Daily Lesson for May 31, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Ecclesiastes chapter 2 verses 24 through 26:

24 There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, 25 for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment? 26 For to the one who pleases him God has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner he has given the business of gathering and collecting, only to give to one who pleases God. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.

H.L. Mencken once famously defined Puritanism as "The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, my be happy."  Go back and read the sermons from that time in our nation's past and you'll see that was hardly an exaggeration.

Happiness is not a sin. To enjoy our work and the fruits of our labor is not a sign of having too easy or pleasing a life.  Health, wealth, and success are no sins; and no one ought to be made to feel guilty for them.  They are blessings to be enjoyed, not curses to be weighed down with.

But the writer of Ecclesiastes is right about something. Apart from a life in God no one can eat or find enjoyment. All blessings turn to curses and there is never ever any sense of accomplishment or satisfaction. It's simply never enough or it's always too much.  In the words of Ecclesiastes it's all "vanity, vanity -- a striving after wind."

If our lives seem to be all vanity and vexation and meaningless toil without any sense of joy or happiness then it's time we ask ourselves a Jesus question, "What good is it if a man gains the whole world, yet loses his own soul?"

I'd say we know the answer to that is no good at all.

Daily Lesson for May 30, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson is in honor of Memorial Day and comes from Walt Whitman's Civil War-inspired poem "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd":

I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them,
And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them,
I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war,
But I saw they were not as was thought,
They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer’d not,
The living remain’d and suffer’d, the mother suffer’d,
And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffer’d,
And the armies that remain’d suffer’d.

Last night Second Baptist hosted our fourth annual Memorial Day Service.  Memorial Day is a time for remembering the cost of war and for honoring those who have paid its terrible price -- either with their own lives or the life of someone they love. Each year several Gold Star families come and share the stories of their sons and daughters. At the conclusion of last night's service I was approached by two Gold Star parents -- a mother of a daughter lost in Kuwait 2014 and the father of a son killed in Baghdad in 2008.  Each of them broke down in tears, one almost collapsing into my arms.

There is still so much pain for these families. While there is nothing we can do to take that pain away, they tell me that others being willing to be present helps them to bear it. Remembrance helps them to bear it. The knowledge that somebody cares helps them to bear it.

Whitman's words are fitting. Those who have given their lives in service of our country are now at rest. They no longer suffer. But the mothers and fathers and children and musing comrades still suffer.  The armies which remain still suffer.

If there is one thing we can do to appropriately honor this Memorial Day it would be to pledge ourselves to get to know one Gold Star family this year. It would be to get to know their names, see their pictures, and hear their story. To come and be near to their pain.

We remember the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This year it would be good if we would make he unknown soldier known, and his or her family known, and their suffering known.

We cannot take away the wounds; but we can touch them, and we can tend them, and we can wash them with the ancient healing balms we call compassion and remembrance.

Daily Lesson for May 27, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 13 verse 33:

33 He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”

Some years ago our church had Tony Campolo as our adult retreat leader and he preached on this text and what he called the subversive nature of the kingdom of heaven. He spoke of leaven and how it was always portrayed negatively in the Scriptures -- a metaphor for something to be done away with like a bad apple.  Yet here Jesus is speaking of the kingdom being like a woman sneaking it into the flour.  In a small group afterward, a perceptive seminary student in church says to us, "So let me get this straight.  Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like a passive aggressive cook?"

The kingdom of God is subversively hidden. It is snuck in in surprising and even unsettling ways. That's why the status quo is so resolutely on guard against -- because just a little of its leaven has the power to leaven the whole loaf.

Here's just a few moments I know of when just a pinch of the kingdom's leaven was first snuck in and then rose to leaven the whole loaf:

-- when two women were ticketed for feeding the homeless in a city park and then the next thing we knew the mayor and about 100 others were down at the park making friends and hotdogs with the homeless

-- when one negro woman in Montgomery, Alabama was a arrested for refusing to give her seat up to a white person and a year later the whole bus system was integrated

-- when a small group of political dissidents in East Germany began sneaking audio-recorded cassettes into West Germany and then broadcasting them back over the wall on a subversive citizen's movement program called Radio Glasnost, meaning "Open Radio".

