Daily Lesson for August 18, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 1 verses 6 through 12:

6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. 7 The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

The book of Job marks a tremendous shift in human consciousness, as it challenges the ancient conception of a God who can be appeased, manipulated and controlled.

Certainly Job is into control!  He himself is a righteous man, fearing God even to the point of making sacrifices on behalf of his own children -- just in case they forgot.  On one hand this is beautiful and on another it is manipulative, overly-involved, obsessive and sad.  Will Job ever be able to sleep at night, for fear that his children have done something unacceptable to God?

Satan enters the story with a life-shattering and religion-altering question: "Does Job fear God for nothing?"  In other words, what kind of man would Job be and what kind of religion would he have if things didn't always work out for him?

What Job leaves us with is a new concept of God and God's relationship to humanity and human events. At the beginning of Job this relationship is fixed: "Do good get rewarded; do bad get punished."  What Job gives us is much more complex, mysterious, and beyond our control. In other words, what Job leaves us with is life as it is not life as we think it should be.

And that is the crux of the matter. Am I serious about this whole God thing even if it isn't quite clear what I am going to get out of it?  Am I still going to fear God, which means worship and try to remain obedient, even when life isn't working out the way I thought it would?

This is the end of a religion that is quid pro quo, transactionary, and substantively legalistic, and the beginning of a religion that is based on faith.

Daily Lesson for August 17, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Acts chapter 8 verses 17 through 23:

17 Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. 18 Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, 19 saying, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” 20 But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! 21 You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. 23 For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.”

The bitterness of envy can be so deceptive and also so destructive.

We look on what others are doing and we think, "If I only had that I would be a success.  I would really be something -- something for God.  I would do anything to have what they have."

So then we do just about anything to get it. We shuffle and huck and do whatever else we can to get the attention of the city and let them know just how blessed and anointed and relevant we are.

And that lasts for about 5 minutes until somebody else does something big and amazing and now we have to try them to emulate them. And it's a vicious, vicious cycle trying to keep up with the Joneses and the Joneses church.

Thank God there's this word from Peter this morning which sees through it all, "Your heart is not right, and you need to change."

When envy and bitterness set in and we start wanting what others have so badly that we'll do anything to get it, then we've lost our way and are in danger of losing ourselves.

It's then that we most need somebody to tell us the truth.

Daily Lesson for August 16, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Acts chapter 8 verses 1 through 3:

And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2 Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. 3 But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Earlier this year, our church had Will Willimon, former Bishop of the Northern Alabama United Methodist Conference, as our adult retreat leader.   One of the things that he said that has stuck with me was that in working with hundreds of Alabama churches over the last decade, he was always conscious that people can change. He noted specifically the racial attitudes of people in the churches he served. "No one could tell me they can't change, because they already had changed," he said.

Now I understand that attitudes about race and many other things are often unconscious. There is much work to be done in deprograming and reprogramming much within us. Yet, the fact remains, we can and have changed on many matters throughout the centuries, and we will continue to change. God will continue to change us. 

Which brings me to Saul.  There was no one more committed to his race and nationalistic in his thinking than Saul of Tarsus. A "Hebrew of Hebrews," he called himself. So intent on holding the line, he held the coats of the people who stoned the martyr Stephen.  And then his real ravaging of the Church began. This was the most unlikely of people for God to choose to one day become Christianity's greatest apostle. 

But people really do change; God changes them.  God changes all of us. 

And so, that brings me to the Sauls in my own life. Note I said, God changes us.  It's really not my place or call to try to change anyone. God does the convicting.  God performs the miracles. God is the heart surgeon. My role is to bear witness, remain open, pray for the surgery to be a success. 

That's sometimes harder than it sounds. If I'm honest, I don't always want Saul to change. But you know what, I really don't get a choice in this. God is going to change who God is going to change, whether I approve or not. God is in the change business.

People can change. God can change them. God makes Sauls into Pauls everyday.  God's desire is to change Saul and to see him flourish and prosper as a human being. The question I am left with then is to ask what my desire for Saul is.  And if it's anything other than God's desire, then maybe I'm the one who really needs to change . . .

Daily Lesson for August 15, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 106 verses 6 through 12:

6 Both we and our fathers have sinned;
we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness.
7 Our fathers, when they were in Egypt,
did not consider your wondrous works;
they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love,
but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.
8 Yet he saved them for his name's sake,
that he might make known his mighty power.
9 He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry,
and he led them through the deep as through a desert.
10 So he saved them from the hand of the foe
and redeemed them from the power of the enemy.
11 And the waters covered their adversaries;
not one of them was left.
12 Then they believed his words;
they sang his praise.

Those people whom I most admire and want to be around and also emulate walk with humility of spirit, knowing they have been saved by a grace that comes not from anything they themselves did to deserve it. These people live their lives without hubris or airs and do not think too much of their side of their relationship with God. Ask anyone of them and they would deny humility.  What they would simply say is what Paul said to Timothy, "I am chief of sinners".

This goes not only for individuals but also for nations. Writing in the context of the beginning of WWII as the hubris of Nazi Germany grew more and more visibly grotesque, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, "No nation is free of the sin of pride. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that there are 'Christian' nations, who prove themselves so because they are still receptive to prophetic words of judgment spoken against the nation."

