Daily Lesson for January 30, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Mark chapter 6 verse 53:

"When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored to the shore."

Here is a curious little sentence that passes right by us if we aren't paying attention. After feeding the 5,000 Jesus sent the disciples in the boat on across the Sea of Galilee toward a place called Bethsaida, while he stayed and dismissed the crowds. He then spent several more hours alone in prayer before crossing the lake himself deep in the night -- on foot.  For hours the disciples had been struggling across the lake against an adverse wind.  When Jesus came to them he stilled the waves; but the boat had been so driven so off course that when they finally got to shore they had totally missed their original destination Bethsaida, and ended up at a place called Gennesaret.

I like that as a metaphor for life. We set off in some direction for some given destination but about half way across the lake life happened. We struggled with adverse and in some cases fierce winds. Sails ripped and our little dingy of a life was in danger of being sunk. It was then that our Lord came to us in the dark and calmed the winds. The dingy was saved!  But Bethsaida?  No, reaching Bethsaida is no longer possible -- not now anyway.  And it's here we have a choice.  We can hang our heads and mope about all that was stacked against us and spend all our days in despair over not getting to Bethsaida, or we can look at it another way; we can keep in perspective just how lucky we were to make it to Gennesaret -- just how lucky we were to make it anywhere!

We didn't make it to Bethsaida -- so what?  We made it to the shore of Gennesaret. By the grace of God, who came to us in the midnight of our struggle, we made it to Gennesaret. And the rest of the journey will depend on what we do here today in this place and no other.  

And the best news?  Instead of going on to Bethsaida, our Lord Himself has seen fit to stay with us here in Gennesaret also.  And that means some pretty interesting things are bound to happen right where we are.

Daily Lesson for January 29, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Mark chapter 6 verse 39:

"Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass."

The Bible is usually not heavy in descriptive detail.  As Tom Long says, the Bible does not say something like, "He zipped his brown, patent-leather briefcase, put on his yellow fedora and stepped out beneath the azure sky."  That's why when the Bible does give specific detail and color it's time to pay attention.  Today's lesson, the feeding of the 5,000, gives descriptive detail; understanding the detail helps us understand the story. 

When Jesus stepped out of the boat he saw the multitudes of people and "had compassion on them for they were like sheep without a shepherd."  Just before he went to feed them we are told he made them sit down on the green grass. The color of the grass is a small but curious detail. It's curious because Mark never gives descriptions like this and because, well, the grass is almost never green in Galilee.  It's like saying the grass was green in El Paso.

So what's up?

Think about it.  The sheep are in want, but the shepherd provides by first having them sit down in green pastures. Remember hearing something like that before?  "The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not be in want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures . . ."  It's the Twenty-third Psalm.

The lesson today is that Jesus sees us in our multitudes of hunger and helplessness and has compassion on us. He comes to feed and to care for us. He calms our spirits and eases our fears and sets a banquet table for us right in the middle of a dry and barren desert.  He is our Good Shepherd and he makes provision -- today on the green grass, and tomorrow beside still waters, and when the time comes even in the valley of the shadow of death. His goodness and mercy do indeed follow us all the days of our lives and we trust him that he knows the way that we might dwell in the house of the LORD forever. 

Daily Lesson for January 28, 2015

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

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.

Yesterday I got reacquainted with a friend from school who loves somewhere else in the country. A friend of a friend reintroduced us on Facebook. When we put it together that we knew each another, our mutual friend said that some time ago she had asked this long-lost friend if he knew me but he had said no. I told her that was because a he could not believe or even conceive that the guy he knew before had actually turned out to be a pastor. 

I am learning to give thanks for my story.  I am learning to give thanks for my journey -- not to revel or delight in it, but to see it for the way it has shaped me and to thank God for how God used it. As one contemporary song says, "God blessed the broken road . . ."

Maya Angelou, who passed away last year, has probably taught me more than anyone about just how important it is to be kind to one's own story. She wrote a book titled "Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now", and that book and all of the rest of her books bear witness to the healing power of the broken roads we have journeyed upon.  If we could all come to a place of no longer wishing for another journey, but rather accepting the one we have been on and embracing its blessedness there would be far less shame and guilt in our world and far more beauty.