The kingdom of heaven is small.  It is subversive.  And it is being hidden in all kinds of ways.

Look for it.

Daily Lesson for May 26, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew 13:24-30 and Psalm 37 verse 20:

24 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27 And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’”

But the wicked will perish;
the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures;
they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.

A few months back, the morning after yet another horrific terrorist attack in Paris I did what I often do when I get worried about the world. I called my great Aunt Opal, who as one of the first women accepted into in the military during World War II.  Her job as a NAVY WAVE (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) was to process the death information for sailors lost and killed at sea.  For a time she and the rest of her department in Cleveland were busy  both night and day, the death toll was so great and the files so numerous.  Now in her nineties and the last living member of the Greatest Generation in our family, she is for me the personification of History in all its meaning.

I called her after the attack. "Well, what do you think about France?" I asked.

"Well," she said in a chastened yet resolved tone, "I think God is still in control."

Every evil has its day and it's season in the sun.  The weeds of destruction grow up. They flourish for awhile, they seem even to begin to take over. But in the end, at the harvest, their fate is foretold.

At ninety Aunt Opal has seen a lot of harvests.  Weeds have taken seed over and over again, some mightily strong and destructive. Nazism, totalitarianism, Soviet communism, Khmer Rouge, Taliban, now ISIS.  These are all terrifying regimes, and indeed we would perhaps be paralyzed with foreboding of what is to come next, if we did not believe that in the end the harvest finally does come.

While my Aunt Opal was busy processing all those sailors' death records, my grandfather Bill was on a troop transport somewhere out in the Pacific. He told me he thought surely his name would wind up in one of Aunt Opal's files.  He said he didn't believe the War would ever and he didn't think he'd ever come home.

But the War did end; and he did come home and he married my grandmother Betty, Opal's sister.

And at the end of the day it was made clear, God really was still in control.

That's a good thing to remember the next time these troubling times make us afraid.  God was, and is, still in control.

Daily Lesson for May 25, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Proverbs chapter 17 verse 3:

The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold,
and the Lord tests hearts.

Times of testing come. They are not pleasant or enjoyable but are in fact always discomfortingly tense and sometimes even excruciatingly painful.  We would avoid the pain if we could and indeed we try. In fact, in Buddhist tradition the elimination of suffering is one of the noblest virtues of a life well lived. But honestly, who has done it?  And today's Lesson should make us ask who would wish to?

Paula D'Arcy says, "God comes to us disguised as our lives."  In other words, pain, suffering, and the struggle of life are how God gets at us. These are how God tempers and purifies us.

When a metal is purified its base property is separated and extracted from the ore by intense heat. It is the same with us. Holiness is not possible without heat -- white, searing heat. This process of purification is never something we would chose for ourselves and is always something we doubt we can endure. But there we are; and we do endure.

God comes to us disguised as our lives.  And sometimes the disguise is a fiery, fiery furnace.  From the refiner's fire there really is no escape.
But what is left when the fire has done its work and we have been made is something even more precious than even gold or silver, something we call "soul".

Daily Lesson for May 24, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Timothy chapter 2 verses 1 through 6:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

As we continue in this election year and the mud slinging and finger pointing will no doubt sadly worsen, it is very easy for us to get sucked into the vortex of negativity.  We need to remember that there are very powerful influences on all sides of the political spectrum intent on our buying into the absolute vilification of certain political candidates. When one of those vilified candidates is elected president -- as one surely will be -- then the result is the other 4 out of 10 voters who did not vote for him or her then are left with 4 years of fear and foreboding at what is to come of our beloved country.

What are they to do?  What are we all to do in this time of great political dis-ease?

I see signs in front yards as I drive through my neighborhood: "Prayer: America's Only Hope".  I don't know who put the signs out, but it's true. In today's Lesson Paul writes to Timothy in a time of great social and political turmoil -- a time when the empire and its leaders seemed really to be beyond control. And Paul's counsel was to pray.  Pray for the leaders, and for the nation, and for the world.

