Daily Lesson for April 30, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Luke chapter 6 verse 45:

"The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks."

If we want to know what is in our hearts we need only listen to our words; for it is out of the heart that our words are spoken. 

If we speak words of blessing and peace and encouragement to others then we are at that moment living and drawing from the fullness of our own hearts. In fact, this is what the word "encouragement" means -- to "enhearten" another. When we speak words of encouragement and love we always speak them from the fullness of our own hearts. 

At the same time, when we speak words of discouragement, belittling, and anger these too come forth from within our own hearts. When we come home and scream at the kids or our spouse or the dog, it is not the kids, spouse, or dog who has made us angry. Anger existed inside us before we ever made it home; it was just looking for a self-justification for erupting. 

Yesterday I spoke harshly to one of my sons, "You are really frustrating me right now."  That was not a true statement. The truth is I was frustrated; and I spoke out of my own frustration. To blame him for my frustration was an abdication of my own personal responsibility for myself and an act of self-deception. The unconscious mind is a master at this. 

In the same context of this teaching Jesus also said, "First remove the log from your own eye so that you can see clearly how to remove the speck from your neigh it's eye." When we rebuke others in anger and frustration and any other spirit other than that of peace and love then we can bet we are examining their specks in their eyes, but the log is in our own. 

What is going on in our hearts?  We can tell in the substance and tone of our words. For out of the abundance of our heart, our mouths speak. 

Daily Lesson for April 29, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Luke 6 verses 37 and 38:

37 “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; 38 give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”

Surely the saying is true that we reap what we sow.

There is a cosmic energy in the world which returns to us that which we give out. Buddhists and Hindus call it "karma"; but it is a part of the spiritual teachings of all major religions and deeply a part of the Christian understanding of the mystery of the universe.

What we release into the world -- whether bad or good, beautiful or ugly, life-giving or life-depleting - returns to us. When we act with kindness kindness finds us. When we enter a room and say, "Peace to you," peace is returned to our spirits. When we act generously and loving, blessings of generosity and love find us. As Jesus said, "a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap."

It's true with bad measures also. When we release energies of negativity and hostility then they come back to us as well. This is why depression is so dangerous; because a dispirited heart fuels itself and consumes the soul. It is also why suspicion and mistrust are so self-fulfilling. Judgment, condemnation, and contempt have a way of blowing up in our faces. As my grandfather would say, "Our chickens always come home to roost."

Our nation and world so needs peace now. Peace begins in the heart of peaceful people. So let us today put off negativity and provocation and incitement, and seek to be peaceful people. And as the Apostle Paul said, "[W]hatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy" let us "think on these things."

Let us think on these things indeed; and in thinking them also become them. 

Daily Lesson for April 28, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Matthew chapter 24 verse 12:

"And because of an increase in lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold."

For decades we are pushed up against the wall, stopped cold in our tracks of progress and frisked for whatever reason, and the increasing sense that those sworn to serve and protect us are in fact against us, and our love grows cold. 

We wait and we watch and we trust justice to be done by 12 jurors of sound mind in a town we never heard of called Ferguson; but when the verdict is reached and there is no indictment a city erupts in violence and anarchy, and watching at home we we fear for the future of our country and our love grows cold.

We watch as our brother is gunned down from behind, shot five times in the back as he ran away, and when we watch it and see the ugly truth that it was an officer of the law who pulled the trigger our love grows cold.

In Baltimore -- a city everybody's heard of -- a man is taken into police custody alive and comes out dead, and the full knowledge that this could happen to any one of our sons -- is happening to our sons -- and our love grows cold.

The city's streets burn, cars smolder, police officers are wounded, and the talk of needing to give space to rioters makes us wonder if we have descended into a place of absolute lawlessness, and our hearts grow cold.

LORD, may we find within us the warmth of love once more. May we love ourselves , our neighbors, our communities, and even our enemies enough to work together for nonviolent redemptive change.  May we love enough to listen to and not dismiss the hurt and anguish hidden in the broken glass of riots.

Warm our hearts O God, Father and Mother of us all, so we might know the truth of Dr. King's words : that we "must learn to live together as brothers and sisters lest we perish together as fools." Warm us in the darkest and coldest places of our hearts that we live also the truth of St. Paul's words: that "where lawlessness abounds grace must abound even more."

Daily lesson for April 27, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Luke chapter 6 verses 9 through 11:

 9 And Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 And after looking around at them all he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” And he did so, and his hand was restored. 11 But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.

How in the name of keeping holy can we become so unholy?  How in the name of God can we become so unlike God?

