Daily lesson for September 30, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Luke chapter 5 verses 18 through 24:

18 And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, 19 but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. 20 And when he saw their faith, he said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” 21 And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 22 When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, “Why do you question in your hearts? 23 Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 24 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who was paralyzed—“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.”

I once heard Brian McLaren say that the mainstream religion of Jesus' day had become a kind of giant spiritual protection racket. Protection rackets work like this: say you open up a shop in a rough area of town and before too long a guy comes to you and says, "This is a rough neighborhood with lots of robberies and you really can't trust the police to protect you. But for a thousand bucks a month me and some of my boys will make sure this store never gets robbed. We guarantee it. But if you don't let us help you I guarantee your store will get robbed and you may end up getting hurt - bad." Of course, it's a scam. Who you really need protection from is the guy who has come to see you.

Sometimes religion really can be like that. It can be coercive and abusive and vulnerable people can fall victim to exploitation. They will pay whatever it takes to their church or priest in order to feel secure and protected from God's wrath. And, of course, their church and their priest profess to be the only arbiter's of God's forgiveness.

 Part of what made Jesus so many enemies among the religious caste was his rejection of the whole Temple religious cult protection racket. We see it in the story today. Men come bringing a paralyzed man to Jesus and seeing their faith Jesus tells the man his sins are forgiven. The religious scribes and Pharisees are incredulous. "What right does he have to offer forgiveness?" they ask. "He is not authorized to so so." But then Jesus heals the man, showing that He does indeed have the right to forgive sins. "Rise," he says.

There are some reading this who may be suffering under the exploitation of a spiritual protection racket. You desire to have your sins let go but somebody has told you have to go to church, tithe, walk the aisle, pay the priest, sleep with the priest, kill a chicken, or do anything else in order for it to happen. If that's you, hear this: You don't have to live in fear of God. You do not need protection from God. Your sins are forgiven.

Now rise and walk -- away from that system of exploitation and all the fear-based thinking that goes with it.

Daily Lesson for September 29, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Luke chapter 5 verses 3 through 7:

3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5 And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7 They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink.

Let's be honest -- when we good, Jesus-loving folks from one church think of the good, Jesus-loving folks at another church one word inevitably comes to mind: competition.

American Christianity has become a competitive business where churches are basically all fishing to beat out the church down the street in the quest to haul in the same folks -- every sea captain's and sailor's dream, those nymphlike beauties we call "young families".  

And on a day when conditions are so unfavorable, and the pond, and the number of nymphs in it seem to get ever smaller, we good, Jesus-loving church folk will resort to whatever bait or hook we can think of to beat out the competition. We strip down the altar, we take off our coats, we dim the lights, we mass-market, we buy our own bouncy house -- whatever it takes to pull in the nymphs. But at some point, it happens to all us good, Jesus-loving folks and our good, Jesus-loving churches -- we realize that the nymphs have quit biting.

The great irony is this -- that's actually the best place to be.  Ashore, washing nets, wondering if there's ever to be any fish caught again - I mean no longer dreaming of catching a sea nymph but wondering if you can catch anything. It's a point of exasperation and a point of desperation. And that is when we are ready -- when we are desperate enough to hear what this Jesus has to say and to listen to it: "Put out into the deep."

It seems that the future of the church in a season when the fish ain't biting and the nymphs have all moved on is to listen to Jesus again -- to push out, to unmoor ourselves and push way out beyond the shallows, out into the deep waters of study, and prayer, and deep, abiding friendship.

That's where the fish are, way out there. And if we dare to go out there, we will discover that it will be just as Jesus said, "The kingdom from heaven is like a large net thrown into the sea that gathered all kinds of fish." 

So many in fact, there will be no competition. We will yell for other boats to come and help. And words will come out of our mouths we never thought we'd say, "You can have all the nymphs you guys want," we'll say, "because our boat is already overloaded."

That really will be the Kingsom of God; but we've got to go a lot further out to get there. 

