Daily Lesson for April 29, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 7 verse 6:

"Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you."

At home we've been watching "Eyes on the Prize", the superlative, and award-winning 14-episode documentary on the Civil Rights Movement from the death of Emmett Till all the way to the rise of Southern black mayors, congressmen, and other civic leaders.

One of the most challenging parts of watching this film is to see my daughter Gabrielle's reaction to so much of the documentary footage where segregationists decry the mixing of races. As a bi-racial child, she takes every mean-spirited and cruel thing said with a degree of deeply felt personal pain. Even at 60 years distance the words still sting.  Perhaps I should not be surprised given that she is 9 years old and entering the time of life when identity becomes such a powerful influence over us.

"Why do they say those things?" she asks with her head hung down and a drawn look in her eye.

"They didn't know any better," I tell her. "Remember what Jesus said on the Cross, 'Father forgive them because they don't know better,'?"

I want her to have compassion on these people -- to seek to understand and love them even if they would not have understood or loved our family.  I do not want her to grow hard-hearted toward anyone.

And yet, I also want her to learn to protect herself and her heart. This is a lesson that goes beyond race and racial politics. She will have to learn that there are people out there of all different races and places and creeds and genders who just aren't very nice. In fact, they're mean -- perhaps just as mean in spirit as the segregationists in the film.  Part of the task now -- and part of the reason why we are watching this documentary -- is because I know Gabrielle will have learn to protect herself and her own spirit from the abuse and ridicule of people who simply don't like who she is and what she stands for.

Jesus says in today's Lesson, "Do not cast your pearls before swine lest they trample them underfoot and come and maul you."  The pearl of great price is the soul of who we are -- our true identity.

And what I'm trying to teach Gabrielle is that she is not to give that away to anybody.

Daily Lesson for April 28, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson is a TBT Lesson from Matthew chapter 6:

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?"

I read these words from Jesus to my daughter and in her seven-year-old naïveté she takes it all in on such a simple level.  In fact, she takes everything Jesus says at face.  "God feeds the birds. And look how pretty the flowers are - God clothed them.  Don't worry; the LORD will provide."

But she doesn't pay the bills or have to worry about insurance. The real world and all its struggle haven't hit her yet. She sees how the birds of the air are fed and the flowers of the field are clothed, but it hasn't dawned on her just how short the lifespan of a bird or the season of a flower really is.  I read to her Jesus' words and in my anxious and somewhat cynical adult mind I think (though I don't have the heart to say), "Yes, sweetie, look at the birds of the air and the flowers of the field; but don't look too long - for they won't last.  Soon they'll be gone."

But then it dawned on me not long ago - perhaps that's just Jesus' point.  The lives of the birds of the air and the flowers of the field are but a hair's breadth in length.  And yet, they make the most of the time they have. The birds set off in flight, dancing left and right, swooping down towards the earth, ascending towards heaven.  And the flowers dance in the field, blazing with a purple, even a king cannot afford.  The birds soar.  The flowers dazzle.  They live!  And they spend all day worrying about tomorrow.

"You must become like a child again," Jesus said.  In other words, I must learn to think like my daughter once more - open to hear Jesus' words at face value and to look with open and wondrous eyes to the birds of the air and to the flowers of the field in order to learn how to live.

The Mind of the Child: "Look at the birds and the flowers - how God provides for them."

The Mind of the Adult: "Birds fall.  Flowers fade.  It doesn't last long."

The Mind of the Adult Born Again as a Child: "Yes, birds fall.  Flowers fade.  And it doesn't last long. But they sure seem to enjoy it while it lasts.

Daily Lesson for April 27, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Leviticus chapter 19 verses 9 through 18:

9 “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. 10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.
11 “You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; you shall not lie to one another. 12 You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.
13 “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. 14 You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.
15 “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. 16 You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord.
17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

Today's Lesson is a set of instructions for community. As the Israelites make their way out of Egypt, through the Wilderness formation, and into the Promised Land they must be prepared to live together as a people in community with one another. They do not already share the practices which make for community. Living under Pharaoh for 400 years, the people were taught to look after themselves and not the weak and to be at enmity with and suspicion of their neighbors. Pharaoh's society was cutthroat, every man for himself, win or die. This was intended to break any sense of communal spirit or cooperation within the slaves. It was the way Pharaoh divided, conquered and ruled.

