Daily Lesson for September 28, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 88 verses 1 through 14:

1 O Lord, my God, my Savior, 

by day and night I cry to you.

2 Let my prayer enter into your presence; 

incline your ear to my lamentation.

3 For I am full of trouble; 

my life is at the brink of the grave.

4 I am counted among those who go down to the Pit; 

I have become like one who has no strength;

5 Lost among the dead, 

like the slain who lie in the grave,

6 Whom you remember no more, 

for they are cut off from your hand.

7 You have laid me in the depths of the Pit, 

in dark places, and in the abyss.

8 Your anger weighs upon me heavily, 

and all your great waves overwhelm me.

9 You have put my friends far from me;

you have made me to be abhorred by them; 

I am in prison and cannot get free.

10 My sight has failed me because of trouble; 

Lord, I have called upon you daily;

I have stretched out my hands to you.

11 Do you work wonders for the dead? 

will those who have died stand up and give you thanks?

12 Will your loving-kindness be declared in the grave? *

Your faithfulness in the land of destruction?

13 Will your wonders be known in the dark? 

or your righteousness in the country where all is forgotten?

14 But as for me, O Lord, I cry to you for help;

in the morning my prayer comes before you.

On this morning after a very difficult day in our nation’s Capitol, and indeed, a difficult day for the nation itself, the Lectionary gives us Psalm 88 — a psalm more deeply dark and full of despair than even the Lamentations.

I need not comment on my perceptions of yesterday’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Nothing I could say would actually change anyone’s mind, certainly not the minds of those who will likely cast votes in the coming days. 

What I do know is that the hearings so many of us watched or listened to yesterday are a mirror for our deeply divided country. They reflect our impasse and animus towards one another.  They are indeed a like a mirror; and one has the suspicion that as in a mirror, if all the tables were turned, and the accusations and recriminations reversed, left would suddenly be right, and right left.

I worry now deeply for this nation. Historically, the Supreme Court has been one in which the American people have had a relatively high degree confidence.  That confidence has eroded in these most recent and heatedly partisan years. However the Kavanaugh vote turns out, what happened yesterday and in recent weeks will only exacerbate the public’s distrust.

There is no resolution to Psalm 88. It is the one psalm without any resolution, without even a single note of hope.  Its first verse is weeping; its last verse is darkness. It is the right psalm for the day.

So what else can be said?  Is there any word of hope or surety?  Only that the Psalmist is still praying, still calling upon the God of his salvation. The Psalmist prays today because there is nothing more he can do to change tomorrow. If deliverance is to come, it will have to come by divine intervention and inspiration.  

He will have to be saved by grace. 

So then may we be saved also. May we be saved by grace through faith, from ourselves and for God’s sake.  For God’s sake — and for the sake of this nation. 

Daily Lesson for September 27, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Esther chapter 7 verses 1 through 10:

1So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther. 2On the second day, as they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, ‘What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.’ 3Then Queen Esther answered, ‘If I have won your favour, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me—that is my petition—and the lives of my people—that is my request. 4For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have held my peace; but no enemy can compensate for this damage to the king.’* 5Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, ‘Who is he, and where is he, who has presumed to do this?’ 6Esther said, ‘A foe and enemy, this wicked Haman!’ Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen. 7The king rose from the feast in wrath and went into the palace garden, but Haman stayed to beg his life from Queen Esther, for he saw that the king had determined to destroy him. 8When the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman had thrown himself on the couch where Esther was reclining; and the king said, ‘Will he even assault the queen in my presence, in my own house?’ As the words left the mouth of the king, they covered Haman’s face. 9Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, ‘Look, the very gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, stands at Haman’s house, fifty cubits high.’ And the king said, ‘Hang him on that.’ 10So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the anger of the king abated.

Finally now, the denouement.

Esther speaks. And the King, once enthralled with Haman, now has him hanged on the very gallows Haman himself had built to hang another.

And thus the measure Haman had given becomes the measure he now gets. 

Lawfully speaking, it’s unclear from the text for what exactly Haman is condemned. All the actions he had carried out against Mordecai and the Jews were done with the King’s permission. So it is not for this that he should be executed; for to do such a thing also implicates the King. As for the King’s assault accusation against Haman, the Scripture is left to interpretation. We can see what the King thought he saw on the couch; or we can see it as Haman begging the Queen for pardon. Or, perhaps, we could see both. 

