Today's Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 8 verses 22 through 26:
22 And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. 23 And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” 24 And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” 25 Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 And he sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”
Here is a deeply mythic story. By saying it is mythic, I do not mean to say it did not happen; but rather I mean it is a story which conveys a truth that is deeper than the context of the story itself. In other words, it is a deeply human story.
We all have to leave the village. We all have to leave home. We all need to have our eyes opened to truth and light beyond what we experienced in the confines of our little village -- even if our little village is New York City.
Yesterday something interesting happened. Hillary Clinton won Mississippi's Democratic Presidential Primary with 83% of the vote. Eighty-three percent. That is an incredible landslide. But that is way down South. Up North in the Michigan Democratic Primary less than half the Democratic voters checked Clinton's name. Bernie Sanders won there. It makes me think, how much of our view of the world is shaped by where we are and who is around us? How much of what we think and feel and even see -- or think we see -- is determined by what village we were born in?
The blind man was given his sight. It was hard coming and it didn't come all at once. But here's a real truth: had the blind man not been willing to step outside his little village of Bethsaida then his eyes would have remained closed forever.
Oh, and by the way, do you think there might be any significance to the fact that Jesus' disciples Peter and Andrew and Philip and Nathaniel were all from Bethsaida and the rest from little villages just like it?
Like I said, this story conveys a truth deeper than the context of the story itself. Maybe it even conveys a truth for some village people like us.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Daily Lesson for March 8, 2016
Today's Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 50 verses 1 through 3:
Then Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him. 2 And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel. 3 Forty days were required for it, for that is how many are required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days.
My boyhood pastor and dear friend Hardy Clemons literally wrote the book on grief. "Good Grief" is its title and it's a reflection on the process of grief he walked so many through during his long career as a shepherd for the bereft and weary of soul. The central message of the book is that grief is a process and needs to be given time to run its course.
I shall never forget Hardy telling me that after his wife Ardele passed away another close friend called Hardy and said, "Okay, big boy, I am wondering now if you just wrote that book of yours or if you read it also and intend to do what it says?"
Grief is a process that must be given its due time. We can't rush it, hasten through it, or "just get over it." Grief is a journey and everyone must give themselves permission to walk the journey at their own pace, without the pressure of needing to arrive too soon.
Joseph is on the journey of grief in today's lesson. It is not a quick trip. After his father died all Egypt wept for 70 days. And that was just the beginning stage. Next Joseph and his brothers and an entourage of Egyptian dignitaries and servants travelled back to Canaan from Egypt to bury the boys' father in the Promised Land. On the trip, they stopped at one place for a full week of lamentation. The Canaanites were so startled by the brothers' grief that they actually named the town "Mourning of Egypt". The point is the brothers took their time to grieve and grieve hard, and they didn't really care what others said about it.
Good grief is a journey. It's more for the turtle than it is for the hare. One, slow step in front of the other, sometimes pausing for long periods in the same place. That's not being stuck in grief; that's sticking it through. There's a difference.
And when the journey is completed, we like Joseph and his brothers come back. We come back, not to the Promised Land, but rather back to Egypt, back to the place we have learned to call home -- for now.
Then Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him. 2 And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel. 3 Forty days were required for it, for that is how many are required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days.
My boyhood pastor and dear friend Hardy Clemons literally wrote the book on grief. "Good Grief" is its title and it's a reflection on the process of grief he walked so many through during his long career as a shepherd for the bereft and weary of soul. The central message of the book is that grief is a process and needs to be given time to run its course.
I shall never forget Hardy telling me that after his wife Ardele passed away another close friend called Hardy and said, "Okay, big boy, I am wondering now if you just wrote that book of yours or if you read it also and intend to do what it says?"
Grief is a process that must be given its due time. We can't rush it, hasten through it, or "just get over it." Grief is a journey and everyone must give themselves permission to walk the journey at their own pace, without the pressure of needing to arrive too soon.
Joseph is on the journey of grief in today's lesson. It is not a quick trip. After his father died all Egypt wept for 70 days. And that was just the beginning stage. Next Joseph and his brothers and an entourage of Egyptian dignitaries and servants travelled back to Canaan from Egypt to bury the boys' father in the Promised Land. On the trip, they stopped at one place for a full week of lamentation. The Canaanites were so startled by the brothers' grief that they actually named the town "Mourning of Egypt". The point is the brothers took their time to grieve and grieve hard, and they didn't really care what others said about it.