Jesus healed on the sabbath and there was conflict over keeping the sabbath holy; yet those who took offense went out back and plotted to get rid of him. We do the same today. On a small scale someone brings a coffee cup into the sanctuary; and a member of the worship commission seethes with anger over the disrespect. But which has profaned the sanctuary more, the coffee or the anger?  Or in a more global context, a murderous war of jihad is waged in order to protect the name of God against some satirical cartoonists. But the murders do more to desecrate the name of God than did the cartoonists. 

It makes me wonder if maybe what gets offended in us isn't really our sense of holiness, but rather our desire for control and for domination. That seems to be what Jesus unmasked when after he did something good and life-affirming on the sabbath the sabbath keepers went out and plotted to do something dastardly and deathly.

Keep the sabbath holy. Do not take the name of the LORD in vain. Don't bring coffee into the sanctuary. Sure. But also, watch your holy indignation for it may not be as holy as you think. 

Daily lesson for April 24, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 105 verse 41:

"He opened the rock, and water gushed out;
it flowed through the desert like a river."

Within each human soul there is a rock, that when struck has within itself a great rush of living water which is human flourishing.  In various religious traditions the water within has been called "charisma" or "awakening" or "enlightenment" or "the Spirit of God".  It gushes forth, slaking our deepest thirsts and spilling out to water not only ourselves but also both the people and the place around us.  It is the water of pure joy. And the rock where the water is found is the Christ (1 Cor 10:4) -- eternal, universal, and waiting to be tapped in every human being.

The unleashing of the water in the rock cannot be manufactured. We cannot drill for it.  We cannot discover it. In some sense it must discover us. It must be revealed as to where it is. As the LORD said to Moses, "Strike the rock."  Before that moment, the rock looked just like all other rocks -- massively solid and impenetrable.  But once revealed, the rock is discovered to be the capstone entryway to life abundant. We cannot find this rock ourselves; we do not need to find this rock ourselves. All we need to do is trust that it is present and that when we are thirsty enough (that is to say, ready) its capstone will be revealed and its water will gush forth.  This may happen while reading a book, or hearing a sermon, or being struck suddenly by some new insight.  But once found, then suddenly it is seen that every rock around us. (that is, each human soul) has the same hidden water within.

Once opened, the rock's water is a constant source of life. It spills forth and turns a desert into a fertile field and makes what once was a wilderness blossom with love and beauty. It is a blessing to all around. It is living water.

At the festival which commemorated the Israelites' journey through the wilderness and how God provided them with water from the rock, Jesus "stood and said in a loud voice, 'Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.'"  This wonderful invitation must be heard!  Even in the desert the water is present. It is alive. It is within. All we have to do is hold out and wait for its Christ-rock source to be revealed.  And once the Christ-rock is opened, the water is for anyone who is thirsty is invited to come and drink, live, and flourish. 

Daily Lesson for April 23, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Daniel chapter 5 verses 

17 Then Daniel answered and said before the king . . . “I will read the writing to the king and make known to him the interpretation. 18 O king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father kingship and greatness and glory and majesty. 19 And because of the greatness that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. Whom he would, he killed, and whom he would, he kept alive; whom he would, he raised up, and whom he would, he humbled. 20 But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was brought down from his kingly throne, and his glory was taken from him. 21 He was driven from among the children of mankind . . . until he knew that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom he will. 22 And you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, 23 but you have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven . . . And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in whose hand is your breath, and whose are all your ways, you have not honored.
Then Belshazzar gave the command, and Daniel was clothed with purple, a chain of gold was put around his neck, and a proclamation was made about him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.

It is so easy for all of us to get so caught up in the issues of the day that we lose our sense of human kindness. In these anxious times we are now living in it is so easy to get caught up in making enemies of people on the other side of the political aisle. Sensational media constantly fuels the whole drama, profiting off of its own 24/7 demonization of political leaders.  It is a type of warfare; and just like in any other war the first casualty is truth and the mortal risk is the human soul. 

Just like in all generations, there are substantive issues to be addressed in this one.  But they should be addressed civilly and without resort to our calling one another Godless, soulless, demon-possessed, or whatever other manner of evil will surely be heard on tonight's news.  There has to be another way.

Thich Nhat Hanh, one of the great workers for peace in both this and the last century, once reflected on what kind of change is necessary in how we see and speak to those in power and those on the opposing side of an issue:

"The people in the movement can write very good protest letters, but they are not yet able to write love letters. We need to learn to write to the Congress and to the President of the United States letters that they will not put in the trashcan. We need to write the kind of letter that they will like to receive. The way you speak, the kind of language you use and the kind of understanding you express should not turn people off.  Because the people you write to are also persons like all of us."