In either case, it’s the King’s call; he sees villainy, though his ability to rightly discern the circumstances around him have already been significantly called into question by prior events in the royal house. 

The plot settles; but there is still much left unknown and unresolved. There is salvation; that is sure. And there is justice; but we can’t say for sure the justice is divine. 

We never can.

Daily Lesson for September 26, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Esther chapter 6 verses 1 through 6:

That night the king could not sleep, and he gave orders to bring the book of records, the annals, and they were read to the king. 2It was found written how Mordecai had told about Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, who guarded the threshold, and who had conspired to assassinate* King Ahasuerus. 3Then the king said, ‘What honour or distinction has been bestowed on Mordecai for this?’ The king’s servants who attended him said, ‘Nothing has been done for him.’ 4The king said, ‘Who is in the court?’ Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the king’s palace to speak to the king about having Mordecai hanged on the gallows that he had prepared for him. 5So the king’s servants told him, ‘Haman is there, standing in the court.’ The king said, ‘Let him come in.’ 6So Haman came in, and the king said to him, ‘What shall be done for the man whom the king wishes to honour?’ Haman said to himself, ‘Whom would the king wish to honour more than me?’ 7So Haman said to the king, ‘For the man whom the king wishes to honour, 8let royal robes be brought, which the king has worn, and a horse that the king has ridden, with a royal crown on its head. 9Let the robes and the horse be handed over to one of the king’s most noble officials; let him* robe the man whom the king wishes to honour, and let him* conduct the man on horseback through the open square of the city, proclaiming before him: “Thus shall it be done for the man whom the king wishes to honour.” ’ 10Then the king said to Haman, ‘Quickly, take the robes and the horse, as you have said, and do so to the Jew Mordecai who sits at the king’s gate. Leave out nothing that you have mentioned.’ 11So Haman took the robes and the horse and robed Mordecai and led him riding through the open square of the city, proclaiming, ‘Thus shall it be done for the man whom the king wishes to honour.’ 12 Then Mordecai returned to the king’s gate, but Haman hurried to his house, mourning and with his head covered.

A fascinating turn of events.  

Mordecai, who seemed bound to be hung for failing to prostrate himself before Haman, the King’s attaché, is suddenly now showered with honors, while Haman, who grossly demanded respect and honor to a point of idolatry, is suddenly shamed in mourning. 

As for the King — the King seems amoral in the tale. He rules by honoring and protecting those who honor and protect him. When Mordecai refuses to bow before the King, Mordecai is marked for execution. But when it is revealed that Mordecai has actually spared the King from a palace coup, Mordecai is suddenly robed in honor. The King’s moral judgments are self-consumed, and manipulatable; yet, ironically, they are also what end up assuring Mordecai the King’s honor and protection.

Such is virtue in the King’s court — self-serving, and even self-consumed, but not without its own logic, and even reward.

And in the end, all a part of the salvation of God’s people, “for just a time as this . . .”

Daily Lesson for September 25, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Esther chapter 5 verses 9 through 12:

9 Haman went out that day happy and in good spirits. But when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate, and observed that he neither rose nor trembled before him, he was infuriated with Mordecai; 10nevertheless, Haman restrained himself and went home. Then he sent and called for his friends and his wife Zeresh, 11and Haman recounted to them the splendour of his riches, the number of his sons, all the promotions with which the king had honoured him, and how he had advanced him above the officials and the ministers of the king. 12Haman added, ‘Even Queen Esther let no one but myself come with the king to the banquet that she prepared. Tomorrow also I am invited by her, together with the king. 13Yet all this does me no good so long as I see the Jew Mordecai sitting at the king’s gate.’ 14Then his wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, ‘Let a gallows fifty cubits high be made, and in the morning tell the king to have Mordecai hanged on it; then go with the king to the banquet in good spirits.’ This advice pleased Haman, and he had the gallows made.

Yesterday I heard a fascinating interview with Derek Black, the son of a Grand Wizard in the Ku Klux Klan and a member of the KKK’s youth movement, who later publicly disavowed his white nationalism.

In the interview, Black said, "The fundamental belief that drove my dad, drove my parents and my family, over decades, was that race was the defining feature of humanity ... and that people were only happy if they could live in a society that was only this one biologically defined racial group.”

