Daily Lesson for August 31, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 14  verses 18 through 22:

18 “But the mountain falls and crumbles away,
and the rock is removed from its place;
19 the waters wear away the stones;
the torrents wash away the soil of the earth;
so you destroy the hope of man.
20 You prevail forever against him, and he passes;
you change his countenance, and send him away.
21 His sons come to honor, and he does not know it;
they are brought low, and he perceives it not.
22 He feels only the pain of his own body,
and he mourns only for himself.”

One of the most serious things we as a culture have to come to terms with is the fact that modern medicine cannot save us in the end.

I know that sounds obvious, and we all know it is true generally speaking. But when we start talking specifics, say about this particular person with this particular problem at this particular moment then we very often hope modern medicine can stay a step ahead of death's shadow.

One of the saddest things in all of life is to stand at the bedside of a dying woman who in her 80s has staved off death for the last 10 years with every kind of drug and treatment known to man listen in shock when the doctor says there is nothing more that can be done.  "You mean with all the modern medicine you can't do anything?" she says as she gasps for air through the nebulizer's pipe.

"I am sorry," is all the doctor is left to say.

"Well what if we go back to see her doctors in Houston?" the woman's son asks.

"I don't know that they would do anything we haven't already tried," the doctor says.

Job says God "destroys the hope of man."

This sounds horribly cruel and perhaps vindictive until we realize at some point man's hopes need to be destroyed. In fact, it is a cruel thing not to dash the hopes of man so long as that hope is in anything other than God Himself.  Anything else is abusive.

My friend Ted Dotts told me in his final days that the gift death gives us is that it disabuses us of the notion that anything other than God can save us.

That is a truth it is better to come to terms with sooner rather than later.

Daily Lesson for August 30, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 8 verses 31 through 36:

31 So Jesus said . . .“If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

We can think of ourselves as good, moral upstanding people and still be absolutely blind to our own patterns of sin.  Our own prejudice is mostly hidden from our eyes. So too is the shadow side of our personality. Most of us are not aware of the pride, anger, hostility, and envy we carry inside us. It may even be more difficult to see the patterns of sin we have in our church, family, political party or racial group.  We like to think of ourselves as the good guys!

Jesus challenged the purity of his people. He caused them to see their own ambiguities, ironies, and conflicts.  He said they, a free people, were still yet slaves to sin.

This was too much for many to bear; and so they killed Jesus. This is what happens to all the prophets who dare to say the emperor has no clothes. But even as Jesus was being killed, there was a large contingency of people who recognized in their hearts that he was right. This was the beginning of their liberation.

A quote is attributed to Harriet Tubman, "I freed a thousand slaves and could have freed a thousand more if they had know that they were slaves."

A Prayer: LORD, give me eyes to see the shackles of my own besetting sin, and humility to accept the hard truth which can finally set me free.

Daily Lesson for August 29, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 25 verses 6 and 7:

6 Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
7 Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!

I know many, many people who are now spending their adult lives trying to live down their misspent youth. Their aim is noble and their hearts are in the right place, but my experience is that in all the ones I can think of there is still something missing.  They are moral -- deeply so -- but they are not at peace. There always remains yet one more crusade against human sin to join in order to prove devotion and faithfulness to God.  They never quite get there; and neither does anyone else.

We can never really live what we've done down. We can take up a sword to defend Jesus in Gethsemane or a cross to follow him to Golgotha, but in the end all our efforts will fall short. We cannot save ourselves nor our past. It is by grace that we are saved.

Amends have there place. They are important for building back bridges and for bringing about reconciliation. They are also important for showing what the LORD has done. But so long as we are still striving to make it up to God or other people then we're pretty much locked in the prison of the past -- a place we can never get out of ourselves.

Today's Lesson is a good word for those still stuck trying to live down what happened years ago. Our faith is not in ourselves -- that we can ever live anything down, but our faith is in God and the promise that we will be found in His great mercy. In the end this is our great hope and our one plea:

 Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!

Daily Lesson for August 26, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 9 verses 1 through 3 and 15:

Then Job answered and said:

2 “Truly I know that it is so:

But how can a man be in the right before God?

3 If one wished to contend with him,

one could not answer him once in a thousand times.

15 Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him;

I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.

There is a legal term called "nolo contendre", which is Latin for "I do not wish to contend".  In jurisprudence it is sometimes referred to as a plea of no contest. 

Though Job's suffering is terrible and the shame of it all even worse, he nevertheless wishes not to contend with God. Job knows it would simply be no contest. Though what has befallen him he sees as unfair, Job recognizes that fairness is a relative term. For who really wants fairness when it comes to God? In the end, it is better to plea for mercy.