So many of us live as Adam and Eve in the Garden, hiding ourselves because of guilt and shame. And it is a shame that so much of Western Christianity has taught us to be ashamed.  But the ultimate point of that Garden story was not to leave us hiding behind our stories of guilt and shame, but rather to tell how while in our stories of guilt and shame God comes to us -- with the grace that can turn brokenness into blessing. 


Perhaps Julian of Norwich put it best, "First the fall, then the redemption and both the grace of God."  

Our whole story -- nothing but the grace of God. 

Daily lesson for January 27, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Mark chapter 6 verse 5:

"And he could do no mighty work there."

After a powerful preaching and healing campaign throughout Galilee, Jesus has gone back to Nazareth.  But there, amidst his own people and in his own hometown Jesus could do no powerful miracle. 

I hope you can see the Gospel for your life in that: Jesus, the Messiah and Son of God, could do no miracle in his own home.

So many of us want so desperately to try to fix our families. Husbands and wives and sons and daughters or friends we love are lost or broken or screwed up and we are desperate to try to save them.  So desperate that we end up enabling them or pushing them further away or destroying everybody else -- including ourselves. We want so badly to work a miracle but the Gospel -- the Gospel -- says Jesus could work no mighty work.  

We must accept this. As the serenity prayer says, we must  "accept the things we cannot change".

But just because we cannot work a miracle does not mean we can do nothing. Note the Gospel says he could do no "strong" work at home. Sometimes it is not the big things, but the small things -- the writing of a letter, a place at the table, a ride to a first AA meeting, the holding of a hand.

Sometimes we just can't work a mighty miracle. But as Mother Theresa said, "We are not called to do great things, but small things with great love."  Sometimes the small things are enough. Sometimes they are not. We must learn to accept all of this, and receive it as the Gospel truth. 

Daily Lesson for January 26, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Paul's words to the church in Galatia found in Galatians chapter 1 verses 13 through 15:

13 For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. 14 And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.

Tradition.  Custom. Heritage. Way of life.  From his youth Paul was trained to respect and protect these things with zeal. And because Paul was one of the brightest students of his generation he was also all the more zealous in guarding these things -- even to the point of persecuting the church.  Paul had everything he knew about himself invested in his traditions and their preservation. His whole identity and sense of self was wrapped up in this. So what a struggle it must have been for Paul to begin to let go of these things and ultimately "consider them as rubbish" compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ and himself in Christ.

To know oneself in Christ is to know oneself as "before the foundations of time".  It means to begin to see oneself and one's core identity no longer in a particular race, clan, country, or club, but rather in what Paul Tillich called the "Ground of all Being-ness", which is God. In Christ, Paul discovered what it means to no longer live as "Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female" but as a human born from the ground of God's being.

Where do you find your ground of being?  Is it in your culture, its traditions, your people's way of life?  Are these the things you want to spend your life defending?  Or is there something deeper to be found -- something greater, something before and after, something eternal. 

In another letter Paul put it by saying, "Our citizenship is in heaven."  What he meant by this is that our ultimate identity is in heaven. When we think on what that is like and who we shall be when we get there then suddenly so much of what we thought was so important here and now begins to fade in the glory of what will be there and then. And suddenly we discover the meaning of the words from that old hymn, "And the things of this world will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace."

Daily Lesson for January 23, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Mark chapter 4 verses 37 through 41:

37 And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. 38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39 And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. 40 He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41 And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

What an incredible miracle in this Gospel story. Jesus stands boldly upon the bow of the ship with wind and waves battering the little vessel. And amidst this great and terrible storm he commands the waters and the waves to cease and there is peace and stillness. The imagery is that of Genesis 1 where the creation is formless and topsy turvy and waters cover the face of the deep, but God Himself speaks order into the chaos. The Gospel story then ends with a question, the disciples wondering if this Jesus might be God, for who else could command the waves and the waters to draw back.  What a miracle. 

Except, that's not the incredible miracle I'm talking about. The miracle I'm amazed with is not the one Jesus performed from the bow of this. The miracle which most amazes me the one he did just before, while still in the stern. How in the world, I wonder, was he able to sleep during that storm?  How, while the boat was being rocked and ravaged, was the little Lord Jesus still able to lay down his sweet head?

