Daily Lesson for December 9, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 38 verse 9:

"and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me."

I have a good friend who just celebrated 40 years of sobriety.  He is very active in the recovery community and is in many ways, by nature of his call, a public face for Alcoholics Anonymous within the city.  Last spring he led a series of discussions at Second B on addiction and recovery. When he told his own story and spoke of his first year of sobriety after 20 years of drinking, he said his mother looked at him and said, "Your eyes are looking out again, son."

The eyes are a window into the soul. When we see someone looking out with a twinkle of light beaming from their eyes then we know they are alive. The radiance of the eyes tell us so. But when the eye gives out no light, but rather absorbs it all like a black hole then it is plain to any mother who can see that something in the soul of her son or her daughter has dimmed and grown dark.

"Your eye is a lamp that provides for your body," Jesus said. "When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be filled with darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness."

Look in the mirror. Are your eyes looking out or in? Do they give off light or do they absorb it all?

What are your eyes saying about your soul?

Daily Lesson for December 8, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 36 verse 9:

"In your light do we see light."

The days are now growing much shorter and the darkness setting in.  These are the darkest days as we move more quickly towards the solstice, which comes from the Latin words sol meaning "sun", and sistere meaning "to stand still".  The sun is now coming to a stand still.

And amidst the sun's decline and darkness's rise we light our lights.  Christmas lights glow, trees sparkle, and the dim flickering flames of hope, peace, joy, and love hang on. The smoldering wick holds out against the darkness.  It is all a protest against the dying of the light, small acts of defiance against suffocating darkness.

Mourners in San Bernardino gathered last night in vigil. As a part of the solemn time together, they lit candles.  A thousand lights going up, driving back the darkness.

"And in the dark streets shineth; an everlasting light."

Even in the darkest season along the darkest streets, there is still light to be found amongst those who see by "the Light of very Light" -- even when the sun stands still.

And so now our task as the people of Light is to keep it, protect it, and mark our protest with it -- and hold out stubbornly with it until the dark night of Solstice is passed.

"For the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it."

Daily Lesson for December 7, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 9 verses 15 and 16, and Revelation chapter 1 verses 7 and 8:


15 The nations have sunk in the pit that they made;
in the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught.
16 The Lord has made himself known; he has executed judgment;
the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands.

 7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Today is December 7, the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, killing 2,500 U.S. military personnel.  Roosevelt said it was, "a date that shall live in infamy."

But now the infamy is more upon the attackers than the attacked. December 7 is now remembered as a day for which reckoning would come.  As Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto said, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve."

"The nations sink in their own pits," the psalm says today, and "the wicked are ensnared in the work of their own hands."  There is a providence to this -- a promise that in Dr. King's words, "the moral arc of the universe may be long, but it bends towards Justice."

There is a Judge of history.  He was pierced and slain.  But He rose again. And He is the Alpha and the Omega -- the one who is and was and is to come. As we sing this time of year, He is "King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. And the government shall be upon His shoulders."

And days of infamy and war shall be replaced by days of Justice and Peace.

This is the Advent promise.

Daily Lesson for December 4, 2015

Today's Daily lesson comes from Matthew chapter 22 verses  1 through 13:

And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, 3 and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, “See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.”’ 5 But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them. 7 The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ 10 And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.11 “But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. 12 And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Now here is a parable that is tough to preach on. So tough, in fact, that when this text comes up in the lectionary cycle my first thought is usually that this would be a good Sunday to let our youth pastor have a turn in the pulpit!

Deal with it we must.

Note some things that Jesus does not say. Jesus does not say that this is exactly the kingdom of Heaven. He says the kingdom of heaven may be compared to this. Likewise, Jesus does not say that God is this angry king destroying a city; though surely there is a sense of judgement upon the city which we are to take seriously. And, Jesus does not say the man who shows up at the wedding feast, but then gets kicked out is thrown into eternal hell; though we do get the sense that the man is in a kind of miserable hell, standing alone in the dark of isolation.

The last time this parable came around I did preach on it, and I used an historical event to capture what I believe Jesus was trying to say.  I thought about the life of Joseph Ratzinger, born into a strong Catholic family in the Bavarian part of Germany in 1927 and caught up in the tumult of his country's rise and fall under the Nazis.  And whether out of a sense of duty or solely by conscription or a mixture of both, Ratzinger and thousands of other young boys put on the Nazi uniform in order to serve the German fatherland.  In the bitter end, when Berlin and Dresden and so many other German cities, had been left in rubble just like in today's parable, it was teenage boys like Ratzinger who were left defending home; and it was teenage boys who decided either to surrender or to fight to the death. Ratzinger surrendered, was interned in a prison of war camp though the Spring of 1945, and upon release entered seminary to study for the priesthood later that year.  Now as I said, there were many thousands like Ratzinger, but I know him and his story because he later became Pope Benedict XVI.