Daily Lesson for September 26, 2014

Today's daily lesson is from Acts chapter 19:

24 For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen. 25 These he gathered together, with the workmen in similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that from this business we have our wealth. 26 And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods. 27 And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may be counted as nothing."

Stop and think for just a moment how many commercials you saw during last night's game. Do you remember any of them, or did they slip in the back way through your subconscious?  

Or think about this, how many commercials did your kid see last night? I've seen reports that say a child sees on average 20,000 commercials a year. And we wonder why they keep asking us for more stuff.

There is a multi-billion dollar ad campaign aimed at keeping us all in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction. Powerful interests are at work trying to figure out how to get us to buy their stuff, use their products, purchase their experience, and find our identity in their brand name.

Now, think for a minute how counter-cultural contentment really is. Think how radical it really is to worship and find happiness in a God not made with human hands. In other words, think how good it is to be free.

And think how hard it is to stay that way.

Daily Lesson for September 25, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Luke chapter 4 verses 22 and 29:

"And all spoke well of him and marveled at jthe gracious words that were coming from his mouth . . . And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff."

Talk about whiplash.

Jesus went back to preach in his hometown synagogue and the congregation ate him up. He spoke about good news to the poor and release for captives and the congregation just ate him up.

But then in the second half of the sermon Jesus talked about how in the Scriptures there was a great famine and there were many widows throughout Israel but the prophet Elijah did not go to minister to any of them; instead Elijah went only to a widow from a foreign country. And then Jesus called attention to how though there were many lepers at a certain time in Israel none of them were cleansed; rather it was a leprous general from Israel's archenemy Syria who was healed.

After Jesus said these things the hometown crowd turned on Him, and those who had just been extolling Jesus' preaching were suddenly now leading him out of town to try to hurl him off a cliff.

It has often been said that the word of God comes to comfort the afflicted and also afflict the comfortable. That makes me think - if what we get on Sundays always comforts us and  leaves us shaking our heads yes, but never steps on our toes and make us question our prejudices and predilections, then we may be hearing only the first half of Jesus' sermon.

Daily Lesson for September 24, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Acts chapter 19:

 3 And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John's baptism.” 4 And Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus.” 

John the Baptist came baptizing on the banks of the Jordan with locusts in his teeth and hell, fire, and brimstone in his sermons. His was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. But when Jesus was baptized something spectacular happened; the Holy Spirit came and descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.

I don't know anybody whose baptism consisted of a bird swooping down upon them - definitely not in the inside the baptistery. But what happened to Jesus in a visible way needs to happen to all of us in a spiritual way. The Holy Spirit must be present and active in the new life our baptism signifies.

John's baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins is a great first step. We must all be convicted of our sin and seek repentance (literally meaning to "think differently) which leads us to finding forgiveness. But that really is only the first step; and it can be an incredibly frustrating experience if the new life we seek, symbolized by baptism, stops there. Feeling guilty, and trying to think differently do lead us to find forgiveness, but it really isn't enough to begin living differently - to find a truly new life, free from the bondage of sin. That can only happen through the power of the Holy Spirit.

AA is right; we are powerless without God. All the hell, fire, brimstone, and locust sermons, guilt-inducing altar calls, aisle walks, trying, trying again, never agains, and this time I mean its in the world won't get us there without the power of God. Repentance is good. It is a must.  But it won't get us there. Only God's spirit can get us there.

If you feel like you are stuck in John's baptism ask God to send the Holy Spirit into your life.  

Daily Lesson for September 23, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Luke chapter 3 verse 17:

17 His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to wgather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

John the Baptist compared what the coming of Christ does in us to the process of something called winnowing, which was the process of removing the dry, scaly protective casings of grain seeds.