Today's Lesson is a description of the practices necessary for building community: care for the poor, the disabled, and the sojourner. Respect for others rights to property. A fair shake in trade and labor. An honest and impartial court system. All this, summed up by the command to love neighbor as one love's oneself, and by extension then treat the neighbor as one would wish to be treated.

Interesting in this lesson is something that is said over and over again after each section.  Five times these words: "I am the LORD."  It is as though the LORD is trying to tell the Israelites again and again that they are no longer under Pharaoh's whip; they have a new Master now. And He is very, very different from the old Master, and so too will His people be.

Daily Lesson for April 26, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Leviticus chapter 16 verses 20 through 22:

20 “And when he has made an end of atoning for the Holy Place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat. 21 And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. 22 The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness.

In the tradition of ancient Judaism on the Day of Atonement the priests would lay the iniquity of all the people onto a single goat and then the goat would be led out into the wilderness to "Azazel".  Azazel was a demon or, alternatively, a place where the demonic resided. The idea was that all the iniquity of the people would be cast into this one goat and then driven back to the place from which it came. We are told in the Mishna, an important 1st and second century Jewish oral tradition commentary, that sometimes the scapegoat would not only be led into the wilderness, but in fact driven off of a cliff in order that it would not return bearing the sins of the people along with it.

The goat is now commonly known as the "scapegoat", a term which came from William Tyndale who was the first to translate the Hebrew Bible into English. The word "scape" comes from English "escape" which comes from the Medieval Latin "ex-cappa", which meant "out of the cloak". The purpose of the scapegoat is to cast off the sin of the people as one might cast off a cloak.

It is sometimes said that guilt is the knowledge that we have sinned and the willingness to take responsibility for it. Shame, on the other hand, is the psychological sense that we are at one in our very being with our sins; it is the heavy and burdensome cloak -- too burdensome to bear.  To bear the weight of this cloak is to die a spiritual death.

At center of this idea of the scapegoat is the deeply spiritual need we have to be set free from the heavy and burdenous cloak of our sins and its sentence of death. The cloak is indeed too weighty and too much for us to bear. And the profoundly good news is that we can escape from it -- that we can be set free, that our iniquity is not forever a part of us but can in fact be cast off and cast out.

This is the purpose of atonement -- the sense that we can live again in "at-one-ment" or at peace within ourselves, with each other, and with God.  This is the gift of forgiveness -- the gift of being spiritually alive and free.

Daily Lesson for April 25, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Leviticus chapter 16 verses 6 and 7:

6 "Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. 7 Then he shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting."

There is an old Midrashic story which tells of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai walking with his disciple, Rabbi Y'hoshua, by Jerusalem after the Temple was destroyed. Lamenting over the rubble, Rabbi Y'hoshua said "Alas, the place that atoned for our sins lies in ruins!" Rabbi Yohannan ben Zakkai said: 'Do not grieve, my son. There is another way of gaining atonement, even though the Temple is destroyed. We can still gain atonement through deeds of compassion. For it is written in the book of Hosea, "I desire compassion, not sacrifice." (Avot D'Rabbi Nathan 4:5)

I read a story like that and take delight, but wonder if it is true, why then did God command the Isrealites to offer sacrifice in the first place?  The 12th century Jew Maimonides answered that God commanded sacrifice not for God's sake, but for ours. Maimonides's understanding was that the Israelites lived in a culture where there was a deeply-ingrained psychological need for sacrifice, going all the way back to the human sacrifice in the days before the patriarchs.  God did not need the sacrifice, but accepted it as a part of the condition of living in atonement (at-one-ment) with the people.

There are aspects akin to Maimonides's thought in some Christian thinking as well -- including my own. I do not believe God demanded blood to be shed in order that God's wrath would be satiated. That belies all we know about forgiveness, which is always an alternative to wrath and vengeance and the demand for blood.

The sacrifice then that we see in Jesus on the cross is sacrificial love -- God's son willingly dying on the cross, not to satisfy God's wrath, but to prove God's love.  And surveying the cross from even this distance of 2,000 plus years, we hear Jesus' final words and know them to be true: "It is finished."  Our sense of estrangement from God is finished. Our need for sacrifice is finished. Our demand for the blood of vengeance (human and animal) is finished.

It is finished. Our atonement is complete. Our at-one-meant with God and all others has been accomplished.

Daily Lesson for April 22, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from The Diary of Anne Frank:

"That's the difficulty in these times: ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to meet the horrible truth and be shattered.
It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness. I hear the ever-approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it wall all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.
In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out."