Good grief is a journey. It's more for the turtle than it is for the hare. One, slow step in front of the other, sometimes pausing for long periods in the same place. That's not being stuck in grief; that's sticking it through. There's a difference.
And when the journey is completed, we like Joseph and his brothers come back. We come back, not to the Promised Land, but rather back to Egypt, back to the place we have learned to call home -- for now.
Monday, March 7, 2016
Daily Lesson for March 7, 2016
Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 23:
“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.
There is tremendous freedom in Christ. The law, with its rules and regulations, has been set aside for that which is greater. We are not under law but under grace (Romans 6:14)!
But that doesn't mean we have license simply to do whatever we feel like without accountability. We do still have an accountability to ourselves and to our community. And the thing that's counted on is that I will act in ways that are spiritually upbuilding and constructive to the whole.
I hear a lot about, "My rights," -- whether that be the right to say what I think, openly bear the arms I want to bear, or publicly picket against all manner of things I want to protest against. Fair enough. But before I exercise any right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I also need to run it by the law of love and the ethic of edification. And that is always a higher hurdle. For as Paul said, "All things are lawful; but not everything builds up."
“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.
There is tremendous freedom in Christ. The law, with its rules and regulations, has been set aside for that which is greater. We are not under law but under grace (Romans 6:14)!
But that doesn't mean we have license simply to do whatever we feel like without accountability. We do still have an accountability to ourselves and to our community. And the thing that's counted on is that I will act in ways that are spiritually upbuilding and constructive to the whole.
I hear a lot about, "My rights," -- whether that be the right to say what I think, openly bear the arms I want to bear, or publicly picket against all manner of things I want to protest against. Fair enough. But before I exercise any right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I also need to run it by the law of love and the ethic of edification. And that is always a higher hurdle. For as Paul said, "All things are lawful; but not everything builds up."
Friday, March 4, 2016
Daily Lesson for March 4, 2016
Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 88 verses 13 through 18:
13 But I, O Lord, cry yto you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?
Why do you hide your face from me?
15 Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,
I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.
16 Your wrath has swept over me;
your dreadful assaults destroy me.
17 They surround me like a flood all day long;
they close in on me together.
18 You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;
my companions have become darkness.
In his book "A Cry of Absence" Martin Marty writes of the terminal cancer diagnosis of his wife Elsa in 1981 the days leading up to her death late that her. In a very touching scene in the memoir Martin tells how each night they would lie together in bed and read the psalms, he reading the even and she the odd. One night, when it came his time to read Psalm 88, he passed over it. "What happened to Psalm 88?" Elsa asked. "I didn't think you could take Psalm 88. It's a bleak psalm." Elsa then said very lovingly to her husband, "Who do you think you are to decide what I can take? The light ones don't mean anything if you haven't walked through the dark ones."
Psalm 88 is, in Martin Marty's words, "a wintry landscape of unrelieved bleakness." It does not end all neat and pretty, with a bow on top. It does not end in the light of hope. It ends in darkness. It ends in verse 18, with darkness as the psalmist's only companion.
We might wonder, why is this psalm there in the Bible? What place does so bleak a word have in the canon? It is there because sometimes some of us are there, because at sometime we'll all be there -- with a diagnosis that is terminal, with a loved one who is dying, in a bleak and wintry place from which there is simply no escape.
It's times like these that darkness is our only companion. Reading Psalm 88 teaches us to befriend the darkness and not to fear it, to accept it as part of the journey -- an unavoidable part.
Sometimes in pastoral counseling, when someone is deeply sad or depressed or hopeless, I will read to them Psalm 88, with its pain and loss and at end sense of abandonment. "Now why," I ask, "would the Biblical writers include this in the Bible? Why would they allow this to remain without any sense of resolution?" The person across from me usually shakes his or her head in an expression of not knowing or understanding. A long silence follows. And then I lean in, "Because, I think, the Bible knows that a person like you needs this word, this voice, this word of irresolution. Because this voice belongs."