The prophet Daniel did just this in today's lesson. He told the king the hard truth that because the king was arrogant the kingdom would be taken from him. Yet, because Daniel spoke his truth clearly and without malice, the king respected him and actually even honored  him.

To be right on an issue is one thing; but to be honored even by one's opponent is quite another. This is something to be strived after today. For as Jesus said, "Love your enemies; bless and do not curse."  These are words found in the Bible; and these have a far great chance of changing our world than whatever vitriol we will hear tonight on the news. 

In fact, they are the only words which have any chance at all. 

Daily Lesson for April 22, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Luke 4 verses 42 and 43:

42 And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, 43 but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.”

A pastor friend of mine told me that saying no is always necessary in order for us to then say a deeper yes.

Most of our lives are filled with constant demands on our time.  It's one thing after another -- work, kids, grand kids, ball games, volunteering, church.  It's one incessant demand on our time after another. And it's all good stuff. It's very god stuff.  But is it our stuff?  Is it what we are supposed to be doing with our lives right now?

Jesus came preaching and healing in the little village of Capernaum just beside the Sea of Galilee. He had a great little ministry going with enough to say grace over a thousand times. It was great work and people loved him for it. It would have been enough to keep him busy for all his life.   He would have been the best thing that ever happened to the little village of Capernaum.

But there must have been something inside of Jesus telling him that this wasn't it -- that there was something else. He was doing what he felt called to do thus far, but something in his spirit told him it wasn't what he was called to do next. 

So, the text says he went away to a desolate or deserted place. He found some stillness. He sought quiet.  He sought God. And when those with their needs came to him to beg him to come back Jesus had the courage within himself to say in order to say a deeper yes.

The "tyranny of the urgent" is what most often stands in the way of the important. In order to do what is important, we have to step back from purports to be urgent; for anything and everything will insist on its urgency. The truly human task is to step from the incessant demands of what we are doing now in order that we might discern and discover what we are called to do next. This involves distance, disengagement, and probably the disappointment of others.  Only those with the courage to say no to today will be able to say the deeper yes to tomorrow.

I know Jesus must have disappointed all those back in Capernaum with all their legitimate human needs. But I'm also glad he said no to them, so that he might say yes to the world. This was his purpose in life. Among many competing voices he listened for this purpose and found us. May we do the same. May we find the courage to say no so that we might also say a deeper yes. 

Daily lesson for April 21, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from 1 John 4:

17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

The opposite of love is not hate but fear. As John beautifully puts it, "Perfect love casts out all fear."  When we know and accept deeply within ourselves that we are loved -- that at the core of our being we are "beloved" -- then there is no fear.   Just a few verses before our lesson today, John says, "God is love."  God is love and we are loved ("beloved"); we do not know God until we know Him as absolute love and we do not know ourselves until we know we are absolutely loved. To know these things is to no longer fear God. For God's perfect (absolute) love casts out all fear of God.

But true love does not end with our being loved , but with our loving. True love always makes the receiver of God's absolute love into a giver also.  This too is the meaning of "perfect love".  It is love which is whole and complete -- love which flows in and through and also spills out. Love is not yet perfect if it does not spill out. It stagnates and putrefies.

A metaphor to help. The Dead Sea is dead because it has no outflow. It is what is called an endoric body of water -- meaning water comes in but is not released so eventually it dies. After many millenia, the silt carried by the Jordan River into the Trans-Jordan valley has stagnated and hardened and made what was once a living sea now dead.

We love because God first loved us.  But if we withhold this love from others -- if we give in to bitterness, resentment, hatred or anger  -- then the love within us calcifies and hardens and eventually ends in the death of our spirit within.  Knowing deep in our heart that we have not loved as we should, we calcify and we begin to yet fear God once more; God again becomes a God of wrath and vengeance. In other words, we again make God into our own image. 

God truly is love; and we are beloved. There is no fear in love because perfect love casts out fear. But the key to knowing and letting ourselves be beloved is to allow the love of God flow through us -- to our brothers and our sisters, our neighbors and even our enemies. To withhold that love is to calcify and die; to let it flow through us is to be a beautiful and beloved font of God's love in a dry and weary land. 

