Daily Lesson for the Day of Holy Innocents December 28, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson is from Matthew chapter 2 verses 16 through 18:

16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,
    weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
    and refusing to be comforted,
    because they are no more.”

This year we received a crèche scene for Christmas and just like all our others we see Joseph and Mary and the baby and a few shepherd and, in a couple wise men, but no Herod. Out of all the crèche scenes I've ever had I've never seen Herod in the crèche.

But Herod was there. He was just a few miles away from there anyway -- his dark shadow cast from his palace in Jerusalem toward the little town of Bethlehem 15 miles away.  And when word came to him that another king had been born the shadow lengthened and cast its dark pall over the city of David.

Aside from the Bible, no other historical source from the time remembers the slaughter of the innocents. That is understandable. Violence and war and the massacring of villages was the way the world was; it's the way the world still is in many places. It's easy to overlook the killing of a few dozen or hundred children in a small backwater place. I mean, just how many children have been lost in Syria in the last 5 years? We lose count. We forget.

But Matthew remembers. And this is his way of saying, God remembers also.  "For not a sparrow falls to the ground without God knowing it," Matthew later tells us Jesus said. And how much more precious are these children than many sparrows.

What could possess Herod to act so heinously?   Who could slaughter innocent children?  Today's lesson says Herod was enraged when he ordered the massacre. And surly he was. By all accounts Herod was a raging madman.

But there is something before and something deeper than the rage that Matthew tells us about. And that something was Fear. Matthew says when the Magi came and told him of another King being born Herod was "afraid, and all Jerusalem with him."  Herod was afraid, and so too then all the people were afraid also.

Fear can motivate one to do many cruel and barbaric things.  And it can motivate others to go along with them. This is why fearful leaders who whip up the fears of others are so dangerous. If we are afraid enough we can see almost any action as reasonable -- even barbarism and slaughter.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. It is a day to be mindful that while Christmas was a great day of joy, the shadow of death soon was to fall over Bethlehem. It is a day to remember the sacrifice and loss of those Bethlehem children's lives and indeed all the young lives lost to tyranny and oppression. We remember those children because God remembers them.

But we remember something else also; we remember what fear can do to us and our own humanity. Two thousand years later the Slaughter of the Innocents is a cautionary tale, reminding us just how brutal and violent fear can drive a leader to become -- and all his people with him.

“A voice is heard in Ramah,
    weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
    and refusing to be comforted,
    because they are no more.”

This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We need listen and consider it soberly.

Note: A version of this reflection first appeared on the Feast of Holy Innocents in 2015.  Look for more Daily Lessons in 2017.

Daily Lesson for December 27, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 13 verse 34:

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."

Today is the Feast of St John, the Beloved Disciple.

John gets his name because in the Gospel which he wrote he always refers to himself as "the whom Jesus loved".

How extraordinary!  Imagine what it would be to so deeply know we are loved that that "loved one" actually becomes our name -- our sole and soul identity.

"We love because God first loved us," John said.  This means we cannot love without first being loved. Grammatically speaking (this should please my English-teacher wife), we cannot be the subject of love without first being its direct object.  In other words, we cannot give love without first receiving it. Just as the light of the moon shining into the earth is in actuality light reflected from the sun, so our love for others is always a reflection of God's love for us.

Want to love? First be loved. Love yourself. Love yourself with the love of God. For the love of self begins with the love of God and ends in the love of neighbor.

#2BLoved

Daily Lesson for December 26, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 2 verse 18:

"And Mary kept all these words and pondered them in her heart."

In the Christian celebration Christmas is not a single day, but rather twelve. Christmas does not come and go, but stays with us. We live in Christmastime; and we keep Christmas the whole time through.

Mary kept all the words said about Jesus beyond the day of his birth.  These were her reminders of the meaning and destiny of the child as she raised him up, watching him grow in wisdom and in stature. The words stayed with her through many a hard time when the family was in refuge. She kept the words, always pondering their meaning.

The Advent season brought us four words by flickering candlelight: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. These words stay with us through the Christmas season. This is why we keep the the advent candles burning. We keep the the candles lit because we keep the words in our hearts. We keep the candles lit because we keep the words alive.

The world will want to snuff out these lights. But we intend to keep them into the New Year. We plan to keep them. In 2017 we plan to hold our Hope, seek Peace -- and pursue it, bring Joy, and make Love whenever and wherever we can (within reason).  The world will try to tamp these fledgling words out; but we will keep them in our hearts.

We keep the lights burning. We keep Hope alive. We keep Peace possible. We keep Joy abundant. And we keep on trying and trying again to learn to Love all.

We keep the lights burning in our hearts.

We keep Christmas.

Daily Lesson for December 23, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 1 verses 57 through 65:

57 Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. 58 And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. 59 And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, 60 but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” 61 And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” 62 And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. 63 And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. 64 And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. 65 And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea.

The child must be given his own name and follow his own path; the parent's role is to honor the name and the path -- even when it is not the name or the path of their choosing.

Zechariah was a priest. In those days the priestly cast was one of lineage. As the son of a priest Zechariah's child would have been a priest like his father. And the people assumed that this infant child would take the path and even the name of his father Zechariah.

But God had a different plan for this child. He would march to the beat of his own drum. And he would call into question the beat of the king's drum.  He would pay a great price for his thoughts and ways. But this was his path.

And as a sign of all that was to come, when the child was 8 days old and it came time for Zechariah to give the child his name, instead he gave him the name John.

No one knew anything yet of a way in the wilderness, or a camel's hair coat, or the locusts and wild honey, or a truth that would be too much for old King Herod to bear.

But one thing was clear, this child was John and not Zechariah.

Daily Lesson for December 22, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 1 verses

52  He has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.

Famous words from Mary's "Magnificat", a song of jubilation sung by a lowly and poor child of the earth who suddenly discovers that she has been looked upon with favor by God.

I am curious how you hear these words of Mary's song?:

"He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and lifted the lowly."

"He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty handed."

These words could be, and have been, heard to describe a Marxist revolution.  This could be a song for Castro's Cuba.

Then again, this could be a song sung to describe the coming of the the three kings who left their lofty thrones in the East to come and bow down to a peasant child.

Or, this could be the song for Christmas morning at Bob Cratchit's house, when suddenly now Ebenezer Scrooge showed up with ham and turkey and gifts for all the children and then departed now empty of hand yet full of heart.

What do you think of this song?  How do you hear it?  How do you imagine Jesus would have us to live it?

"He fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty handed."  And somehow, both are all the fuller.

Daily Lesson for December 21

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Luke 1 verses 36 and 37:

 36 And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 

When we think of the joy we hear of here in the Advent season we think always of young Mary and the nativity of the child within her womb.

But there is also another child which the Advent heralds -- John the Baptist, born of Mary's much older and supposedly barren cousin Elizabeth.