To take control of what is happening is one thing. To take command and speak authority and abate all wind and waves and chaotic forces --  it's impressive, no doubt.  It's the power of God indeed.  But to sleep, to rest so peacefully and without fear, even while the forces of chaos are turning your little dingy of a boat or a life every which way -- that is quite another. This is the power, not so much of God, but of a man who absolutely trusts in God.  It is the power and strength of a man who, though facing certain death from a perfect storm of all that life can throw at him, does not call upon God to calm the storm, but instead calms himself and prays to his God, "Into your hands I commit my spirit."

The Gospel story ends in questions. We have the question of the disciples wondering who this man with such power is. But that's not really what we are meant to ponder. That's the disciples' question. We are meant to ponder Jesus' questions. "Why are you afraid?" and "Where is your faith?"  See, Jesus knows that if we can figure out why it is that we are afraid and where it is what or who it is that our faith is ultimately in, then we will begin to have the peace which allows us to be at rest in any storm -- even those we cannot or should not drive back.

Storms come. They are intent to rock our little boats. And what a miracle it is to be able to drive back the storms with a commanding word from the bow. But with the storms beating away outside, what an even greater miracle it is to be serenely at peace and at rest and without fear  inside the stern.

Daily Lesson for January 22, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Isaiah 45 verses 9b and 10:

Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’
or ‘Your work has no handles’?
10 Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’
or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor?’”

Do me and yourself a favor. Relax for a minute or two. Set your phone down. Close your eyes -- not yet!  After this paragraph, close your eyes and just try to relax. Let your fingers go lose breath deeply, and just think on the word, "Be".  Okay, see you in a couple of minutes!

In my office I have a poem by e.e. cummings titled, "Just Be".  It is reminder to me that by God's creativity I am who I am and it is good, and beautiful, and blessed, and that I should give a gift to myself and see it all as such.

That requires acceptance and love of myself. It means loving and accepting my race, my hair color and texture, my skin tone, my size, my shape, my sex, my sexual orientation, my gifts, my graces and my disgraces.  It means accepting and  loving who I am and being okay with who I'm not.  It means playing my part in the great symphony of life with joy and delight and not quibbling with God over why I gotta be a woodwind rather than brass.  Accepting and loving myself and my part means playing the smoothest woodwind music I can possibly play while at the same time delighting in the music of others.

Dr. King used to preach a now famous sermon commonly known as the "Street Sweeper Speech".  In it he said, ‘‘If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michaelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say,   ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’”

Whether we're created to be a street sweeper or a the next Michaelangelo really doesn't matter. What matters is that whatever we were created and gifted to be, we be it.  And we don't try to be or wish we were anybody else.  

God delights in who we are; we should too.

Daily Lesson for January 21, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Ephesians chapter 4 verse 4:

"Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving."

I love dirty jokes. You probably weren't expecting to hear that from a pastor but it's absolutely the truth. I don't mean raunchy jokes, but something clever and just a tad but illicit will make me roll on the floor and howl.

That's probably why I've always hated today's lesson so much. It's from Paul's letter to the Ephesians and it seems so, well, Paul-like.  "No filthiness."  "No foolish talk."  "No crudeness."  No fun!  I mean, relax Paul; have a little fun. Remember we're saved by grace.

That's what I used to think -- alright still sort of think. But last night something happened that made this morning's lesson feel different. Last night a good friend from church came over. I love this guy and we have fun together -- a lot of fun together. We've got the same bawdy sense of humor and in times past when he's been over my living room has been anything but the holy of holies.

But last night was different. There weren't any risqué or off-color jokes.  Nothing at all that I would be embarrassed about if my mother heard a recording of it. Instead, what we talked about was the meaning of our friendship, other friends we see growing in Christ, and our gratefulness for our church.  At the end of the night we stood out on my front porch and hugged, patted each other on the back, and told each other, "I love you."

And maybe that's why what Paul said so much jumped off the page at me this morning. Because for the first time ever in reading this part of Ephesians, I noticed that Paul doesn't just say,  "No filthiness."  "No foolish talk."  "No crudeness."  He says something also.  He says, "Give thanks."