Paul reminds us that we do not have to like a leader to pray for them. We may indeed buy into their vilification.  They may in fact be villains.  But Paul tells us to pray for them anyways, and he reminds us that Christ died for all people -- even political and military villains. And it is God's desire that they and all the world be saved.

We are to pray for all kings and leaders Paul says so that "we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way."  In other words, we are to pray so that we can become more like God who sent his son to die -- not only for 6/10 of the people or 4/10 of them, but for all.

And that puts things into perspective when it comes to our own candidate also. Only one person died for all the world, only one then is worthy to be called Savior -- and he had neither a D nor an R behind his name.

It's party primary election runoff today and many will be headed to the polls.  I hope we'll also be headed to our knees -- to pray for all the leaders who will be elected so that no matter how uncertain and foreboding things may look outside we may inside ourselves still be at peace and be witness to our peace.

This really is our only hope.

Daily Lesson for Monday, May 23

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Proverbs chapter 10 verse 3:

The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry,
but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.

There is a deep contentment in all that we have have and all that we are that can come only from a life found in God.  The one who knows the love and grace of God and responds to this love with love and grace in turn is deeply at peace with all things as they turn out.  This is what Paul -- writing from a death row prison cell - calls the "peace that surpasses all understanding" (Philippians 4:7) and the "secret of being content in all circumstances -- whether in plenty or in want," (Philippians 4:13).

For those who have not yet found this secret nothing is ever really enough. No accomplishment can ever really gratify, no experience can live up to billing.  No achievement can last the day and the night. There is always a deeper hunger and desire to be more than they are -- to live up to some unseen yet ever rising bar.  The end result of not being able to live up to that bar is frustration, bitterness, and a spirit of victimization. The soul who dies stuck in this place dies with a sense of the whole world having had it out for him.

Without doubt, much of the identity and class politics we see today on both the Left and Right plays on this deep sense of hunger and frustration. But the authentically spiritual person knows no politician or platform, no matter how promising, can satiate the deepest hunger we as human beings have. That can never come from bread alone.

After Jesus fed the 5,000 the people came once again to him. The Bible says they wanted to make them their King. But Jesus refused the Kingship and he refused to feed them also. As today's lesson says, he thwarted their craving.  He did so because He wanted them to see that no bread could satisfy their deepest hunger save spiritual bread -- or what Jesus called the Bread of Life.

Daily Lesson for May 20, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 16 verse 3:

As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight.

This morning I am thinking of two former parishioners of mine up in Vermont, Doug and Thelma Wright.

Doug and Thelma grew up "going to meeting" together in the same little New England Congregational-style church and stayed there all their lives -- except the brief time Doug served as a shipbuilder and then later as a Staff Sergeant in the Army Air Corps in England during WWII. After the war Doug came back home and married in that same little church where they had played as children out on the front lawn.  A few years later they bought land just a stone's throw from his parents' place on East Road in Colchester.  They raised four children, three girls and boy, on that farm and brought them to church and filled up the same wooden pew every week. They both taught Sunday School to many generations of children. When it finally got too hard to make ends meet on the farm Doug went to work in a steel factory in Burlington. He cried when he sold his cows and draught horses.  Doug passed at age 91.  His funeral took place in that same little church where he was baptized married, and spent his whole life in.  I had never seen the Church so full.  Thelma followed a few years later.

Doug and Thelma had a special marriage.  In some ways it was more 19th century than it was 21st. When Doug died the family had to teach Thelma how to pump her own gas. Doug had always done that.  And the family joked that if Thelma had passed first they would have had to teach Doug how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The old farmhouse smelled of burning wood; and I can still remember the smell on my clothes as I would drive away after visiting.

They were such humble people -- never letting the left hand know what the right was doing. Once by chance I discovered that our church had been a part of a 1940s effort to bring negro children from Harlem up to Vermont for an "intentional experiment in race relations" during the summer months. I asked Thelma if she had known any families that had participated. She rose to the full measure of her stature -- all 4 feet 10 inches. "Well, we did," she said matter of factly. I would have never known, but I wasn't surprised.

The old Wright farm house I am told has been torn down now. The wood stove no longer burns.  The house and the stove and the Wright's have all gone the way of the whole earth.