While at Christmas all our focus centers mostly on children and young parents, let us not forget the story's good news for those who thought their best busiest days were behind them.  Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah had long since put away the hope of ever having a child together. Elizabeth's barren womb was a sign of a barren future. They were probably planning for retirement and trying to figure who was going to care for them in their old age since they had no children. Perhaps they were thinking young Mary and her husband-to-be Joseph could help some. 

When suddenly, good new of great joy for this couple also -- a child would be born unto them that was going to change and complicate their lives and require much of them just as they were readying to slow down. Suddenly, the barren desert had come alive.  It was everything they had prayed for; but it was also nothing they were ready for. 

I pastor a church, a place where retirees ready to settle down get summoned into action all the time. Old women find themselves sitting down tutoring at-risk boys and old men find themselves on the roofs of Habitat for Humanity homes. Suddenly there's work to do use to be made of. They who were retired now have a job that is more important and will keep them busier than anything they've ever done before.

Around Christmastime clergy friend came into a nursing home with a sermon on Elizabeth conceiving in her old age story.  Afterwards, a wheelchair-bound woman there piped up, "I believe it, preacher. But I need you to explain it to Medicare."

And suddenly an old woman gave birth to laughter and joy in a place that was said to be barren of such things. 

And anything is possible with God.

Daily Lesson for December 20, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 1 verse 22:

"And when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple."

You don't know, you don't know you don't know; and I can't tell you just how blessed I feel this morning. Over these last several days our family has received dozens of Christmas cards now crowding the too-small table in our den. They come from near and far away, with fond memories, well wishes and and photographs of children still growing in wisdom and in stature. I paused yesterday to take them all in. I picked up one which signed, seemed to speak for the entire multitude: "From your extended flock".  And what a flock it is. And what memories.

As I stood there the words of the carol came true, as it always does at Christmas: "the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight."

And then, after that experience before the table, Irie and I drove across town to a Deacon's Christmas party at the old church building. We've been in our new building for 15 years and our Deacon chair Jim thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory road. And indeed, when I first opened the door to the building which is now a Seventh Day Adventist Church, a rush of memories came flooding back. This is the building where as a child I had my first spiritual connections and as the door swung open I smelled a smell of an old building which I in my subconscious sometime attributed to the holy incense of God. There was the long hall of Sunday Schools where my parents taught my third grade Sunday School class and where Drew the new incoming Deacon Chair who will replace Jim first signed my first Bible in 1983. There were the the South steps where as a three-year-old I would walk up every morning for Mother's Day Out wearing boots, cowboy hat, and a pair of six shooters at my sides. Then there was the sanctuary where my father was baptized, my parents married and where my great-uncle, where early on in our church's life, amidst a seminal and defining meeting on whether or not we would accept non-Baptist to the Lord's Table, Uncle Roy swung open the the doors and marched in saying, "I'm Paul of Tarsus. I am not a Baptist. Will you have me at the Table?"  As I understand it, that was the end of the meeting and the beginning of what came to be know as Second B.

After a tour of the old building, we gathered in the old fellowship hall, ate and sang carols, then Jim and Drew both shared memories. I was asked to give a prayer to conclude the whole thing and did so following a brief reflection on Wendell Berry's poignant observation: "Things take place".  Things do take place, I said, in the Christian life spirit is not without body or Temple. This was our holy Temple, for 40-odd years. And on this night the LORD was in his Holy Temple yet again.

I got home, got the kids to bed along with their new Christmas puppy (I'm sure you'll hear news of that later), then I sat down to open more Christmas letters. There was one from Colchester, VT -- from Fran and Jerry Allyn. Jerry, another of my former Deacon chairs, included his annual Christmas letter which I always receive and read like a Pauline epistle. News this year of another very special church building -- the Colchester Meeting House, built in 1838 and with Civil War veterans buried in the cemetery behind, it was the place of my first call, the place where I pastored my first flock.  Jerry's letter told of the old church being refurbished -- the repair of two major trusses in the attic, and the installation of six new steel lintels over the windows, a new raised seam roof, insulation, and repaired ceiling and walls. "It looks like our venerable sanctuary is good for another hundred years," Jerry's letter said.

And I thought of the birch and pine beams, all hand sawn nearly two centuries ago, holding up that church as pillars do and the generations of sturdy Vermonters who have stepped in and out of the old brick church Sunday by Sunday for a day or a lifetime, baptizing, teaching, supping, marrying, and burying in that holy temple and I hoped that it is true, that all these things shall be taking place there for a hundred or thousand or ten thousand more. I hope the flock will still be there, and with them the hopes and fears of all the years gathered also.

And I thought of one other thing, poem Irie wrote about that old brick church which I share now:

This Church is rickety
Lives and bodies
halting speech and movement
Stained glass -- and carpets
Centuries of prayers
Slipping out of whitewashed pews
and crumbling bricks
I am this Church, somehow
Prayers and incantations
Sliding through a weathered Temple

Daily Lesson for December 19, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Isaiah chapter 11 verses 1 and 2:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

When the Israelites were carried off into bondage the family tree was cursed. The sin, plight, and consequences of one generation poisoned the tree and the future of all its branches. One generation was carried off into bondage in Babylon and the following generations were imprisoned there also. There was now no hope for the children of Israel and no future for the tree of Jesse.

We know families afflicted with generational curses. Poverty, debt, drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, and tragedy and their many and effects are passed on generation to generation. The whole family tree is cursed from root to branch.

To get one look at this family or it's community is to shake your head and write them off forever.

Yet Advent speaks of a stunning surprise. Suddenly a rod of green life shoots forth from the old, dried stump. And a branch begins to blossom. What was thought to be dead is suddenly alive again.

Advent comes with its surprising good news. Suddenly from a long line of folly their is wisdom, from generations of languidness there is empowerment, and from within the ranks of the sufferers a Savior is born.

Advent promises no tree will be cursed forever. No family will be in bondage forever. From the dry, desiccated stump of Jesse suddenly a shoot shall come forth. And the curse will be broken -- "far as the curse is found".

And the word we have for believing in this promise is Hope.

Daily Lesson for December 16, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson, a commentary on Santa, parenting, and the ethics of truth telling:

Did you see the pastor who confronted all the parents and their children at the Amarillo mall waiting in line to see Santa with the "truth" that the man in the red suit isn't real?  He wanted all the little children to know that their parents were blaspheming against the true meaning of Christmas which is Jesus. He filmed and shared it all for America's edification.

Talk about putting a turd in the Christmas punch bowl.

Easter Bunny beware.

Here's my take:

From the very beginning, Irie and I were honest with our children about Santa. We told the kids we wanted them to know the truth about the meaning of Christmas and not confuse it with the make believe Santa and his elves. We did so basically for the same reasons Pastor Grinch told those parents in Amarillo they ought to come clean with their children.