In that story we find two striking parallels to Jesus' story. First, a whole nation destroyed -- not necessarily by the wrath of God -- but by the judgment which ultimately befalls all evil and unrepentant nations and the cities they build. And also this, a resident of a nation destroyed, who being willing to take off one uniform takes up another and is welcome into a gathering likened unto the kingdom of heaven.

I'm not really sure how easy it sits with me either.  Like I said, it's a story I would prefer to pass off on others. But in the end, it's a story of judgment and of grace, the former of which I want for others and the latter of which I desire for myself.

But that's not how Jesus told stories about the kingdom of heaven. He told stories of judgment for all who will not come to he banquet and grace for all who do -- so long as they are willing to change their clothes and abide the company they find themselves with.

Even, I suppose, if the company is former Nazi German soldiers.

And the kingdom of heaven may be compared to that.

Daily Lesson for December 3, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Amos chapter 4 verses 6 through 8:

6 “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,
and lack of bread in all your places,
yet you did not return to me,”
declares the Lord.
7 “I also withheld the rain from you
when there were yet three months to the harvest;
I would send rain on one city,
and send no rain on another city;
one field would have rain,
and the field on which it did not rain would wither;
8 so two or three cities would wander to another city
to drink water, and would not be satisfied;
yet you did not return to me,”
declares the Lord.

"What's the gift in it?"

This is a question a wise man now departed used to ask when counseling with those for whom life was painful, disappointing, despairing, and absolutely beyond control.

The gift in it all, again and again, is always the recognition that life is often beyond our control and in the end neither we, nor our money, nor our career, nor our health plan, can save us. This is the gift. It's the gift of hard times when nothing seems to grow or to satisfy or to turn out quite right. It's the gift of losing, going bankrupt, getting foreclosed on, and hitting rock bottom. Ultimately, it's the gift of death.  The gift is the gift of being driven back again to the only one who can save us in the end -- God, and God alone.

Amos says it twice in today's Daily Lesson: "Yet you did not return to me."  In other words, you kept fighting, searching, wandering from place to place, job to job, city to city, church to church, and blaming others.  And your hunger was never satisfied. You did not return to me.  You did not receive the gift.

No rain, no harvest, no bread to satisfy the hungry heart?

What's the gift in it?

Daily Lesson for December 2, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 2 Peter chapter 3 verses 8 and 9:

8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Last week Einstein's General Theory of Relativity turned 100 years old.  One thing the theory tells us is that time is relative to circumstance and place. Einstein used to explain his theory with a real life illustration: "If you touch a stove for five seconds, it feels like an hour; but if you sit with a pretty girl for an hour it feels like five minutes. That's relativity."

From our earthly perspective we have been waiting too long for righteousness to bud from the branch and for things wrong in this world to be made right. We don't know if we can hang on as a world much longer -- especially as evil and the forces of destruction gain more speed and power. We wonder if the dam can hold. With the psalmist we say, "How long?" but what we really mean is, "How much longer?"

This is the time for trusting in the timing of God. Time is relative to circumstance and place, we have to remember that "His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts."  If there is delay then we must trust that the delay is of good reason. And it is indeed. In fact, we are told the reason for delay in today's Lesson: "that all should reach repentance."

If there is judgment and reckoning then it is for goodness sake; if there is delay then it is for goodness sake. And if there is even greater delay, then it is for the sake of the whole world.

"The times are in His hands," the Scripture says.  That means they're in good and trustworthy hands.

And so are we.

May we believe that; and may we believe it especially this time, and season, and year.

Daily Lesson for December 1, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 1 verse 14:

"Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled . . ."

This year our Advent theme is "In the Fullness of Time," and some women from our church made a beautiful banner with a full moon hanging over those words.

The theme comes from Paul's letter to the church at Philippi where he wrote, "In the fullness of time God sent his son, born of a woman."

In today's Daily Lesson Jesus came preaching the gospel of the kingdom saying, "The time is fulfilled."

The things of the kingdom take place in their own time and in their own season. This means they cannot be hastened by our taking things into our own hands, like one of my sons did with one of his Christmas packages at grandma's house this weekend.  As I said in the children's time Sunday, "Good things come to those who wait; but good things will definitely not come to those who cannot wait."

Everything happens in its own season. This is the season of waiting.  But the good news is God is always worth waiting for.