I've always read this scripture as a moral lesson. But it's not a moral lesson. It's a lesson on friendship. Paul is telling the Ephesians that the world is full enough of crude, bawdy and superficial friendships, where we men use humor like a skunk uses its spray -- because we're afraid of anyone getting close.  Most so-called friendships are like that. But Paul is pointing to a more excellent way. He is pointing to a way of friendship that is truly countercultural because it dares to openhearted and deep. In other words, Paul is telling the Ephesians that when they are together they can have nights like I had last night all the time.

I'm not sure I'm ready to do away with all my bawdy humor. When I get together with friends in the living room I'm still probably going to say a few things that's aren't quite fit for Sunday's pulpit. But this morning I know that whatever unwholesomeness might come out of my mouth comes at the expense of something much, much greater.  And last night, I experienced the greater. 

Daily Lesson for January 20, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Ephesians chapter 4 verses 25 through 27:

25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil.

"Mind the Gap."

Anyone who has ever been to England knows what "Mind the Gap," means.  It's a warning sign on all the British train platforms reminding riders to watch out for the gap between the platform and the train. Though just a small space, it can also be a deadly one.

Minding the gap in our relationships is also important.

Relationships inevitably hurt and disappoint us. As Fred Buechner says in his novel "Godric": "What is friendship after all but the giving and receiving of wounds." But too often we allow our wounds to fester without address. The wound grows larger and larger and pretty soon a poison begins to set in. What started off as a small wound becomes a gaping one.

What is necessary to prevent this is to mind the gap.  When someone hurts or disappoints us we need to find the courage to say so quickly and lovingly.  We can be angry; that's just part of life. But what we should not do is allow our anger to fester and grow.  We need to speak it in love. As the lesson says, "Be angry; but do not sin."

So many relationship problems get out of hand because they aren't addressed early on. Over time small things become big ones. Somebody is hurt by somebody else's words or lack of attention yet says nothing; and before long a friendship is lost.  Expectations to unmet at work and down the road a performance problem becomes a personnel issue.  The sun goes down on a marriage over and over again without one spouse ever telling the other how she or he feels and "suddenly" divorce papers are filed.  

This is the way the enemy seeks to destroy families, churches, communities, and souls. He loves to do it.  But there is something we can do to stop this. It takes courage, but we can do it.  We really can, and should:

"Mind the Gap."

Daily Lesson for January 19, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 25 verse 11:

"For your name's sake, O Lord,
pardon my guilt, for it is great."

The first truths are always the simplest and the most profound, and what we must learn and learn deeper over the course of our lifetime. 

Here is the first truth; we are loved because God is love and we are forgiven because God is a god of grace.

There is nothing we can do to earn grace. The theologians used to say grace is "unmerited favor".  It is never deserved but freely given out of the gracious character of God.

How freeing that is!  

Somewhere in the back of our minds so many of us, even though we might say we believe in grace, still have this nagging sense that if we really were forgiven we would do more of what we know God wants us to do and less of what He doesn't (Romans 7:15). That is ultimately a prescription for depression and despair. It is also very ego-driven. To think that God would not love or forgive us just where we are and as we are is to put ourselves in His judgement seat.  It's all about us!

But God's love and forgiveness really isn't about us.  It is about God and His unmerited gifts to us. We are loved and forgiven not because of who we are but because of who He is. 

"For your name's sake," the psalmist asks, "forgive my sins."  It is for God's sake that we are pardonable and for God's sake that we are pardoned, and once that really gets into the depths of our being we finally understand that though our sins be great, our God is so much greater.

And finally we vacate our judgement seat, and allow Him to assume it as His seat of mercy.

Daily Lesson for January 16, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Mark chapter 2 verses 20 through 22:

 20 The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. 21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”

In the first church I pastored there were some old timers who were born in the early decades of the 1900s who when speaking about going to church called it, "Sunday go to meetin'".  The language sounded archaic, but was formed by strong theological conviction. They did not go to church because the church was not a building. The church was the people. The church went to the meeting house on Sundays - "Sunday go to meetin'".