Well, sort of.

We also told our kids not to spoil all the fun for the other children. We told them Santa is a fun, make believe game parents play with their children.  "If they believe let them believe," we told them, "they'll figure it out eventually."

To my knowledge all have. And I don't know that Christmas has ever been permanently damaged by the revelation.

But Christmas etiquette aside, the whole thing raises an interesting question about the ethic of telling on others and/or forcing them to come out with "the truth".  And I take it that the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is not always synonymous with facts.

I take it because Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave it to me. In a very thoughtful, and agonizingly-written piece he wrote from a Nazi prison cell, Bonhoeffer wrestled with truth telling.  It was no doubt coming out of his own experience as a Christian and pastor who was made to lie in order to deceive and attempt to undermine the Nazi regime. In the reflection, he said there are times when a lie is closer to truth than a fact.  There are things, he said which are indeed factually true but also spiritually false.

Bonhoeffer used one example that I think has bearing on the Santa brouhaha.  He imagined a teacher demanding that a student stand up in class and admit that his father is a drunkard. The father is a drunkard; so the teacher is demanding something factually true. But to reveal this truth the student also has to shame his father and himself before his classmates. This, Bonhoeffer, said, is not truth at all. It is a fact; but it is not the truth because the truth never shames, never outs, and never wields more light than can be beared.

What we saw in Amarillo was an attempt to shame those parents before their children's eyes. It was cringeworthy for all of us; but even worse ultimately a false witness to the truth we have been given in Christ, which comes always in relationship and never solely in dogma.  This is the Christ who comes not with truth only but "full of grace and truth".

Pastor Grinch missed the grace part.

But on the more positive side, if there were any true witness to the real reason for the season I would say it was those parents, standing in line, holding their children's hands and their response to the wanna-be prophet. What those parents did and did not do spoke much deeper and louder of the truth of Jesus than anything that was said by the preacher. What they demonstrated in their calm, their composure, and their character -- all caught on film also -- was Charity, which the Apostle Paul tells us is "patient" and "kind" and "never rude".

I don't care whether you tell your kids the truth about Christmas or not, if you love the truth and live it with grace even when the obnoxious comes along, then the odds are they'll end up getting the true meaning of Christmas.

Good job parents. Some may say there's no such thing as Santa -- and there may not be -- but you have shown us there is indeed something to believe.

Daily Lesson for December 15, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Isaiah chapter 9 verses 18 through 21:

18 For wickedness burns like a fire;
it consumes briers and thorns;
it kindles the thickets of the forest,
and they roll upward in a column of smoke.
19 Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts
the land is scorched,
and the people are like fuel for the fire;
no one spares another.
20 They slice meat on the right, but are still hungry,
and they devour on the left, but are not satisfied;
each devours the flesh of his own arm,
21 Manasseh devours Ephraim, and Ephraim devours Manasseh;
together they are against Judah.
For all this his anger has not turned away,
and his hand is stretched out still.

The LORD has to be put out with so much of the way we sometimes treat each other. The wood is dry and the fire danger is extremely high and here we are playing with matches, lighting little fires. Don't we know we're bound to get burned ourselves?  Don't we realize that a conflagration knows no boundaries, no bounds, no Left from Right?  God sends his rain on the just and the unjust. So too the fire scorches the earth. And in the end the whole land is destroyed.

Here's a modest proposal: no more sharing of fake news. It's a violation of the Commandment, "Thou shall not bear false witness."  That makes its transgression one of the biggies -- big because a community cannot exist on lies and falsehoods.

Friends, this means everyone: Everyone from the National Enquirer to the deans of our schools to nice, old grandmothers in their living rooms. This is how we kill a country, how a plague wipes out a whole people: with the share button on Facebook.

We can talk. We can even argue. But let's do so with respect and with character and with actual arguments and points and good facts and not with ad hominem attacks, aspersions of character, name calling, "trolling", threats or semi-threats of violence, aggression, bullying, and other forms of community destruction. Sure, we can wrestle things out. But let's remember we have a God to answer to.

Isaiah says, the Left devoured the Right and the Right the Left. And the frenzy was never satisfied until the whole nation was eaten up. This is a cautionary tale. We are no more immune than the children of Israel.

Dr. King said, "We must learn to live together as brothers lest we perish together as fools."

Another modest proposal: Let us quit fooling around with the matches.

Daily Lesson for December 14, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 49 verses 10 through 15:

10 For he sees that even the wise die;
the fool and the stupid alike must perish
and leave their wealth to others.
11 Their graves are their homes forever,
their dwelling places to all generations,
though they called lands by their own names.
12 Man in his pomp will not remain;
he is like the beasts that perish.
13 This is the path of those who have foolish confidence;
yet after them people approve of their boasts. Selah
14 Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol;
death shall be their shepherd,
and the upright shall rule over them in the morning.
Their form shall be consumed in Sheol, with no place to dwell.
15 But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol,
for he will receive me. Selah

Yesterday during worship planning, we were talking about the reading of a psalm in an upcoming service. As I was going through the psalm verse by verse, I asked the pastors and other ministers at the table what we should do with the "Selah" that comes at the end of so many of the verses. Do we read it out loud?  Do we translate it? What does it mean?

Well, it turns out nobody really quite knows what it means. A lot of Biblical scholars think it is some kind of musical direction, set in between the verses of scripture to be played at certain poignant moments in the psalm. Other, more pastoral traditions believe it was a kind of directive refrain to the reader, the meaning of which could be translated, "Be still, listen, hear and know."

The reading of the psalms are now mostly private and personal (if done at all), but throughout history the psalms were first written and have been presented as public readings -- even dramatic readings. When we read the psalms in private, and especially in silence, we mostly skip over "Selah", because it has such little meaning to us. It's almost unconscious how we pass right over it. It's the most skipped over part of scripture in the Bible -- not counting the begets!

But what if we are meant to read the "Selah", to consider it, to let it do its work, even if the meaning of the work is not altogether clear. In fact, what if that's just the point?  What if the "Selah" was left untranslated for a reason?  And what if that reason is discovered only in its reading, its hearing, and its consideration?  What if not knowing the exact verbal translation of "Selah" means that it opens it to broader personal, and communal meaning -- meanings like, "Pause." "Listen." "Hear." "Believe."  "Let the community believe for you." "Be still and know." "Drink the wisdom."?

What if the exact meaning of the word "Selah" is not translated because it is altogether untranslatable -- beyond strictly logical meaning and into the realm of the spirit? In other words, what if there aren't other words -- none that will do anyway?  What if instead it is the shaking of the head, the affirmation of the soul, the musical score that transcends all language and accompanies the moment when deep truth calls out to deep being?

