Daily Lesson for January 31, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John 6 verses 53 through 58:

53So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; 55for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.56Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. 57Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live for ever.’

“God wants you to have this bread.”

These are the first words spoken at our weekly Agape meal, a sit-down, full-service, family-style meal, shared with the homeless every Thursday night. 

The words as passed from person to person around the table along with the words: “God wants you to have this bread.”

The bread of life is gift. It is given as a sign of God’s grace. It is given as a sign of God’s love. The bread is ours to receive freely and to pass along.

There’s an old saying around the church that we’re all just beggars showing other beggars where to find bread. So we are. No one deserves the bread any more than anyone else. No one has earned it. It is the bread of heaven; and with it comes the cup of grace.

God wants us to have this bread. God wants us to take and bless it, break and give it. God wants us to have this bread and to share it with others. 

Daily Lesson for January 30, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 21 verses 8 through 17:

8 The child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. 10So she said to Abraham, ‘Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.’ 11The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. 12But God said to Abraham, ‘Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named after you. 13As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.’ 14So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.

15 When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, ‘Do not let me look on the death of the child.’ And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, ‘What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.

This may well be one of the most troubling stories in the Bible — a book not short on troubling stories. The one time I dared to preach on this text a woman came up to me afterwards and said that had she known this would be the story for that particular Sunday she would not have come. 

It would be simpler if we were able to blame the whole thing on Abraham.  There was Abraham’s taking of a slave girl Hagar and his copulation with her. This points to the tremendous ways in which patriarchy and male domination have also been entangled with the exploitative system of slavery. 

Yet, the Bible is clear to say that Hagar was Sarah’s slave, which complicates the dynamic and points to a system of domination, in which women were both victims and also victimizers.  The terror and pathos of this story then leads to Sarah demanding that the slave girl and her child be cast out into the wilderness.

And yet again, the writer is very clear to say that it is not Sarah, or even Abraham who make the decision to cast Hagar into the wilderness — it is the LORD.

We might wonder why this was done. On first appearance it seems cruel. And yet, being cast out may in fact have been no crueler than having to remain enslaved in Abraham’s and Sarah’s home. Perhaps the wilderness was the only way to save the child in the end.  Perhaps it was the only way to save anything. All this is too much for us to know, what we do know is that when this fragile child is almost lost to the harsh conditions of the wilderness, the LORD sees the child and watches over him and also his mother. The LORD is watching over this child also. He too, we are told, has been included in the promise. 

In the midst of so much human frailty, cruelty, and tragedy this child will grow up separated from his father and the father will be haunted by the sting of his own moral choices. The consequences of sin remain. And yet the promise remains also. God watches over both children, the child of the free woman and also the child of the slave girl. 

“His eye is on the sparrow,” the old hymn says — even the sparrow in life’s harsh, harsh wilderness.

Daily Lesson for January 29, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Hebrews chapter 11 verses 8 and 9:

8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. 9By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

I love this Scripture.

How many of us, like Abraham, know not where it is exactly that we are going?  We’ve heard a call, we’ve said yes to a summons, we rose up and followed, but where it is that this path of life is taking us, we really have no idea. Sometimes we’re absolutely terrified by the uncertainty and insecurity of it all. Where will I be in six months, or six years? Will it all work out? Will I still have a place?

And sometimes we are there in the place, but like Abraham, reside in it, but as a foreigner — as someone temporary, or unsettled, or altogether tenuous. We inhabit where we are like Dreamers residing in the United States — here today, but without a sense of settled peace about tomorrow. We all live in a place like that in some kind of way.  The place is called the present, which never tells us the future. 

Then this: 

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” These are the words the writer of Hebrews used to frame the whole matter. It’s as if he’s saying, “Look, these are the terms. You must accept this. You cannot live your life with any visible guarantee beyond this. You are going to have to take God at God’s word.”

And the word we have for all this unknown, uncertain, sometimes tenuous and temporary status is called life. And what we’re supposed to do is live it. We’re supposed to live this life of faith one uncertain day at a time until finally one day we shall finally come into our own promised land. 

Daily Lesson for January 26, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Hebrews chapter 10 verses 16 through 23:

16 ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them
   after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their hearts,
   and I will write them on their minds’,
17he also adds,
‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’
18Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

19 Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus,20by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), 21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.23Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.