Those old timers knew something that we would do well to understand today: There is a difference in form and substance; and if the form changed or was destroyed or had to be left behind the substance would still be there. 

We are mighty comfy with our forms. Jesus said that's why we can't give up an old coat - because its so comfy.  It conforms to us and we conform to it. And the same thing happens with our pew, and our practices, and our ways of thinking.

But at some point in life we are all called to get out of our comfort zones, to take off our old coats, to leave the old meeting house, and to begin to think anew. This is the literal meaning of the Greek word for "repentance".  "Metanoia" literally means to "think again".

To be eternally bound to old forms is to be stuck in the past and stagnant in the future. Preservation of the form becomes the end all be all. So rituals become unintelligible, structures inevitable, church buildings museums - devoid of the real church, people.

The church has to be ready to think anew when it goes to meetin'.  We have to be ready for the new thing God is doing, and open ourselves to new forms for it to be done.

For as Jesus said, "New wine cannot be poured into old wineskins because the old skins will break and both the skins and the wine be lost."

Busting an old wineskin can be irksome and exasperating; but it is not a tragedy. The real tragedy is doing everything we can to preserve the old wineskin but having nothing of substance worth serving. 

Daily Lesson for January 15, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Mark chapter 2 verses 3 through 7:

3 And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. 4 And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. 5 And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” 6 Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, 7 “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Yesterday I read that some church in Colorado called off a woman's funeral just minutes before it was to take place. My initial reaction was to shake my head in absolute wonderment at the insensitivity of religious people. We all know most Christian churches do not allow gays to be married; but not buried also?

On the other hand, as a pastor I can actually say I have been put into plenty of awkward positions at funerals and they usually involve poor communication between the church, the family, and the funeral home.  The undertaker has become the "funeral director" and it creates a lot of confusion about whose in charge -- especially when the pastor still sees fit to direct the funeral. That was the case in Colorado apparently where there was some dispute over the propriety of a video to be shown at the funeral. My guess is the funeral home did the video but didn't ok it with the church. When right before the service, somebody from the church finally saw the video somebody said, "Ah, Houston we have a problem."

The whole story makes me sad.  It makes me wonder if the young lady who died had any association with the church or the pastor. It arouses all kinds of complicated feelings I have about funeral directors and what is appropriate or inappropriate at a funeral.  And, it makes me wonder if the deceased did not have a relationship with the church, which is obviously pretty conservative, and suddenly minutes before the service the pastor sees the video might whether he (I am assuming it was a he) might not have felt like his own job could have been at risk in going forward. There are people protesting the church but I confess I feel for it and the pastor.

Yet then again, I read today's lesson. It is about a person who was kept out of what was essentially a church because they were paralyzed.  And in those days, people just assumed one was paralyzed because one was a sinner. (Today a lot of people still assume people are gay because they are sinners.)  And here come four men, carrying their friend in like pallbearers a might carry a casket.  Only, they do it through the roof, lowering him down from the ceiling.  Talk about impropriety, disruption, and things not necessarily going as planned. 

And Jesus does the very opposite of what they did in Colorado. Jesus sees their faith and he takes a risk and not hearing even a word from the paralytic he looks down and says, "Your sins are forgiven you."

And that's about when the religious folks started plotting against him. 

To me, it takes a lot of faith for a gay person -- dead or alive -- to come to church. And in some cases it takes a lot of faith to welcome them because there are still a lot of religious folks who are against it. 

But I have just one question, can we really imagine Jesus telling the the pallbearers to stop?  Can we not much more imagine him seeing their faith and saying the words we all need to hear, "Your sins are forgiven."

It would cost Jesus everything to say that -- to speak words of grace and welcome in what was otherwise a house of judgment and exclusion.  And everyone of us should pause and thank him that no matter the cost, he decided to speak it anyway.

Daily Lesson for January 14, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Mark chapter 1 verses 35 through 38:

35 And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. 36 And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, 37 and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” 38 And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.”

Sometimes what Jesus chose not to do amazes me more than what he did.

In the small village of Capernaum Jesus was up into the wee hours of the night healing the diseased and casting out demons. The next morning even more people came for healing, but Jesus had slipped away early in the morning while it was still dark. He went out alone to pray and when the disciples finally found him and told him about all the people who needed healing Jesus refused to go back.  "Let's go to the other towns," he said, "that I what I am supposed to do."