But this morning's Lesson evokes a memory and a feeling and a connection that transcends time and geography, life and death:

"As for the saints in the land,
they are the excellent ones,
in whom is all my delight."

Daily Lesson for May 19, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 John chapter 5 verses 16 and 17:

16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.

All wrongdoing comes from the same place of brokenness we call sin. The condition of being a sinner is universal and terminal. As the Scripture says, "The wages of sin is death."

Yet there are some symptoms of sin which themselves take life -- in the same way that a secondary infection like pneumonia has the power to kill in and of itself, though its presence is actually the result of a deeper and more chronic disease like an auto-immune deficiency.  It is the disease itself which is the primary problem, but the secondary problem must be treated if the patient is to survive.

But not all sins have in and of themselves the power to kill the soul; and it is a (common) mistake to give them this power.  The number of adolescents seriously tormented by the conviction of the most minor of peccadillos has kept therapists in business for decades. The consciences of literally millions of church-going children have been terrorized by their inability to shake "naughty thoughts".  This seems especially true in many of the Baptist churches where people I have pastored grew up in. Every single sin led to a kind of death in the soul.  And every single misdemeanor crime was given the death penalty.  No wonder so many church people are so confused.

Today's Scripture is very clear.  Not all sin leads to death itself. Most sin can and should be absolved through the simple and beautiful act of one brother telling another that God has the power to forgive and restore us to life. To make any more of the peccadilloes we all succumb to gives them a power that only the demonic, and not God, would wish is to think they have.

As for the sins which do themselves lead to death of the soul -- what the Church has historically called "mortal sins" -- these are not unforgivable, but they do require deeper and more intensive counseling, confession, contrition, and cleansing. Murder, adultery, theft are graver in the effects -- both on the one committing them and also on their relationships with their victims. This is why John in today's Lesson says he does not say we ought to pray for these sins.  In saying that, he does not preclude us from praying for forgiveness, but warns us that we first need to know what we are doing. Mortal sins in and of themselves have the power to destroy the soul.  They can also be forgiven, but the journey is deeper and life-long.

So, here's the moral for today. Forgive what you can forgive, help each other let go of what can be let go of, stop stoning yourself over imperfections, and never ever deny God's power to heal and forgive even the vilest of offenders.

Daily Lesson for May 18, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 11 verses 18 and 19:

18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.”

Now here's a text that shows us just how impossible it is to please others, and how doubly impossible it is to please others with our spirituality.

The ascetic John the Baptist came with his severe diet and fasting and strict moral prohibitions.  Jesus came with greater freedom, even eating and drinking with known sinners. Both were criticized -- and by the same people!

Jesus taught the freedom of practicing and living as one feels appropriate and right.  Apparently the LORD takes all kinds. And as for those who think they know what kind God loves best, we can ask them: Was it Jesus' or was it John's or does it just so happen to be their own?

Augustine said, "Love and do what you will."

And to that I would add, "And don't worry a lot about what others say and think."

Daily Lesson for May 17, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 John chapter 4 verses 17 and 18:

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.

The fear of God is a part of most if not all of our spiritual journeys. We were either taught to fear or God and/or the fear of God was innately apart of our early spiritual consciousness. Though some would say the fear of God is always a result of a misguided understanding of God and oftentimes abusive teaching about who God's character, I am more inclined to think the fear of God is a natural, though perhaps immature, response to the holiness of God.  To fear this holy other One seems to be an inherent and instinctive response and ought not be dismissed as altogether inappropriate. In fact, fear may be the most primal initiating force in the spiritual journey.  For as the Scripture says, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of all wisdom."

But as fear may be the beginning of the spiritual path it is never the end. A spiritual journey which ends in the fear of God and God's judgment and wrath is an incomplete journey. It is a journey which has not yet made it out of the woods and found its way into the spacious meadow known we call love. It is not until the path opens us to that meadow that we can say our journey is completed. And it is there in the meadow that the cold fear and judgment of ourselves and the desire for fear and judgement of others melts in the light of the knowledge of God's love for us and for all others -- even our enemies.  This is the completed journey of love. And as today's lesson reminds us "Perfect love" -- love made complete -- "casts out all fear."