Daily Lesson for April 20, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from 1 John 3 verses 19 through 21:

19 By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.

And Psalm 25 verse 11:

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

The joy of the spiritual journey is the coming to know ourselves beloved.  To be beloved is to accept that God is love and that we are the object of that love. It is a joyous thing to be beloved because there is no selfishness in its acceptance. It is just "right" -- like when two people are in love. This is why the love of marriage is such a wonderful metaphor for God's love.  It is beautiful to give love and to receive and the receiving of love is a gift of love in return. We let ourselves be loved, and in doing so we are then loving the lover back. As the psalmist says, we accept our pardon and forgiveness (the ultimate sign of love) not selfishly, but "for [God's]  name's sake".

Bernard of Clairvaugh put all this quite beautifully in what he called The Four Loves. He said we first begin by loving ourselves for ourselves' sake. Then we move on to loving God for ourselves' sake. Then we progress to love God for God's sake. But, finally, we come to a place of loving ourselves again -- but now for God's sake.

It is God's joy to love us. Let us make God's joy complete by accepting that love and knowing and loving ourselves as we are -- as God's beloved. 

A poem for reflection from Raymond Carver:

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Daily lesson for April 17, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 16 verse 11:

"You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

Stephanie, one of our pastors at church, is leading a class on designed to help people discover their gifts and live out their calling. I thought it was beautiful that among those who attended the class on Wednesday night were a college student discerning her major and a recently widowed 90-year-old woman who is looking for the next act in life. Where else can you find that except at church?

Stephanie's handout from Wednesday night's class included a quote from the novelist E.L. Doctorow specifically about writing, but also about life:

"Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."

I think one of the things Stephanie is trying to do is encourage us all not to be anxious about the trip, but to take it slow, enjoy the ride, and let what's down the road be revealed in its own due time. In other words, trust the road and trust ourselves on the road. 

The lesson from the psalmist today says, "You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy." It seems to be saying the same thing another quote I thought of during Stephanie's class says.  This one is from the great mystic Howard Thurman:

"Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

Discovering our call is really about letting our lives and hearts speak to us. It is about discovering our joy and doing it.  We can do that in college, and at 90, and every step in between. We can make the whole trip that way; and we can be joyously alive while doing it. 

To God be the glory . . .

Daily Lesson for April 16, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Luke chapter 3 verses 10 and 11:

10 And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” 11 And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”

In his book "A New Earth: Awakening to You Life's Purpose", Eckhart Tolle says that our ego selves really do not want to have but rather want to want. Ostensibly, to have would be to reach a point of satisfaction -- our needs and wants met by what we have. But in reality what we have is never enough; we always want more.  And our wants are never quite satisfied.  This is the story of Adam and Eve, who could eat of all the fruit of the Garden save the one they wanted.   And it is the reason my house is so cluttered with toys my kids never play with. The next toy always holds the promise of fulfillment, but the promise is always broken.

The beginning of transformation for us comes first in noticing how our desires are never met.  The act of noticing is the beginning of consciousness; and consciousness, Tolle says, is what allows us to shift from being a people with perpetual desires to a people for whom enough is enough. 

We can practice the consciousness of enough being enough.  One ancient and very practical way to do that is to give things away. In today's lesson John the Baptist tells those with more than they need to give away the extra to those without enough. Anyone who has ever tried to do something like this knows how difficult it can be at first. We are attached to our things -- even our extra things.  Yet it is wrong attachment; it is ego attachment. The giving away frees us from this ego attachment and opens a space for us to realize (come to consciousness) that what we need is not what we are wanting but rather what we already have within us. For the kingdom of God is within us.

This is all pretty heady psychological stuff; so let me finish up with a prayer my plain spoken, West Texan grandfather used to teach the boys in his Sunday School class to pray, "Lord, fix my wanter."  Our wanters can be fixed; but in order to fix them we will need to change our havers also. 

Daily Lesson for April 15, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Daniel chapter 2 verses 20 through 23:

"Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,
to whom belong wisdom and might.
21 He changes times and seasons;
he removes kings and sets up kings;
he gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding;
22 he reveals deep and hidden things;
he knows what is in the darkness,
and the light dwells with him.
23 To you, O God of my fathers,
I give thanks and praise,
for you have given me wisdom and might,
and have now made known to me what we asked of you,
for you have made known to us the king's matter."

And Daniel 2 verse 30:

"But as for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because of any wisdom that I have more than all the living, but in order that the interpretation may be made known . . ."

We can never hasten a vision, rush a dream, or in ourselves fortell the future.

What is to come and what it is we are supposed to be doing when it comes is always a revelation from God and must be received as such. The revelation comes in its own due time and cannot be rushed.  The future stubbornly refuses to be pulled into the present.

