandolin and joins De at the piano.  I stand near he door and look back. Everyone keeps singing and now laughing - except the schizophrenic man who does not smile behind his glasses but does thank me as he leaves. A pleasant surprise. I look back again. De is still at the piano. A prostitute has now joined her and the man with the mandolin.  She claps her hands and knees and smiles down at the Saliz girls.  They smile back. Jesus' words come to mind, "The kingdom of God is among us."

The night is over.  My daughter and I drive home toward a very different place.  I look back in the rearview mirror and see her face and behind that the Saint Benedict's sign. "What did you notice tonight," I ask. 

 "Well," she says, "I noticed we didn't get any money for waiting tables."

Not what I expected.

"But we were working for smiles. Everyone left with a smile on their face."

And everyone did - including me.

Daily Lesson for August 4, 2014

Today's daily lesson is from Joshua 6 verse 31:

31 But Joash said to all who stood against him, “Will you contend for Baal? Or will you save him? Whoever contends for him shall be put to death by morning. If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because his altar has been broken down.”

In the early days of the nation of Israel, when it was being decided which God they would worship, a man called to be a prophet of the LORD God, was told by the LORD to cut down his father's altar to the false god Baal along with the Asherah pole beside it.  Afraid of the people, he felled the altar and the pole under the cloak of darkness.  But the people of the town knew who had done the deed and the men came for him at his father's house.

Then a surprising thing happened.  His father went outside the house and met the men, and told them that no man would be coming for his son.  "If Baal is really a god," he said, "let him come for my son himself."

My takeaway: when one generation begins to challenge the idolatries of another - whether they be racial or ethnic supremacy, or mammon, or some other false god - there will be fathers from the former generation who will stand up in defense of their sons and daughters. They stand up because in their own heart of hearts they know their gods are false but that the ways of the LORD are true.

Daily Lesson for August 1, 2014

Today's Lesson is from Matthew 28 verses 8 and 9:

8 So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!”

Yesterday I was leading a Bible study with some guys and was trying to get the idea across that our hope in the Resurrection of Jesus is not so much something to be explained as it is to be experienced.  I was telling them that neither I nor anyone else can "prove" the resurrection.  In fact, I don't think God wanted to "prove" the resurrection or He would have raised Jesus in our age of ubiquitous cell phone cameras.  There would have been no doubting Thomas because the other disciples would have had selfies to prove Jesus had been with them.  But instead of pictures we have faith.

In the story when Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to the garden a great earthquake rolled away the stone covering the tomb.  Then the angel appeared.  He told them that Jesus had been raised and that they would see Him if they went and told the other disciples that He had been raised and would meet them in Galilee.  The Bible says they were afraid, not knowing quite what's was happening; and yet it also says they went.  And as they were going Jesus met them on the way.

We do not see the risen Christ upon first hearing that the tomb is now empty; but He comes to us as we make our fearful, yet faith-filled way on the road.  

And He does come.