At a very critical moment in my own life it was the fear of God that brought me to a place of surrender to God. I was not afraid of burning in hell, but I was very afraid of dying and coming face to face with the truth that I had not lived to be who I was created to be. This was the truth and the fear of God; and honestly I am thankful for it. But now, further along on the path and nearer the meadow, I know something deeper and truer about God.  And what I know is this: that the fear of God which was the beginning of the path will step by step ultimately bring me into the love of God which shall without doubt be its end.

And with that then I quote that 17th century poet and lover whose own trepidations put him on a path of surrendering his own life to the holy order of God, John Donne:

"The love of God begins in fear,
And the fear of God ends in love."

Daily Lesson for May 16, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson is from 1 John 3 verses 19 and 20:

"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."

I have known many people whose inner selves are so seized by the guilt of things they have done and the shame of who they are for having done them that they end up living in a state of spiritual and emotional paralysis. These people often resort to self medication through drugs and alcohol as a way of temporary escape from their feelings. Some are so burdened by the power of self-condemnation that they choose to take their own lives. In every case, these powers of guilt, shame, and self-condemnation imprison a person in the past and rob him or her of the future.

Today's Scripture speaks of that inner place of shame - or what it calls the heart of condemnation. John the Beloved writes to those struggling with condemnation and suggests that the way to escape the heart's condemnation is not to deny it, but rather to accept it. It is true that we are all guilty, and because of our guilt there is shame in all of us. John the Beloved acknowledges that these things are in all of our hearts; but then he speaks to us of a deeper heart - the heart of God's grace. John the Beloved God's heart of grace is deeper and truer or more ultimate than our heart of condemnation. This is what it means to be Beloved - loved and accepted in God's grace in our deepest self.

One of my favorite clergy persons of all time is John Newton, who wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace". Newton was a British slave-ship captain in the 1700s before having a conversion experience and later becoming and Anglican priest. He later became a strong voice in British abolitionist movement.

Newton's ministry was marked by a deeply pastoral care for the souls of his parishioners and friends, who themselves struggled with guilt and shame. He could speak to them as John the Beloved spoke - as a wise friend deeply in touch with the power of God's redeeming love.

Not long ago I ran across a letter from Newton to a person struggling with self-condemnation. Newton wrote from his own experience, no doubt remembering the horrors he had inflicted on Africans aboard ship, but also remembering God's redeeming love. Here are his words:

"I was ashamed when I began to seek him; I am more ashamed now; and I expect to be most ashamed when he shall appear to destroy my last enemy [death]. But, oh! I may rejoice in him, to think that He will not be ashamed of me."

Our hearts may be guilty and ashamed, but in God there is a deeper heart of eternal, and redeeming love. It is a heart that knows all, accepts all, embraces all. It is the heart of God's eternal grace. And as Newton said, it is Amazing Grace indeed - though we may be guilty and ashamed of ourselves; God is not ashamed of us.

Daily Lesson for May 13, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 9 verses 16 and 17:

16 "No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved."

In both examples from today's teaching we have the case of something new and immature damaging and even destroying something old.

Jesus was speaking in the context of religious practice and the difficulty old ways have in accepting new ideas.  Jesus himself brought fresh thinking and fresh ways.

And at the same time, Jesus also showed concern for the preservation of the old. What good, he seemed to wonder, does it do to try to bring something new into an old system when the end is not reform but ruin?

The old is tried and true, but it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. The new is fresh and exciting, but it hasn't always had time to mature. They both have their place; but their place isn't always together.

New wine needs a new wineskin; and the last thing an old garment needs is a new patch that won't make it through the wringer.

In other words, no matter how much fun you thought you were going to have, it just ain't much of a party when your favorite jacket is ruined and all the wine is on the carpet.

Daily Lesson for May 12, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 9 verses 1 through 8:

And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city. 2 And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” 3 And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” 4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? 5 For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 6 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” 7 And he rose and went home. 8 When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

This may very well be one of the most spiritually revolutionary Scriptures in all the Holy Books.