I have always preferred it when the Jewish Passover corresponds with the Christian Holy Week.  It seems a bit odd that the two should ever be separated -- as if you can separate Jesus' death from the week of his death, and all the expectation and fear which surrounded it. We should never forget that Jesus was executed on charges of political dissidence by an oppressive and cruel governor amidst a holiday commemorating deliverance from an oppressive and cruel government. There was more than irony to this.

But this the Passover and Holy Week did not fall at the same time and, actually, I am enjoying getting the chance to reflect on the meaning of Passover without it being overshadowed by all the Easter preparation. The Exodus story calls the Jewish people to remember that they were slaves in Egypt. This year gives to us Christians a particularly good opportunity to remember with them.  It is a particularly good week for Christians to reflect upon the universal themes of deliverance, freedom from oppression, and the ultimate triumph of the forces of light over the forces of darkness, all of which we find in the Exodus story.

On Wednesday night our church invited Norm Shulman, my Jewish cousin and dear friend, to come and teach us about the Seder, the order of service for the Passover meal. As a part of the evening, Norm included readings from the Haggadah, the book which Jews use to guide the Seder. And at a very poignant part of the service, Norm asked one of our teenage girls at church to come and read from his Haggadah an excerpt included from The Diary of Anne Frank.  What she read in sum was the quotation above, which includes these famous words: "In spite of everything I still believe . . . "

As the Jews enter into this Passover week, it is an especially good time for all people everywhere to reflect upon its meaning. Passover, theologian Jurgen Moltmann says, is an event that took place "once and for all".  This means it was a salvation event for the Israelites first, but also for everyone else who are trying to hold on, hoping against hope, who in spite of it all still somehow believe.

"Tell your children," the Scripture commands the Jews.  And we are grateful that they have chosen to tell us, and our children also.

Daily Lesson for April 21, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 60 verses 1 through 3:

 O God, you have rejected us, broken our defenses;
you have been angry; oh, restore us.
2 You have made the land to quake; you have torn it open;
repair its breaches, for it totters.
3 You have made your people see hard things.

In the book of Isaiah the LORD is called "the repairer of the breach and the restorer of the streets to dwell in."

Yes!  And before that the LORD might well be called the wrecking ball, the earth shatterer, and the bull in the China closet.

God is not interested in equilibrium, so long as equilibrium means prevarication, lies, cover-up, and all other manner of failures to look on ourselves and others with integrity.  Sooner or later, the wrecking ball has its way with us. Jobs are lost, marriages fall into dire straights, nest eggs are thrown out, and somebody has to hit bottom.

Tara's proud gates are toppled; 
What remains is a sad, tottering fence standing sentry
The neighbors whisper, cry, laugh, and scorn
All is lost
But then the Prophet speaks of what he hears:
A note of grace in the jackal's howl.

John Donne wrote, "Batter my heart, three person'd God."  A battering ram is a strange metaphor for God. But it is indeed a good metaphor for the One who will stop at nothing to break down our defenses and finally get at us.

The term we have for this is "tough love", which when it comes from God is more tender than we can ever imagine.

Daily Lesson for April 20, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Exodus chapter 33 verses 17 through 23:

17 And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” 18 Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” 21 And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”

We all know what it is like to be around someone who talks so authoritatively about God and God's will and way that those without wisdom might be misled into thinking the speaker has walked all around God and taken pictures. Unfortunately, much of theology and doctrine has been written with this kind of brash certainty.

There is another tradition of theology called the "apophatic" -- coming from the Greek word, "apophasis", meaning to deny or negate.  The apophatic tradition is a way of knowing and describing God through negation, what God is not like, rather than presuming to know and be able to describe exactly what God is. In this tradition, God is beyond our capacity to contain and comprehend because God in fact actually transcends all being.

I recognize this is all a bit abstract, but practically speaking the apophatic tradition chastens our impulse to apprehend and reduce God into an idol or book or list of rules. God is always breaking us free from those kinds of attempts at domestication and control. God resists control, always pulling us beyond what we know, understand, and perceive to be eternal. Theologian Robert Jensen says this is the difference between a living God and a dead idol -- an idol never surprises us.

Moses could see only the backside of the LORD, as the LORD passed by.  There is a sense in which whatever we see or know to be true about God is always apophatic; it is always the backside of God's glory and movement. We can never in any moment be completely aware of where God is and where God is going, but only where God has been and where God is commanding us to follow.  In other words, we never see God coming but only going.