 Man in his pomp will not remain;
he is like the beasts that perish.
 This is the path of those who have foolish confidence;
yet after them people approve of their boasts. Selah
 Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol;
death shall be their shepherd,
and the upright shall rule over them in the morning.
Their form shall be consumed in Sheol, with no place to dwell.
 But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol,
for he will receive me. Selah

Daily Lesson for December 13, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Isaiah chapter 9 verses 2 through 7:

2  The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
3  You have multiplied the nation;
you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you
as with Joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when
 they divide the spoil.
4  For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as on the day of Midian.
5  For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
6  For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7  Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.

The familiar words of Handel's oratorio "Messiah" echo in our minds as we read this passage: "Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."  I can hear the trumpets blast now.

Yet while George Frederic Handel's name is the one rightfully associated with this work of musical genius, what most do not know is that the actual text of the piece was selected from the King James Version Bible and Book of Common Prayer by a much lesser known man named Charles Jennens.

Jennens, a convicted Anglican, selected the words primarily from Isaiah prophecies and the Gospel story to three-part drama of Christ's Virgin Birth, Passion, and Resurrection. Importantly, Jennens was setting out to refute the popular Deist theology of his day, which conceived the world to have been left to its own devices by a distant, "clock-maker" God.  Jennens inspiration and selection was a reaffirmation of incarnation -- of divine appearance in the affairs of the world. It was a theological "Hallelujah" to the Messiah who comes to comfort and to save.

I'm sure we'll be hearing the Hallelujah chorus soon enough this Christmas. When we do, may we be reminded that God has not left us to our own devices. God enters and re-enters history. God has come down to establish justice and righteousness so that the people who walked in darkness may again see light.

"And the government will be upon his shoulders."

Daily Lesson for December 12, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Isaiah chapter 9 verse 4:

But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

Here is good news for those born on the wrong side of the tracks. Good news for the poor and the contemptible.  Good news for those who didn't go to all the right schools or play in the travel league. Here is the good news for -- in the words of Lyle Lovett -- the "busted old town on the plains of West Texas" where "the drugstore's closed down and river's run dry".  Here is the good news for the left behind of rural America, for the cotton picker and ginner.  Here is good news for Brownfield, for Plainview, for Henrietta, and for Tulia, Texas, "the City with a Future".

Here is the good news, land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, land beyond the suburbs, Galilee of America: You are not forgotten.

Nobody is forgotten.

Daily Lesson for December 9, 2016

Today's daily lesson is from Psalm 31 verse 5.  It was first written in 2014 but has taken on new meaning for me in recent weeks.

"Into your hand I commit my spirit."

Last night I spoke at a memorial service for persons who passed away while under the care of one of the local hospice services in town.

My sermon was titled "Release" and it was about letting go. I reflected on how much of life is about holding on tight. Even as newborn infants one of our first natural impulses is to grasp hold. Pediatricians even have a name for this; they call it the Palmer Grasp and it is said infants can hold up their own weight with it. And that is what life is about -- holding ourselves up by holding on tight.

But in every life, I said, there comes a time when we must let go; and that is the most difficult thing to do in the world because it goes against our natural will to life.

I shared with them how earlier this year I lost a friend to a long, and very grievous and debilitating disease. For years this person had struggled to hang on. It was the fight in him which had kept him alive well past expectations. But in the last months of he understood that the time had come to give up the fight and let go.  "Is it okay?" he asked me in one very memorable conversation. "Is it okay to . . . give up?"

"It is okay," I said.

As God would have it, the next day I stumbled upon words from Richard Rohr which I knew were intended for my friend. I shared them with him and now I share them with you:

"If the word surrender scares you, let me tell you that surrender is not giving up, as we usually understand the term. Surrender is entering the present moment, and what is right in front of you, fully and without resistance. In that sense, surrender is almost the exact opposite of giving up. In fact, it allows you to be given to!"

Soon, my friend allowed himself to be given to his new moment; he let go and surrendered himself to death. It was the hardest thing a fighter like him could ever do; and it was the holiest thing also.

"Into your hands I commit my spirit." Words of the psalmist which Jesus prayed in the dark hours of his crucifixion. Words which remind us that there is indeed a time of surrender; and in that decisive moment we place our ultimate faith in the hands of God, who alone can still hold on, even when we let go.

Daily Lesson for December 8, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 37 verse 11:

 But the meek shall inherit the land
and delight themselves in abundant peace.

I have said before what the old timers used to say around these parts of oil-rich West Texas: "The meek shall inherit the earth, but somebody will get the mineral rights."

Indeed it is true. Nice guys often -- maybe most of the time -- finish last. For a time, anyway.

But in the end the meek have something that can't be bought, sold, or taken away -- the peace of having kept their integrity. This is the peace of having remained true to themselves, their values, and their God.

Everything is for sell; but this kind of peace cannot be bought. You either have it or you don't.

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Isaiah chapter 6 verses:

8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” 9 And he said, “Go, and say to this people:
“‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
10 Make the heart of this people dull,
and their ears heavy,
and blind their eyes;
lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears,
and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
11 Then I said, “How long, O Lord?”
And he said:
“Until cities lie waste
without inhabitant,
and houses without people,
and the land is a desolate waste,
12 and the Lord removes people far away,
and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
13 And though a tenth remain in it,
it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
whose stump remains
when it is felled.”

Isaiah is not the Prophet of Doom, but the news is bad -- very bad.  And it is going worse. It is going to get very, very bad. Cities will burn and be left desolate. The people will be torn from their land. Only the jackal will inhabit them. A nation, once mighty and prosperous will be brought to its knees by total war.

Isaiah does not wish to proclaim this calamity on his own people. He takes no delight in the prophecy. Yet the truth has been placed upon his lips with a hot, burning coal. He will tell the people the truth. They have brought it upon themselves -- down the wind and now shall reap the whirlwind. The consequences of their actions will bring calamity upon them and their children.

The pot shall be thrown down and be broken to pieces.

The great city of Jerusalem shall be burned like an old, dead tree -- burned all the way down to the stump.

The Stump of Jesse.

Let those with ears to hear let them hear.

Daily Lesson for December 6, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 36 verse 9:

9 For with you is the fountain of life;
In your light do we see light.

In times past, the faithful spoke of Christ as "the very Light of very Light". It is in and through the light of Christ that darkness is dispelled and true light is seen. In Christ true light "which is the light of all people" (John 1:4) comes and casts out all darkness. By Christ's light we see and judge all other light.

The moonlight we see is reflected light. It is the sun's light; it is not light itself. The moon is a mirror -- and not necessarily a very God one. Whatever light we see in the moon is only partial and reflected and pales in comparison to the sun's light itself. When the sun rises high and bright, the light of the moon wanes. The true and primary light swallows all secondary light.

So too with the coming of Christ. In Christ's Light all other light is revealed for what it is -- only partial light. When Christ comes a new light is given. The Very Light of Very Light is revealed.