The first century Jewish religious system had its center in Jerusalem and the temple cult which had developed around it. This was a machine which gave brought great power and money to the priests and scribes who operated it. It was a system based on Temple taxation given by the masses of people in exchange for the promise of their purification through blood sacrifice. While there were many differences between the first century Temple cult in Jerusalem and the Papal dispensations that fueled Luther's protest in the 16th century, one thing is very similar in both cases: the authority to forgive sin was centralized in the hands of a religious establishment which grew very strong, powerful, and rich off of the system.

So we can see now the implications today's Lesson has for potentially undermining the Temple cult system. Jesus said the people had the authority to forgive sins, effectively undermining (literally "digging deeper" than) the Temple system.  Is it any wonder they wanted him dead?

This is a revolutionary moment in religion and in human consciousness, the full meaning of which we still 2,000 years later have probably not fully grasped. The power to forgive is not limited to the central authority of the religious institution -- whether Temple or Church. The power to forgive -- to let go of one another's sins -- belongs to us.  It is in our hands; and we are responsible for it and the authority it has to set free and empower.  By the power we have to forgive one another those paralyzed in their sins can now rise and walk!  This is truly the Gospel news.

And what was said of the crowds can be said now of us, "they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men."

Daily Lesson for May 11, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 8 verses 28 through 32:

28 And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way. 29 And behold, they cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” 30 Now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them. 31 And the demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.” 32 And he said to them, “Go.” So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters.

In today's Lesson two demon-possessed men meet Jesus on the side of the lake near the tombs in the place of the Gadarenes. In other Biblical traditions of this story it is not two but only one man who meets Jesus -- a man with a demon named "Legion", which was the name of a regiment of 3,000 to 6,000 men in the Roman army.

Taken together, these divergent traditions teach us something deeply true about what the story is trying to get at -- that the demons which haunt us are almost always more numerous than one, and are in fact often "legion", and their combined force occupying the soul of a person and weighing down upon a life, always has its aim to eventfully lead a person into the place of the tombs -- a place separate and isolated from the living and very, very close to death. This may be the point of deep depression, or the terror induced by post-traumatic stress, or the depths of alcoholism or drug abuse.  And just as in the story, the person with the power to help is at first seen as a threat and pushed back. This is the hostility of the demonic, with its power to drive a person to deep alienation, isolation, and eventually spiritual death.

But here is the incredible hopefulness of this story. The person, though possessed by his own demons, is also incredibly resilient. He is a survivor. And while the demons when cast out are powerful enough to drive a whole hear of swine to their death, the demon-possessed man somehow remains alive, and with the help of Jesus somehow discovers his own personhood (we might read "soul") even amidst the legion of demons intending to destroy him.

The demons are many, legion even. And their intent is to, in Jesus' words, "steal, kill and destroy."  They intend to steal a person from himself, kill his body, and destroy his soul.  And yet, so long as he's still alive, and so long as there is still someone willing to walk towards him, and to engage him, and to get him to speak, then there is still a chance that even the darkest of souls can be saved and even the nearest to death brought back from the tombs.

But first some son or daughter of God has to have the courage to go and walk towards those tombs and the frightening place of the Gadarenes.

Daily Lesson for May 10, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Samuel chapter 16:

6 When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord's anointed is before him.” 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 8 Then Jesse called Abinadab and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 9 Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 10 And Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen these.” 11 Then Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and get him, for we will not sit down till he comes here.” 12 And he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.” 13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.

In today's Lesson the priest Samuel has been told by the Spirit of the LORD that he is to anoint one of the sons of Jesse as King. He comes and is immediately taken with the appearance of Jesse's oldest son Eliab.  But then the LORD tells Samuel not to look on outward appearance, for the LORD looks on the heart, and Eliab's heart is apparently not fit for the task. So then all the other sons of Jesse are brought forward until finally the youngest, David, is brought in.

This is when the Scripture does something interesting. It says that David was ruddy and beautiful and handsome.  Because we had been told Samuel should not look on outward appearances, we had come to expect that the one anointed would be like the ugly ducking, awkward in appearance but a swan inside. But no!  This son David, the one to be anointed, in fact looks just like what Samuel wished for in the appearance of the King-to-be.