And that makes this whole faith thing -- this journey with God -- quite unpredictably exciting, and even these rear glimpses we get of God quite incredibly breathtaking.

Daily Lesson for April 19, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Exodus chapter 32 verses 21 through 24:

21 And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?” 22 And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil. 23 For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ 24 So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”

There's an old Janet Jackson song which might make for a theme-song to today's lesson: "What Have You Done for Me Lately?"

40 days.  Moses had been gone up the mountain 40 days and the people had received no word from him or from the LORD.  And so, they grew anxious.  What if Moses wasn't coming back down? What if there was no more word to be had from the LORD?  God had led the people across the Red Sea; but what had He done for them lately?  More specifically, what had his priests done for them lately? 40 days was apparently just too long.  "Make us gods," they demanded of Aaron. And out of his own insecurity and fear Aaron obliged.

I was talking with the pastoral staff at church yesterday. The calendar for May is just chock-full and we're spending all April getting ready. "Then come June," I said, "there's not much."

"They'll wonder what they're paying us for," another pastor quipped.

They sure will. And if today's lesson is true, then after about 40 days we'll be eager to show them.

And the Biblical term for that is temptation.

Daily Lesson for April 18, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Exodus chapter 32 verses 7 through 10:

7 And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” 9 And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”

This one I owe to my former professor, friend and insightful reader of the Hebrew Scriptures, Howard Curzer:

On the face of it, today's lesson looks as if God is ready to give up on the Israelites for their idolatry and is trying to induce Moses to accept the invitation to be done with the people and to start over in re-making the nation all by himself. In this reading Moses talks the LORD out of simply doing away with the stiff-necked Israelites.

But Professor Curzer helped me see something else going on here -- something hidden. It can be uncovered by asking this question: When Moses went up the mountain, why was it that he was made to stay 40 days, and not told to go back down until after the Israelites had become desperate below and made Aaron to fashion the Golden Calf?

When the story is looked at through the lens of that question we realize that while it looks like this is a story about the question of the LORD's faithfulness to Israel, what it in fact is is a story about Moses' faithfulness to his people. It is a test of Moses' character. Will Moses be faithful to his people, even when they are not faithful to him?  Will he be true to them in spite of their stiff-necked ways?  Will he reject the temptation to run off and leave them low and dry in the wilderness?  In short, is he committed to being their leader -- through good times and through bad?

I would say this has all kinds of implications for pastors, deacons, business leaders, and parents.

Daily Lesson for April 15, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Exodus chapter 24 verses 12 through 14:


12 The Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” 13 So Moses rose with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God. 14 And he said to the elders, “Wait here for us until we return to you. And behold, Aaron and Hur are with you. Whoever has a dispute, let him go to them.”

Who was Hur?

All of us know Moses. Most of us know his brother Aaron. And Joshua, their lieutenant who brought the Israelites into the Promised Land, we probably recall vaguely. But who was Hur?

Other than in genealogies Hur is mentioned only twice in the Bible: here, as one with sufficient authority to be left in charge over all the Israelites; and another time in the book of Exodus during the Battle of Rephidim, as the other person along with Aaron helping to hold Moses' arms up while the Israelites were on the battlefield. After these two, Hur just disappears.

And that makes me think, that's mostly the way it is with the best of church folk. They're there -- always in the background, quiet and unnoticed. But at some moment, they get called upon to help keep the pastors bodies from dragging. They have strength even when we don't. And then some moment comes along when they are put in charge of something very vital.  They never sought a role of leadership; but when they are called they rise to the occasion and say yes.

And then, they disappear.  They only get maybe a brief mention in the newsletter or year-end report, or their name inscribed among many other names on a plaque hanging on some wall in the fellowship hall. In another generation the plaque is taken down and put into a closet somewhere in the youth room.  In a quarter of a century they'll just be another face in the old directory that a grandmother has pulled out to show her granddaughter what her parents and pastor looked like when she herself was a little girl.

Moses and Aaron, they're remembered. And maybe Joshua too. But Hur is mostly forgotten, almost unnoticed altogether. But that's okay with Hur because Hur doesn't do it for Hur's glory; Hur does what Hur does for the LORD -- and for the LORD's people.

And for that I say, "Thanks be to God", and to Hur -- because without Hur's help yesterday we wouldn't be where we are today.