The writer of Hebrews calls it approaching the throne of God and we may well call it living a whole-hearted life. It is the freedom we find in living without the shackles of guilt and shame. It is the grace of knowing that we are known completely and still loved unconditionally. It is the grace of knowing that we have been seen in the nakedness of our shame, but that the one who has seen us will choose not to remember it all. It is to know that the knower will know but choose not to remember.

Only pure Love can know us in such a way as to know and choose not to remember. Only pure Love can know and then forget. For as Paul says, “Love keeps no record of wrongdoing”. God is pure Love. And some of us have had the grace of being loved with pure Love here on earth as it is in heaven. Sometimes this is called confession, or the Fifth Step, or simply forgiveness, which is literally letting go of the right to call upon a memory for the sake of retribution.

We might ask ourselves when we’ve experienced forgiveness. When have we spoken who we are and been freed by the words of absolution — of letting go? When have we approached the throne of grace? When have we hear the words, “You are forgiven; in your deepest secret place you are forgiven.”

It takes faith to go before the mercy seat, to walk forward and to trust that all which is laid before the altar shall be known and also forgotten. It is a moment of fear and trembling; and it is also the moment when a life of true-heartedness really begins.

Daily Lesson for January 25, 2018

Today we remember the Conversion of St Paul and draw our Lesson from Philippians chapter 3 verses 4 through 9:

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more:5circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; 6as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. 

In St Paul’s conversion we see the death of a righteousness zeal based in race and clan and tribe and the mythic ideal of a person who wears the white hat in fighting against all the so-called “bad guys”, and a deep realization of one’s own inner inconsistencies, blindness, prejudice, and unrighteousness. Paul discovers his need for grace on the Damascus Road, where he finally sees his own blindness in persecuting the righteous in the name of the righteousness. In a word, this is blasphemy — doing the world of evil in the name of God. Struck blind, Paul sees his own mistaken way and “converts” — meaning he changes. He comes to see his own blind spots. He comes to know himself from a place of humility — as a chief sinner saved by grace.

Reinhold Niebuhr said the final enigma of history is not how good is to defeat evil, but how the evil in every good and the unrighteousness of our righteousness is to be overcome.

It was Paul’s righteous indignation and sense of superiority that were in fact the sources of his actual unrighteousness. His conversion led him to place of accepting himself and others with a righteousness that was not of his own or even of his own people. It was the righteousness that only those who know they are unrighteous can ever find. It was the righteousness that comes — not by law and order, or clan, or racial group, or religion — but by the grace of God alone, neither earned nor entitled but solely received like bread placed into the hands of a blind beggar. 

Daily Lesson for January 24, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 5 verses 25 and 26:

25 “Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.26For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.”

Behold, a mystery: In Christ there is the power to raise us from spiritual death into life eternal.

We say that Christ is “sui generis” — meaning He has a life in and unto His own. There is in Christ the mystery of creation and recreation. We are made new in knowing Christ. As Paul said, “If anyone is in Christ then a new creation has come,” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

As I say, this is all a mystery. We cannot say how exactly a person is made new spiritually— regenerated in Christ. We cannot diagram it. But neither can we do the same with physical life. One moment there is no life; and the next moment there is. It is mystery; it is miracle. 

And miracles do happen. People who were dead in their trespasses and sins are suddenly made new — coming out of darkness with the light of life looking out from their eyes. It is a miracle and we don’t know how it happens but people were lost and then found, blind and then seeing, dead but made alive again.

The Son has life in himself. There is more life in Him than there is death in us. It is a mystery to behold and it cannot be explained but suddenly as the hymn says, “hearts unfold like flowers before Him.”  My heart!

Thanks be to God!

Daily Lesson for January 23, 2018

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 15 verses 1-11, and 17 and 18:

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” 2 But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” 4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. 7 And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. . .17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land . . .”

Here we have the beginning of religion as we know it, the institution of ritual, and the concept of shedding blood in ratification of covenant with God. Here is the beginning of the mystery of our faith.  This mysterious service of worship comes at a definitive moment in the narrative, after Abram is promised the land, but before he is to receive it. What happened when the sun went down was a kind of guarantee on the promise.