We can sit and anxiously worry and fixate ourselves on what is to become. But doing so gets us no closer to tomorrow and robs us of today. 

Today offers us the opportunity to seek the mind and heart of God; the revelation of what is to be flows out of that mind and heart and not the other way around. 

A Prayer:

Dear God, give us this day our daily revelation.  Help us not to be consumed by what has not yet been made known, but rather content to seek and know you who will make it known in your own good season.

Daily Lesson for April 14, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from 1 John 2 verse 11:

"But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes."

We speak of "blind hatred" as if the categorical hatred of a particular race or religion or nation is separate in substance from our ordinary hatred of a particular individual.  But the truth of the matter is all hatred is blind hatred.

Hatred is black hole in our hearts robbing us of the light we need to see others as they really are in the light of God. When we hate we can no longer see the light in others. Their light gets swallowed in our darkness. We, of course, cannot see this.  We our blind in the way our hatred is taking us.   We cannot see how the darkness within us is really what makes others so dark in our perception.  We cannot see how it takes us to a place of dehumanization and demonization.  We cannot see how ultimately this leads us to a place of murder -- usually spiritual murder, but sometimes even physical.  We cannot see how this is the path to hostility, war and even genocide.  We kill to stop the darkness out there, but in fact the darkness is within us.

We all have the light of God within. Our brothers, sisters, neighbors, friends, and even our enemies have this light. Seeking to see this light is the spreading of the light within ourselves and the beginning of the end to the darkness in others.

Daily Lesson for April 13, 2015

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

"Be angry, and do not sin."

It is okay to be angry!  In fact, we can't not be angry at times in life. But we must learn how not to let our anger overcome us.

Whenever President Lincoln was angry with someone he would compose what he called a "hot letter", in which he would really speak his mind. Lincoln's biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin tells how Lincoln would put all his hot indignation into the letter and then set it aside to let his emotions cool. After, he would come back to the letter and affix these words: "Never sent. Never signed."

Lincoln knew the peril of sinning in anger and had the character keep himself from it. 

The spiritual transformation necessary in our families, in our schools, and in society at-large requires that we not allow ourselves to be overcome by our own anger at the sins of the world -- whether individual or social. Instead, we must learn to harness our anger into a force for constructive good.

In his autobiography Dr. King tells how on the night his Montgomery, Alabama home was bombed  in 1956 he was almost overcome with anger:

 "While I lay in that quiet front bedroom, I began to think of the viciousness of people who would bomb my home. I could feel the anger rising when I realized that my wife and baby could have been killed. I was once more on the verge of corroding hatred. And once more I caught myself and said: 'You must not allow yourself to become bitter.'"

That may well have been the most important night in our country's 20th century history. Angry and near the point of hatred, he chose love.  And the heart of our nation was transformed. 

We can be anger; we have to be angry. But we must learn how to make our anger our friend and not our own worst enemy. 

Daily Lesson for April 10, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from John chapter 16 verses 12 and 13:

12 "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come."

The United Church of Christ denomination has a campaign slogan with the tagline, "God is still speaking."  Sometimes I joke that most other denominations, including a lot of Baptists, are clinging to the old tagline of, "God is still smiting."

God is still speaking.

Jesus told his disciples very clearly that the final word had not yet been given. There was yet more revelation to come; but the disciples were not yet ready to receive it.  They could "not bear it now."

I believe in the continually unfolding revelation of God and God's will. It comes to us in its own due time and transforms our consciousness. This happened in the Church when the new revelation was given to Peter that Gentiles were not unclean but invited into the fellowship.  It happened in the 18th and 19th centuries when people of faith began to see the error and work for the abolition of slavery. It happened again in the early part of the last century when women began to take full part in the life of society and in the church including -- in some traditions -- even serving as pastors. It is still happening today.

One of if not the greatest dangers humanity now faces is the threat of those who believe all God has to say is now locked in a book and there is therefore nothing else to say, grow into, become, or change in thought. This is the terror of fundamentalism and it is in deep conflict not only with modern democracy but also with the continuing unfolding of God's work in the world.

John Robinson was the spiritual leader of the Pilgrims who died in England before he could make the journey across the Atlantic. Yet his parting words to those boarding the Mayflower in 1646 encouraged his fellow pilgrims to be open and ready for new revelation in the New World:

"[I]f God should reveal anything to us by any other instrument of his, to be as ready to receive it, as ever we were to receive any truth by his Ministry. For he was very confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of his holy Word."