Amen.

Daily Lesson for April 14, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 4 verses 1 through 3:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

When Jesus came down to the Jordan to be baptized by John in the Jordan River, the heavens were split apart and the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and then God spoke in a profound voice: "You are my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased."  This was a declarative sentence, a word of pronouncement. "You ARE . . ."

Then forty days later, after wandering through a wilderness where water no longer flowed, the land was barren, and nothing would grow. That is when another voice was heard.  This was a voice, not in the declarative but the subjunctive.  "IF," it said, "IF you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."

Every life runs through its own wilderness.  In the wilderness things don't grow, ends don't meet, and not only can we not bring home the bacon, we can't even put bread on the table. And that's when the subjunctive voice of doubt always comes and along with it the temptation to do something to prove how ourselves as producers and providers.  "IF you really have any worth, do . . ."

It's in life's wilderness that we have to remember who we are. We are God's sons and daughters, God's children. This has been spoken to us in the declarative.  And no matter how dry the wilderness, how meager the crop, and how barren the table, we keep believing it.

The word for this kind of wilderness belief is called dignity.  And no circumstance and no one can take our dignity away from us.  It's ours -- by God.

No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Daily Lesson for April 13, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 38 verses 1 through 10:

  O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger,
nor discipline me in your wrath!
2 For your arrows have sunk into me,
and your hand has come down on me.
3 There is no soundness in my flesh
because of your indignation;
there is no health in my bones
because of my sin.
4 For my iniquities have gone over my head;
like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.
5 My wounds stink and fester
because of my foolishness,
6 I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;
all the day I go about mourning.
7 For my sides are filled with burning,
and there is no soundness in my flesh.
8 I am feeble and crushed;
I groan because of the tumult of my heart.
9 O Lord, all my longing is before you;
my sighing is not hidden from you.
10 My heart throbs; my strength fails me,
and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.

I have a friend who not long ago celebrated 40 years of sobriety. Sometime back, he spoke at our church about alcoholism and recovery and he told us that when he first got sober and returned from a long-term treatment facility his mother came to see him and said, "Your eyes are looking out again."

The road of recovery is the journey towards looking out again. It is the journey from isolation to community, shame to redemption, and sickness to health.  It is the journey from darkness to community.

The psalmist in today's lesson is living in darkness and in isolation.  By my count he uses the words "I", "me" or "my" twenty-six times in only 10 verses.  His eyes are all inward. Or, as he puts it, the light from his eyes is gone from him.

And that is the hopeful moment. Suddenly he sees!  He who has no light can nonetheless see that he has no light.  All therefore is not lost because he still can see with the light of the memory of light.  He is seeing himself now with the flickering, yet doggedly defiant light we call hope.

The writer of Psalm 38 is living in darkness.  He is sick and not well. He is alone and not in community. He is thinking only of himself and not others.

But don't give up on him, because he's still talking to God . . .

Daily Lesson for April 12, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 3 verse 12:

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

In ancient agricultural practice, the winnowing process involved the breaking open of the outer shell of wheat on the threshing floor. An animal might be used to pull a sled-like tool around the floor, breaking open the wheat's shell. A winnowing fork would then be used to toss the wheat up into a moderate wind. The outer shell, known as the chaff, would then be blown away while the heavier kernel of the wheat grain would fall to the ground. The chaff would then be swept up and burned and the wheat gathered into the barn for the winter.

John the Baptist said God is in the winnowing business, trampling over us, tossing us around, burning us up. All this to break us down, to crack us open, and to get at what is hidden beneath our hard, protective shell.

It sounds like something a Baptist's God would do.

Daily Lesson for April 11, 2016

Today's Daily lesson comes from Exodus chapter 18 verses 13 through 23:

13 The next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening. 14 When Moses' father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning till evening?” 15 And Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God; 16 when they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and his laws.” 17 Moses' father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. 18 You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone. 19 Now obey my voice; I will give you advice, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God, 20 and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. 21 Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. 22 And let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. 23 If you do this, God will direct you, you will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace.”

Upon his recent retirement, Jim Jackson, one of the great Methodist preachers and leaders in Texas of the last quarter century, wrote a list of 100 things he said he learned the hard way. Among those 100 things was this: that many a ministry have been undone for failure to say these four simple words: "I need your help."

No leader can do it all. Not Jim Jackson; and, as today's lesson shows, not even Moses.  Those who try crash and burn. Psychologists call them "over functioners".  The annals of church records everywhere are littered with the bodies of over-functioning pastors who tried to do it all. Moses was almost one of them.