Black commented on the trajectory of white nationalism, as essentially a more palatable  synonym to white supremacy and the ways in which the movement’s talking points are so often picked up by politicians looking for dog whistles to motivate certain disaffected segments of the white populace.

In our Lesson today, Haman is vehemently and irrationally consumed with hatred toward Jews. With veiled, yet still racially-charged rhetoric, Haman uses his access to the levers of power to bring about the Jews demise. The gallows is a symbol of his hatred, just as the lynching tree was a symbol of white supremacist hatred here in the American South.

The only thing that can put a stop to Haman with his coded hatred and open access to power is another who understands the coded rhetoric, and is willing to speak against its cunning evil. 

This, however, will have to wait. The denouement is not yet, and so the fate of all the Jews in the kingdom is not yet settled. For now, the King is still being played by Haman’s messaging, and the gallows are still being built . . .

Daily Lesson for September 24, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Esther chapter 4 verses 9 through 17:

9 Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. 10Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a message for Mordecai, saying, 11‘All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—all alike are to be put to death. Only if the king holds out the golden sceptre to someone, may that person live. I myself have not been called to come in to the king for thirty days.’ 12When they told Mordecai what Esther had said, 13Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, ‘Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 14For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.’ 15Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai, 16‘Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.’ 17Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

This is one of the most well known passages in all the Bible, with the famous words of Mordecai, “Perhaps you have come to this place for just such a time as this,” (another translation) topped only by the strength and courage of Esther’s words, “If I perish, I perish.”

As famous as this scene is, I don’t know that I ever noticed how Esther asked her cousin Mordecai to ask all the Jews everywhere to fast for the three days leading up to the day when she has decided to enter her husband the king’s throne room. Esther has chosen to speak up.  She knows that either way this shall be a fateful decision. She asks her people to help her, to strengthen and uphold her. Though Esther will have walk by herself into the presence of the king, many will walk with her in the presence of the LORD.

Here today is a reminder to pray for one another, especially for those who dare to live with courage and with conviction. Not all can go before the king. Some have more access and power than others. Some have more possibility than others. Some simply cannot speak; others would not be heard. But all can pray; and all should pray. 

And the one who goes before governors and kings and courts and boards and the powers that be goes girded in the strength and prayers of the whole people. 

Daily Lesson for September 21, 2018

10 On the seventh day, when the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha and Abagtha, Zethar and Carkas, the seven eunuchs who attended him, 11to bring Queen Vashti before the king, wearing the royal crown, in order to show the peoples and the officials her beauty; for she was fair to behold. 12But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command conveyed by the eunuchs. At this the king was enraged, and his anger burned within him.

13 Then the king consulted the sages who knew the laws . . . 15‘According to the law, what is to be done to Queen Vashti because she has not performed the command of King Ahasuerus conveyed by the eunuchs?’ 16Then Memucan said in the presence of the king and the officials, ‘Not only has Queen Vashti done wrong to the king, but also to all the officials and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. 17For this deed of the queen will be made known to all women, causing them to look with contempt on their husbands, since they will say, “King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, and she did not come.” 18This very day the noble ladies of Persia and Media who have heard of the queen’s behaviour will rebel against the king’s officials, and there will be no end of contempt and wrath! 19If it pleases the king, let a royal order go out from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes so that it may not be altered, that Vashti is never again to come before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she.

She refused. 

That is about as strong of a statement as there is in all the Bible. One woman, albeit the queen, refused and all the rulers and husbands in all the land took offense. For they feared now that their wives and concubines might also refuse. 

Which we know now, they did.

In the very throne room of the kingdom, Vashti refused and thus was planted in the minds of all the women in all the world this idea that a woman had the right to say, “No.”

It’s amazing to me that this story stayed in the Bible. The broader book of Esther probably could have hung together without the opening.  The scribes could have just written Esther out of the story and started with the next queen Esther, herself. But the scribe didn’t do that.  Why?  Because the scribe knew that Vashti had something to say, something that needed to be heard, and something which was actually fundamental to understanding the whole story of a woman’s choice to come or stay, to remain silent or to speak up, to be controlled by another or to be in control of herself. 

Queen Vashti was hastened off the stage of the story. She lost her crown.  She lost her crown, but she did not lose her voice. Her, “No,” echoed throughout all the kingdom then and still echoes throughout all the world today. 