The New World always demands a readiness for new Word. The Holy Spirit is still moving.  What we could not bear yesterday we are ready for today; God is still speaking.

And as the old hymn, written in the time of the brewing storm over slavery in America, so powerfully says:

"New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth,
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth."

Daily Lesson for April 9, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Ezekiel 37 verse 14:

"And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land."

And John chapter 15 verse 14a:

"You are my friends."

Last night at church we had a panel discussion on the spirituality of recovery.  One of our panel guests was Tom McGovern, a former professor in the department of psychiatry at Texas Tech and one of the spiritual giants in our community.  During the discussion we began to talk about the power of community in the recovery process. Tom quoted his friend, the late Ernest Kurtz, who was the preeminent historian of Alcoholic Anonymous. Ernie described the AA community as creating a feel among its members of "being at-home".

We all need a community of people we can feel at-home with, though many do not know what it means to feel at-home because they never felt at-home when at home. Sometimes we have to leave home to discover again what being at-home is supposed to feel like. Here is a picture: To have the sense of being at-home is to be in the company of a group of people who know, tolerate, and love us unconditionally.  It is a place of total acceptance.  It is the place where you can hug, cry, laugh, and tell your story as honestly as you can.

Jesus said, "You are my friends."  What I am describing really is a place of friendship. To have friendship is to be at-home; and to be at-home is to already be in heaven -- even in the most earthy of earthy places like a smoky AA meeting or a place called the Red Zone Cafe, where I'm off to have breakfast and study Scripture with a group of good, good friends. 

Daily Lesson for April 8, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from John chapter 15 verses 1 and 2:

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 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."

There is no such thing as pain-free pruning. 

It's one thing to break off an old, dried-up and dead branch with no life in it. Hear it snap, and it honestly feels good.  But take the clippers and cut into a living stem of say a rose and its another matter altogether. It resists with its life, pushing back with energy stalking through its veins. To cut it you have to really clamp down -- maybe even use both fists. It bleeds. Do this a few times and then take a step back and the grief sets in; the rose bush just doesn't look right.  It looks naked and vulnerable -- like a shaved poodle.  It cried out to you, "Why did you do this?  I was flourishing."  

"No," you have to say back to it, "You were not flourishing. You were too full, top-heavy, too much for the soil beneath you.  It was necessary.

"It was necessary," you say it again to convince yourself.

Trimming back, letting go, sizing down, saying, "Not again this year," -- these are never painfree decisions.  But the root systems in our lives can only handle so much.  There is only so much nutrients we can draw from.  The law of diminishing returns says we can't just keep growing in all directions. Pretty soon we, like an overgrown rose bush, begin to lose our color. 

That's when pruning is necessary. It is necessary because it's not as important to be big as it is to be healthy and beautiful and pleasing to the eye of the gardener who planted and cultivates us. 

And in the end his delight is worth the pain. 

Daily Lesson for April 7, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Isaiah 30 verse 21:

And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.

One of the most important things we must do in order to get where we need to go in life is to learn to trust the voice we hear inside our spirits.

A couple of weeks back I had the serendipity of getting to listen to Bishop Carlton Pearson preach at the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas. Bishop Pearson was raised in a conservative Pentecostal home and grew up to become one of the most high-profile pastors in Southern, black fundamentalism. But 10 years ago, he went through a spiritual transformation which led him to a place where he could no longer think and speak of God as full of wrath, ready to inflict eternal damnation on disobedient humanity, but rather as a loving and longing parent seeking to woo his/her wayward children back to home. This was of course not an easy transformation for Bishop Pearson as many he was deemed a heretic and thousands of followers left him.  But, as he said in his sermon, there are things the we have been taught to believe about God which conflict with what we know in our spirits to be true about God. Bishop Pearson decided to trust what he knew to be true in his spirit; he decided to follow the voice of God speaking from within his own soul.

God speaks to us along our path. We know in the depths of our spirits what He/She is saying. We know that it is the way, the truth, and the life. And we know that it is beautiful.

What we have to do is hear the voice, and forgetting all else, follow it.  I guarantee we'll be glad we did . . .

Daily post for Easter Monday, April 6, 2015

Daily lesson for Easter Monday, April 6, 2015, comes from Acts 2 verse 24:

"God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it."

I love this Scripture. 

It was not possible for death to hold Him.  There was too much life in Him. Death had to let go.

The power that raised Jesus from the dead was the very power of life itself. There was more power in the life of Jesus than there was in the death of Hades. Resurrection was a foregone conclusion.  A miracle?  Yes.  But also a matter of natural law; you just can't keep a good man down. And goodness itself will always prevail in the end. "Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again."