The tyranny of the urgent drives what we do so much that it often keeps us from what we are supposed to be doing. It's all good work, and it's the work we were called to yesterday.  But it's not necessarily the work we are supposed to be doing today. Yet it's so hard to give it up.  To give it up and to let it go risks disappointing others.  And disappointment means disapproval; and disapproval is the last thing most of us willing to accept.  That's especially true for us pastors, who Stanley Hauerwas once called "quivering masses of availability"; but really it's true for a whole lot of us clergy and lay people alike. We need to be needed; it's a part of our God complex.

Yet we see, the Son of God had no such complex. Early in the morning Jesus slipped away from the people to be with God. And there he gained the insight to see the need to be needed for what it really was -- a temptation.  And there too, through prayer and meditation, Jesus found the courage to resist. Jesus was most definitely not all things to all people; but he was what he was called to be.  And that's what made him faithful.

The tyranny of the urgent will soon be upon us. A thousand needs will soon be at our doors. Would we dare to risk the disappointment and disapproval of others to take time out to be with God and find out if the things we were about yesterday are really what we are supposed to be about today?  And if they aren't, would we dare to answer the call to go on to other towns?

Daily Lesson for January 13, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 11 verses 1 through 4:

In the Lord I take refuge;
how can you say to my soul,
“Flee like a bird to your mountain,
2 for behold, the wicked bend the bow;
they have fitted their arrow to the string
to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;
3 if the foundations are destroyed,
what can the righteous do?”

4 The Lord is in his holy temple;
the Lord's throne is in heaven;
his eyes see . . .

In a world whose heart has turned in upon itself because of terror,
Where shuttering ourselves and sloughing our freedoms
Seem so necessary,
When running away from our foundations 
Is now the responsible thing to do,
There is still yet another option -- 
That is to remind each other:
The Lord is in His Temple.

Daily Lesson for January 12, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 4 verse 8:

"In peace I will both lie down and sleep;
for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."

A week ago I was asked by someone about my fears for the church.  "What beyond your control keeps you up at night?"  I am sure it was surprise when I answered quite quickly, "Nothing."  In fact, it seemed such a surprise and so almost a dismissal of the question that then I felt badly and tried to think of something that should keep me up worrying.

Worry and anxiety define our time. To not lose sleep with worry is an act of counter-cultural resistance; and resistance takes courage and a strong will.  Inevitably the refusal of worry ends in charges of naïveté and irresponsibility.  That says more about the anxieties of the accusers than it does the accused.  This is the truth in T.S. Eliot's poetic line, “In a world of fugitives, the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away.”

Going the opposite way against worry will be to appear to run away.  That is because it is an affront to the anxiety of the age. It puts us at odds with our neighbors and indeed the whole world.  But being at odds with the world ought to be a matter of course for people of faith.  As Flannery O'Connor said, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd."

We do know the truth. The truth is not a sparrow falls to the ground without God watching over it. We are far more precious than many sparrows. And therefore God watches over us. We trust God to watch over us.  And so even in a world full of many things to worry over, we -- the self-entrusted, can sleep.

And if that makes us odd in his world then so be it. 

1.10.15:

After a week of darkness, terror, and darkness in the world, we begin again tomorrow with the first day. And the Old Testament reading is from Genesis 1, the first day of the first week when God brought chaos into order and light into darkness:

1:2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.

The wind of God is still moving over the chaos; and His light still has the power to cast out darkness.

Twitterfied:

1.10.2015: earth: formless void, darkness covering the deep, Godwind sweeps over the waters. God: "Let there be light"; and there is light

Daily Lesson for January 9, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from John chapter 5 verses 

2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.  In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed 4for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred the water: whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was healed of whatever disease he had. 5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

It is one of the most powerful and penetrating statements in all of the Bible; and it comes as a question:

"Do you want to be healed?"

For 38 years the man had been lying there amongst the other invalids and lame in Jerusalem, all said to be waiting on the waters to be stirred up so that they might be healed. And for the better part of four decades this one man had found no way into the healing pool.