So let me take this out of the book of Job and set it in real life. Yesterday I had lunch with a dear friend whose life was dramatically changed by a accident many years ago. We meet regularly to break bread and talk. What happened to my friend was tragic and life altering. It was also incredibly unfair. Yet yesterday, as we set down together I realized that though my friend was tired and carrying a heavy burden, he was not bitter. He is past the point of thinking God or life owed him something different or something more -- that was a part of the journey of grief but is now unhelpful and even counterproductive. Now, he sees it as a grace to have what he does and he treasures it greatly. In fact, I know of nobody else who treasures the simple things of life more than my friend.

To contend with God is not a sin. It is a part of the journey. But the wisdom which comes from suffering reveals the extraordinary value of small graces like breaking bread with a friend or getting an unsolicited "I love you," from a child. Who has earned such a thing?  And who could weigh its value -- this grace of unfair gifts?

There is a poem by Raymond Carver I sometimes recite at funerals when someone who has suffered inordinately passes. It is called "Late Fragment", and it speaks to me of the hidden fragment of grace and love and mercy even amidst the visible fracture of a broken body or a broken life:

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

Who can contend with God?  He who has given us so much even in so small and suffering of ways.

Daily Lesson for August 25, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from a Psalm 18 verse 28:

28 For it is you who light my lamp;

the Lord my God lightens my darkness.

Just as the moon is not itself a source of light, neither are we our own source of light, but rather mirrors of God's light shining in and through us.

The moon, in fact, is actually quite dark on its surface. The astronauts who have walked it report that the rocky surface of the moon is grey to even almost black in color. It is also very rocky. These things mean only somewhere between 3 and 12 percent of the Suns light is reflected back. This doesn't sound like much, but it speaks to the powers of the Suns beams -- incredible. So much so, that at full moon, when the Sun's beams shine on the moon directly, we here on earth can see the moon shining and visible even in the middle of the day.

Our light comes from God. The light in our eyes comes from God. We by ourselves are actually quite dark -- scary dark, even. But the light comes and shines into our darkness "and the darkness cannot overcome it" (John 1:5).

Read that again; no matter how dark we are, the light of God is so powerful that the darkness cannot absorb it all.

"And the very light of very light was coming into the world."

Daily Lesson for August 24, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 7 verses 1 through 9:

After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. 2 Now the Jews' Feast of Booths was at hand. 3 So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. 4 For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For not even his brothers believed in him. 6 Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. 8 You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” 9 After saying this, he remained in Galilee.

Timing is everything.  But taking our time requires patience, self-discipline and obedience to the spirit.

Jesus was being goaded by his brothers (who did not like all that he was about) into doing something rash. The book of John does not have a temptation scene like other Gospels, with Jesus in the wilderness being tempted by Satan to jump off the pediment of a building or turn rocks into bread in order to prove himself. But this scene with Jesus' own brothers acts very much the same way. They try to induce him to do something foolish to prove the relevance of his message and ministry.  And though I am sure he was tempted in a very powerful way, he resisted.  He refused to act without God in order to prove himself to his brothers.

The resilience Jesus demonstrates here is really astounding. Anger and frustration with his brothers and the tension of remaining in a holding pattern were no doubt sources of real struggle for him. Yet, he was strong enough to trust his own spirit. And so, he passed the test.

Jesus' brothers essentially accused him of wanting to make a name for himself. And well he could have. But whatever name it was that they were tempting him towards would not have been the Jesus name we recognize, know, and honor.  That would come only by waiting, by obedience, and by the surrender of Jesus' life to the will of God -- even if that will had no intention of making Jesus' name any bigger than it already was.

And for that -- for, in Rudyard Kipling's words, "waiting and not being tired of waiting" Jesus was given, "the name that is above all names".

Daily Lesson for August 23, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Acts chapter 9 verses 36 through 43:

36 Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. 37 In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. 38 Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, “Please come to us without delay.” 39 So Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them. 40 But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. 41 And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then, calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. 42 And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 43 And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner.

We all know a Dorcas. She was one of the good and kind women of the little seaside village of Joppa whose care for the widows and other vulnerable women in the village earned her the reputation as a saint in the community. Most of things she did were small, but they were done with much care and decency and a deep concern for her neighbors and her neighborhood.  When I think of what Dorcas did for her community, I think of something Mother Teresa once said, "If you cannot do great things, do small things with great love."