Vashti is still speaking. She’s still refusing. And she’s still striking discomfort and fear in all the men who just wish she would do what the man says. 

She lost the crown of royalty. But she held onto something far more important and ultimately even more powerful — agency. Vashti was not just the king’s plaything. She was a human being in her own right. 

And she still is. 

Daily Lesson for September 20, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 28 verses 12 through 19, and 23 through 28:

12 ‘But where shall wisdom be found?

   And where is the place of understanding? 

13 Mortals do not know the way to it,

   and it is not found in the land of the living. 

14 The deep says, “It is not in me”,

   and the sea says, “It is not with me.” 

15 It cannot be bought for gold,

   and silver cannot be weighed out as its price. 

16 It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir,

   in precious onyx or sapphire.

17 Gold and glass cannot equal it,

   nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold. 

18 No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal;

   the price of wisdom is above pearls. 

19 The chrysolite of Ethiopia cannot compare with it,

   nor can it be valued in pure gold. 

23 ‘God understands the way to it,

   and he knows its place. 

24 For he looks to the ends of the earth,

   and sees everything under the heavens. 

25 When he gave to the wind its weight,

   and apportioned out the waters by measure; 

26 when he made a decree for the rain,

   and a way for the thunderbolt; 

27 then he saw it and declared it;

   he established it, and searched it out. 

28 And he said to humankind,

“Truly, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;

   and to depart from evil is understanding.” ’

The journey towards wisdom is not one which can be bought or sold like a safari in Africa or a cruise across the ocean. The rich have no greater access. Perhaps the poor do; for the journey is harder for a rich man than a camel’s passing through the eye of the needle.

It’s only when we finally see that riches and fame and conquest and winning and all the trophies and trophy wives in the world are nothing if we are not decent in our hearts. For what does it prophet a man to gain all the greatness in the world and not be good?

So the journey begins. It is not an outward journey, but an inward one. It is a journey towards giving up power, domination, exploitation, and control. It is a journey of repentance and surrender and the yielding of the will. 

The journey begins in fear.  

“What must I do to be saved?” the rich young ruler asked. “Go and surrender it all,” Jesus told him. “Give it all up. Lay down everything.  Then you shall find life.”

It begins in fear; it ends in life and love and the freedom of knowing there is nothing to lose that is not less than grace and truth and the peace which surpasses all understanding.

Today as I write it’s my 42nd birthday. I’ve spent this last week thinking with a lot of clergy friends about race and privilege and patriarchy and the dynamics of power which shape us as individuals and also as a society. And as I reflect on this today, I know how grateful I am for the journey. It’s not over. I’m still learning, still undoing, still becoming.  And I have miles and miles to go before wisdom. But I also don’t want to miss how far I’ve come, how good it’s been to walk, and how blessed I am to enjoy God’s grace which leads me forward each joyful and undeserved step of the way. 

The journey is hard. And I had a long way to go. I still have a long way to go. But I also remember the truth of Dr. King’s aphorism which says so much about me and also this country right now 242 years after its own birth:

“I ain’t what I ought to be. I ain’t what I’m going to be. But thank God I ain’t what I once was.”

The journey goes on. Step by painful and also joyous and grace-filled step. 

“And at the end comes wisdom through the aweful grace of God.”

Daily Lesson for September 19, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 42 verses 12 through 15:

12The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys.13He also had seven sons and three daughters. 14He named the first Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch. 15In all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them an inheritance along with their brothers.

There is an old Garth Brooks’s song about a widower trying starting over again after his former life was lost. The song is a ballad and titled, “Learning to Live Again”.  

Job has learned to live again. Having lost so much, including his children, I’m sure it didn’t happen over night. It took time and Job was fortunate to have lived 140 years to see it all through. He could have died of a broken heart a long time before. 

One of the truly most amazing signs of Job’s resiliency is his willingness to have children again. Surely this was difficult, after having lost others before. And surely there would have been the temptation not to give too much of himself to those children — not to delight in them because they too could be taken. And yet, Job seems to have delighted in them indeed — at least in the girls. For he gave them the fun and playful and very beautiful names Jemimah — meaning Turtledove, Keziah — meaning Spice, and Keren-happuch — meaning Vanity Box. Surely these daughters were to Job precious containers of beauty.