And then Jesus came and had the audacity to ask, "Do you want to be healed?"

I'm sure someone in the crowd of onlookers was offended. I myself might have been offended myself.  "The gall -- how dare he be so insensitive? Can't he see this man is paralyzed?  Can't he see that he needs help?"  Yes, but Jesus sees more. He sees the man is paralyzed and he sees that he needs help.  But more deeply he sees that the paralyzed man needs help helping himself.  "Get up," he says, "take your mat . . . And walk."

There are still so many in our world today lying beside the pool at Bethesda.  They are there waiting on the angel to stir up the waters and for somebody to place them into the pool.  But some have been waiting too long. Some say they will just be there forever -- waiting on a miracle.

But perhaps the miracle they need most is neither an angel to stir the pool, nor a care provider to lower them down into it, but instead someone with the audacity -- the boldly-truthful and surprisingly-loving audacity -- to ask point blankly, "Do you want to be healed?"  In other words, what they most need is for someone to see them as more than a helpless invalid, but rather someone capable of getting up off their mat -- even after 38 years. 

A thought occurs. Perhaps when we imagine what happened we imagine what mostly happens on Facebook - people angrily yelling at another group of people to get off their arse.  "Do you even want to be made well!!!!?". But perhaps it was not like that at all. Perhaps there was such a generosity in Jesus' eyes and spirit that the hard-edged, gall of his word came like a necessary and even desired medicine - bitter tasting, but yet tolerable and able to be swallowed. "Do you want to be made well . . . Rise, walk."  What if what Jesus said came as the Bible says he himself came: "full of grace and truth".

Daily Lesson for January 8, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 112 verses 6 through 8:

6 For the righteous will never be moved;
he will be remembered forever.
7 He is not afraid of bad news;
his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.
8 His heart is steady; he will not be afraid.

The bad news in life is we can't escape bad news. 

We pray against it, get checkups to prevent it, insure ourselves from it, and generally worry ourselves sick over it.  But in the end, life inevitably deals us a bad hand -- and sometimes a tragic hand.

The one who has come to trust God does not trust God to protect him or her from bad news befalling them. The one who has come to truly trust God trusts God though bad news will surely come.  The one who trusts God does not trust God to protect him or her from the storm, but rather trusts that though the storm be mighty and its power absolutely devastating, God will somehow be their strength and consolation.  By the deep strength of the soul, the one who trusts in God does not fear losing all, because God is all and in all and will ultimately be all. This is our great hope, and consolation, and the promise which can get us through anything -- absolutely anything.

There is an old and beautiful hymn "It Is Well with My Soul", the words of which were written by Horatio Spafford after great tragedy befell his family.

Hear the words and take heart:

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Refrain:
It is well, (it is well),
With my soul, (with my soul)
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

The bad news is bad news will come our way.  It may rock and reel and shake our very foundations. Yet the good news is in the deepest part of our souls it can still be well.

Daily lesson for January 7, 2015

Today's daily lesson is from John chapter 2 verses 6 and 7:

6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.”

They ran out of wine.

So Jesus took the holy water reserved for religious purification and he turned it into wine. 

Six huge jars of it. 

That's 180 gallons of wine. 

And -- it was the good stuff. 

This really is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.*

And I wonder if he isn't trying to teach us something about the way life ought to be lived.


*For this liturgical insight I am grateful to my friend Z Allen Abbott

Daily lesson for Epiphany, January 6, 2015

Today's daily lesson for Epiphany, January 6, 2015 comes from Matthew chapter 2:

"When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was."

Today in the liturgical life of the church is Epiphany, the day we commemorate when the Magi saw and followed the star to worship the Christ child.  It is a story we've heard since childhood. And we think we are so familiar with it that we basically just rush right through it to hasten the travelers on to Bethlehem. But in doing so, we miss something very important, yet easily overlooked -- somewhere along the way these Magi travelers lost the star.

It's true; it was there in its rising in the East, but at some point it just vanished. It appeared (that's what Epiphany means, "appearing"), but then it somehow disappeared. That's not to say it was no longer there in the sky; but for whatever reason it was no longer apparent to those who had set out to follow it.