When Dorcas died all of the widows from the village came to Dorcas's home, carrying the shawls she had made for them in the last years of her life when all all she could do was make shawls. Peter also came, having been summoned by those in the village to come and pray for the recovery of this woman who had done so much for the community. He entered the upper room and perhaps because of the power within Peter or perhaps because of the power of Dorcas's good works, she was raised from the dead. When she awoke she looked down out of the upper room window onto the little village street where all the widows stood beneath praising God, the shawls Dorcas had made them draped across their shoulders or raised in thanksgiving to God.

That night, Peter went to stay with a man in Joppa named Simeon.  Simeon was a tanner, a unclean profession; but Simeon was so thankful to Peter for raising Dorcas that he extended his hospitality. Peter graciously accepted. There at Simeon's house, Peter had a dream where God revealed to him that the Gospel would soon come to all the "unclean" people of the world. When he awoke from his dream there was a knock at Simeon's door; Gentiles had come to hear the good news.

We all know Dorcas. And I wonder if this is how it will be for her in heaven -- waking in the upper room to look down and see the difference her small acts of great love have made in the lives of those she knew she was helping, and also the difference her small acts of great love made in the lives of those she did not know she was helping.

I bet it is . . .

Daily Lesson for August 22, 2016

Today's Daily a lesson comes from Job chapter

17 “Behold, blessed is the one whom God reproves;
therefore despise not the discipline of the Almighty.
18 For he wounds, but he binds up;
he shatters, but his hands heal.

The most significant growth we experience in life is usually born out of some deep experience of brokenness and pain.  Something in us has to be cracked open. Or, in the John the Baptist's words, the wheat has to be freed from it's husk.  Something hard in us has to be made vulnerable.  We must be made to connect with our own pain; and there we connect with the pain of others.  This is what Isaiah meant when he said of our relationship to the Messiah, "we are healed by His wounds".  We find our deepest healing when we allow ourselves to connect in the place of deepest woundedness.

Those still trying to put up a strong front or and show no vulnerability can never reach or be reached in the place of their deepest pain. Most of what they do is closed and defensive. There is a wall around their emotions. The shell remains. There is never any real intimacy because there is never any real vulnerability.

In Sonnet 14 the great poet and Anglican Divine John Donne, wrote, "Batter my heart, three-personed God".  To be broken is a deeply painful, yet necessary part in the experience of becoming more human.  This is how we discover the tender place, the place of our own vulnerability and woundedness.  It it is in our woundedness that both we and others can be made whole.

Daily Lesson for August 19, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 2 verses 11 through the 13:

11 Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each from his own place, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him. 12 And when they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him. And they raised their voices and wept, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads toward heaven. 13 And they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.

"And no one spoke a word to him."

Sometimes the appropriate response to suffering is absolute silence. 

Words mean so much to us and it is those who are adept with words who rise as leaders.  It is primordial for us to want to speak and receive words. The whole world was created with a word and we are wont to try to use words to create our own worlds. Words have power.

But sometimes words are not enough. Or perhaps sometimes they are too much. Sometimes we come to the end of words.

Today, a child I know is back in the hospital for the second time this week and perhaps the 50th time in the last three years. Today, a friend will again not be able to return to work because of the ongoing effects of a traumatic event years ago. Today, a parishioner will get word about the cancer cells no longer responding to the treatment. Today, a seemingly-strong marriage will be shown to have unraveled over the last year. Today, a mother will have to choose to shut the door on her daughter in order to save herself and the rest of the family.

What do you say, really?  Words fail.  At times like these, the only power words have is destructive and not constructive. At times like these, words are not the answer.

I read sometime back a reflection the Quaker spiritual writer Parker Palmer wrote on a time of deep depression he entered into. The depression was literally numbing. For months he could feel nothing in his body except some small sensation in his feet. A friend from the local Quaker society, a gentle and humble man, learned about Parker's paralysis and asked him if it would be okay if he came by once a day and just massaged his feet. Parker, in a sign of deep trust, said yes and for weeks the friend came daily and simply gently massaged Parker's feet and ankles.  He said nothing.  He did not need to say anything. He did not need to give his words. He needed to give what Parker was open to receiving -- his gentle touch and his simple presence. These things were enough.  These things said everything.

There are times when words really do fail. But more times than not they fail not because they are too small but because they are too much. 

"And they sat with Job on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him."

Daily Lesson for August 18, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 1 verses 6 through 12:

6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. 7 The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

The book of Job marks a tremendous shift in human consciousness, as it challenges the ancient conception of a God who can be appeased, manipulated and controlled.