The psychology of this dark and mysterious encounter suggests that there is within us an inherent need for outward signs and symbols and tangible things which help us to control our anxieties and relieve our fears. The promise of the land to come, off in the distant future, is accompanied by elements which can be immediately touched. This is necessary for Abram and the text seems to accept it without judgment.

But interestingly, before this mysterious ratification of the promise of the land, there was another promise -- the promise of the progeny.  For this promise, we are told Abram needed no ratification; he simply "believed and it was accounted unto him as righteousness."  In other words, he believed and he therefore had no need for blood covenant to be made.

What are we to make of this?  There is something primordially like Abram in each of us -- something which needs symbols and ritual to help relieve our anxieties about an uncertain future -- especially uncertainty about our children's future. The things we do at altars -- lighting candles, drinking elements, kneeling in prayer -- perform this function for us. This is the religious role of ritual -- tangible acts which serve as signs of God's promise.

But these signs are signs for us -- not for God.  The shedding of blood at the altar was a sign for Abram, not for God.  The promise of land had been made by God and all Abram really had to do was believe it as he had believed the promise of progeny.  What was given to Abram in that night service of worship was a gift and a provision to help the believer in his unbelief.

The promise is there -- for us and our children. In the end we shall all enter the promised land. "And all things shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."  It is enough for us to believe it.

But in order to allay our anxiety and fear in the meantime, God gives us signs and promises at the altar -- a testament to the veracity that God is faithful to promises in our childlike trust, in our uncertain doubt, and everywhere in between.

Daily Lesson for January 22, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 14 verses 10 through 12:

10Now the Valley of Siddim was full of bitumen pits; and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some fell into them, and the rest fled to the hill country.11So the enemy took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their provisions, and went their way;12they also took Lot, the son of Abram’s brother, who lived in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.

The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are a byword for abusive evil. When the three visitors came to Sodom the men in the city sought to take advantage of the strangers’ seeming vulnerability. As is often said, rape is about power; and these men tried to exert their power over the visitors. It was a city given over to violence and iniquity.

You know that story.  But do you know the backstory?

Before Sodom became Sin City, it was a city held captive. In the days before the visitors there was a mighty war between the kings of nine nations. In the war, the kings and soldiers of Sodom got lost and Sodom ended up defenseless. Sodom’s enemy marched its army into an undefended city took the people as hostages and slaves. We can only imagine what kind of horror was inflicted upon the people of Sodom in those days before the city could be regained. Rape was and always has been an instrument of war; and there is little doubt that that time of terror did much to traumatize, shame, and scar, the people of Sodom.

There is often a backstory to the evils of this world. And as has been said, “Hurting people hurt people.” Victims of abuse often become abusers themselves. 

Jesus said the day of judgment will be “more tolerable” for Sodom than for some other places. I think that was his compassion speaking. Jesus was born in a town where the terror of a king — Herod — traumatized a whole generation. Jesus saw the effects. His cousins lived with the scars. Their children probably did also — and their children’s children. Jesus had compassion on them also. He felt for them. He knew the backstory and had compassion.

There is judgment for Sodom. There must be judgment against all abuse and abusers. The powerless must be defended and victims have to be reassured that abuse will never take place again.

But if we know the backstory, we can understand why the judgment needs to be not only strong but also compassionate.  For the curse is that the sins of fathers are visited upon their children and their children’s children. The purpose of redemptive punishment is to break the curse and to restore offenders to a place of human dignity once more — even the vilest offenders.

Sodom was a city full of wicked and vile people. It was also full of people who themselves had been victimized by the lawless ravages of war. 

God sees both.

Daily Lesson for January 19, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 4 verses 16-24:

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

Jesus knows this woman. He knows her history — the five husbands and all the pain and shame that have come with them. Jesus knows the woman at the well like he knows all of us. He knows us intimately. He knows our story. He knows what’s been done to us and he knows what we’ve done to ourselves. He knows our secrets. And he wants to talk about our lives. 

But the woman would rather not go there. She switches the conversation to worship. “On which mountain does true worship happen?” she asks. In other words, she basically asks, “What style of worship does your church have? Tell me, can I get my worship on there?”

But Jesus sees through the distraction. 

“True worship,” he says, “must be in spirit and also in truth.” In other words, worship with lots of spirit but no truth is not true worship. It’s distraction. It’s diversion. It never really gets to the depth of our issues — of who we really are.

