Daily Lesson for July 8, 2020

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

Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt:

2

You only have I known

    of all the families of the earth;

therefore I will punish you

    for all your iniquities.

3

Do two walk together

    unless they have made an appointment?

William Sloane Coffin said:

"There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good. The bad are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics.  Good patriots carry on a lover's quarrel with their country."

As we are reading the Bible this year, we enter earnestly now into the Hebrew Prophets, with all their critique and criticism of Israel. But their words are not to be mistaken -- and neither is their patriotism, or seeming lack of it.

The Prophets love their nation and their people and their God.  And they love them all enough to be honest about their nation and their people before their God.

Amos believed in Israel's covenant and friendship with God.  Enough so, that he could not bear to see his people fall short of their promises.  They had made an appointment to walk together; and to leave no neighbor or brother or sister or mother behind.  And so, Amos took up his quarrel with his people when they fell short.

Friends, I see a debate going on now about the history of our own nation and how it is taught.  Some say patriotism is being lost and our children are being taught to hate their country.  Do not be fooled!  They are not being taught to hate their country.  They are being taught to look honestly at it, see where it has gotten us, and -- again in the words of Coffin -- "love their country enough to address her flaws".

It's true patriotism, not propaganda.  And if we want to see how its done all we have to do is read the Bible.

NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible this year, in fact.  And tomorrow we continue with Amos chapters 6-9.

Daily Lesson for July 7, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Isaiah chapter 6 verses 9 and 10:

‘Keep listening, but do not comprehend;

keep looking, but do not understand.’

10

Make the mind of this people dull,

    and stop their ears,

    and shut their eyes,

so that they may not look with their eyes,

    and listen with their ears,

and comprehend with their minds,

    and turn and be healed.”

This morning's Lesson is a prophetic utterance about the perpetual state of human obstinance. 

We look, but we do not see; we listen but our ears are shut.

And as Desmond Tutu said, "The hardest person in the world to wake up is the person who is pretending to be asleep."

It is time for us to wake up.  This COVID crisis has grown out of hand down here in Texas and in other parts of the country.  Yesterday, Dallas reported its highest jump in hospitalizations since the virus first hit the United States.

It's time for us to wake up.

Verse 11 in the text asks, "How long, O Lord? The prophet wants to know how long people's minds will be dull and ears shut.  The answer isn't reassuring:

"Until cities lie waste without inhabitant,

and houses without people."

Houses have already lost people now, beautiful and beloved people -- 130,000 of them in America.

We could still lose many, many millions more. 

So let's keep the masks on and stop taking unnecessary risks.

NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible through this year.  Tomorrow's Lesson will be another word of a prophet, Amos chapters 1-5.

Daily Lesson for June 6, 2020

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Jonah chapter 3:

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8 Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

The story of Jonah is the story of a whole nation’s collective reckoning. “By the decree of the king and his nobles,” all human beings and animals were with sackcloth, and they all cried out mightily to God. “All [turned]  from their evil ways and from the violence that [was] in their hands.”

We are such a moment now when it comes to race and racism. To be sure, not everyone is repenting. There are plenty who see no need, still find no reason for redress. But then there are the millions who have been awakened. They have heard the voice of the prophet. They have put on sackcloth and ashes — or their modern equivalent, a Black Lives Matter sign out front of the house.

But then we read these words from the king of Nineveh, “All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands.”  Even the leader of Nineveh himself had repented, which is not the case for us here in America, though many leaders of some of our most important institutions have shown genuine conviction about the need for change.

How will this go for us?  We don’t know. The eyes of millions have been opened. The systematic and systemic abuse of black lives are now in our collective consciousness for the first time since the 1960s. But the fact is, in the 60s we lost the nerve to do what it would take to truly bring about greater equality in America. We put on sackcloth by integrating schools and opening the voting polls, but the root of the economic consequences of 250 years of chattel slavery plus another 100 of racial apartheid was left largely untouched.

We don’t know how it will go this time — how far our repentance will reach.

The message of Jonah tells us that it can be surprising just how ready to repent a whole people can be. But it didn’t happen without leadership; and that for us is a mixed bag, and will continue to be until we finally realize that the fate of this country really is bound up with the fate of our most historically marginalized and oppressed.

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

Daily Lesson for July 3, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 2 Kings chapter 14 verses 23, 24 and 27:

23 In the fifteenth year of Amazi′ah the son of Jo′ash, king of Judah, Jerobo′am the son of Jo′ash, king of Israel, began to reign in Samar′ia, and he reigned forty-one years. 24 And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; he did not depart from all the sins of Jerobo′am the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. . .27 But the Lord had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jerobo′am the son of Jo′ash.

A comforting but also steely word from the Scriptures this morning, as we sit on the doorstep of yet another Independence Day and reflect on the meaning of our Nation's past, present, and future, especially in this particular seasons of crisis and tumult.

Nations rise and fall.  We know this from all histories.  And leaders come and go, rising and falling also. But through it all, God sustains God's people, using even the most corrupt, evil, and inept of leaders to protect and to save.

Such is no compliment to an evil leader like Jerobo'am; but it is a surety that in the end God's will be done.

We worry for our Nation.  We faint from foreboding over all the future might hold.  We wring our hands over leaders and misleaders.

But the One who keepeth Israel doth neither slumber nor sleep and shall preserve us from all evil. 