Job learned to live again. He let himself hope again. He gave himself permission to find joy once again. What a risk it was to do so; and yet step by step and day by day and child by child he said yes to loving the beauty of this world. Even in spite of its pain, Job still said yes living life again. 

Daily Lesson for September 18, 2018

And the Lord said to Job:

“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fish-hook,

   or press down its tongue with a cord? 

2 Can you put a rope in its nose,

   or pierce its jaw with a hook? 

3 Will it make many supplications to you?

   Will it speak soft words to you? 

4 Will it make a covenant with you

   to be taken as your servant for ever? 

5 Will you play with it as with a bird,

   or will you put it on a leash for your girls? 

6 Will traders bargain over it?

   Will they divide it up among the merchants? 

7 Can you fill its skin with harpoons,

   or its head with fishing-spears? 

8 Lay hands on it;

   think of the battle; you will not do it again! 

9 Any hope of capturing it will be disappointed;

   were not even the gods overwhelmed at the sight of it? 

10 No one is so fierce as to dare to stir it up.

   Who can stand before it? 

11 Who can confront it and be safe?

   —under the whole heaven, who?”

God continues to speak to Job from the whirlwind. This unsettled and unsettling problem of evil, justice of God, mystery of life and death and being is elusive — too elusive for human comprehension. The LORD compares it all to the Leviathan — the great sea beast of the ocean. Such a creature simply will not be domesticated or tamed. It is too wild and too free and too deep.

We can never place a leash around the mystery of life.  There are some things simply too great for human comprehension.  To wonder why is human; to know why is divine. The storehouse of knowledge remains hidden beyond the veil.

The Leviathan has been seen from the shores at times. It both delights and also strikes fear. It reminds us of the leagues and leagues and leagues beyond us. It reminds us of our home on shore, even as we wonder and marvel at its home somewhere out there in the depths.

And she who understands the distance between the two is the one we call wise. 

Daily Lesson for September 17, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 38 verses 18 through 24:

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: 

18 Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?

   Declare, if you know all this. 

19 ‘Where is the way to the dwelling of light,

   and where is the place of darkness, 

20 that you may take it to its territory

   and that you may discern the paths to its home? 

21 Surely you know, for you were born then,

   and the number of your days is great! 

22 ‘Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,

   or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, 

23 which I have reserved for the time of trouble,

   for the day of battle and war? 

24 What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,

   or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?

A major natural disaster is taking place now with Hurricane Florence, and in reading Job this morning I can’t help but think of what one major televangelist said after the horrible natural earthquake that struck Haiti a few years back. He said the earthquake — which killed and maimed thousands — was a result of the Haitians having made “a pact with the Devil” two hundred plus years before. 

There is a Latin term for that kind of theology — Bovinus Excrementus.

God speaks from the whirlwind at the end of the book of Job, launching a series of vexing questions into the air. Where is the storehouse for the snows?  Where does darkness hide?  What is the source of all light?

We know scientifically so much more than Job’s day about why it is that natural disasters might strike. We understand now that the extent of an earthquake’s devastation may have much to do with poverty and shoddy building techniques, while a hurricane’s devastation can depend significantly on a warming planet. All these things we used to call “acts of God” are often in fact the result of human contribution. 

And yet, there are still so many questions which remain, so many variables, such colossal and also tiny causal affects. Theorists speculate a tiny flap of a butterfly’s wings may be just the difference in a strong storm and a record hurricane. It’s all so complex; it’s just easier to blame the Haitians. 

Job is a warning against blaming anyone. It’s a warning against the hubris of thought — prescientific, scientific, or absolutely non-scientific. It’s a chastening against too many delusions of control. Certainly it is a rebuke of our quick scapegoating. 

Yesterday I got word that a friend from elementary passed away. He was 41, with two small kids. A friend texted me, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  I could have responded with a theological answer, “Nobody is good; only God is good.”  Or I could have offered a scientific answer, our friend was exposed to an excessive amount of So-and-So chemical which triggered his So-and-So gene which . . .”

But in the end, all I could do was remain silent, swallow hard, nod and know it could have been me. And the voice from the whirlwind reminds me that it’s a mystery better left to God as to why it wasn’t. 