No leader can do it all; nor should they have to. God's vision, spoken through the wisdom of Moses' father-in-law, was for the Israelites to have leaders but for all the people to shoulder the burden together. In the end, this was not only so that Moses would be spared, but also so that the people themselves could be empowered. In the new society the Israelites were building, the people themselves would be generating their own ideas, solving their own problems, and discovering their own capacity make decisions. In other words, the people at the bottom of the Pharaoh's pyramid society were now going to discover their own gifts and power.

There is an old Chinese proverb:

Go to the people
Live among them
Learn from them
Love them
Start with what they know
Build on what they have
The best leaders, when their work is finished
Their task is done
The people will need to say ‘we have done it ourselves’.

That's almost Biblical.

Daily Lesson for April 8, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Exodus chapter 16:


23 [Moses] said to them, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.’” 24 So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. 25 Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. 26 Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none.”

"Sabbath as Resistance" is the title of Biblical scholar Walter Brueggeman's 2014 reflection on the meaning and practice of Sabbath. Sabbath, says Brueggeman, is a God-given form of resistance to the "culture of now" which is killing us all with its constant demands of availability, work, and production.

The Egyptian culture the Israelites escaped from was a "culture of now", with its exploitation of the Hebrews. The essential value of the mass labor force was measured by Pharaoh solely in units of economic productivity. "Homo sapiens" was reduced to "homo faber" and the value of the individual was reduced to his or her capacity to produce (bricks) with efficiency and in bulk. It did not matter if one was ground down at an early age because there was a constant supply of steady slave labor ready at hand. When one could no longer efficiently produce he or she was deemed worthless, discarded, and replaced.

Sabbath was resistance to Pharaoh's economy of exploitation. Sabbath was God's way of teaching the Israelites that the value of a human being is greater than his or her ability to contribute to the economic index. Sabbath was God's way of teaching the Israelites that they would not live by bread or being bakers of bread alone, but also find their substance in family, prayer, study, worship, and holy rest. And the society as a whole would find its value not only in what it produced but also in what it enjoyed. Sabbath was God's way of teaching the Israelites resistance against Pharaoh's culture of now.

Today we might call all this as quality of life. And with Pharaoh calling on the cell phone, needing you to come up to work for just a few hours (say 8 or 9) on the weekend, you really have to be a pretty radical group of people to try living it.

Daily Lesson for April 7, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Exodus chapter 16 verses 14 through 20:

14 And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. 15 When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. 16 This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.’” 17 And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. 18 But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. 19 And Moses said to them, “Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.” 20 But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank.

When the Israelites came out of Egypt, the first thing the LORD did was give them a new economic vision. They had lived all their lives in a slave economy -- and economy based upon scarcity, a perpetual sense of isolation, and dependence upon Pharaoh.  Now they were learning a new economy of freedom -- one based upon abundance, a sense of community, and dependence upon God.

The first thing to be noted about this new economy is that people worked for their own bread. This "manna" was rained down from Heaven, but it was not rained down into their bowls to eat. This daily bread was indeed a gift from God, but each family had to send someone outside the tent to gather it. In Egypt, Israelites had for centuries depended upon Pharaoh for food and provision; this new manna economy was teaching them self-reliance, and allowing them for the first time to enjoy the humble sense of dignity given to one who both trusts the LORD AND works like the Dickens to put food on the table.

The second thing to be noted in this new Manna economy is that it would be an economy where enough was simply to be enough. Under Pharaoh's economy enough was never enough. People lived in a perpetual state of scarcity.  This encouraged isolation, hoarding and every man looking out for himself against all others. The tactic of Pharaoh was to destroy all sense of community amongst Israelites, because in community there is power.

This new Manna economy encouraged community, connection, and a sense of the shared common good. The notion of the common good was to be an implicit value in the new economy the Israelites would form in the Promised Land; what they learned about community from the manna would later be applied in the areas of agriculture, natural resources, education, religion, and national defense. Community was not a bad word.

What was a bad word was greed, and hoarding, and all of the impulses to acquire and save more than one's fair share. Enough really was enough. And any more than enough rotted and decayed and would never satisfy.  No one in this new economy was to have too little and no one was to have too much. That would be simply be an ethical given.

So, how are we doing?  Are we living in Pharaoh's economy or the new Manna economy?  If in Pharaoh's then how do we get out?