The Very Light reveals that God so loved the world, swallowing the dim light of racial and national preference.

The Very Light reveals that Christ came to set men free, swallowing the dim light of one man owning another.

The Very Light reveals that both man and woman were made in God's image, swallowing the light of sex and gender preference.

In His light all other light wanes.  For in His light we see the Light.

Daily Lesson for December 5, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verses 1 through 4:

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. 2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.

If you've ever had your house or work robbed or been stolen from you know what a deep sense of violation is felt the moment the crime is discovered. What you thought was secure is suddenly now revealed to have been only falsely secure. The neighborhood, people, times, and world we put our trust in suddenly fail us.

By and large, we have to trust in the world, its people, and its institutions.  If we did not we would never leave the house. A sense of impending doom would paralyze us.

Yet at the same time, we are reminded that the things of this world are all temporary and our trust in them is then inherently proximate and therefore never ultimate. We know the thief will eventually come, but we do not live for fear of the thief's arrival because what the thief can steal -- while dear -- is worldly and temporary and will in the end be lost anyway.

"I do not give as the world gives," Jesus said. He was speaking in the context of the last night of his life when the world was soon to take him away.  Yet what he was leaving was a peace -- an abiding peace which cannot be taken away.

Sometime ago I was over at the house of a couple from church. He was very soon to have to put her into a memory care facility for her onsetting dementia. We talked for a while and laughed and hugged and wept over what was being lost. We made the most of the moment we had.

"Let's enjoy this time right here and now," I said, "because you never know what tomorrow will bring."

"You never know what tomorrow will bring," she parroted back to me and then looked at me with deadpan eyes and pointed with a kind and motherly finger and a single, wise, raised eyebrow, "And that is a good thing."

Daily Lesson for December 2, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 9 through 12:

9 Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, 10 for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, 11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Christianity teaches self reliance. From the very beginning it has been a part of our core ethical teaching that we are to work hard and well enough that we are able to make ends meet for ourselves and save enough to help our neighbor make ends meet also.

There is an inherent dignity to work; and when we take work away or de-incentivize work through either too low of wages or too broad of welfare then the dignity of work is lost.

When the Israelites first came across the Red Sea they had nothing to eat in the wilderness. So God gave them manna. Only God did not give it to them in their dishes within their rooms. No, somebody from the family had to go out of the tent and gather it up. Somebody had to work. And the work was good. The work taught them self-reliance, independence, and gave them a sense of their own self-worth.  These were things they never had under Pharaoh.

There is the old adage: "Give a man a fish you feed him for a day; teach him to fish you feed him for a lifetime."  I was talking with a person who studies and teaches entrepreneurship at the college the other day. She said non-profits aren't doing enough to teach people real-life, practical, and employable skills in the real world job market. It makes me ask you all: Is there someone you need to teach how to fish?  Could the church provide the pole, the boat, and the tackle, rather than just a filet?

"Work with your hands . . . and be dependent on no one," St Paul said. In other words, work and learn to live free.

How can a church like ours help to make others free?

Daily Lesson for December 1, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Isaiah chapter 2 verses 12 through 22:

12 For the Lord of hosts has a day
against all that is proud and lofty,
against all that is lifted up—and it shall be brought low;
13 against all the cedars of Lebanon,
lofty and lifted up;
and against all the oaks of Bashan;
14 against all the lofty mountains,
and against all the uplifted hills;
15 against every high tower,
and against every fortified wall;
16 against all the ships of Tarshish,
and against all the beautiful craft.
17 And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled,
and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low,
and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
18 And the idols shall utterly pass away.
19 And people shall enter the caves of the rocks
and the holes of the ground,
from before the terror of the Lord,
and from the splendor of his majesty,
when he rises to terrify the earth.
20 In that day mankind will cast away
their idols of silver and their idols of gold,
which they made for themselves to worship,
to the moles and to the bats,
21 enter the caverns of the rocks
and the clefts of the cliffs,
from before the terror of the Lord,
and from the splendor of his majesty,
when he rises to terrify the earth.
22 Stop regarding man
in whose nostrils is breath,
for of what account is he?

Some time ago I was reading a collection of sermons from Gardner C Taylor, the great 20th century pulpiteer and mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  In the sermon, Dr. Taylor referred to the finest hour of preaching in all of the 20 centuries since Christ.

The occasion was the funeral oration for King Louis XIV of France, often referred to as "Henry the Great", when Jean Baptiste Masillon stood in the pulpit of the basilica of St Denis and famously began his funeral oration with these leveling words: "Dieu seul est gran." -- Only God is great.

The LORD of Hosts has a day. For Castro, for Trump, for Obama, for me. The LORD of Hosts has a day. And on that day it will be proven true. Only God is great.

Daily Lesson for November 30, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 20 verses 19 through 27:

19 The scribes and the chief priests sought to lay hands on him at that very hour, for they perceived that he had told this parable against them, but they feared the people. 20 So they watched him and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might catch him in something he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor. 21 So they asked him, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God. 22 Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?” 23 But he perceived their craftiness, and said to them, 24 “Show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” They said, “Caesar's.” 25 He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” 26 And they were not able in the presence of the people to catch him in what he said, but marveling at his answer they became silent.

Gotcha Politics has been around a long time.

On the face, the questions Gotcha Politics asks seem to be the important questions. Should we give to Caesar or not appears to be an important question. When it's asked everyone tunes in.  Suddenly the whole crowd wants to know, feels like it needs to know. Should we give our money to Caesar or not?  This is an important question.

But who wants to know?  Or, better, who's asking?  And why are they asking?  And why are they asking in such a public, shall we say politicized, venue?  Who gains from this question being asked and being answered?  Though I probably would have missed it then, from a distance of two-thousand years I can tell. It's Gotcha Politics who wants to know.

Beware. Gotcha Politics is still out there. He's all over the Internet and TV. He's asking all kinds of hardball questions.  I mean he's really cuts to the bone, not afraid to be controversial at all.  And I suppose I would call it good journalism if there weren't so much money and reputation to be made in it.  That makes me suspicion, wondering if the role of journalism has not over the last few decades changed from being the watchdog of the people to the attack dog of the politicians. That's something to think about when the really controversial stuff gets brought up.

"Good teacher, is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or not? Just a simple yes or no will do. You know, without any equivocation. After all, a man of your position ought to be straightforward about something so black and white."

Inquiring minds want to know.

And so do Grand Inquisitors.

Daily Lesson for November 29, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 verses 1 through

For you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain. 2 But though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. 3 For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, 4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. 5 For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. 6 Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. 7 But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. 8 So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

What a wonderful picture of a minister. Strong, and unashamed of the Gospel and willing to stand up and speak its truth boldly even amidst much conflict and opposition. Speaking a truth that is Godly, and not predicated on deception or watered down for the sake of moderation. Proclaiming a Gospel that is not predicated on self-interest, whether that self-interest be one of greed or the idolatry of wanting to be accepted and liked. This is stern medicine.