In that time, after grains were harvested they were brought onto the threshing floor and a draught animal or sometimes children were used to tramp across the grain and thus dislodge it from its outer, protective husk. Afterward, the grain would be separated or "winnowed" from its husk by taking a pitchfork and throwing it up into the wind wherein the husks would be blown away from the heavier grain seed.

There is a natural, shell-like casing we all have around our souls which is designed to protect us from harm. This is what keeps us from being permanently damaged by rejection or abuse when young. It is what keeps children so resilient, even in the face of the cruelty of other children, the loss of a first love, and we constant parents' foibles. The outer husk protects their fragile souls. They are in a very real sense hidden inside a shell.

But the shell has a limitation. Hidden in the protective husk, the soul is safe, but it is also concealed. It cannot be fully known, nor can it be fully loved. Nor can it fully love. It is still in its shell. Many people - men and women - live their lives in the shell, hard and hardened to the world and unwilling to open themselves to truly love and be loved. Have you ever been around a crusty old person?

If it is to reach full maturation, the soul must at some point allow itself to be winnowed. In other words, it must open itself to the vulnerability required for knowing and loving others and being known and loved by them.

The chaff is blown away. What is left is the pure and unprotected soul - naked and vulnerable yes, but also pure and beautiful to behold.

Daily Lesson for September 22, 2014

Today's daily lesson is from Esther chapter 4 verse 14:

"And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” 

Esther was a Jewish girl who rose to become queen of Persia. Esther hid the fact that she was a Jew from her husband King Xerxes. But then, in a twist of fate set off by a villainous man, an order was given by King Xerxes that all the Jews in the kingdom should bow down and worship Xerxes lest they be killed. 

Just as the order was to be carried out, Esther's cousin sent word to her that she must speak to the king, reveal her Jewishness, and seek to have the order withdrawn. "Who knows," Mordecai said, "it may be for just such a time as this that you are here." 

Esther weighed the consequences. She knew that in going before the king she may well have been signing her own death certificate. But she decided to speak up anyway.
"I will go to the king," she said, "and if I perish, I perish.” She then went before the king and the Jews were spared.

There is a time to be silent; and there is a time to speak. When its time to speak, let us speak. If we perish, we perish.

Daily Lesson for September 19, 2014

Today's daily lesson is from Psalm 73 verses 21 thru 24:

"When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.
Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel."


I have friend who spent many years as a hospital chaplain ministering to the needs of the sick, dying, and grieving. Once we were talking about what his work was like and he said, "Chaplains soak up the world's hostility."

When we are hurt or bruised or in grief over the chaos and disappointment of life we often lash out toward those others - especially those who symbolize the holy. Having nowhere else to turn, we direct our hostility toward the priest or the chaplain or even the whole church. We become like wounded animals, hiding in the corner, hissing and snarling at anyone who would come near. As the psalmist says, we become like beasts, snapping in primordial response to our own wounded vulnerability.

When this happens relationships are usually lost. There is anger, there is finger pointing, people leave the church, Sunday school classes fall apart. Lifelong friendships end in bitter goodbyes. And everyone else - including the clergy - do their best to stay away, hiding, and seeking to avoid being collateral damage. That's understandable.

But a skilled clergyman or friend can do the opposite. He or she can come toward us in our pain, stand next to it, hold its hand, counsel it, and in so doing soak up its hostility.  In other words, he or she can do what God does which is to make atonement with us - "at-one-ment" with us - even in our enmity. 

If we can find that then blessed are we; if we can learn to be that then blessed is the world. 

Daily Lesson for September 18, 2014

Today's daily lesson is from Psalm 74 verse 19:

"Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beasts."

There is something pure and innocent and God-like within us all.  It is our "imago dei" or divine image. It is beautiful, holy, peaceful, joyfully childlike, loving, and willing to receive love.  It is the "heart of my own heart" we sing about, and the beauty of who we are without our hardened out shells which we hide under to protect us from our fears and anxieties about failure and hurt. It's image is the dove - the symbol of grace and purity.