"For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."

And Amen.

NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible through this year.  Over the weekend we will read the Book of Jonah, 2 KIngs 15, 2 Chronicles 26, and Isaiah 1-4.

Daily Lesson for July 2, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 2 Kings chapter 13 verses 20 and 21:

20 So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year. 21 As a man was being buried, a marauding band was seen and the man was thrown into the grave of Elisha; as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he came to life and stood on his feet.

Yesterday we lost one of the giants in Baptist life, my childhood pastor and dear friend Hardy Clemons. Tributes and memorials to Hardy have flooded my Facebook feed this morning. I offered my own to Hardy yesterday.

This morning's Lesson reminds us that the power of a great person's life does not end with their death.  The fire in their bones still warms, and even ignites.

Yesterday a friend sent me Maya Angelou poem "When Great Trees Fall", the final stanza of which offers us these words for these times:

"And when great souls die,

after a period peace blooms,

slowly and always

irregularly.  Spaces fill

with a kind of

soothing electric vibration.

Our senses, restored, never

to be the same, whisper to us.

They existed.  They existed.

We can be.  Be and be

better.  For they existed."

NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible this year.  Tomorrow's Lesson is 2 Kings 14 and 2 Chronicles 25.

The Passing of a Giant

Today we lost a giant in Baptist life, and I lost a dear friend, mentor, colleague, pastor, Bishop, father and grand-father figure.

Hardy Clemons was ordained at Broadway Baptist, and pastored three churches over the course of his forty years of ministry, including 21 years as the Senior Pastor of my home church Second Baptist in Lubbock, which I later had the honor of serving as Senior Pastor also. Hardy married my parents, married Irie and me, and preached my ordination. And as I entered this calling, I joined the ranks of that company of clergy and ministers across the country who all enjoyed the blessing of having Hardy as a “Pastor’s Pastor”.

What a gift of love and wisdom Hardy was to me and so many others whose lives were blessed to know him as both Pastor and friend. Dearly loved, he will be dearly missed.

The last time I visited Hardy in person coincided with my discovery of an old Phillips Brooks’ quote about pastoring, the wisdom of which I think captures the Spirit of who Hardy’s life and ministry and is something we who follow in his cloud would do well to follow:

“These three rules seem to have in them the practical sum of the whole matter. I beg you to remember them and apply them with all the wisdom that God gives you. First, have as few congregations as you can. Second, know your congregation as thoroughly as you can. Thirdly, know your congregation so largely and deeply that in knowing it you shall know humanity.”

Rest In Peace, Pastor; thank you for knowing us so largely and deeply.

Daily Lesson for July 1, 2020

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 2 Kings chapter 9 verses 1 through 13:

Then the prophet Elisha called a member of the company of prophets and said to him, “Gird up your loins; take this flask of oil in your hand, and go to Ramoth-gilead. 2 When you arrive, look there for Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, son of Nimshi; go in and get him to leave his companions, and take him into an inner chamber. 3 Then take the flask of oil, pour it on his head, and say, ‘Thus says the Lord: I anoint you king over Israel.’ Then open the door and flee; do not linger.”

4 So the young man, the young prophet, went to Ramoth-gilead. 5 He arrived while the commanders of the army were in council, and he announced, “I have a message for you, commander.” “For which one of us?” asked Jehu. “For you, commander.” 6 So Jehu got up and went inside; the young man poured the oil on his head, saying to him, “Thus says the Lord the God of Israel: I anoint you king over the people of the Lord, over Israel. 7 You shall strike down the house of your master Ahab, so that I may avenge on Jezebel the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord. 8 For the whole house of Ahab shall perish; I will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel. 9 I will make the house of Ahab like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah. 10 The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and no one shall bury her.” Then he opened the door and fled.

11 When Jehu came back to his master’s officers, they said to him, “Is everything all right? Why did that madman come to you?” He answered them, “You know the sort and how they babble.” 12 They said, “Liar! Come on, tell us!” So he said, “This is just what he said to me: ‘Thus says the Lord, I anoint you king over Israel.’” 13 Then hurriedly they all took their cloaks and spread them for him on the bare steps; and they blew the trumpet, and proclaimed, “Jehu is king.”

I love this story and think its hilarious -- and also very serious.

At a time when both the Northern and Southern kingdoms were ruled by very cruel and evil persons, the Prophet Elisha sends one of his disciples to go and anoint the army commander Jehu as the new king over Israel.  It is the most unceremonious anointing imaginable, with the young disciple basically dumping a flask of oil on Jehu's head and telling him -- "Now you are king."

Jehu initially dismisses the incident as the antics of a madman.  But when the rest of the commanders take it seriously, Jehu realizes that, indeed, he has been anointed for the moment at hand. He will have to be the one to rise up and take back the throne.

I like this story because it corresponds with my understanding of call.  There are words from the seer Elisha, there is a call event to consider and reflect upon, and then there is confirmation from the community.

An old preacher I know used to say, "God works in MISHCIEVOUS ways."  A surprise visit at the door from a stranger purporting to be a prophet is one way.  There are others. 

And the good news in this text is that God is still working, and calling, and anointing -- even in the most evil of times; and the anointed are still saying, "Yes."

NOTE: We are reading the Bible through this year.  Tomorrow's Lesson comes from 2 Kings 12-13; 2 Chronicles 24.