Certainly Job is into control!  He himself is a righteous man, fearing God even to the point of making sacrifices on behalf of his own children -- just in case they forgot.  On one hand this is beautiful and on another it is manipulative, overly-involved, obsessive and sad.  Will Job ever be able to sleep at night, for fear that his children have done something unacceptable to God?

Satan enters the story with a life-shattering and religion-altering question: "Does Job fear God for nothing?"  In other words, what kind of man would Job be and what kind of religion would he have if things didn't always work out for him?

What Job leaves us with is a new concept of God and God's relationship to humanity and human events. At the beginning of Job this relationship is fixed: "Do good get rewarded; do bad get punished."  What Job gives us is much more complex, mysterious, and beyond our control. In other words, what Job leaves us with is life as it is not life as we think it should be.

And that is the crux of the matter. Am I serious about this whole God thing even if it isn't quite clear what I am going to get out of it?  Am I still going to fear God, which means worship and try to remain obedient, even when life isn't working out the way I thought it would?

This is the end of a religion that is quid pro quo, transactionary, and substantively legalistic, and the beginning of a religion that is based on faith.

Daily Lesson for August 17, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Acts chapter 8 verses 17 through 23:

17 Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. 18 Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, 19 saying, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” 20 But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! 21 You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. 23 For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.”

The bitterness of envy can be so deceptive and also so destructive.

We look on what others are doing and we think, "If I only had that I would be a success.  I would really be something -- something for God.  I would do anything to have what they have."

So then we do just about anything to get it. We shuffle and huck and do whatever else we can to get the attention of the city and let them know just how blessed and anointed and relevant we are.

And that lasts for about 5 minutes until somebody else does something big and amazing and now we have to try them to emulate them. And it's a vicious, vicious cycle trying to keep up with the Joneses and the Joneses church.

Thank God there's this word from Peter this morning which sees through it all, "Your heart is not right, and you need to change."

When envy and bitterness set in and we start wanting what others have so badly that we'll do anything to get it, then we've lost our way and are in danger of losing ourselves.

It's then that we most need somebody to tell us the truth.

Daily Lesson for August 16, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Acts chapter 8 verses 1 through 3:

And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2 Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. 3 But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Earlier this year, our church had Will Willimon, former Bishop of the Northern Alabama United Methodist Conference, as our adult retreat leader.   One of the things that he said that has stuck with me was that in working with hundreds of Alabama churches over the last decade, he was always conscious that people can change. He noted specifically the racial attitudes of people in the churches he served. "No one could tell me they can't change, because they already had changed," he said.

Now I understand that attitudes about race and many other things are often unconscious. There is much work to be done in deprograming and reprogramming much within us. Yet, the fact remains, we can and have changed on many matters throughout the centuries, and we will continue to change. God will continue to change us. 

Which brings me to Saul.  There was no one more committed to his race and nationalistic in his thinking than Saul of Tarsus. A "Hebrew of Hebrews," he called himself. So intent on holding the line, he held the coats of the people who stoned the martyr Stephen.  And then his real ravaging of the Church began. This was the most unlikely of people for God to choose to one day become Christianity's greatest apostle. 

But people really do change; God changes them.  God changes all of us. 

And so, that brings me to the Sauls in my own life. Note I said, God changes us.  It's really not my place or call to try to change anyone. God does the convicting.  God performs the miracles. God is the heart surgeon. My role is to bear witness, remain open, pray for the surgery to be a success. 

That's sometimes harder than it sounds. If I'm honest, I don't always want Saul to change. But you know what, I really don't get a choice in this. God is going to change who God is going to change, whether I approve or not. God is in the change business.

People can change. God can change them. God makes Sauls into Pauls everyday.  God's desire is to change Saul and to see him flourish and prosper as a human being. The question I am left with then is to ask what my desire for Saul is.  And if it's anything other than God's desire, then maybe I'm the one who really needs to change . . .

Daily Lesson for August 15, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 106 verses 6 through 12:

6 Both we and our fathers have sinned;
we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness.
7 Our fathers, when they were in Egypt,
did not consider your wondrous works;
they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love,
but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.
8 Yet he saved them for his name's sake,
that he might make known his mighty power.
9 He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry,
and he led them through the deep as through a desert.
10 So he saved them from the hand of the foe
and redeemed them from the power of the enemy.
11 And the waters covered their adversaries;
not one of them was left.
12 Then they believed his words;
they sang his praise.