The world seeks to devour our inner dove. It seeks to destroy that imago dei and turn us into its image - an image of harshness, brutality and dog eat dog worldliness. This is why the psalmist uses the image of the wild beast - because "its desire is to consume" us.

The task of the spiritual life is to live in this dog eat dove world without losing our souls. When we have learned to do that, we will have learned to live as Christ.

Daily lesson for September 17, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Job chapter 42 verse 13:

"[Job] also had seven sons and three daughters."

At the tail end of the book of Job, after all his suffering and misery, something happens that needs be remembered. Job has more children. After so much grave loss, including the loss of his older children, Job decides to risk bringing children into this harsh world yet once more.

2014 is a scary time. There have been wars for the past 10 years and there are rumors of wars now. Every time we get onto a plane we are reminded that evil men are plotting heinous schemes against the innocent. We know, above all things, that we are vulnerable. 

And yet, children will be born into this world this week. I have friends who will have their baby before the week is out. I have other friends who had theirs just two weeks ago.

It's a remarkable thing to go on bearing children in such anxious times, to go on having children though we know they will be vulnerable just like we.

It makes me think - what a stunning act of resistance against the dark powers and principalities of this world. To go on bearing children. To go on choosing life. To live!

Daily Lesson for September 16, 2014

Today's lesson is from Psalm 62 verses 9 and 10:

9 Those of low estate are but a breath;
those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
they are together lighter than a breath.
10 Put no trust in extortion;
set no vain hopes on robbery;
if riches increase, set not your heart on them.

I've been thinking recently of a line in Rudyard Kipling's poem "If":

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same"

Maybe it's Tech football that has me thinking such things - triumph (albeit a feeble triumph) two weeks ago, disaster this past Saturday. And the fair weather fans (we're all fair weather fans) behave in our predictable ways - lauding our coach for the greatest ALS Icebucket Challenge/Recruiting video ever (did Beyonce say yes?) and a month later pummeling him for putting image over action. Everything we love about him when we win we hate about him when we lose.

What if, really, we were to meet Triumph and Disaster and to treat them each one as the impostors they are? Placing them each on the scales of eternity we would not be able to judge the difference - each as the psalm says,  "lighter than a breath." Which would be more Kliff Kingsbury, Darrel Royal, or the world's worst Pop Warner league coach who doesn't know a thing about football but who said yes because the kids needed a coach and he said yes - not because he likes football but because the kids needed a coach? Which would weigh more the Fortune 500 CEO who made the most of the breaks he got or the single mother working nights to raise three kids who never got a break at all? Whose life would mean more Victory or Survival?

What if, really, we were to stop ranking and ordering and judging and sizing and summing up others by all the weighted standards of the world? What if we were to meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat them both alike - neither as good nor as bad as they appear, and altogether just a breath.

If we were to begin seeing the world this differently then no doubt the stands would be a lot emptier; but I bet our hearts would be much much fuller. 

Daily Lesson for September 15, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Acts chapter 15 verses 37 and 38:

37 Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. 38 But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.

There are some things in life you just can't live down in the eyes of others.

In the early days of the church Paul and Barnabas were doing missionary work and took with them Barnabas's younger cousin John Mark. At some point in the trip Mark left Paul and Barnabas for a reason which is now lost to history.

Whatever reason Mark had for leaving Paul obviously found it insufficient. At a later time Paul and Barnabas were setting out on another missionary journey and Barnabas wanted to give Mark a second chance but Paul was adamant that that was not to be. Paul and Barnabas disagreed so strongly that the two ended up parting ways.

All that to say, Mark had proven himself an untrustworthy companion to Paul the first time around, and Paul was not about to risk it a second time. Paul had already sized Mark up and found him lacking, which goes to show you don't get a second chance to make a first impression.

Oh, and by the way, later on Mark authored the first Gospel called the book of Mark. It is a brilliant account of Jesus' life and ministry and God has used it to change the lives of literally countless numbers of people.