Let me suggest one thing. I don't know that we need to wait for the presidential candidates to work this all out for us. That's, again, to be dependent upon Pharaoh. The Manna economy is an economic alternative to the dominant economy. And that means it starts in community.

So here is a place to start. A place of resistance to the old economy and embrace of the new.  Give an extra 2% of your income to the local food bank.  Pledge an hour a week to be in the schools with mentoring programs like Kids Hope, helping a student learn to read. Share your lawn mower with somebody from church who needs it. Better yet, teach them how to take care of their own lawnmower.

Believe in shared resources, self-reliance and the dignity of work, and ultimate trust in a God who wants to lead us out of the bondage of both poverty and riches and into the freedom of knowing that there is enough so long as we work hard enough, share enough, and know when to say when enough is enough.

Daily Lesson for April 6, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John 15 verses 4 through 6:

 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

In his book "Falling Upward" Richard Rohr tells about a meeting he once had with Desmond Tutu.  "Richard, always remember we are simply the light bulb," Tutu told Rohr. "Our job is to remain screwed in."

All spiritual energy and vitality comes from God. Growth comes from God. Light and life come from God. This is bad news in that it means none of these can be manufactured. It is also good news in that it frees us from the fantasy of ourselves or someone else somehow being able to create vitality on our or their own. This is a prescription for failure, disappointment, and scapegoating.

We are the branches and God is the vine. When the branches do not grow, one of two things must be decided: 1) that either the conditions are not right for growth and need to be changed (soil, water, light, etc have a lot to do with things) or that 2) it is simply not in the branch to grow and therefore the branch needs to be cut off or let go.  For example, we might have to let go of a dream, or a partnership, or an employee or an endeavor.  This is the pruning which happens in our life which helps us grow and produce in the direction God would have us to.

Augustine said that it is in God's nature to give life and it is in our nature to receive it. When life in the vine is not present some find the courage to ask why. This is always difficult and may sometimes be very painful in that it requires work and may even mean difficult pruning. But the result is new life in the vine, and the fruits a better harvest of grapes for the wine.

And the non-Baptists tell me that makes all the difference. 😉

Daily Lesson for April 5, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 14 verses 25 through 27:

25 "These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."

"You have everything you need to make it through."  That was one of the central messages we heard time and time again from Charlie Johnson, who was Second B's pastor when I was in college. It is appropriate to hear that message time and time again because of the encouragement and hope it brings. In fact, on the last night of Jesus' life, when what he said to his disciples he knew was sure to be remembered, he chose to tell them that they would have everything they need to make it through. God would come. God would provide. God would be their source of consolation and strength.

And to hear those words, to take them to heart, and to truly believe them to be true is to enter into the mystery of serenity only God and trust in God can give. It is to no longer be troubled in spirit or afraid of what is to come, but to fall into the arms of God's everlasting peace.  To know we have everything we need is to know we have God, who is everything we need.

There is an old hymn, written in 1847 by Henry Francis Lyte, who was dying of tuberculosis as he composed, and sung a century later by nurse Edith Cavell the night before she was executed by German soldiers for helping British soldiers escape from Belgium during WWI.

"Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me."

The Lord with us abides; and in the end that is everything we need -- even if it's the only thing we have.

Daily Lesson for April 4, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 8 and 9:

"Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

A couple of years ago I read that a letter written in 1945 and addressed to a "Mrs Ellis" was being auctioned off for a considerable some of money. The letter, which had for many years been hidden inside the jacket of a book on the shelves of some used bookstore in England, was penned by a man named Clives Staples Lewis -- better known to the world as C.S. Lewis.

The letter's importance is measured not only in its having Lewis' autograph, but also because of its contents. I mean mainly the letter's reflections on the meaning of the concept of joy, which we already knew was a very important concept for Lewis in 1945.  Written in August of 1945, the hidden letter corresponded in timing to the writing of the long-famous spiritual memoir Lewis authored chronicling his conversion to Christian faith -- a memoir he titled "Surprised by Joy".

In the letter, Lewis made a decided contrast between joy and simply the state of how things might be going -- one's "security or prosperity".  In fact, the distinction was so sharp for Lewis that he went on in the letter to say that joy is "almost as unlike security or prosperity as it is unlike agony." (I pause to let you read that again and let it sink in.)