Daily Lesson for September 14, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 29 verses 24 through 28:

Job again took up his discourse and said: 
²⁴ ‘If I have made gold my trust,
   or called fine gold my confidence; 
²⁵ if I have rejoiced because my wealth was great,
   or because my hand had acquired much; 
²⁶ if I have looked at the sun^* when it shone,
   or the moon moving in splendour, 
²⁷ and my heart has been secretly enticed,
   and my mouth has kissed my hand; 
²⁸ this also would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges,
   for I should have been false to God above. 

Just before he died my friend and spiritual guide Ted talked about how death is a great stripping away of all things earthly. He said death frees us of the illusions of all securities, save God. In death nothing can save us save God — not money, not looks, not brains, not medics, not even our own morality. As Job said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return.” It is a stripping and a re-entering into the womb. For just as in the mystery of our birth, the mystery we enter into at death strips us of all independence, tethering us to one single lifeline yet again — the umbilical cord we call faith. 

Those who like Ted are ready to enter once again in the mystery of this womb, are persons who have been practicing this stripping away for sometime. In life, they have already learned to die, and in death, they have already learned to live. Death and resurrection are already within them.  They die; yet they are alive.

Below I will share a video of a conversation I had with Ted just a month before he died. I’ve shared it before, but recognize there are new readers who haven’t seen it. 

Ted is dying here; yet I don’t know that I’ve ever seen someone so alive. He is alive, even though dying; and his stripping away in death a putting on of eternal life. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg0S9mlE7c8

Daily Lesson for September 13, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 30 verses 16 through 23:

Job said:

16 “If I have withheld anything that the poor desired,

   or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail, 

17 or have eaten my morsel alone,

   and the orphan has not eaten from it— 

18 for from my youth I reared the orphan like a father,

   and from my mother’s womb I guided the widow — 

19 if I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing,

   or a poor person without covering,

20 whose loins have not blessed me,

   and who was not warmed with the fleece of my sheep; 

21 if I have raised my hand against the orphan,

   because I saw I had supporters at the gate; 

22 then let my shoulder blade fall from my shoulder,

   and let my arm be broken from its socket. 

23 For I was in terror of calamity from God,

   and I could not have faced his majesty.”

The book of Job begins with a prologue in which the Satan questions whether the righteous and blessed Job would be so righteous if he were not so blessed. Thus the hedge of protection is removed from Job’s life and the suffering begins. 

It raises an interesting point. Are we moral simply because of our desire for reward? 

Conversely, here near the end of the book, Job admits outright that his charity was linked to a fear of God. 

Fear? Ought that to be the motivating factor for behaving decently?  I mean, aren’t we against using fear to manipulate? Isn’t that one of the primary things that separates my moderate church from more fundamental ones — fear versus love?

Well, can I answer by saying that perhaps it’s more complicated than that simple love versus fear dichotomy suggests. The dichotomy sounds good; but I don’t think it’s altogether true. 

It wasn’t for me. For me, quite honestly, even after rejecting all the hell, fire, and brimstone of southern (Baptist) religiosity, it was still very much fear that compelled me to surrender my life to ministry. I surrendered out of fear — not fear of hell or damnation — but fear of standing before the LORD with shame of knowing I had not lived my life as called. 

John Donne, another very reluctant cleric, once wrote: “The love of God begins in fear; and the fear of God ends in love. For God is love.”

God is love; and God’s perfect love casts out all our fear. Yet the fear itself is not altogether an enemy, just as youth is not an enemy of adulthood, nor the beginning the enemy of the end. For in the end, all is grace. 

And thus the truth of those wonderful and heartfelt words we all know to sing and to believe:

“Twas grace that taught mine heart to fear

And grace my fears relieved.”

Daily Lesson for September 12, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 30 verses 24 through 30:

24”Surely one does not turn against the needy,

   when in disaster they cry for help.

25 Did I not weep for those whose day was hard?

   Was not my soul grieved for the poor? 

26 But when I looked for good, evil came;

   and when I waited for light, darkness came.“

As humans we have a very bad habit of demonizing the poor and moralizing the stories of those who are down and out.

I think this is part of the way we cope with the anxieties and ambiguities of life, by seeking to distance ourselves morally from those who struggle and suffer. It is the way we keep up our illusion of probity equaling prosperity.  In the most disgusting cases, the poor are actually vilified for their needs.  It is especially sad when this vilification is done by those who are said to be “helping”.  We simply cannot both help and hate someone at the same time. 