Which goes to show you first impressions may be wrong - even when they're Saint Paul's.

Daily lesson for September 12, 2014

Today's daily lesson is from John chapter 11 verse 39:

Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” 

Many of us know someone we have thought at times we might as well give up on. They are on a collision course with spiritual and/physical death and there's no way in the world they are ever going to change.

The good news is we have a savior who has overcome the world -- and death also.

When Jesus came to the tomb of Lazarus he ordered that the stone covering Lazarus's tomb be rolled away. Lazarus's sister Mary protested because Lazarus had already been dead four days -- past the time when the spirit was said to have left the body. To Mary all hope for her brother was gone.

Yet Jesus would not allow Mary's grim presumptions to be the last word about Lazarus. Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” and then they rolled back the stone.

Saint Irenaeus said, "The glory of God is a human being fully alive." It is a person as good as dead, who is now suddenly and gloriously alive. It is a person dead in sin and grief who is suddenly a living, breathing, walking, and joyous sign of resurrection. 

There are people reading this with a Lazarus in mind. I say to you, don't count them out just yet. Because Jesus still has the power to make Lazarus rise. 

I don't just believe it; I've seen it. 

Daily Lesson for September 11, 2014

Today's daily lesson is a word from our nation's pastor, Billy Graham.

On the Thursday evening following the horrific events of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the Washington National Cathedral hosted a service of remembrance. Billy Graham spoke.

He talked about the mystery of evil and the age-old question as to why God allows it to exist. Then he spoke of God's sovereignty, and our conviction that one day, ultimately, evil will be swallowed up and justice will prevail in the world and the next. He said that day could be not only one of tragedy, but also hope insofar as it could be a moment of national unity, repentance, and turning toward God.

"God has told us in His Word, time after time, that we are to repent of our sins and we’re to turn to Him and He will bless us in a new way," he said.

As Graham came to the end of his sermon he spoke of the symbol of the Cross, of which there were many in the sanctuary of the Cathedral. "The Cross tells us that God understands our sin and our suffering," he said.

But then he went further, beyond the Cross and into the hope for resurrection.

"The story does not end with the Cross, for Easter points us beyond the tragedy of the Cross to the empty tomb that tells us that there is hope for eternal life, for Christ has conquered evil and death, and hell. Yes, there is hope. I’ve become an old man now and I’ve preached all over the world and the older I get the more I cling to that hope that I started with many years ago."

Then he finished by reciting lines from the hymn "How Firm a Foundation", which was a particularly poignant hymn selection in the aftermath Twin Towers' fall. These are the words he recited:

"Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed,

For I am thy God, and will give thee aid;

I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,

Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand."

Thank you, pastor.

Daily Post for September 10, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 119 verses 67, 71 and 72:

67 Before I was afflicted I went astray,
but now I keep your word.
71 It is good for me that I was afflicted,
that I might learn your statutes.
72 The law of your mouth is better to me
than thousands of gold and silver pieces.

Yesterday I talked with a friend from our church who has spent the last year battling cancer. Today her husband is going in for a surgery to remove an abnormal growth in the inner part of his brain. "I don't know about you," she said, "but I'm trusting in the LORD. There's nobody else to turn to."

Pain and suffering are difficult facts of life; but they are also the pathways through which we learn to place our trust in God.  Though I would not necessarily say God Himself sends suffering our way, certainly in His providential way God uses these things to draw us closer to His heart and take stock of our lives. As the psalmist said, "It is good that I was afflicted that I might learn your statutes."

On the night of Martin Luther King's assassination, Robert Kennedy gave an impromptu and emotional speech wherein he recited his favorite poem -- one which no doubt spoke to his own pain in having lost a loved one to an assassin's bullet. The poem was from the Greek tragedian Aeschylus:

"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

Inevitably there is the awful pain of suffering and affliction. But there is grace to be found there too.  And there is wisdom -- the wisdom that teaches us to trust in the LORD because, as my friend said, in the end there really is nobody else to turn to.

