Daily Lesson for June 30, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Psalm 106 verses 9 and 10:

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.

Go to just about any black church on any given Sunday and you'll hear the refrain:  "God can make a way out of no way."

It's a simple message that's easy to understand but hard to believe - and especially hard to keep on being believed.  It must be preached Sunday by Sunday because the dark powers of this world are always bearing down.  It must be preached Sunday by Sunday because week by week God's people are caught between Pharaoh's army and the Red Sea ahead and must be reminded that the only course of action is just to keep walking.

The rabbis used to say that when Israelites were escaping slavery and came to the Red Sea with Pharaoh's army bearing down behind, there was a moment of trepidation and panic among the people.  Do they stop, turn around and give up or keep going and surely drown in the Red Sea.  It was when they made their decision, choosing to risk death over slavery that miracle happened.  They waded into the water feet first and kept on walking.  As they walked the waters rose up their ankles to their knees and then their waists and then their shoulders all the way to their necks.  It was not until they were all the way in above their heads and no longer able to touch bottom that the walls of the waters were parted and they were able to walk free.

You may today find yourself up against impossible.  You know there is no hope in turning back, yet going ahead does not appear anymore promising.  You feel trapped, and don't know they way out or the way forward.  The Lesson today is to keep walking.  Keep walking forward and surely you will discover what the Israelites discovered: that God really can make a way out of no way, but we have to be willing to be in over our heads before it happens.

That is today's message; and it's one we need to hear about once a week.

Daily Lesson for June 27, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Psalm 102:

25 Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
26 They will perish, but you will remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
27 but you are the same, and your years have no end.
28 The children of your servants shall dwell secure;
their offspring shall be established before you.

When I was in 7th grade our junior high school gathered in the auditorium to watch a movie about the great Chicago Bears football player Gale Sayers and his teammate and best friend Brian Piccolo, who was stricken with cancer.  I remember what an impression the opening scene made on me with a quote from Hemingway.  "Hemingway said, 'Every true story ends in death.'  Well, this is a true story."

Life is a series of true stories.  There is in every friendship, marriage, enterprise, or institution a Spring which is full of hope and promise, followed by a Fall of when the color wanes and eventually the leaves fall.  Every leaf falls.

Psalm 102 is a psalm written by someone coming to terms with the Fall.  It begins with preface. "A prayer of one afflicted, when he is faint and pours out his complaint before the LORD," it says.  The affliction is the loss of his people's glory.  It is the destruction of the City of Zion.  It is the end of a world.  And there is grief. There is crying out.  There is complaint before the LORD.

The psalmist shows us the way through the grief of life's true stories.  It is the way called lamentation, which is the naming of our losses and the wailing over them.  It is, surprisingly, a God-blessed complaint to God.  All is not well.  There is rupture. There is Fall and a hastening Winter and it just ain't fair.

If we do not lament then we remain stuck in our pain and in our grief. We hold on to a yesterday that is no longer.  Nostalgia for a lost past cripples our future.  We become imprisoned by what was.  As the psalmist says, we hold onto stones which have been knocked down and pity the dust of what has been crushed.  The way of lamentation allows us to come to terms with the loss of yesterday and opens us to the possibility of a new tomorrow.  It is a necessary journey.

Every story is a true story.  Every institution and every relationship will have its end.  Heaven and earth will pass away.  Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

But out of the ashes of our lamentation comes then our future that is yet to be . . .

Daily Lesson for June 26, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Romans 5 verses 3 and 4:

3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope when it is fully born does not disappoint.

When we speak of hope we usually say something like, "There's still hope," as though it were something with which we began and which circumstances - however difficult - could not take from us.  But research from psychologists suggests that we actually have that backwards.  Cognitive psychologist C.R. Snyder, from the University of Kansas, has discovered that hope, rather than being the thing left over after adversity, might better be thought of as a byproduct of having overcome adversity.  Hope, according to this research, is not so much a quantity left over in spite of our struggles, but instead the quality of who we become in and through those struggles.  In other words, hope is born out of struggle.