Those people whom I most admire and want to be around and also emulate walk with humility of spirit, knowing they have been saved by a grace that comes not from anything they themselves did to deserve it. These people live their lives without hubris or airs and do not think too much of their side of their relationship with God. Ask anyone of them and they would deny humility.  What they would simply say is what Paul said to Timothy, "I am chief of sinners".

This goes not only for individuals but also for nations. Writing in the context of the beginning of WWII as the hubris of Nazi Germany grew more and more visibly grotesque, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, "No nation is free of the sin of pride. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that there are 'Christian' nations, who prove themselves so because they are still receptive to prophetic words of judgment spoken against the nation."

A humble nation is one which understands its contradictions, acknowledges its shadows, and accepts its critics.  It is a nation whose canons include words like those by the poet in today's lesson, "Both we and our fathers have sinned."

I want to be around individuals who know they have sinned. And I want to live in a nation which also knows and acknowledges it has sinned. I want this because those who are unaware of their own sin and capacity to go on sinning are really annoying at best, and at worst outright dangerous. On the other hand, I want to be around those who know themselves to be sinners and live in a nation which is honest with its own sin because doing so opens me to be more honest about my own contradictions, shadows, and sin.

And therein is the road to salvation and the path towards doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God.

Daily Lesson for August 12, 2016

Today's daily lesson comes from John chapter 4 verses 47 through 50:

47 When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” 49 The official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” 50 Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.

If you have ever worried yourself sick over the wellbeing of a child, then you understand the father in this story. If in the middle of the night you have pleaded with God for the miracle of your child's healing or salvation then you know this father.

The man's son is gravely ill, near even to the point of death.  And hearing that this Jesus with the power to work miracles is up in the mountain village of Cana, the father makes the desperate decision to leave his son in his town of Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee and make the day-long journey up to Cana.

Arriving and finding Jesus there in Cana, the father begs him to come down to Capernaum and perform a miracle. But disappointingly Jesus refuses to come, and even speaks suspiciously about miracles.  “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” Again, the father begs Jesus to come down before the child dies.  But again Jesus says no; instead Jesus tells the man to go back down himself and trust that his son will live.

At some point every parent begs for Jesus to come down, out of heaven to do something miraculous to heal or save our child. We travel up the mountain in desperate prayer to Him to come back down with us. But for whatever reason -- and this is a mystery hidden with Him in God -- Jesus cannot or will not come down to do the miraculous. Instead, He tells us to go back down, to be with the child, and to trust Him that though no sign or miraculous wonder is to be done our child will indeed live.

Jesus asks us to go back down the mountain, without miracle in hand. It is an act of faith to trust Him at His word, that though we don't get what we would wanted going up the mountain, we got what we needed -- his promise to us that our children will be will, in life or in death they shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.

Daily Lesson for August 11, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Judged chapter 14 verses 5 through 14b:

5 Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah, and they came to the vineyards of Timnah. And behold, a young lion came toward him roaring. 6 Then the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him, and although he had nothing in his hand, he tore the lion in pieces as one tears a young goat. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done. 7 Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she was right in Samson's eyes.
8 After some days he returned to take her. And he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and behold, there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. 9 He scraped it out into his hands and went on, eating as he went. And he came to his father and mother and gave some to them, and they ate. But he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey from the carcass of the lion.
10 His father went down to the woman, and Samson prepared a feast there, for so the young men used to do. 11 As soon as the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him. 12 And Samson said to them, “Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can tell me what it is, within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes, 13 but if you cannot tell me what it is, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty changes of clothes.” And they said to him, “Put your riddle, that we may hear it.” 14 And he said to them,
“Out of the eater came something to eat.
Out of the strong came something sweet.”

Now here is just a very weird story.  Samson kills a lion with his bare hands, and then laps up honey from its carcass, all the while chasing after a woman his parents do not approve of.  It is a weird story. It is also a deeply mythological story -- meaning it is a story (in Greek "mythos") that tells something deep and true about our humanity.

Here is something deep and true: the world's sweetest honey can only be found in the carcass of a slayed lion.  In other words, it is only through struggle and fight and grappling with lions in life (including the lion of our family of origin) that we ever to find any sense of deep satisfaction, purpose, or real growth in life. Like Samson's life, sometimes our own lives are ugly and even shameful. Yet, there is honey in the carcass of the lion. In other words, there is the sweetness of God's grace after all the hideousness of the struggle.