True worship goes beyond the narcotic of another come and go experience. It gets at us. It tells the truth about us — even the hard truth. 

We don’t much like to look at or talk about the hard truth. But that’s where we have to dig the well, where the living water is — where the healing happens. 

Daily Lesson for January 18, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 11 verses 1 through 9:

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.2And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.3And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.4Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’ 5The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. 6And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’8So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

“LORD confuse the wicked, confound their words,” (Psalm 55:9) the Psalmist prays.

And the LORD does this indeed. 

The LORD does not leave this world to its own devices, but — in the words of the prayer for the Holy Innocents — “frustrate[s] the designs of evil tyrants”.

The Tower is a symbol of might and strength and the wealth and power to uphold it. It’s design is meant to “make a name”.  But the LORD knows will never be enough for the tower builders to simply make a name for themselves. They will wish to do far more. As the LORD says, it is “only the beginning of what they will do”. Their purposes are much broader reaching, much higher in their ambition. They wish not only to build a tower but to build a city, build an empire.

But God does not leave this world to the fate of empire and empire builders. God comes down in the story. God intervenes. The LORD steps into history to thwart the schemes of wickedness. The LORD gets involved.

Their are many things which disturb us now in this world. There are wars and rumors of wars and weaponry whose powers are beyond comprehension.  As Dr. King said, “our technology has surpassed our morality.”

But the LORD will not leave us to our own devices. The LORD intervenes.  The LORD gets involved. The LORD comes down. 

Our God still comes down. 

Daily Lesson for January 17, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 9 verses 18 through 29:

18 The sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. 19These three were the sons of Noah; and from these the whole earth was peopled.

20 Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard. 21He drank some of the wine and became drunk, and he lay uncovered in his tent.22And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. 23Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backwards and covered the nakedness of their father; their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s nakedness.24When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, 25he said,

‘Cursed be Canaan;

   lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.’ 

26He also said,

‘Blessed by the Lord my God be Shem;

   and let Canaan be his slave. 

27 May God make space for*Japheth,

   and let him live in the tents of Shem;

   and let Canaan be his slave.’

28 After the flood Noah lived for three hundred and fifty years. 29All the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years; and he died.

Righteous Adam sinned and then cast the blame upon Eve.  The sin resulted in the increasing lawlessness and depravity of all the world. Somehow Eve was given the preponderance of the guilt, cursed, and made subject to her husband.

The world was then washed away, leaving only righteous Noah and his seven family members. After the waters receded, Noah stepped out of the ark and the first thing the Bible records him doing is getting and naked and then blaming his son Canaan.  Canaan went on to be the progenitor of the African nations. So somehow blacks joined Eve in the curse, being made subject also.

Some necessary reinterpretive conclusions in light of the tragedy of these two stories:

1. No man is righteous — no not one. 

2. We men have a primordial problem of blaming others for our own sins.

3. The cursed people of this earth are in fact really quite often victims and recipients of others’ shame and blame. 

4. We do well to read and interpret stories like this one again in new light, and admit how our own shame and prejudice caused us to misread them for centuries. 

Daily Lesson for January 16, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 9 verses 11 through 15:

11I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.’ 12God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

And also John chapter 3 verses 17 and 18:

17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.18Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already.”

The Son does not come to condemn us. We’ve done a good enough job condemning ourselves already. We know our own misdeeds. We are conscious of our sins. We know the things no one else knows. We look at the skeletons in the closet every night. If all that is in our hearts were revealed we would surely die.

The Son came into the world to save us from the wrath of our dark hearts. He came to spare us from the guilt and shame we heap upon ourselves. He came not to condemn us but to save us.

In Genesis God gave the rainbow as a sign that God would never again send a flood to destroy the earth for its sin. The word for rainbow is the word for the archer’s bow used as a weapon of war. The meaning is clear, God literally hung up God’s weapon against the world.

God is not at war with us. God sent the Son unarmed into the world to prove it.

So we should no longer be at war with ourselves. For if God has not condemned us; we have no right to go on condemning ourselves.