Daily Lesson for September 9, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from John chapter 10 verse 34:

Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?

One day, Jesus was put on trial by the religious establishment in Jerusalem over the fact that he called himself son of God. This was blasphemy to these folks. 

"We have one God," they said, "and one God only. And this Jesus, by saying he is son of God, profanes and dishonors  God's name."

 For that they then demanded that Jesus be stoned.

But Jesus' defense was precedence found in Scripture. "Wait just a minute," he said, "I'm not saying anything different from what the Bible says. Yes, I called myself son of God; but that doesn't mean blasphemy. The psalms actually go even farther than what I've said. The psalms say, ‘You are gods.’ I am no more guilty of blasphemy than the psalms are."

All that to say, we hear some pretty out there sounding stuff, but before we jump on the "ginst it" bandwagon, we really ought to be sure the Bible isn't actually for it.

Daily Lesson for September 8, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from John chapter 10 verse 27:

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me."

Who do you think the greatest preacher in the world is?  

I can think of some great preachers.  T.D. Jakes, with his mighty cannon of a voice.  Joel Olsteen, with his power of positive thinking. Then there's Barbara Brown Taylor,and her imaginative use of word pictures.

But when it comes down to the best, I agree with Fred Craddock. He says the best preacher in the world is the pastor - your pastor, whoever he or she is.

Your pastor knows you by name. When he speaks you know the sound if his voice. What she says comes out of a her life with you and the rest of the flock. When he opens up the Bible and squares on a text for Sunday, he thinks of you. When she walks into the pulpit to preach she preaches to you; she preaches for you.

Let me ask again, do you know who the greatest preacher in the world is? Let me ask another question, does he know who you are?

Daily Lesson for September 5, 2014

Today's lesson comes from John chapter 9 verses 40 and 41:

40 Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt;4 but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.

Socrates said, "As for me, all I know is that I know nothing."

That is a well remembered quote. Less well remembered is where he said it. The quote is recorded in Plato's Apology, which was an account of Socrates's defense against charges that he was corrupting the youth by not believing the conventional gods. Socrates was found guilty and sentenced to death -- killed by the blind piety of his age.

Jesus was killed by the same blindness. In fact, it was in naming that blindness that he earned his condemnation. When he said things like "You are blind guides of the blind," and "now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains," or  "take the log out of your own eye so you can see well enough to remove the splinter from your neighbor's eye," he cast shadows of doubt upon those who were said to have the light of knowledge. For that they killed him.

All of this makes me think greater humility is in order. As the Apostle Paul said, "We see through a glass darkly." What we know is partial and limited at best and there's just a lot we don't know. And we should never condemn those who pose questions and challenges to our conventional ways of thinking about God, the universe, our world, and what it means to be human.

As one of my teachers Tony Campolo likes to say, "I may be wrong." And I would hate to be so wrong in what I think is right that I end up condemning the next Socrates -- or Jesus. 

Daily Lesson for September 4, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 37 verses 1, 2 and 14, 15:

1 Fret not yourself because of evildoers;
be not venvious of wrongdoers!
2 For they will soon fade like the grass
and wither like the green herb.
14 The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows
to bring down the poor and needy,
to slay those whose way is upright;
15 their sword shall enter their own heart,
and their bows shall be broken.

These are anxious times for us in our world. There are wars and rumors of wars. Mothers send their children northward across our border to escape terror and exploitation. The Russian bear is on the prowl. Ghastly cruelty has been unleashed in Iraq and Syria.  Here at home we anesthetize ourselves with a new football season and rounds of golf while the church and the world fall apart. I am reminded of Yeats's words:

    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

If you are paying attention at all then you've got to be concerned. If you ever put a loved one on a plane to Israel or New York or even Burlington, VT then you probably are. If you are awake at all then you must know this is a dangerous world with great evils on the loose.