Yet it's also tender medicine. There is gentleness in the minister's way, true affection for the people, and an openness to share not only the Gospel but also the fullness of his or herself and life with the people, in the community, and in the neighborhood.

What a wonderful picture indeed; and a lot to try to live up to today.

In Memoriam

I want to thank those who have reached out to offer condolences to me and my family in the loss of my uncle Jeff Whillock.  Your kindness to our family is a grace.

For those who may not yet have heard, a memorial service for Jeff will take place Monday at 10am at Second Baptist Church.

Sometimes death comes as a mercy. Jeff struggled with an increasingly debilitating autoimmune disease for two decades. In recent years he had grown very weak and very tired.  This condition, plus the loss of Jeff's daughter Ellory six years ago, left the light of this life only a smoldering wick and the light of life to come a brighter and brighter hope. In the end, Uncle Jeff reached out to that light that was coming and took hold.

In spite of our loss, there is still much for which our family is grateful.  We are grateful for Jeff's generous spirit and concern for the less fortunate -- something he shared in common with both his father Fred and his beloved Aunt Mary and passed down to his daughter Ellory.  We are grateful for Sharon, Jeff's wife and Ellory's mother, who loved and cared for Jeff in so many ways, even unto his last hours. And above all, we are grateful for Jeff's love for Ellory and the hope we have that they are now together again forever.

"And now these three things remain: Faith, Hope, and Love. And the greatest of these is Love."

And Love never ends.

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Thessalonians 5 verses 16 through 19:

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

It is 7:30am Central and the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade will be starting in 30 minutes. Watching the Parade is the first of many Thanksgiving Day rituals I have enjoyed since a boy we still enjoy as a family.

I always cry at the beginning of the Parade. It's another Thanksgiving Day ritual, a little lump in the throat to begin the holiday season. The moment is bittersweet as Thanksgivings past come back. My grandmother B's giblet gravy. The first Thanksgiving she was no longer there to cook it. Trips to Arkansas to see our Aunt Mary. The smell of hotcakes in her kitchen. We only had pancakes in Texas; but hotcakes in Aunt Mary's kitchen was not only another state it was another world. Racing down the hill in front of her house. My great-grandfather driving my great-grandmother down the hill, stepping out of the car, and slowly walking to the trunk to pull out her wheelchair. The Thanksgiving we were still in the high school football playoffs and had practice in the cool, November air that morning. I still remember the Cowboys won that afternoon on their way to a Super Bowl Season. The Thanksgiving after 9/11 when I was in seminary in North Carolina and so far from home and the trees were so dense and the days so short. The next year when I went to the Parade in New York City and watched from the 57th floor balcony of some friend of a friend of a friend's apartment building and got sick to my stomach because I was so high in the air and had drank so much the night before. Our first Thanksgiving with a child of my own. The first Thanksgiving after my cousin was killed and my grasping for words during the prayer as my uncle stood beside me.  The time dad was too sick to be with us at Thanksgiving. This year, when he'll be well.

All of these Thanksgivings come back to me that moment the Parade starts.  They are with me when the TV comes on. The highs and the lows. The good times and the bad.  The hard and very hard ones. And the ones which were and will be again purely joyous.

The first Thanksgiving in Plymouth was celebrated in 1621 after 45 of the 102 colonists who set out for America had passed away during the harsh and devastating winter before. Yet the harvest was plentiful and the storehouse was full and there was much to be thankful for.

And then there is the Thanksgiving Proclamation itself, given to the American people by Lincoln in 1863 amidst the terror of war.  Gettysburg passed, with its myriads and myriads of thousands lost, and yet Lincoln calls on the people to recognize the blessings of the Almighty with these fine words:

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

And so, Lincoln said in his memorable way, it was "fit and proper" to set aside a day for observing thanks.

"Give thanks in all circumstances," St. Paul says. We do. And we remember giving thanks in a circumstances also.  It is fit; and it is proper. And it is what Americans will always do.

Thou hast given so much to me,
Give one thing more,—a grateful heart
Not thankful when it pleaseth me,—
As if Thy blessings had spare days,—         
But such a heart, whose pulse may be
Thy praise.    
(George Herbert)

When Governor Nikki Haley ordered the Confederate flag to be removed from the South Carolina State Capitol grounds she earned the respect of the whole Price family, including Gabrielle, who wrote the Gov. the letter below. 

We are pleased at the Governor's nomination as Ambassador to the United Nations and hope she will continue to work for the good of all Americans everywhere. 

Daily Lesson for November 23, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 130 verses 5 and 6:


5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchman for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.

Today I am thinking of friends and loved ones who are waiting. Some are waiting for a break. Others waiting for a cure. Two waiting to pass because there is no cure. Their families also.

Waiting, waiting, waiting. The soul waiting. The time spent waiting.

The Bible speaks of two different kinds of time.  One is "chronos" from which we get our word "chronology". This is calendar time, sequential time, the time of the clock, the time which is measured and predictable.

But the other time is what the Bible calls "kairos" time.  This is time indeterminate.  It is the fullness of time.  The time of a rose blooming or a baby being born.  It's the moment when someone's time has come. This is the time Jesus says "no one knows".  This is the fullness of time we call mystery.

My friends, my family, we wait on the mystery. We wait on the LORD. More than watchmen wait for the morning. More than watchmen for the morning.

And the gift from God that enables us to bear the long, long wait is the virtue we call "Hope".

Daily Lesson for November 22, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verses 10 through 15:

10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—13  one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

The work of the builder is not judged on day one, at grand opening, when the ribbon is cut and all the people cheer.  That's a great day, to be cherished for sure. But it's not the Day.

The Day comes later -- maybe months or years or even decades later. The Day comes when the fire comes. The Day is the day when the building's mettle is put to the test.

The Day is the day when the truly committed are separated from those who just wanted to be a part of the next big thing.

The Day reveals who joined the church and who joined a preacher.

The Day makes known who the Pillars are -- on both sides of the building.

The Day is the day when a people's deepest values are reaffirmed -- in spite of the cost.

The Day is a difficult and painful day; it is not without loss and destruction.

But the Day is the day that the LORD has made; and at the end of what is left is integrity.

Daily Lesson for November 21, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Galatians chapter 6 verses 6 through 10:

6 Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. 7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.

It's Pledge Season around church and we are asking our folks to make their commitments to the congregation for 2017.

In America nobody is compelled to give anything to the church, which is the way we Baptists believe it ought to be. Though, I do realize it is for this reason that they say, "Money talks, but around the church it only whispers."  Oh well, God has always been sufficient unto the day and I bet always will be.