Daily Lesson for January 15, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson is in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  It is a prayer I gave at an MLK service last year in Lubbock’s Memorial Civic Center:

Dear LORD,

We gather here this evening in your name and with Thanksgiving for the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We are grateful for his light and life and the courage with which he lived out his convictions. He was the messenger of a dream -- a dream which changed not only the South, and not only America, but indeed the whole world, inspiring people in places far and wide to discover their own dignity within and empowering them to rise up and be the change they wish to see in this world. What a star he was under. We do thank you for him.

Forgive us, O God, when we cheapen the work and witness of your servant, Dr. King.  Chastise us for our complacency in celebrating his ministry while shrinking from our own. Rebuke us whenever we and our leaders build monuments to prophets past while disregarding their message for times present.

There is still work to be done, we know. The dream has not yet been realized. Mercy and truth have not yet met together. Justice has not yet run down like waters, nor righteousness like a mighty stream. And so, provoke us yet again. Stir up your people once more.  Unsettle us with the holy dissatisfaction of Dr. King, all the other prophets of the past, and our Lord Jesus of Nazareth, that we ourselves might no longer be content with the way the world is but anxious and agitating for the way the world ought to be. 

This is the meaning of MLK Day, and the meaning of this service in his prophetic name.  May it prove as much, and even more. Amen. 

Daily Lesson for January 12, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 2 verses 1 through 11:

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.2Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ 4And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ 5His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’6Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. 8He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. 9When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ 11Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

The jar has to be filled first before it can be poured out. It has to receive before it can give. It has to be poured into before it can be poured from.

This is a sign for all who wish to be vessels in the spiritual life. A miracle happens within us. We do not know or understand how the miracle happens. Yet we know that water is mysteriously turned to wine in God’s vessels. It happens like a seed sprouting in the ground — of its own, hidden in mystery. 

And like the seed planted into the ground, something must be placed inside the vessel.  An empty jar cannot be the vessel for the miracle. It has to be full — all the way to the top preferably.

So there is reading, there is study, there is retreat, prayer, holy conversation.  There is time. There is water poured in before wine is ever poured out. 

The place of the miracle is inside us. Our vessel is the vessel of Cana. Fill it. Fill it to the brim. 

Daily Lesson for January 11, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 1 verses 46 through 51:

46Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ 47When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’48Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’49Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ 50Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ 51And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’

And the Scripture said that in those latter days young men would see visions.

Apparently that meant even young skeptics.

Nathanael is indeed a skeptic. Others from his little village of Bethsaida have gone out to see the prophet John in the wilderness. They heard John speak of this Jesus. They followed him to see where he was staying. Now, they seek others to come and follow also. “We have found him,” they say, “the one prophesied — Jesus of Nazareth.”

“Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Nathanael asks.

“Come and see,” his friend says. 

And so it begins — not with an answer but with a question, with a doubt. He comes to Jesus with a lot of unanswered questions. He comes to Jesus not first as a believer but as a skeptic, a doubter. 

And there is Jesus wide open. “Here is a man in whom there is no guile.”  In other words, “Here is a man who is at least honest about his questions. I like honesty. I respect an honest doubter.”

“How do you know me?” Nathanael asks. 

“I saw you under the fig tree.”

We have heard of fig trees before. A fig tree was the third tree mentioned in the Garden. It is the Tree of Hiding. It was the tree from which Adam and Eve pulled leaves to hide themselves. 

Jesus has seen Nathanael hiding under the fig tree. He knows his skepticism is a form of hiding. He knows his sarcasm is a protest of his insecurity. Jesus knows that Nathanael is afraid also. Jesus knows that like his ancestors Adam and Eve Nathanael is afraid of being found out. Jesus knows Nathanael.

“How do you know me?” Nathanael asks. 

“Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?” Jesus asks. “You will see greater things than these.”

What Jesus sees in Nathanael he will open Nathanael’s eyes to see also. Jesus shall not be the only one who will see.  Nathanael will see. He will see these things and many more. 

Later in the story Jesus will open the blind man’s eyes. At Bethsaida he will take the blind man outside his village and open his eyes. “I see men walking around like trees,” the man will say (Mark 8:23-25).  And so, he will begin to come to see also. He will see himself and others for as they are and also, miraculously, then for what they ought to be. 

The blind sees.  The skeptic sees. Jesus opens the eyes of the blind man. Jesus opens Nathanael’s heart. 

And it all begins with a question: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

And an invitation: “Come and see.”

Daily Lesson for January 10, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 4 verses 1 through 7:

Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.’ 2Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. 3In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. 6The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? 7If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.’