Today's lesson comes to remind us that though evils may have their day in the sun, their night always comes.  The weeds grow up with the wheat and some wheat is lost to the weeds; but the harvest is coming. A day of reckoning and right-making always comes. This is God's promise; evil  does not prevail.

Not long ago I ran across an old 1940s sermon by the great Baptist preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick. It was titled "God Talks to a Dictator".  The text was from Isaiah, "Ho Assyrian, my rod," which is what God said to the evil Assyrian empire which He used to chasten Israel for its injustice and idolatries before then subjecting it to the same fate of all evil empires. The context of course was the war with Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy and Tojo's Japan. The point was to say that like in the days of the Assyrian swarm, so too in the day of Nazi blitzkrieg; God allows evil to have its day in the sun, and uses that day to turn the hearts of God's people back toward Him and His just ways. But inevitably the sun goes down on all evil. "Ho Assyrian, my rod!"

The earth seems to be on the brink, rocking and reeling. The worst of men are full of passionate intensity. But we must not allow ourselves to be terrorized by them. For that is their aim - terror. Instead we must heed the words of the psalmist, "Fret not over evildoers . . . for they shall fade like the grass."

And they shall.

Daily Lesson for September 3, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 8 verse 48:

[They] answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”

There is a now infamous picture from a rally outside the Arkansas State Capitol protesting the integration of Central High School in Little Rock. There appear to be hundreds of white people in the crowd on the capitol steps. Two men are holding American flags and beside them others hold placards. One placard reads, "RACE MIXING IS COMMUNISM". Another placard says, "STOP THE RACE MIXING/MARCH OF THE ANTICHRIST".

There it is -- the most frequently employed and effective tool in casting aspersions upon the character of a person or movement. If you want to neutralize someone or some group there is nothing better than to call into question their patriotism and their godliness.  Say they don't love the country and they're of the devil.  It was done to Naboth, to Jeremiah, to Daniel, to Mordecai, to the Apostles, to Dietrich Bonhoffer, to Martin Luther King, Jr., and it was done to Jesus right there in today's lesson.

Be very suspicious when you're watching TV or reading Facebook posts and somebody calls into question someone else's patriotism and religion. People did the same thing to the prophets also.

Daily Lesson for September 2, 2014

Today's lesson comes from John chapter 8 verse 33:

33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”

Plato told the story of a dimly lit cave where men were imprisoned. Light from outside the cave made it possible for the men to see shadows on the wall, but nothing more. They could not see things as they really were. One day, one of the prisoners escaped the cave and came back to tell the other prisoners of the world outside. But they would not believe him. They were happy living in the dark.

The great philosophers and religious teachers come to bring us enlightenment. They come to show another way of living -- a life free from the addictions of our age. They come to show us a way different from the racism, materialism, and militarism which are now and always have been the ways of the world. They come to show us a way different from tribalism and vengeance. They come to unshackle us and set us free.

But we do not believe them. We cannot imagine what it would be like to live outside the cave. We have grown accustomed to being imprisoned in the cave.

Harriet Tubman said, "I set a thousand slaves free; and would have set free a thousand more if they had known they were slaves." 

In other words, the first step is always recognizing we have a problem. Without that step, we're happy to stay right where we are - imprisoned in darkness.

Daily Lesson for September 1, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Job chapter 11 verse 5:

"In the thought of one who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune;
it is ready for those whose feet slip."

When misfortune befalls another there is a natural human inclination to shun, avert eyes, and reject.  I have seen an antipathy bordering on hatred spew forth from some towards the poor.  I have seen it in me. We don't know their stories, or their circumstances, or what all was stacked against them; we don't even know their names. Yet we look upon them with scorn.  Added unto the plight of the misfortunate is villainy. And we who gaze upon them delight in a seething contempt.

The man in the gutter -- what if we knew his name?

What if we  knew his story? 

What if that man in the gutter was our friend or brother?

What if he is our savior?