But there is one group that today's Lesson has me thinking of and wanting to talk to. This is the group that has either dropped out of church or soon will.

Mostly it's not a conscious decision. There are more backsliders in the church than there are people who intentional dive off of the prow. It's mostly a Sunday here and a Sunday there and pretty soon they have joined the C&E denomination -- Christmas and Easter only. Next thing they'll be saying is that they "just aren't being fed" at their current church.  No kidding. It's hard to be fed when you ain't eating!  This has all been true in every church I've ever been in -- from sleepy little family churches to great big Texas-size.

"God is not mocked."  "For whatsoever a man soweth he shall also reap."  In other words, you get out of it what you put into it. Really, you get a lot more. But it takes time. The seed has to be first planted and watered with both the early and the late rains.  The crop has to be waited on -- patiently and with persistence.  In a world where we can get just about anything we have a mind to eat on demand, the spiritual food comes slow and only in its own due time. It's no wonder so many drop out.

"Do not grow weary in doing good."  In other words, don't grow weary in showing up, and putting in. Not much happens after a month or year or maybe even five; but there is a harvest to be had in that little plot of earth we call church.

There is harvest, that is, if we're willing to wait on and work for it.

Daily Lesson for November 18, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 18 verses 1 through 8:

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? 8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

A word this morning on not losing heart.

We may now be seriously considering giving up. All our energies have been to little or no avail. We gave of ourselves heart and soul and strength and the world did not budge. Our strength has now faded, our energies flagged, and our spirits crushed.  Justice denied.

And then a word this morning from the Galilean: Even cruel men relent.  Even hard hearts can be broken, not perhaps by the gentle niceties of the art of persuasion but by the loud pounding of a woman who beats on the door like she has nothing to lose -- nothing save the dignity inherent in each knock which demands, and demands, and demands , "Ain't I a woman?"

And it opens. The closed door opens. The hard heart relents.

And if even the hard heart finally cracks the door for justice, how much sooner and wider the heart of God?

Daily Lesson for November 17, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 17 verses 20 and 21:

20 Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, 21 nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

Because both ancient and first-century Judaism and also Christianity are apocalyptic religions there has and remains always a sense of God's appearance to come. God and God's kingdom are perceived always to be offstage, forthcoming in the next Act.  The Kingdom will come when we get the next President or the next job or move on to the next big thing or church or heaven.

But Jesus taught that the Kingdom is not always in big things to come. The Kingdom is also, Jesus taught, in small things right here.

Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed."  In other words, the Kingdom is never something that is stood beside and watched. If we are bystanders waiting for God and God's Kingdom to show up as something to be witnessed in third person then we'll be waiting forever. The Kingdom of God never comes in third person. The Kingdom of God is "in the midst" of us. In other words, the Kingdom of God is now or it's never.

Paula D'Arcy says, "God comes to us disguised as our lives."

God's Kingdom will show up disguised today amidst the ordinary, frustrating, and bewildering ways of the world. It will come amidst wars and rumors of wars, and predictions about end-times, and a broken economy, and melt-downs of four-year-olds, and CD players that don't work when you need them to at the children's program.

God's Kingdom will come right in our midst, disguised as our messy and fearful first-person lives. And the question for us today is will we see it?  Will we have eyes to behold it?  Will we live into it?

Or, will we just let it pass us by, as we're waiting on the Supertrain?

Shaking Foundations

[A sermon I preached in the late summer which I think proves even more true after an election in which we saw mountains of blue amidst seas of red. Perhaps the sermon points a way forward for us post-election.  Ultimately, that way forward is for me a people I call church.]

"The Shaking of the Foundations:

America, The Church, and the Future"

Hebrews 12:26,26:

At that time his voice shook the earth; but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.” 27This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of what is shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain. 

"The Shaking of the Foundations: America, The Church, and the Future" -- I hope this sermon title is not too unambitious!  You know what they say, "If you don't have a strong sermon, give them a strong sermon title; they're more likely to remember that anyways."

I don't know that I have a strong sermon for you this morning.  But I do have what I think is something important to say. And I hope you'll listen. 

My choice to talk about America this morning comes after listening Monday to one of my favorite afternoon AM radio shows, featuring two of my favorite AM radio show hosts, Jay Leeson and Cliff Wilkes. Jay and Cliff are -- and I say this with sincere appreciation and respect -- like the Bo and Luke Duke of Lubbock County.  And just like Bo and Luke's show "The Dukes of Hazard" was about a place called Hazard County, Jay and Cliff's show, "The West Texas Drive", is about a particular place -- our place, Lubbock County, and the rest of West Texas.

Jay and Cliff were talking Monday about the 2016 presidential election and one of them -- I think it was Cliff -- said if Hillary Clinton wins in November there will be a large percentage of people here in West Texas and in the rest of what is sometimes called "heartland" and sometimes alternatively called "flyover" America, who will be left to wonder if they still have a place in this country.

This conversation coincided with the recent publication of a book by Robert P Jones procoactively titled The End of White Christian America.  In the book, Jones takes white Christianity to be a symbol of the kind of cultural and political world white Protestantism built over the first 175 years of our country's existence. That world is in decline, Jones says and he points to some important recent statistics to make his case. At the time of the 2008 general election, a solid majority of 54% of Americans were both white and Christian, but in the course of only seven years that number has now dropped precipitously to only 46% of Americans.

The reasons for this are primarily two-fold:

First is of course immigration and the rise of the non-white Hispanic demographic in America. Our country is getting browner, and just in case anyone has been pulling a Rip Van Winkle over the last two decades, Lubbock is getting browner also. In fact, this part of Lubbock is getting browner also. Our public schools start back tomorrow and two of mine will go back to Whiteside Elementary, here in southwest Lubbock. Last year, I was intrigued to see just how many Latinos were dropping their kids off and picking them up and so I looked up the school's demographics. Thirty-three percent of the students enrolled at Whiteside last year were non-white Hispanic.  Let me repeat that . . . Thirty-three percent are brown at WHITEside.

But there is something else that is driving down the percentage of white Christians and that is the incipient rise of the number of young people now no longer self-identifying as Christians. A 2014 survey of 35,000 U.S. Americans revealed that the religiously unaffiliated (also called "nones" -- as in "none of the above" now accounts for 23% of the adult population, up from 16% in 2007.  The community around our church is growing increasingly less and less Christian, and with that has come an increasingly  more and more secular social order. 

How long has it been now since teachers wouldn't assign homework and coaches wouldn't schedule practice on Wednesdays because Wednesday was church night? (I for one did not attend Wednesday night church as a kid, but I sure appreciated the kids in my class who did. But how long has that been?)