Who am I to say anybody can't take reading Psalm 88? This dark psalm belongs. The darkness belongs. The darkness belongs because people in the darkness belong, and because God's companionship can be found even in the darkness.
13 But I, O Lord, cry yto you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14 O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?
Why do you hide your face from me?
15 Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,
I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.
16 Your wrath has swept over me;
your dreadful assaults destroy me.
17 They surround me like a flood all day long;
they close in on me together.
18 You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;
my companions have become darkness.
In his book "A Cry of Absence" Martin Marty writes of the terminal cancer diagnosis of his wife Elsa in 1981 the days leading up to her death late that her. In a very touching scene in the memoir Martin tells how each night they would lie together in bed and read the psalms, he reading the even and she the odd. One night, when it came his time to read Psalm 88, he passed over it. "What happened to Psalm 88?" Elsa asked. "I didn't think you could take Psalm 88. It's a bleak psalm." Elsa then said very lovingly to her husband, "Who do you think you are to decide what I can take? The light ones don't mean anything if you haven't walked through the dark ones."
Psalm 88 is, in Martin Marty's words, "a wintry landscape of unrelieved bleakness." It does not end all neat and pretty, with a bow on top. It does not end in the light of hope. It ends in darkness. It ends in verse 18, with darkness as the psalmist's only companion.
We might wonder, why is this psalm there in the Bible? What place does so bleak a word have in the canon? It is there because sometimes some of us are there, because at sometime we'll all be there -- with a diagnosis that is terminal, with a loved one who is dying, in a bleak and wintry place from which there is simply no escape.
It's times like these that darkness is our only companion. Reading Psalm 88 teaches us to befriend the darkness and not to fear it, to accept it as part of the journey -- an unavoidable part.
Sometimes in pastoral counseling, when someone is deeply sad or depressed or hopeless, I will read to them Psalm 88, with its pain and loss and at end sense of abandonment. "Now why," I ask, "would the Biblical writers include this in the Bible? Why would they allow this to remain without any sense of resolution?" The person across from me usually shakes his or her head in an expression of not knowing or understanding. A long silence follows. And then I lean in, "Because, I think, the Bible knows that a person like you needs this word, this voice, this word of irresolution. Because this voice belongs."
Who am I to say anybody can't take reading Psalm 88? This dark psalm belongs. The darkness belongs. The darkness belongs because people in the darkness belong, and because God's companionship can be found even in the darkness.
Thursday, March 3, 2016
Daily Lesson for March 3, 2016
Today's Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 6 verses 30 through 44:
30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. 35 And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. 36 Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37 But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” 38 And he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” 39 Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. 41 And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. 42 And they all ate and were satisfied. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44 And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.
In this story of the feeding of the 5,000 there is an interesting detail which is easily missed but is a clue to what the writer Mark is intending to tell us about Jesus. The detail is this: the grass was green.
The Bible does not usually give us descriptions about setting. We don't get a lot of color commentary on the trees or the fields or the sky. We don't, that is, unless it matters.
The grass was green beside the Sea of Galilee. And 5,000 people were there, hungry and helpless -- "like sheep without a shepherd". And looking out on to that sea of humanity he had compassion on them and he made them sit down on the green grass and he fed them.
Or, if you're getting the picture . . . The shepherd made his flock to lie down in green pastures and beside still waters and restored their souls by setting a table for them. It's the 23rd Psalm in action.
Mark is trying to tell us something about Jesus. That he is the good shepherd. That he restores our souls in our times of greatest desperation and want. That he provides for us here in the wilderness. And that he can be trusted in the way ahead, that he can be trusted to deliver us through even the valley of the shadow of death.
Receive now again these faithful words from the Psalmist and take comfort in the promise they afford for us who walk without fear behind our good and faithful shepherd:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. 35 And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. 36 Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37 But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” 38 And he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” 39 Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. 41 And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. 42 And they all ate and were satisfied. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44 And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.
In this story of the feeding of the 5,000 there is an interesting detail which is easily missed but is a clue to what the writer Mark is intending to tell us about Jesus. The detail is this: the grass was green.
The Bible does not usually give us descriptions about setting. We don't get a lot of color commentary on the trees or the fields or the sky. We don't, that is, unless it matters.