All this distancing and judging are the work of the ego. They are a part of our own insecurities. They are ways of coping with these insecurities. And the real answer to the ego’s insecurities is not greater distance from the poor, but greater connection. Greater listening. Greater story telling. The development of greater empathy. 

Ours are all human stories. They are not too different one from another. Job’s suffering story could be our story; it may well be our story. The sooner we learn to accept that — and to accept one another — the less fearful we shall be. For perfect love casts out all fear; and love can only take place in the context of nearness and embrace. 

Daily Lesson for September 10, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 32 verses 1 through 6a and 19 through 21:

So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. 2Then Elihu son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, became angry. He was angry at Job because he justified himself rather than God;3he was angry also at Job’s three friends because they had found no answer, though they had declared Job to be in the wrong. 4Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job, because they were older than he. 5But when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouths of these three men, he became angry.

6 Elihu son of Barachel the Buzite answered:

19 My heart is indeed like wine that has no vent;

   like new wineskins, it is ready to burst. 

20 I must speak, so that I may find relief;

   I must open my lips and answer. 

21 I will not show partiality to any person

   or use flattery towards anyone.”

Elihu reminds me of myself at a younger age. Clearly he is bright and articulate and also brave. He is also zealous to a fault. 

Elihu thinks his job is to give a defense of God. In the face of question and doubt and even open aspersion, Elihu decides he must speak up for God. And he does it in anger.

I don’t know that there’s one thing that Elihu says that I disagree with. Not one thing. 

But there is something about the way he says what he says that deeply troubles me. It’s the weight of his phrases, the condemnation in what is implied. The young man doth protest too much. Maybe he’s not so sure, after all?  Maybe this man who steps in to vindicate God from sin, hasn’t come to terms with his own sin.  Maybe, as Jesus said, “He who is forgiven little loves little.”

There is an old prayer: “God, save me from your followers.”

May God save us when as followers our theology outpaces our humanity, our love of law and doctrine exceeds our love for each other, and our zealous defenses of the faith bring far more heat than they do light. 

Daily Lesson for September 7, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Job chapter 19 verses 25 through 27:

25 For I know that my Redeemer lives,

   and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;

26 and after my skin has been thus destroyed,

   then in my flesh I shall see God,

27 whom I shall see on my side,

   and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

“I believe in the resurrection of the body.”

That is the Apostles’ Creed language, which has now been slightly altered to say, “I believe in the resurrection of the dead.”  That change was unfortunate insofar as in trying to modernize the profession and make it less fleshy, it ended up making it, well, less fleshy.

I believe in the resurrection of the body. 

When I say that and I can’t help but think of the old woman in the Baptist Women’s meeting who when I said, “I believe in the resurrection of the body,” said back, “I hope not this body.”

This body; but changed. This body; but transformed. This body; dead and buried and altogether decayed and born for something new. 

Why did the early church think this was so important that they had to put it into the creed?  The answer to that is they were trying to avoid something called “Gnosticism” — a heresy which spiritualized all things to the detriment of the body. They taught that only “spiritual” things mattered — but not bodily things. Not earthly things. Not fleshly things. The spiritual heirs of the Gnostics teach about heaven as the soul’s escape from a crooked and depraved earth.  Their interest in teaching is solely to get people into heaven, to the absolute disregard of all things earthly. They don’t care about the care of creation, the establishment of justice on earth, peace between nations. These things have zero value to Gnosticism. They’re off to heaven. In fact, as the old saying goes, “They’re so heavenly minded, they’re no earthly good.”

The Creed, on the other hand, assumes the goodness of the earth, the flesh, the body, and their redemption. The Creed knows that the earth shall soon dissolve away like snow.  But it believes the goodness of the earth is still worth struggling for. It believes the goodness of the body is still worth caring for.  All shall pass away and die, but will be raised up in newness OF BODY — a new heaven and a new earth, a corrupted flesh now made new again by the resurrecting power of God. 

So hear Job’s words once more from the Lesson today: 

“For I know that my Redeemer lives,

   and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;

and after my skin has been thus destroyed,

   then in my flesh I shall see God. . .”

In our flesh we shall see God.  For our flesh is not the enemy. Earth is not the enemy.  Spiritual and physical death is the enemy; and over it God has the power of resurrection life.