"Lift Every Voice and Sing", in times past sometimes called the Negro National Anthem, remembers the struggles of African Americans from the Middle Passage to continental slavery.  It speaks of a time when "hope unborn had died".  Those were the dark nights of terror and no doubt hope died unborn in many a sad and defeated soul.  But those who held on, walking the stony road and bearing the bitter rod - even for centuries - discovered that hope could still even yet be born again.  And through 400 years of suffering which led to endurance, and endurance which led to character, and character which led to hope, they became the People of Hope.

There are people reading this now who are really struggling and in desperate need of hope.  What I want to say to you is hold on.  Hold on today, hold on tomorrow, hold on 400 years if you have to but hold on.  Keep struggling and hold on.  Hold on for endurance sake.  Hold on till character is made. Hold on till hope is born; if it dies hold on till it is conceived and born again.  

Suffering produces endurance, endurance character, and character hope.  And when hope is full born it shall not disappoint.

Daily Lesson for June 25, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is the Parable of the Vineyard Workers found in Matthew chapter 20:

20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; 4 and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. 5 When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. 6 And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ 8 When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ 9 When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. 10 Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. 11 And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’. 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

A few years back I took a summer mission trip from one of my churches to Washington, DC.  We were right in the heart of the city and we soon found out what people meant when they say the city is a concrete jungle.  We staid in he basement of the church we were serving and it was miserably hot and grossly humid and the work was hard and physical, all of which we expected.  There were also rats the size of Volkswagons, which we did not expect.  After an exhausting day of leading Vacation Bible School for the neighborhood kids, stocking items in the church's food pantry, and helping to repair the dry wall in the nursery.  It seemed like every time we were done with one project one of the church members was finding us another without any rest for the weary and not much thanks.  By the end of the day we were wiped out and a little put off and decided to turn in early.  We went down to the basement and were surprised to discover it had somehow flooded during the day.  We spent the whole evening draining the basement of water.  We spent the whole time grumbling to ourselves about how come Sunday all the members of the church we were at would show up to worship upstairs without any consideration of all that we were doing for them.  We probably wouldn't even get a thanks.  It wasn't fair.

The next morning we met for our church group's daily devotion which one of the women on the trip led.  She chose  Jesus' Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, where after a lot of hard work the laborers grumbled because they didn't think they got their due.  "I have been listing to our grumbling," she said. "I have been listening to my grumbling.  And I thought about this parable.  And it occurred to me - we need to remember that it's a privilege to work in the master's vineyard."

That was the right word at the right time.

Daily Lesson for June 24, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Matthew 19 verses 

24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” 26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

A reinterpretation of this Scripture has done more for my own growth in grace and in love than perhaps anything else in the last year.

A rich man comes to Jesus inquiring how he might enter into eternal life. He says he has obeyed all the commandments; yet Jesus says he still lacks one thing. He must sell everything he has and give it to the poor and come and follow Jesus.  The man turns and walks away sad, for his possessions are many.  Jesus then turns to his disciples and says, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is a rich man to get into the kingdom of God."

I have always read and interpreted that story to be a kind of tsk tsk judgment against this wealthy man.

But a sermon by the late, great Peter Gomes changed the meaning for of this text for me altogether.  Gomes asked one simple question, "Who of us would do it?"  Who of us would have gone and given everything away to the poor and come and followed Jesus?  Reading that question, I had to admit - I would not; for I have not, and right now I will not.

With that question honestly answered, judgement had to be set aside.  Suddenly Gomes opened for me a way way of reading the text anew.  He opened for me the Gospel in this text.  It is impossible for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven; as impossible as it is for Donald Trump's big-headed ego to squeeze through the hole in a donut.  For a man like the Don it's absolutely impossible - but for God?  Well, with God such things are possible. With God anything is possible.

Is there an edge of judgment in this text?  Sure; we all have possessions which end up possessing us.   These are not always monetary possessions, but rather any kind of story we have bought into which possesses the core of who we think we are and what we might not be able to live without.  Our unwillingness to let to of these stories keeps us from making the it through the narrow pass into the kingdom of God, where he story of who we are is replaced by the story of who we might become.