There is a letter from John Newton, the slave ship captain turned clergyman who penned they hymn, "Amazing Grace", written in his old age to a young minister just coming up.  It is a deeply powerful word about the sometimes ugly struggle of being human and the surprise of God's amazing grace through it all.  Here is an excerpt:

"The doctrinal parts of our ministry are to some degree familiar to us. But that which gives a savour, fullness, energy, and variety to our ministrations is the result of many painful conflicts and exercises which we must pass through in our private walk, combined with the proofs we receive of as we along, of the LORD's compassion and mercies under all the perverseness we are conscious of in ourselves. It is only in this school of experience that we can acquire the tongue of the learned, and know how to speak a word in season to those who are weary.  Thus, by His wise arrangement: 'Out of the eater cometh meat.'"

Out of the lion of life comes the honey; and in the struggle we find God's grace.

Daily Lesson for August 10, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 4 verses 16 through 24:

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

I have been at this pastoring thing for 11 years now and there is something I have noticed at every church and in every community I've been it: it's always easier to argue about worship style than it is to get to the truth of their own moral failures.

I mean, it's just a given; almost everybody wants to talk about the music genre, but nobody wants to talk about who they've slept with. Like the woman in today's lesson, we want to talk about worship on this or that mountain but in fact it's really a distraction and tactic of avoidance to keep us from having to honestly deal with our issues. We like to talk about the spirit of worship and whether or not it's in the room on Sunday. But the truth of what is going on in our lives Monday through Saturday is a little too personal. Better to stick to criticizing the worship pastor's choices than take a look at our own. This is classic scapegoating.

Jesus says God is pleased with worship that is spirit-filled. But spirit alone is not enough.  What really pleases God, Jesus says, is a people who worship in spirit and also in truth.

Daily Lesson for August 9, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 3 verses 25 through 30:

25 Now a discussion arose between some of John's disciples and a Jew over purification. 26 And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” 27 John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. 28 You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ 29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Now here is a man living in an almost egoless state of surrender.  John has completely surrendered his life and mission and reputation to the will of God. Even when others try to induce him to greater ego satisfaction John refuses.  John's purpose was to introduce the Christ. Having been the one chosen to introduce the Christ to the world, John refuses the temptation to be more.  He is content to be what God has given him to be and he is not envious or want to do more. Jesus will now draw the crowds; John will go to prison. John is at peace with this.

How does a person get to such a place of surrender?  A lifetime of prayer and fasting and daily surrender allows now John to make one final and dramatic act of surrender.  John got to this moment of ultimate surrender by a thousand or hundred thousand acts of surrender along the way.

My friend and mentor Ted Dotts prayed John Wesley's Covenant Prayer every morning of his life for many, many years.  In the prayer there is a line which says, "Let me be employed for Thee or laid aside for Thee, exalted for Thee or brought low for Thee." It is a prayer of surrender, and if you pray it daily for 30 or so years you end up being like my friend Ted, who at the end of his life had become the most humble and egoless man I've ever known.

How do we get there?  How do we become like Ted or like John?  How do we get to the point of egoless surrender at the end of our lives?  We get there by taking a step now, by surrendering in some small way today.

Here's Wesley's prayer to help us get started:

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine, and I am thine.
So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.

Daily Lesson for August 8, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 3 verses 1-3, and 14-21:

 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God . . .14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

There was a man who came to Jesus. His name was Nicodemus. By all accounts, he was a good and moral man -- a leader in his community and his synagogue.  By all accounts, he was a righteous man.

Yet, Nicodemus has a secret. A hidden discretion. Perhaps a secret past. Or maybe a secret present. In any case, a moral defect. Something which kept him up at night, in terror of guilt.  And so he came to Jesus, by night.  Nick at Night.  Nicodemus, hidden in darkness and in shadow made his way to the one called the "light of all men".

"You must be born again," Jesus told Nicodemus.  In other words, Nicodemus must be born from his hidden world of darkness and come out into the open and exposing light of day.  Nicodemus trembles at the thought. Exposure is his greatest fear; his secret too shameful to come to light. The condemnation would be too great. But then Jesus' words, "Nicodemus, you are already condemned. You have condemned yourself. The Son comes not to condemn you but to save you from your own condemnation. And the way to salvation is for your secret to be told. It must be exposed to the light. Your deepest secret must be lifted up like the snake on Moses' staff -- something so hideous and terrifying, yet when lifted up to the light not so terrible, but in fact healing -- saving even. Nicodemus, if you wish to be healed and to be saved then the secret must be told, the snake in you must come to light."

They say we are only as sick as our secrets. I would like to be able to say that night Nicodemus told Jesus his secret -- that he was healed of his sickness.  But the Bible does not say whether or not it was so. Perhaps Nicodemus did. Or perhaps it was too much for Nicodemus to bear; perhaps he could not bring himself to do it.