A humble nation is one which understands its contradictions, acknowledges its shadows, and accepts its critics.  It is a nation whose canons include words like those by the poet in today's lesson, "Both we and our fathers have sinned."

I want to be around individuals who know they have sinned. And I want to live in a nation which also knows and acknowledges it has sinned. I want this because those who are unaware of their own sin and capacity to go on sinning are really annoying at best, and at worst outright dangerous. On the other hand, I want to be around those who know themselves to be sinners and live in a nation which is honest with its own sin because doing so opens me to be more honest about my own contradictions, shadows, and sin.

And therein is the road to salvation and the path towards doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.

Daily Lesson for August 12, 2016

Today's daily lesson comes from John chapter 4 verses 47 through 50:

47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.

If you have ever worried yourself sick over the wellbeing of a child, then you understand the father in this story. If in the middle of the night you have pleaded with God for the miracle of your child's healing or salvation then you know this father.

The man's son is gravely ill, near even to the point of death.  And hearing that this Jesus with the power to work miracles is up in the mountain village of Cana, the father makes the desperate decision to leave his son in his town of Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee and make the day-long journey up to Cana.

Arriving and finding Jesus there in Cana, the father begs him to come down to Capernaum and perform a miracle. But disappointingly Jesus refuses to come, and even speaks suspiciously about miracles.  “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” Again, the father begs Jesus to come down before the child dies.  But again Jesus says no; instead Jesus tells the man to go back down himself and trust that his son will live.

At some point every parent begs for Jesus to come down, out of heaven to do something miraculous to heal or save our child. We travel up the mountain in desperate prayer to Him to come back down with us. But for whatever reason -- and this is a mystery hidden with Him in God -- Jesus cannot or will not come down to do the miraculous. Instead, He tells us to go back down, to be with the child, and to trust Him that though no sign or miraculous wonder is to be done our child will indeed live.

Jesus asks us to go back down the mountain, without miracle in hand. It is an act of faith to trust Him at His word, that though we don't get what we would wanted going up the mountain, we got what we needed -- his promise to us that our children will be will, in life or in death they shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

Daily Lesson for August 11, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Judged chapter 14 verses 5 through 14b:

5 Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah, and they came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion came toward him roaring. 6 Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. 7 Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she was right in Samson's eyes.
8 After some days he returned to take her. And he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. 9 He scraped it out into his hands and went on, eating as he went. And he came to his father and mother and gave some to them, and they ate. But he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion.
10 His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do. 11 As soon as the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. 12 And Samson said to them, “Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is, within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes, 13 but if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.” And they said to him, “Put your riddle, that we may hear it.” 14 And he said to them,
“Out of the eater came something to eat.
Out of the strong came something sweet.”

Now here is just a very weird story.  Samson kills a lion with his bare hands, and then laps up honey from its carcass, all the while chasing after a woman his parents do not approve of.  It is a weird story. It is also a deeply mythological story -- meaning it is a story (in Greek "mythos") that tells something deep and true about our humanity.

Here is something deep and true: the world's sweetest honey can only be found in the carcass of a slayed lion.  In other words, it is only through struggle and fight and grappling with lions in life (including the lion of our family of origin) that we ever to find any sense of deep satisfaction, purpose, or real growth in life. Like Samson's life, sometimes our own lives are ugly and even shameful. Yet, there is honey in the carcass of the lion. In other words, there is the sweetness of God's grace after all the hideousness of the struggle.

There is a letter from John Newton, the slave ship captain turned clergyman who penned they hymn, "Amazing Grace", written in his old age to a young minister just coming up.  It is a deeply powerful word about the sometimes ugly struggle of being human and the surprise of God's amazing grace through it all.  Here is an excerpt:

"The doctrinal parts of our ministry are to some degree familiar to us. But that which gives a savour, fullness, energy, and variety to our ministrations is the result of many painful conflicts and exercises which we must pass through in our private walk, combined with the proofs we receive of as we along, of the LORD's compassion and mercies under all the perverseness we are conscious of in ourselves. It is only in this school of experience that we can acquire the tongue of the learned, and know how to speak a word in season to those who are weary.  Thus, by His wise arrangement: 'Out of the eater cometh meat.'"

Out of the lion of life comes the honey; and in the struggle we find God's grace.

Daily Lesson for August 10, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 4 verses 16 through 24:

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

I have been at this pastoring thing for 11 years now and there is something I have noticed at every church and in every community I've been it: it's always easier to argue about worship style than it is to get to the truth of their own moral failures.

I mean, it's just a given; almost everybody wants to talk about the music genre, but nobody wants to talk about who they've slept with. Like the woman in today's lesson, we want to talk about worship on this or that mountain but in fact it's really a distraction and tactic of avoidance to keep us from having to honestly deal with our issues. We like to talk about the spirit of worship and whether or not it's in the room on Sunday. But the truth of what is going on in our lives Monday through Saturday is a little too personal. Better to stick to criticizing the worship pastor's choices than take a look at our own. This is classic scapegoating.

Jesus says God is pleased with worship that is spirit-filled. But spirit alone is not enough.  What really pleases God, Jesus says, is a people who worship in spirit and also in truth.