But there is also a word of Gospel in this text - the good news that even though we would not dare to pare ourselves down enough to make the journey into becoming alone, the journey will not be alone.  The stripping away of all things we have put such stock in - our wealth, our righteousness, our preparedness for the journey ahead - such stripping is impossible for human beings; but it is not impossible with God.  For nothing is impossible with God.

Daily Lesson for June 23, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Matthew 19 verses 13 and 14:

13 Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, 14 but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

After having just returned from summer camp with our middle and high school students, I am giving a lot of thought to the place of youth in the life of our church and the life of my own ministry. The week away with our youth and the number of opportunities I had to spend intentional time with made me think back on the youth group leaders who spent intentional time with me 20 or so years ago. They invited me into their lives and their homes, opened the Scriptures to me, and spoke intentional words to me. They modeled Godliness and Christ-like love. They loved on me. And whether they knew it or not - I was paying attention.

It always astounds me just how much time and energy Jesus poured into young people. Over and over again in the Gospel accounts Jesus is healing a sick girl, raising somebody's dead son, or telling his disciples to go and get the children and bring them to him. For Jesus youth ministry was not a specialized, set apart ministry that took place out of sight and out of mind in the synagogue basement but rather part and parcel of the very core of his overall ministry. Youth ministry was ministry ministry; and he did it all the time. He did it because he knew it mattered.

One of my favorite youth ministry stories comes from Sophiatown, the black slum outside of Johannesburg, during the days of Apartheid. Trevor Huddleston, a white Anglican priest who was assigned to Sophiatown and busy making his name known as a great friend of the black people and their cause. Later in life, an old man remembered seeing Huddleston for the first time as a young child and being taken with his humanity. "One day," the old man said, "I was standing in the street with my mother when a white man in a priest's clothing walked past. As he passed us he took off his hat to my mother. I couldn't believe my eyes—a white man who greeted a black working class woman!" Later, the boy contracted tuberculosis and Huddleston, who would go on to make the cover of the popular magazine Saturday Review, took the time to make weekly visits to the boy at the sanitarium where he was convalescing. It all made quite an impression on the child - whose name was and still is Desmond Tutu.

We have no way of knowing who these young people might become; but I am sure they will only be what they can be if someone like us finds the time and the energy to say what Jesus said, "Let the children come unto me."

Daily Lesson for June 20, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson from Matthew 18 verses 23 through 28:

23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.  He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.

One of the most consistent things Jesus taught over and over was about our need to forgive as we have been forgiven.   

But perhaps it is the second part - the deep acknowledgement that we have been forgiven - that really is the hard part.  It is difficult to forgive others' their debts; but it is even more difficult to accept forgiveness of our own debts.  We don't like the idea that we are indebted so deeply - to God, to our parents, to our neighbors, to our enemies - that there really is nothing we can do to ever pay everything back.

The man in today's lesson still wants to pay everything back.  Jesus says he owes his master a kagillion dollars.  "I will pay it back," he says.  "You're off the hook," the master says (how much is this master worth?).  But the man doesn't hear that.  He's still working trying to strike a deal; he doesn't know what it means to cut his losses - that's how he got himself into a situation of owing a kagillion dollars.  What he hears is that he's actually bought himself some time.  He's just in a slump.  He just needs a little slack to work it all out.  Just a little more rope.  "I'm good for it," he says.

And just to prove how deluded he really is, immediately after being forgiven his kagillion dollar debt by his master he goes out and demands somebody else pay him back what is by comparison chump change.  I think he thought he could use that to turn everything around.  He could use it to hit a lick.  But when the other man didn't have it to pay back he ordered him to be punished.  He had the justice meted out on the other man that subconsciously he felt he still deserved.  This is called scapegoating. 

Let me tell you, none of us are good for it.  Until we come to terms with that we'll keep asking for more and more rope until finally we end up hanging ourselves.  Here's the truth - we gambled and we lost. We bet on the come.  We at the chicken fry before the chickens were hatched.  We're in debt so deeply that there's now way we'll ever pay it back.  

We have to see that and come to terms with it before we'll be ready to either accept our own forgiveness or give it to others.  We are sinners forgiven by the grace of God.  When we receive this grace then we find we have what we need to forgive others.