And herein is the irony. Along with Samuel, we first seek a leader who looks like a leader in appearance. But after being told not to judge by outward appearance, it is the outward appearance of David that then nonetheless surprises and secretly delights us.  Unmasked is our obsession with outward appearance, our sub-conscious bias for beauty, AND our still sub-unconscious notion that a beautiful heart cannot be found beneath a beautiful face.  Here we see the full blessing and curse of beauty and our infatuation with it.

God looks not on outward appearance but on the heart. And the first step toward learning to see as God sees is the bringing to conscious awareness just how persistent and misleading our eyes can be.

Daily Lesson for May 9, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Ephesians chapter 3 verses 4 through 6:

4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

In the New Testament Epistles Paul uses the word "mystery" 21 times.  It was the word he reached for again and again to explain his ministry beyond the walls of his religious upbringing and tradition.  "Mystery" for Paul meant something which was at one time hidden but has by divine revelation now been made known.  And the mystery made known to Paul was the inclusion of the Gentiles in the Gospel, a revelation which was shaking the foundations of many of the Jewish communities where Paul visited and preached.

The time in which we now live is a time of great revelation. Mysteries kept hidden for long ages are now being revealed -- mysteries about race and about gender and about personhood. When church historians look back on this era they will see it as a time of seismic shifting, as seemingly firm foundations are shaken by a greater revelation as to the full meaning of Paul's vision of there being in Christ "neither slave not free, Jew nor Gentile, male nor female."  This is the mystery of Christ now unfolding in our times.  It was not made known in its fullness in earlier generations, but is now being made known in ours.

"May you live in interesting times," is the ancient Chinese curse. Curse or blessing, we are certainly living in interesting times. For as the United Church of Christ has said, "God is still speaking." God is still speaking, and revealing, and making known what was once comfortably hidden.

Is it any wonder then why the charge against the early Church was that they were "turning the world upside down"?  When there is a shift in terra firma it always feels like that.

"And they who endure to the end shall be saved."

Daily Lesson for May 6, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 86 verse 11:

Teach me your way, O Lord,
that I may walk in your truth;
unite my heart to fear your name.

Some years ago I was talking with a friend who was struggling with temptation. He was feeling very bad about himself, frustrated and ashamed that he could not seem to shake his desires. He told me that he didn't want to think that he might still be struggling with it six months or six years from now. He said he didn't want to be like the alcoholic who never stops saying, "I'm an alcoholic."

I told my friend that to expect to shake himself of his struggle by sheer force of will was a prescription for failure, frustration, and ultimately  the death of his own soul. We cannot will ourselves to wholeness, I told him.  The transformation of desire is a gift from God, and the gift must be left up to God.

What I tried to get my friend to see is something I learned from Richard Rohr, years ago: that we are not our thoughts. Thoughts and desires inevitably arise. To try to fit them with sheer will power simply will not work. What we are to do instead is notice them, observe them, and allow them to pass through us. We are not our thoughts and we are not our desires; and we will not have to act on all our impulses. The thought that we inevitably will and therefore must somehow purify ourselves complete usually ends in repressed desires which have a tendency to either slip out in self-destructive ways, or to be something we project onto others with the thought that we are fighting the good fight against their sin while in fact what we're really trying to do is hide our own.  In either case, ultimately our own sin finds us out; and usually that is in fact a gift from God.

Unity of heart and mind is not something we can will ourselves to achieve. It is a gift from God.  This means it is something we are to wait upon and be grateful for.  But it is not something we can demand of ourselves; that kind of purity is a taskmaster that will inevitably destroy us or lead us to destroy somebody else.

"My name is So-and-so and I'm an alcoholic."  That is an admission of imperfection. But as Brene Brown has written, there is a "gift of imperfection".  And that gift is the grace of knowing that God isn't done with us yet . . .

Daily Lesson for May 5, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 28 verses 16 through 20:


16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Sometimes we are misled to believe that if we could just have been there to see it we would believe in the resurrection.  Today's lesson makes plain that even if we had been there we might well have doubted it. In fact, when we put together all of the resurrection scenes together we can see that it was not just Thomas but all the other disciples also who doubted that Jesus had been raised -- even while looking right at him. They saw Jesus standing there in their midst, but they could not believe their own eyes. As today's lesson tells it, they saw him, and they even worshiped him, yet they still doubted what they were seeing and doing.