Many have made much of this story, wondering why it was that Abel’s offering was accepted while Cain’s offering was rejected. Some have noted that the Scripture says Abel’s offering was “brought of the first firstlings”, while nothing is said of which portion Cain’s offering was given — first, middle, or last.  Perhaps there is something subtly indicative in that, at minimum revealing a certain faithful trust in the LORD’s provision on the part of Abel which perhaps Cain lacked.

On the other hand, we might well read this and conclude nothing is wrong with Cain’s offering itself and take its rejection as a sign not so much of God’s displeasure with Cain’s sacrifice, but rather with Cain himself. For while we do not know that anything was wrong with the offering, we do know there was something terribly wrong with the one making the offering. There was murder in his heart.

Perhaps the anger in Cain began at seeing his brother give so freely and full of trust. Or perhaps all the anger was already there in him, before either of the brothers went out into the field to bring back their sacrifice. In any case, those who live in darkness hate the light and the corrupt despise the pure. There was hatred and contempt in Cain’s spirit, that is the real reason his offering was rejected.

“Why are you angry?” the LORD asks Cain in the story. It is a question not only for Cain, but for all of us. Why are we angry at our brothers and our sisters?  Why do we despise? Why is there such contempt in us?  Why this bitterness? Do we see this thing called hate in our own-selves? Do we see that sin lurks at our own doors also?

For yes, this is a story about Cain and Abel; but it’s also a story about us. 

Daily Lesson for January 9, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 3 verses 21 through 24:

 21And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them. 22 Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever’— 23therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

There are Adam and Eve, naked and ashamed and hiding pitifully behind fig leaves they’ve tied together with a vine from the Garden. Necessity is the mother of invention and so here is homo faber — humankind making tools, making use, making do. Here also is homo peccator — humanity disgraced amidst the consequence of its shameful sin.

But just as it is woefully homo faber, here also is Deo faber — God making something new, garments of skin to clothe the couple in. 

The rabbis wondered from whence the skins came. One sly rabbi answered it must have been snake skin. Regardless, a life was given.

The hide must have been tough, tough enough not only to hide the shame on the inside but also to bear weather on the outside. For the sentence would soon be passed and the punishment would be exile. The couple would be cast out of Eden.

Yet even there in exile there is grace. Eden is lost forever. They cannot go back. But the LORD God has clothed them for the journey ahead.  The LORD God has clothed their shame in sacrifice, the first of many. 

A trespass is made. So too a sacrifice. One lays down his life for the sake of others. It is the end of the story hidden in the beginning. 

Daily Lesson for January 8, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 2 verses 4b through 7:

In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— 7then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

Before the earth was even tilled or watered from above, it was already preparing itself for life. The stream would rise by the force of the wind or moon and wet the ground, readying the dust of the earth to be shaped and to be formed into a human being. 

The old theologians would call this Prevenient Grace — the grace that goes before us to prepare our way.

God is already at work in the earth now, preparing what is necessary for our journey ahead. God is already making provision for what and who we are to be. The earth is being watered now that who we are to be might be made possible.

Paul Tillich called God “the ground upon which all beings exist”.  This “ground of being” is the power of life within all being.  It is the power animating history to some end — life and life everlasting. 

The forces of non-being are strong and mighty and have the power to destroy us as persons and as a planet. To think on this without hope is to despair — literally to be “without breath”.  But we do not live without hope. The ground of being dwells preveniently in us and in the world, and God has breathed the breath of life into our dust.

So there is always reason to hope. For there is always life. And there is always within us then the will to live. 

And though we are dust and to dust we shall return, the ground of our being reaches out to grab and take of breath and life and shall not let it go. 

This is what it means to “choose life” — to chose to find a way to go on living today no matter if the rains never fall and the earth is never tilled.

Daily Lesson for January 5, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Ephesians chapter 6 verses 10 through 17:

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. 11Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13Therefore take up the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. 14Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness.15As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. 16With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

This is a word from the LORD for such a time as this.

We live in a time of war. It is a time of spiritual war — a war not so much of flesh on flesh, but spirit on flesh. We are all under attack by and victims of the same spiritual forces — forces of enmity, hatred, chaos, and evil. And like all wars, the first of all the victims of this war was Truth.