Just how different everything is now became clear to me when I read an article from our next Adult Retreat Leader, Dr. Bill Leonard wrote about a visit he made to Mayberry, USA.  He had been invited to preach on a Sunday morning in one of the churches in downtown Mt Airy, North Carolina, inspiration for the "Andy Griffith Show" set. But Andy, and Opie and Aunt Bee would not have recognized the town Bill Leonard drove into that Sunday morning. Rather than the quiet, quaint town he imagined, Main Street was bustling with droves of people who had all come to participate in and cheer on the "Tri-Mayberry Sprint Triathlon", a Rotary-sponsored charity scheduled to start right there in downtown Mayberry, USA on Sunday morning . . . Palm Sunday morning, no less.

And if Toto were still alive he would say not only are we not in Kansas anymore, we're not in Mayberry anymore either.

But if Mayberry's changed, twenty minutes down the road, in a town neighboring Mt Airy, things have changed for the much worse. Mt Airy has been able to survive on a niche and kitsch market for Mayberry memorbelia, but writing in this week's edition of "The American Conservative" Michael Cooper describes what is happening in his hometown, the real Mayberry c.a. 2016, the one not able to still draw on the benefits of a bygone era of film. I quote him at length:

My town is twenty minutes from where Andy Griffith grew up.  The real life Mayberry.  It's the next county over. Last month there was a national reporter going around town doing interviews like we're a war zone.  Mayberry is ground zero of society's fall. Who saw that coming?

Last Thursday I go into the gas station, and this young girl comes in, probably mid-20s, in a very nice dress, desperately in need of cigarettes.  Obviously on meth.  Otherwise she'd be very pretty.

She's so frantic and anxious that the line lets her cut.  As she walks out we all just stand there. Silent.  Not even shocked. Just sad. 

Humanity has always had problems, Slavery, etc. . . . But this is something new. Man is not made to act like that. 

"Mayberry is ground zero of society's fall. Who saw that coming?"

You know who saw that coming?  Jay Leeson and Cliff Wilkes saw it coming.  The good Ol' boys saw it coming a long time ago.  And really no matter if your in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, or the dry, dusty plains of West Texas or the steel towns of the great Northeast, it's all the same. What we are seeing all across "flyover" America is the shaking of the foundations. A societal fracturing and social disruption.  It is the loss of community.  What sociologists call dislocation. 

And the toll is tremendous. The article mentioned methamphetamine use -- a scourge in our rural communities. In fact, the crisis of drug use is so great now that in New Hampshire the governor dedicated the entirety of last year's State of the State address to the epidemic. Drug addiction is a personal problem; but it is also a social problem. Young whites in the country use drugs for the same reasons young blacks commit crimes in the city -- because there is not a compelling enough reason to keep them from doing so.  This is a war zone.  Ground zero. And the demons causing all the carnage names are isolation, dislocation, and despair.

Those with the economic means get out,while the middle class struggles like it has not struggled in years -- wondering about our schools, and worrying if there will be enough to set aide for college this year now that the insurance premiums are ours to pay.  Those left even further behind fall into one of two categories: one brown the other white; one urban the other rural; or, in some places, one nouveau urban and the other, I am thinking of Ferguson now) ghetto suburban. One category is increasingly fixated on what America was, while the other is still held captive by what it was not.  One flyover the other speed past. 

These are two separate categories and fundamentally two separate American experiences. And the two, both beautiful and also both tragic, both culpable and also both victims, both children of God, are being pitted against one another in the grand theatre we call politics. Pulled apart. 

And I remember Yeats's words:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

And we wonder, shall it be isolation, dislocation and despair and everyone hunkering down in their own encampment or is there another way?  Is there another vision?  Is there any word from the LORD, for just such a time as this?

And at this moment the Lectionary gives us the Book of Hebrews. A great preacher, unnamed and unknown, writing in the context of another time when the primary social organizing institution -- the Temple -- had either been destroyed or was in the process of being destroyed. It was, in the preacher's words a time of great "shaking".  The very foundation of the nation's life was being rocked and things -- great and mighty things, things once thought to be eternal -- were falling apart. 

And for just such a time as that, the preacher took up his pen and said that he was not surprised that it was so. He was not surprised, he said, because he had already been told that the earth and the heavens would all pass away.  That all human things would perish.  That they would all wear out like a garment. Only God alone would remain, and God, the preacher said, is the same yesterday and forever.

And that is when he began to speak of God's people -- what he called that great cloud of witnesses.  People like Abraham and Isaac and Sarah and Moses and Rahab.  "They were not seeking what was behind," the preacher said. "But they were seeking a better country."  That litany of names, that great cloud of witnesses, is found in the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews. It's sometimes called the roll call of faith. Each of them was by faith still holding on, still looking, still waking. Each of them had faith that they would find the better country, one that was not behind, but still lay on up ahead.

Faith, hope, and love. These are the things Dallas's Mayor Mike Rawlings said we need to have to go on. Faith that our institutions are here to serve us and will do so with legitimacy. Hope that things will get better -- that the better country really is up ahead. And love -- for ourselves and also for our neighbors. A love that looks after not only our own interests but also the interests of others. 

I don't know where else the world is going to find these things if it's not in us -- the church. And maybe that's why the preacher in Hebrews implores the people not to give up meeting together as so many others have. We need to keep meeting -- browns and whites and good ol boys and good ol girls that we are.  And we need to keep bearing our witness, showing to the world that it is possible to -- as we say in our mission -- to be love, light, and one.

Mayberry is mostly a myth now. It's the town my mother gre up in that is no more. But my word, I do love what it was all about. That's the reason I still have my kids watching "The Andy Griffith Show" on something called Netflix. "Why is it in black and white?" Gabrielle asked." "That's how the world used to be," I said. The other day we were watching an episode and Opie wanted to run away from home.  He had had it with Aunt Bee and was ready to get out of town but he wanted to take Andy with him.  

There's something deeply profound in that. It'll preach. That'll preach because that's where the hope is: that though we can leave the town behind, the promise is our Heavenly Father will never leave nor forsake us. He goes with us.  Even if we lose all semblance of our home as the preacher in Hebrews and his people did, God remains with us.

In 1906, a great 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked the foundation of San Francisco, killing 3,000 people and destroying 80% of the city. Jack London wrote of looking down upon San Francisco as it burned in fires beyond control, describing it as the crater of a giant volcano, ablaze with red flowing lava. In the city, the Episcopal Church had a great cathedral, Grace Cathedral, which fell victim to the tremors and the subsequent fire.  Just before the Cathedral fell, the priests were able to escape carrying two very important things with them: the church archives and the communion, powerful symbols of God's able and steadfast provision in times past and and the promise of God's presence in times future. 

And though nations rise and fall, and everything wears out lie a garment, and the mountains be shaken and the hills removed the eternal remains. 

Faith, hope, and love remain.

God remains.

As Sheriff Taylor used to say, "I declare . . ."

God does remain. 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.