In any case, he had come close to the light, and to the Son of light, and he walked away with a since that what is said of the light may indeed be true: that it shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.

That no darkness can overcome it.

Daily Lesson for August 5, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 88 verses 13 through 18:

13  But I, O Lord, cry to you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
14  O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?
Why do you hide your face from me?
15  Afflicted and close to death from my youth up,
I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.
16  Your wrath has swept over me;
your dreadful assaults destroy me.
17  They surround me like a flood all day long;
they close in on me together.
18  You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me;
my companions have become darkness.

In his book "A Cry of Absence" Martin Marty writes of the terminal cancer diagnosis of his wife Elsa in 1981 the days leading up to her death late that her.  In a very touching scene in the memoir Martin tells how each night they would lie together in bed and read the psalms, he reading the even and she the odd. One night, when it came his time to read Psalm 88, he passed over it. "What happened to Psalm 88?" Elsa asked.  "I didn't think you could take Psalm 88.  It's a bleak psalm."  Elsa then said very lovingly to her husband, "Who do you think you are to decide what I can take?  The light ones don't mean anything if you haven't walked through the dark ones."

Psalm 88 is, in Martin Marty's words, "a wintry landscape of unrelieved bleakness."  It does not end all neat and pretty, with a bow on top. It does not end in the light of hope. It ends in darkness. It ends in verse 18, with darkness as the psalmist's only companion.

We might wonder, why is this psalm there in the Bible?  What place does so bleak a word have in the canon?  It is there because sometimes some of us are there, because at sometime we'll all be there -- with a diagnosis that is terminal, with a loved one who is dying, in a bleak and wintry place from which there is simply no escape.

It's times like these that darkness is our only companion. Reading Psalm 88 teaches us to befriend the darkness and not to fear it, to accept it as part of the journey -- an unavoidable part.

Sometimes in pastoral counseling, when someone is deeply sad or depressed or hopeless, I will read to them Psalm 88, with its pain and loss and at end sense of abandonment.  "Now why," I ask, "would the Biblical writers include this in the Bible?  Why would they allow this to remain without any sense of resolution?"  The person across from me usually shakes his or her head in an expression of not knowing or understanding. A long silence follows. And then I lean in, "Because, I think, the Bible knows that a person like you needs this word, this voice, this word of irresolution. Because this voice belongs."

Who am I to say anybody can't take reading Psalm 88? This dark psalm belongs. The darkness belongs.  The darkness belongs because people in the darkness belong, and because God's companionship can be found even in the darkness.

Daily Lesson for August 4, 2016

Today's TBT Lesson is from John 1:47-48:

47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.

When I was a boy I had a big, two-story fort in my back yard. It was my hideout. Whenever I was lonely, or wounded, or afraid, and especially when I was in trouble, I always climbed the ladder to my fort. It was my place of hiding and shame.

Whenever I read the Scripture for today I wonder if Nathanael's tree wasn't a lot like my fort - his place of hiding. The thing that made me think of that was when I realized that it is not just any old generic tree. It is a fig tree - the same kind of tree from which Adam and Eve plucked leaves to hide their nakedness after eating from the forbidden fruit. It was among the fig trees that Adam and Eve hid themselves from God as He came walking toward them in the cool of the evening.

The Lesson for today is one for those in hiding from God and the world. It is for those who are living (or dying) in the guilt of what they have done and the shame of who they are. It is for those beneath fig trees or in forts or wherever else it is that they can hide. And the message is this: Jesus sees us already. He already knows us. He knows what we have done. And he knows where we are hiding.

He sees us and he knows us and he accepts us - unconditionally. He calls us to step out of the darkness of our guilt and our shame and into the light of his embrace. He sees us and he knows us and he loves us and he wants us to come out of hiding.

Daily Lesson for August 3, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John 1 verses 35 through 39:

35 The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

Not long ago I spent an evening with a couple of friends, each of which is what I would call a "seeker".  The time spent together was great. We drank a little wine, enjoyed a deliciously-prepared meal, and talked about everything from the policies and politics of Uber to the meaning of America.  We also talked about God, if there is one -- the qualifier being that not everyone at the table was sure that there is.

On nights like these, I see my role as that of trying to create community, to engage questions and ideas, but not to set out to refute or "prove" anything -- if God felt the need to prove something I'm not sure I would have been His first choice as a messenger.  I made a C in college philosophy, after all.  No; my role is presence, engaging, laughing, being with.

The seekers came to Jesus and he asked them, "What are you looking for?" They did not know what they were looking for.  They could not answer.