Now is the time to stand strong, to live with courage, and with conviction, and to fight the good fight. Now is the time to put on the armor of God.

And the armor begins with Truth. Reclaiming Truth is the first step. We must speak truly and without deceit.  We must stop the aiding and the abetting of people and institutions which do speak lies.  We have to stand for Truth.

The breastplate of righteousness belongs to us. It is not our own righteousness we stand in. It is the LORD’s. This means we should be humble towards others — not supposing we are any more pure in our own selves than our enemies. The righteousness is Christ’s. It’s been given to us. We offer it to the world.

This is why we’ve been given shoes on which we bring Gospel of peace. It is peace and not enmity we bring. We seek to convert our enemies to peace, not to destroy them.

We go with the shield of faith — for it protects us from the lies which shall be cast upon us. The shield of faith protects us from all dismay.

Finally, we bring the sword — God’s word of hope, and book of life. We’ve read the book. We’ve read all the way through to the end. We know who wins. We know God wins. We know God’s saints win. We know Love wins.

Now is the time.  Now is the time to put on the whole armor of God. Now is the time to put it on, wear it, and stand firm in the strength of God’s power within us.

Daily Lesson for January 4, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Joshua chapter 3 verses 14 through 17:

14 When the people set out from their tents to cross over the Jordan, the priests bearing the ark of the covenant were in front of the people.15Now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest. So when those who bore the ark had come to the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the edge of the water, 16the waters flowing from above stood still, rising up in a single heap far off at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, while those flowing towards the sea of the Arabah, the Dead Sea, were wholly cut off. Then the people crossed over opposite Jericho. 17While all Israel were crossing over on dry ground, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, until the entire nation finished crossing over the Jordan.

The old rabbis used to say that when the Israelites came to the Red Sea and began to cross over the waters did not part until they were in over their heads. 

Such is life. God seems again and again to rescue us — to make a way out of no way, but only after we realize we can’t make it ourselves. God calls us to rise up and go; but we are in over our heads before deliverance comes. The Lesson we learn is to keep walking. 

A generation after the Israelites crosses over the Red Sea, the next generation crossed over the Jordan River. The Scripture says it wasn’t until the priests came into the water that the waters began to heap — and then only a long ways upstream. One way to read this is like the Rabbis on the Red Sea story — to say the Israelites would not yet have seen what God had done upstream because the water was still flowing where they were attempting to cross over. 

We just don’t know what God is doing upstream from us. We don’t see the whole picture. We don’t have the design on the whole plan for deliverance. We don’t know how in the world the way will be made. 

But when we are called to do something, we go.  When we are called to rise up and leave some oppressive Egypt or cross over and make some new and more hopeful Promised Land, we go. By faith, we go. And we trust that God is doing something upstream to work it out. 

And when the waters rise up we keep walking. And when we get in way over our heads, can’t go on ourselves, that’s when the LORD is sure and mighty to save. 

Daily Lesson for January 3, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from 1 Kings chapter 19 verses 9 through 16:

9At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ 10He answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’

11 He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; 12and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 13When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ 14He answered, ‘I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.’ 15Then the Lord said to him, ‘Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. 16Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place.

Elijah is in the cave.  

The cave is the place of loneliness.  It is the place of isolation and despair. It is the place where we go for fear of the world and all its coming to. It is the place where we run when after all our efforts Ahab is still king, Jezebel is still queen, and the world appears lost and without hope. The cave is the place of hopelessness. 

And then a voice calls to Elijah.  “Go out, stand on the mountain, the LORD will speak to you.”

And then the elemental spirits — earth, wind, and fire — rail.  Who would go out into such terror?  Who would dare to rise up and step out from the cave into the world of such evil and dread?

And then silence. The sound of sheer silence. Something is stilled, quieted. Was the terror outside? Or was it in? In either case it was real; but it was quieted. It was calmed. It was tamed. It was overcome. Silence calmed and overcame it. 

Then Elijah wraps his face in his mantle and rises up to stand at the mouth of the cave, to walk out again into the world, to stand on the mountain, to wait for the LORD.

And waiting for the LORD upon the mountain, Elijah hears the voice: “You are not alone.  There are others. Go back down into the valley. Find them. Find and anoint them. Find and throw your mantle upon them. Find them and know that I am still God and this is my world.”