The grass was green beside the Sea of Galilee. And 5,000 people were there, hungry and helpless -- "like sheep without a shepherd". And looking out on to that sea of humanity he had compassion on them and he made them sit down on the green grass and he fed them.
Or, if you're getting the picture . . . The shepherd made his flock to lie down in green pastures and beside still waters and restored their souls by setting a table for them. It's the 23rd Psalm in action.
Mark is trying to tell us something about Jesus. That he is the good shepherd. That he restores our souls in our times of greatest desperation and want. That he provides for us here in the wilderness. And that he can be trusted in the way ahead, that he can be trusted to deliver us through even the valley of the shadow of death.
Receive now again these faithful words from the Psalmist and take comfort in the promise they afford for us who walk without fear behind our good and faithful shepherd:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Daily Lesson for March 2, 2016
Today's Daily Lesson is from Psalm 81 verse 10:
I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
Martin Luther was once asked by one of his students what God was doing before God created the world. "Dreaming up punishments for people who ask those kinds of questions," Luther answered.
We know God in relationship, through God's acts in history and with God's people. We do not think of God as "the Unmoved Mover" as Aristotle did. God is very moved, very involved, very engaged.
The image we have from today's psalm is that either of a baby bird with his mouth open wide in the nest or an infant child being spoon fed by her mother or father. The Psalmist is saying, "You want to know what God is like? Think momma bird, or a loving parent."
God is not just up there or out there or back there somewhere. God is involved, reaching down in the mud of the earth to form us in creation, feeding us like baby birds in the nest, delivering us from all manner of evils. God is a personal God, with His eye on every sparrow and every person and counting every single hair on every head. In other words, God is involved -- and passionately so. And that means, when anything happens to even the least of these, God not only notices, but also cares -- and cares enough to act.
So, what was God doing before God made the world?
My answer: nesting.
I am the Lord your God,
who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
Martin Luther was once asked by one of his students what God was doing before God created the world. "Dreaming up punishments for people who ask those kinds of questions," Luther answered.
We know God in relationship, through God's acts in history and with God's people. We do not think of God as "the Unmoved Mover" as Aristotle did. God is very moved, very involved, very engaged.
The image we have from today's psalm is that either of a baby bird with his mouth open wide in the nest or an infant child being spoon fed by her mother or father. The Psalmist is saying, "You want to know what God is like? Think momma bird, or a loving parent."
God is not just up there or out there or back there somewhere. God is involved, reaching down in the mud of the earth to form us in creation, feeding us like baby birds in the nest, delivering us from all manner of evils. God is a personal God, with His eye on every sparrow and every person and counting every single hair on every head. In other words, God is involved -- and passionately so. And that means, when anything happens to even the least of these, God not only notices, but also cares -- and cares enough to act.
So, what was God doing before God made the world?
My answer: nesting.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Daily Lesson for March 1, 2016
Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 78 verse 15 and 16:
15 He split rocks in the wilderness
and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.
16 He made streams come out of the rock
and caused waters to flow down like rivers.
There is a reservoir buried deep within each human soul. This is not surface water and is therefore not easily accessible. Only the splitting of rocks can get to it. In other words, only pain opens us to the deep discovery of the well within.
It is out of the depths that the source and sustenance of life stirs. It lies there mostly hidden and unknown and even unheard of until desperation forces us to looking for it. And there it is, buried deep and hidden from plain sight, yet coursing and flowing beneath and so very full of life. Only the pain of being cracked open, split apart, and dug deep into can lead us to this marvelously surprising discovery:
I've got a river of life flowing in -- and now out -- of me.
15 He split rocks in the wilderness
and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.
16 He made streams come out of the rock
and caused waters to flow down like rivers.
There is a reservoir buried deep within each human soul. This is not surface water and is therefore not easily accessible. Only the splitting of rocks can get to it. In other words, only pain opens us to the deep discovery of the well within.
It is out of the depths that the source and sustenance of life stirs. It lies there mostly hidden and unknown and even unheard of until desperation forces us to looking for it. And there it is, buried deep and hidden from plain sight, yet coursing and flowing beneath and so very full of life. Only the pain of being cracked open, split apart, and dug deep into can lead us to this marvelously surprising discovery:
I've got a river of life flowing in -- and now out -- of me.
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