By tradition we call these travelers from the east "wise men"; and indeed they must have been wise or at least learned to have observed the star's appearance in the first place. But I think I am most struck, not by their wisdom, but by their courage. Having set out after a certain celestial object and then having lost it, they were courageous enough to keep walking. Into the dark and without any real certainty of destination, step by step they kept going.

When the star is gone,
And we've lost our way,
And we aren't really sure where it was we were headed in the first place,
And yet we find the courage to keep going
That's when the real Epiphany happens -- in, and not above, us.

Daily lesson for January 5, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from John chapter 15 verse 2:

"Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit."

We're now five days into the 2015 and by now barely hanging on to our New Years resolutions.  Maybe those resolutions are so difficult to keep because we tack them on to an already overloaded, and overburdened schedule. New Years resolutions are always about starting new things; rarely, if ever, are they about stopping old ones.  And that's pretty much killing us.

Today the daily office gives us an image of stopping things.  It is the image of a vine dresser going out into the vineyard and pruning back the vines.

We don't like pruning. It is always painful.   involves honest evaluation of what has the potential to flourish and what is just wasting resources. Inevitably, and by necessity, pruning involves loss.

Just like a gardener prunes in the winter, this is a good time for pruning in our own lives. The holidays are over, and we've already realized our New Years resolutions cannot just be squeezed into all the other things we've got going on. Something has got to give. Something must be pruned.

So here's some questions that will help us evaluate and make the hard, but necessary cuts which must be made:

1. What's flourishing in our lives and what -- if we're honest -- is pretty meager?

2. A tougher question, what's looking pretty good as a bud by itself but then doesn't seem to look or feel right with the whole of our lives and may actually be of detriment to my long term well being in terms of energy and direction?

3.  Who do I know who can help me look honestly at all this and help me make the cut(s)?  A close friend or counselor can sometimes help.

4. Can I begin to see quality as a greater mark of beauty and health than quantity?

5. Can I begin to see pruning as a positive, regular and necessary practice toward wholistic living rather than as a negative sign of failure?

There is a time and season for everything, the Bible says. Now may be the season for pruning. Think about it. 

Daily Lesson for January 2, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Hebrews chapter 11 verses 1 through 3:

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible."

I once heard Desmond Tutu give a talk and say that he is not an optimist. That was surprising, but then he explained. The word "optimism" comes from the Greek word "optos" which means "to see".  It's the same root of he word "optic".  Optimism, Tutu explained, depends upon seeing. Optimists see the glass as half full. But sometimes we have to believe without seeing at all.  During the dark days of Apartheid, with pass laws restricting work, travel, and residence, black South Africans had nothing to be optimistic about.  But Tutu was not an optimist. Rather, he was a man of faith - which is the conviction of things hoped for yet not see.  Tutu had faith that though he could not see it, what he was hoping for in South Africa really could happen -- his beloved country could be changed.

It is a new year; and we really shouldn't be so optimistic about it!  We should go beyond optimism -- beyond what we can merely see.  For the best things God will do in 2015 can't be seen yet at all; they can only be faithfully hoped for. And the God who made what is seen out of what is not seen will make what we hope for by faith a visible reality also.

Daily Lesson for January 1, 2015

Today's daily lesson for January 1st is from Luke chapter 2 verse 21:

"After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb."

Today is New Year's Day in the Gregorian civil calendar, and in the liturgical calendar the Feast of the Holy Name, a day which commemorates when by custom Jesus was circumcised and named on the eighth day after his birth.

The eighth day is always a day for new beginnings. There are seven days in the week beginning with Sunday and so a new week always begins on the eighth day, the next Sunday. A whole new creation Christians believe occurred then on the eighth day, the day of resurrection Easter Sunday. So it is fitting that a new year begin on the eighth day after Jesus' birth. It is a day for new things beginning. 

January 1 is a day for new beginnings. 2014 is over and done with; 2015 is just beginning. We need not dwell on what was done or left undone in 2014 which gives us grief. Instead, we should look ahead toward what we might still be able to do and be in the new year. "The old has passed away, and see the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Today is the eighth day, which is the first day, the day of renewal. And that means it is a great day to start again.

Happy New Year.