The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is alive in all of us. It is the power of the cosmic Christ -- the atomic God-power we were each born with and which waits to be discovered. This is the essence of all spirituality.  It is the awakening of our divine nature within us. It is Easter for and in all.

Yesterday in his Easter prayer of invocation, one of our pastors quoted a portion of the following words of Baptist preacher and civil rights hero Clarence Jordan:

"The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his transformed disciples. The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship. Not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church."

God did raise Jesus from the dead.  God wants to raise us up also. The stone has been rolled away, and the tomb door is wide-open. Resurrection life is available to all; and it is impossible for death to hold us back. 

He descended into Hell

Even in death Jesus was upsetting traditional religion. While everybody was resting on the Sabbath, Jesus was busy preaching good news to the sinners in hell (For real, read 1 Peter 3:18-21).

Special from Jerusalem

Special from Jerusalem

A tumultuous week in the Judean city of Jerusalem came to an end today when Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish religious leader who many Jews claimed to be the Messiah but who Sanhedrin and some Roman officials saw as a threat to Pax Romana, was crucified on grounds of treason against the Empire.

Tensions mounted on Sunday when Jesus and his disciples marched into the capital and blocked the entryway to the Jewish Temple where thousands of pilgrims came to celebrate the Jewish Passover Festival.  This was the second time in three years Jesus' protest actions put a temporary stop to Temple transactions.  On Sunday it was reported he disrupted religious ritual by turning over the tables of the Temple Court money changers and chasing those selling sacrificial animals out of the courtyard.  Later Jesus purportedly threatened to take his protests even further.  Witnesses say he threatened to destroy the Temple altogether and to then raise it up after three days.

Jesus' actions jeopardized an already tenuous truce existing between Jewish religious and political authorities and Roman peacekeeping forces during the Passover Festival.  As Passover is a holiday celebrating the ancient Hebrews escape from slavery in Egypt, it has in recent years been a week fraught with clashes between Roman soldiers and pro-liberation extremists.  The actions of Jesus and other zealot-minded Jews necessitated Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judea, to move the bulk of his force from the Judean capital of Caesarea Maritima to Jerusalem for the festival to ensure order.  There was speculation Pilate might even go so far as to decide to shut the city down altogether if peace could not be assured.

But Jerusalem religious officials moved quickly Monday to keep crowds in order during the festival.  "The Feast of Passover is a religious event - not a political one.  The great masses of Jews are peace-loving people who are glad for the peace and prosperity Rome has brought to the region," Zacharias of Bethany, a member of the Sanhedrin said in a public statement endorsed by the body.  The statement went on to denounce Jesus.  "We reject the kind of opportunism exhibited in people like Jesus of Nazareth.  He is an extremist, an outside agitator whom the prefect is justified in apprehending."

Rival separatist leaders were quick to release their own statement in turn.  "The so-called peace Rome has brought is no peace at all," the separatist statement said.  God's promise for our people and our land is a promise for freedom.  It is a promise given to our Father Abraham and verified in the blood of the Passover lamb.  Moses did not lead our people across the Red Sea only to in turn now be slaves in our own land."

It was notable, however, that the separatist statement did not mention Jesus by name.  Jewish political observers suggest a leader like Jesus is unlikely to garner the support of pro-liberation Jews because of his apparent openness toward Gentiles, including a highly publicized meeting between Jesus and a Roman centurion in the Galilean town of Capernaum.  As one religious expert put it: "Jesus may wear Moses' sandals, but he does not carry his staff."

But it wasn't Moses who came to mind when Jesus made his way into town Sunday.  Instead it was David, the greatest of Israel's past kings.  As Jesus entered the city, sitting proudly astride a small colt - a gesture intended to reenact an ancient Jewish royal tradition - crowds lined the path shouting, "Hosanna," - a Hebrew word meaning "save" - "to the Son of David."  The crowd's message was clear.  They wanted their king - and they did not mean the Emperor Tiberius.

By Friday, however, it was evident to all in Jerusalem that Jesus was not the king they were looking for.  Late Thursday night he was arrested by Temple police and found guilty by the Sanhedrin in a hastily organized emergency trial.  Early Friday morning the Sanhedrin turned Jesus over to Pilate requesting the execution of the man known as "the Nazorean" on grounds of treason.  By 3pm that afternoon Jesus' body hung bloody and lifeless from a tree atop a high ridge just outside of the city.  At Pilate's order a sign was placed over his body written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews".