For joy to be almost as unlike security or prosperity as it is unlike agony, means that joy is something altogether different from circumstance. This is what separates happiness, which depends upon one's "happenstance", from joy which does not. Joy is something altogether independent from what happens to someone -- unless what is "happening" is the glorious experience one has of suddenly realizing they are alive and well and eternally at peace in God.  "Surprised" is the right word for this realization because what we once thought was the greatest things to be achieved, security and prosperity in this world, are now shown to be what they really are, counterfeits when held up against the light of the eternal life -- a life which now lives in us and is our joy.

On the last night of his life, Jesus spoke of the sadness of the disciples' grief to come. But then he spoke of something deeper, something beyond he events of that fateful night and the next day to come.  What he spoke to them about was joy.  "And no one can take your joy away," he said.

Joy is deeper then circumstance and happenstance. Deeper than anything that could befall us -- whether poverty or prosperity, security or death.  Joy is the gift of a human being alive with and in God; and nothing and no one but God can give or take it away.

Daily Lesson for April 1, 2016

"Blessed is the one

    who does not walk in step with the wicked

or stand in the way that sinners take

    or sit in the company of mockers,

2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,

    and who meditates on his law day and night.

3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,

    which yields its fruit in season

and whose leaf does not wither—

    whatever they do prospers."

-- Psalm 1

On Tuesday I went to be with with my friend and fellow Second Ber David Weaver and wonderful team at the South Plains Food Bank as they were celebrating the grand opening of the new J.T. and Margaret Talkington Distribution Center. What an incredibly beautiful -- and big! - place.  Generations of lives will be better with help from this new building.

Before the official building dedication, I toured the 69,000 square foot facility, and my tour guide was another Second Ber Howard Mercer.  Howard, a WWII veteran, is still at it after 20 plus years of post-retirement volunteering for the Food Bank. Today he is giving tours; but he's done everything from stock shelves and pack food sacks to serve on the board and raise money. 

As we move towards the back of the new facility Howard takes our group on a slight detour towards a window in the back which looks East. Through the glass we can see row upon of Apple trees. This is the Food Bank orchard and there are 1,200 trees out there Howard tells us.  "I know because I planted them," he says with a laugh.

Howard tells our group that when he retired he wanted to do something to help the Food Bank, so he helped get up enough money from places like his Rotary Club to make the purchase on the trees for the orchard. He says he and another retired man named George Elle were working on it together and George told Howard, "If you can raise the money to buy the trees then we'll plant them."

"Now," Howard told us, "when George said, 'we' I didn't know he meant him and me.  But sure enough, that's who he meant."  So with Howard 65-years-old and George at 79, the two went to planting trees-- one by one, in 100 plus degree weather, all 1,200 of them. Howard goes on with the story: "I told my wife Emma Lou, 'He's going to kill me. He's literally going to kill me.' But I lived. And we only lost one tree."  

The group looks out the window onto the orchard. The trees have been there for 20 plus years now, their apples helping to feed no telling how many hundreds of thousands of people.

After we conclude our tour, we went back to the front lobby for the ribbon cutting ceremony. In David's speech he is moved to tears as he begins to talk about all the people who helped to make the Food Bank what it is today. He invokes language we often use at church when referring to those who have gone before us -- "saints, past and present."

As David is speaking certain names come to mind.  I think of my Aunt Anita who was one of the original founding board members the South Plains Food Bank.  I think of Doug Carlson, another board member, who showed up to volunteer five days a week.  When he passed, they named the volunteer of the year award the "Doug Carlson Award" after him. I thought of Bill Kingsbery, another Greatest Generation man whose hospital bed I had just been in that morning.  As a businessman and generous philanthropist, his generosity helped start the Food Bank; and it was his wife Mary Louise's family who gave the land where the orchard and new building now stand. 

And thinking on the land got me to thinking again of George and Howard and something David told me Howard once said while reflecting on the meaning of the planting of those Apple trees.  "Each of us," Howard said, "ought to plant trees under whose shade another generation will sit."

There is an old adage, "You can count the seeds in the apple, but you can never count the apples in a seed."  It makes me wonder, how many apples are in the seeds of 1,200 trees?  And what about now in 69,000 square feet of seeds? And what about in me?

George, Doug, Anita and Mary Louise are now gone; they've moved from saints present to saints past.  The rest of the Greatest Generation will one day join them.  But they've planted their orchard.  And it's under the shade of their trees that we sit and celebrate today, until tomorrow we go out and plant our own.