In each case, the doubt was overcome by an act of faithful obedience. The disciples came to believe by doing what they were told to do -- to go and tell, to teach, to baptize, to make disciples, and share with the world the kind of life Jesus taught them to live.  As we see in another resurrection account -- the Road to Emmaus -- the disciples do not have eyes to behold that the stranger among them is Jesus until they have done what Jesus told them to do -- to invite the stranger in and break bread with him.

The way of faithful discipleship is then made clear. It is only in living out the Gospel that the followers of Jesus come to believe in the Gospel; it is only in the act of living faithfully that the truth of our faith is revealed. Thus the last words of Jesus to his disciples in their mixed state of belief and unbelief, joy and doubt, worship and wonder:

"Go therefore . . ."

Daily Lesson for May 4, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Ephesians chapter 1 verses 7 through 10:

7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

The unifying of all things -- all things in heaven and on earth, all nations and all peoples -- with God and with one another is the ultimate will of God and purpose of the Christ. This is the vision for the fullness of time, a vision not yet fully realized but already visible in the life and witness of certain extraordinary people.

There is a famously powerful story of St Francis's befriending of the wolf of Gubbio.  Wild and ravenous, the wolf had been terrorizing the townspeople.  Courageously, St Francis went out to the forest to meet the wolf and with the power of God St Francis compelled the wolf to shut his mouth and come and lie docilely near him. St Francis then called the wolf "Brother".  The wolf, now tamed and befriended, was then invited to come and be a part of the life of the village.

This is an image for us to behold with reflection and hope. What wolves of the forest are we being called to find courage to go out to and befriend?  What wolves does God want us to invite in and call "Brother"?

God's plan is for the reconciliation -- the bringing together -- of all things. That is a vision for the fullness of time. But it has to start somewhere.  So for now the nearest wolf -- even the tiniest of wolves -- will do.

#2BeOne

Daily Lesson for May 3, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 13 verses 18 and 19:

18 “Hear then the parable of the sower:19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path.

A well-familiar Scripture, and so the moment we think, "Ahh, I know this, nothing new to be discovered here," let us take heed that we are already now walking along the path so worn, hardened, and compacted that the seed cannot penetrate.  Here the Word of God is read and perhaps even heard, but nothing is much taken to heart.

This is sad enough. But there is something even more deeply disturbing in the parable.  The Word is actually stolen by the birds and taken and used for their purposes.  Here we see how the person closed to change of perception or change of perspective actually enables the seed of God's Word to be stolen and co-opted in use for the forces of evil and destruction. This is the tragedy of certain brands of Fundamentalism, which purport to be based on the Word of God, but are really for the birds -- leaving the soil unplowed and unchanged in the hardness of their own world views and mind-set and prejudice.

In order for the seed to take root and grow the ground must be open to receive it. It must be open to being changed. There is perhaps nothing more sad to behold with the eye than a plot of hardened, unyielding ground. There's no hope there, no openness to the miracle of a wilderness bloom.

A poem comes to my mind as I think on this parable this morning. It is from the great Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai and speaks of the openness which is necessary for the desert to blossom:

"From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood."

Daily Lesson for May 2, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 77 verse 19:

Your way was through the sea,
your path through the great waters;
yet your footprints were unseen.

God goes before us. Into the sea of death, through the great waters of tumult, into the pit of fire.

Mortal eyes cannot see God there. He is not visible with cornea or pupil. A picture would prove to the world that we are all alone.

But the eyes of faith behold what the aperture cannot capture -- the footprints of one who goes before us, the image of one beside whose face is like the Son of Man.

No eye has seen it. No photograph can prove it.  But she who follows the earth's inescapable way into the sea knows that she is not alone.

"When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
When you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you come through the fire,
the flames will not consume you,
and you shall not be burned . . .
Do not be afraid, for I am with you."
(Isaiah 43:2,3 & 5)