"Where are you staying?" they asked back.

"Come and see," he said.

So they went with him.  They stayed the night.  Well, they were supposed to stay just a night. But they ended up staying three years.

And somewhere along the way they must have realized something profound, yet hidden. Somewhere along the way they realized that when Jesus said, "Come and see," he was answering not only their question to him -- "Where are you staying?" -- but also his question to them -- "What are you looking for?"

What are my seeker friends looking for?  The answer cannot be summed up in a single sentence or discovered in a single night. What they are looking for is deeper and more wonderful than a slogan or a tweet or a night of philosophizing.  What they are looking for is a a place to stay awhile and a generous host to stay with, someone who will welcome their stay and perhaps even over welcome their stay.  Someone who will welcome them until they come to discover that it is not so much a "what" that they are looking for, but rather a "who".

Now, after 2,000 years the Galilean still has his arms open in a generous, beckoning wave, and his words fall hospitably on the ears of a pair of seekers once more, "Come; come and see."

Daily Lesson for August 2, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Acts chapter 3 verses 1 through 10:

Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. 2 And a man lame from birth was being carried, swhom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple. 3 Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. 4 And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” 5 And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 6 But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” 7 And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. 8 And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. 9 And all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

Exciting news!  With the generous help of an almost $150,000 grant from a fantastic foundation St Benedict's Chapel was able to purchase a new building yesterday and will soon be moving to its new location on 28th and Q.  The new building more than doubles our space and will allow us to do more creative social ministry with the homeless and working poor.

As we take our next steps into this new future, my prayer is that this ministry can continue to live out its calling to "Feed Body and Soul".  It's the "and Soul" part where this new location affords us greater opportunity for growth as a mission.  We provide a meal to about 120 people each day.  But the space we have been in (an old Subway Sandwich shop) has been too small and cramped and we have had to hustle people in and out. The new space will allow us to grow into our vision for truly being a center of social interaction -- a place where the most important thing, community, happens.

Two weeks ago a couple of ministers from St Benedict's went to visit a homeless ministry in Hollywood that they identified as a model for what we would like to become on day ourselves. When they came back they reported on what they saw and learned.  They said what they discovered is that even more than the tangible needs the Hollywood ministry was meeting what impressed them most was the intangible needs it was meeting.  "Isolation is the disease," one of them said, "what our friends on the streets need most is connection."

In today's lesson there is community and connection. The disciples do more then toss alms the lonely beggar's way. They look at him; they talk with him. They reach out and physically touch him. They empower him to stand on his own two legs.  "Rise and walk," they say.  And he does even more; he leaps.

Isolation is the disease. You can't throw alms at that. Gold and silver won't solve it.  The only thing that can cure it is human connection.

May this new location be a place where human touch and talk happen. May it be a place of human connection and community.  May all be fed there -- in body and in soul.

For more information on St Benedict's or to make a donation to our ministry see our website (and new building) at http://stbenedictslubbock.com.

Daily Lesson for August 1, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Joshua chapter 6 verses 25 through 27:

25 That night the Lord said to him, “Take your father's bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it 26 and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due order. Then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you shall cut down.” 27 So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night.

This is a deeply archetypal story, outlining one generation's struggle to live out from under another generation's destructive religious practices and social mores.  The struggle is always with the cultural gods of the community -- oftentimes spoken of in terms of custom, heritage, or "way of life".  The antipathy towards these "false gods" is always at first held only in secret and the protest is at first subversive, non-direct, and oftentimes passive-aggressive. In short, this is how we rebel against our parents -- if we do.

But the rebellion usually does not last long. Social pressure is brought to fore to keep the community in order and its conventions intact. Those who step out of line are punished -- usually socially in myriads of ways and sometimes even physically.  The rebellion which takes place under cloak is found out; social punishment is swift and often harsh.  What is seen to be open rebellion is punished with even greater social force. What happened to Jesus in his own town among his own people is a case in point.

In today's story about Gideon's rebellion against his father's gods, the archetypal journey is demonstrated. He is suspected of being the culprit and found out by the community. "It was Gideon the son of Joash who has done this," they say.  They then go to Joash's house to demand his son.

But then, beautifully, the father refuses to give up his son.  He tells the villagers demanding Gideon that if the gods are upset then they can come themselves and get his son.

Here the social convention is overturned.  When confronted with the possibility of losing his own son Joash is made to admit the inadequacy and even falsehood of his own gods and customs.  He stands up with his son in defiance of the community's expectation and custom and against its hostility.

This is a 3,000 year old story; but it also just happened yesterday.