The pointedness of the sign was characteristic of Pilate's strong-armed reputation as prefect, but conflicted with what sources close to Pilate say actually happened inside the governor's courtyard.  Those sources reveal the case against Jesus was not as cut and dry as Jesus' accusers, and later the sign, suggested.  The sources said Pilate saw the conflict over Jesus as primarily a struggle for control among the ranks of Jewish leaders; as such, Pilate was inclined to have Jesus simply flogged and released.  In the end, however, political expedience won out, sources say, as Pilate became convinced that Jesus' execution was in the best interest of the Sanhedrin and the region as a whole.  "It is better that one man should die than the whole nation perish," said a Sanhedrin member speaking on condition of anonymity.

Whether that man was innocent or guilty was apparently beside the point for Pilate.  This is Judea - one of the most lawless places in the Roman Empire and insiders within Praetorium say law and order will only be regained if the Jewish people learn not only to avoid treason but also even the appearance of treason.

On Friday afternoon a dark cloud settled over the city as the Nazorean struggled in his final hours of crucifixion.  It was a short time as these things go, but agonizing for those who kept watch.  A commiserate spirit among the onlookers accompanied the man's last gasps.  A woman was heard gently weeping in the distance.  "We had hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel," she said through her tears.  "We had hoped."  That was when Jesus, "King of the Jews" hung his head and died.

Pilate ordered the body be pulled down from the cross and given to some of Jesus' followers.  As the soldiers lowered the cross to its parallel position those around could see the body more clearly in its gruesome and mangled state.  One of the soldiers, who stood guard throughout the execution, looked up from the body and toward Jesus' followers and then spoke.  The language was Aramaic, but the words were spoken with the tongue of someone who grew up in perhaps the Palermo region.  "This," he said, "was a son of God."  

It was not altogether obvious what the soldier meant.

Daily lesson for April 2, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 16 and 17:

16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

Go sit down in the pews of almost any church sanctuary in America - whether great Gothic cathedral or plain, storefront church,  lift up your eyes toward the chancel or stage, and somewhere you'll see the communion table or altar (our forbears took the distinction between and altar and a table very seriously) and there in the oak or cedar or whatever other kind of wood you'll see the words carved bold and unchanged: "In Remembrance of Me".

In Latin to "rememor" means literally "to call to mind again" or "to again be mindful of". To remember is to retell or re-enact a story. To remember a story is to re-live that story.

Tonight Christians throughout the world will gather in their sanctuaries great and small and relive the story. At some point someone, usually a priest or pastor, will stand up and remember Christ's words. Taking and breaking bread, he or she will say, "This is my body broken for you." And then likewise taking a cup will say, "This is my blood shed for you." And in the remembering of Jesus' words and actions, the congregation will relive that last fateful night of Jesus' life yet once more.

Why do we do this?  Why do we remember? Paul says we remember that meal so that we ourselves can "participate" in it. Remembering allows for the condensing of all space and time so that we who were not there that last night are brought there by the power of memory. We become one with all Christians everywhere and throughout all time through the powerful act of remembering.

Tonight, whether beneath the great arches of some Gothic cathedral in France, or the fluorescent lights of a building originally designed to be a Kroger, we will all be one -- twelve followers of Jesus, mostly afraid, one blindly bold, and one with treachery in his heart, gathered around a plain, wooden table, watching Jesus' dark, veinular hands tremble as they take up the bread and pour out the wine. And we will all wonder who it is that might betray him. 

This is the power of reliving the story. Let us do this in remembrance of him.

Daily Leson for April 1, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Jeremiah 17 verses 7 and 8:

7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
8 He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

A friend used to say that we out here in West Texas may not have many trees but they're exactly where we want them.  She said this, of course, because we had to plant them all!

If you are a tree which happened to draw the short straw and be selected for West Texas, the best place you could hope to be planted is near a coulee or draw.  I drive through West Texas and its there, beside water or beside where water used to be, that you'll find the oldest, greenest trees. The roots of those trees have bore down, deep into the ground and stretched forth to draw water from sources both hidden and ancient.  These are the trees which have survived our scorching heat and our long droughts.

I know the metaphor needs no explanation; but we preachers' besetting sin is to over-explain things.  I'll be brief, I promise!

Those who have grown deep roots -- those who have read great and ancient wisdom stories, who know the Scriptures by heart,  who have listened to and heard great stories by campfire light, who have drawn courage from the saints, and who remember what their grandmothers told them -- these are the ones who bear life's scorching heat and long droughts. 

These are the trees who remain green and do not cease to bear fruit -- even in a dry and barren land.