Daily Lesson for March 30, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Jeremiah chapter 11 verses 14 through 17:

14 As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their trouble. 15What right has my beloved in my house, when she has done vile deeds? Can vows and sacrificial flesh avert your doom? Can you then exult? 16The Lord once called you, ‘A green olive tree, fair with goodly fruit’; but with the roar of a great tempest he will set fire to it, and its branches will be consumed. 17The Lord of hosts, who planted you, has pronounced evil against you, because of the evil that the house of Israel and the house of Judah have done, provoking me to anger by making offerings to Baal.”

Paul D’Arcy says, “God comes to us disguised as our life.”

I remember those words every time I read harsh words of judgement in Scripture.

We don’t like judgment and preaching judgment seems old fashioned — something from another century. But we can’t preach the prophets without preaching judgment; nor can we preach Jesus either.

God comes to us.  Sometimes God comes with judgment. One way to look at this is as what we call divine retribution.  But God is not vindictive. God does not mete out punishment for the sake of punishment. God’s judgment is for the sake of justice, rehabilitation, and the re- and right ordering of the world. In other words, it’s for our own good. 

H. Richard Niebuhr said of early 20th century liberal Christianity’s basic theology: 

“A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”

It was Niebuhr’s understanding that this kind of judgment-less was what ended in the rise of Nazi Germany’s pagan quasi-Christianity. The fallout was destruction. Judgment came.

God comes to us disguised as our lives. Sometimes our lives need judgment. Most times that means the garden needs pruning. But sometimes it needs razing altogether. 

The Prophet Jeremiah prophesied such a time.  It was a hard word many did not want to hear. But it was the word the people truly needed to hear. 

God was coming in the form of Israel’s judgment. The old world would have to pass away.  

But, behold, the new would come also. 

Daily Lesson for March 29, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 8 verses 31 and 32:

31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Flannery O’Connor once wrote, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”

To be truly free is to be free to be odd. Free to be different. Free to dissent. Free to live free from the expectations and polite customs of others. 

Christ has set us free and we are free indeed. 

Free to have our own opinions. Free to speak our minds. Free to come or to go. Free to stand tall right where we are. Free to welcome. Free to hold. Free to walk. Free to talk. Free to love. Not free to hate. And free to say so.

Our Freedom is not to be used as a stumbling block for others. But many will trip and fall over it — often intentionally. That’s part of the risk of being free. It’s part of the risk of knowing the truth and trying to live it as truly as we possibly can.

Knowing the truth will make us free; and it will make us odd.  And it will also make us alive. 

Daily Lesson for March 27, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Romans chapter 5 verses 1 through 5:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we* have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Resilient people are hopeful people.

We think of hope as something of the deep trust we have while we are going through something. It is that indeed; but hope is more than just an optimistic outlook. It’s more than a sunny forecast. 

Hope is the gift of God that comes to those who endure. “Suffering produces endurance,” today’s Lesson says, “and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.”  Hope is something survivors have. It’s calloused hands and calloused knees.  It’s a worn out pair of boots and probably a lot more grey hair. Hope is another ring in the tree marking either drought, or scorch, or flood, and always testifying survival. Hope is a spiritual that grandmothers taught us through tears on a stony road. And hope is the candle that just wouldn’t go out during the dark. 

“Hope endures,” we say. It was born by endurance. And it will endure to the end. 

In other words, it will somehow see us through. 

Daily Lesson for March 26, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 7 verses 45 through 52:

45 Then the temple police went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, ‘Why did you not arrest him?’ 46The police answered, ‘Never has anyone spoken like this!’ 47Then the Pharisees replied, ‘Surely you have not been deceived too, have you? 48Has any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49But this crowd, which does not know the law—they are accursed.’ 50Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus before, and who was one of them, asked, 51‘Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?’ 52They replied, ‘Surely you are not also from Galilee, are you? Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.’

It took guts to ask what Nicodemus asked. 

Everyone else just assumed Jesus was guilty and his judgment and execution were a matter of course. There was literally no question. 

But Nicodemus did question. He had reservations. He was troubled in spirit at what he saw happening. And, importantly, he had the guts to open his mouth and say so. 

I’m sure that wasn’t easy. In fact, I know it was terrifying. So terrifying, in fact, that Nicodemus never says anything else before Jesus is put to death. Nicodemus was effectively silenced. He was silenced amongst the Pharisees or he was forced out altogether. 

In either case, Nicodemus made it known where he stood.  He had spoken up. Though he couldn’t do anything more to change the circumstances of things, he had done what he could. And it cost him. 

Speaking up cost him; and he paid the price. 

May God bless all who dare to pay the price that due process be given, justice be rendered, and the truth at least get a fair hearing. 

Daily Lesson for March 25, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 7 verses 19 through 24:

19 ‘Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why are you looking for an opportunity to kill me?’ 20The crowd answered, ‘You have a demon! Who is trying to kill you?’ 21Jesus answered them, ‘I performed one work, and all of you are astonished. 22Moses gave you circumcision (it is, of course, not from Moses, but from the patriarchs), and you circumcise a man on the sabbath. 23If a man receives circumcision on the sabbath in order that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I healed a man’s whole body on the sabbath? 24Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgement.’

If the Pharisees had not been so consumed about the rules they may have stopped what they were doing, looked up, and seen that some pretty fantastic things were happening. 

But I suspect they really didn’t want to see the things that were happening. They didn’t want to celebrate with the man whose withered hand was made whole, or the woman whose back had been straightened, or the paralytic who rose and walked. This was because they didn’t approve of the man who made all these things happen. He wasn’t their guy. 

The rules were used against Jesus only because the Pharisees and other religious leaders didn’t like Jesus. So they made a federal case out of things which should actually have been celebrated. 

A child is circumcised even on the Sabbath. An ox is rescued even on the Sabbath. These were determined to be fitting exceptions to the Sabbath prohibition on work. But when Jesus healed on the Sabbath everyone was astonished. 

I think they acted astonished. What they really were was bloodthirsty. 

The law was made for humankind and not humankind for the law.  Oh but how often has the law been used in neither a kind nor humane way.

Watch that. Or as Jesus said, “judge with right judgment”.

Daily Lesson for March 22, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 95 verses 1 through 5:

1 Come, let us sing to the Lord; 

let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.

2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving 

and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.

3 For the Lord is a great God, 

and a great King above all gods.

4 In his hand are the caverns of the earth, 

and the heights of the hills are his also.

5 The sea is his, for he made it, 

and his hands have molded the dry land.

God knows the hills in all their wonder,  excitement, and glorious vision; and God also knows deep and dark places of this earth, places of seclusion, hiding, and fear. “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof.”  So there is no place where God cannot see, know, find, and guide us. 

The sea is God’s; for God made it. And when the Israelites came to the sea it parted at the command of God. Next they entered the desert, a dry and weary land. Yet God has already poured water down upon that place and buried it beneath the rock within the earth. 

So the people said, “Come, let us sing to the Lord; let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.”

Wherever we are, in the mountains or the valleys, the joyous pinnacles or the deep caverns, it is all in God’s hands. God’s got the whole world in God’s hands. And so we give thanks, and praise; and we do not despair. For God has walked this path before and knows the way to the place where we are going. 

Daily Lesson for March 21, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 5 verses 19 through 29:

19 Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father* does, the Son does likewise. 20The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. 21Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomsoever he wishes. 22The Father judges no one but has given all judgement to the Son, 23so that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. Anyone who does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent him. 24Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgement, but has passed from death to life.

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; 27and he has given him authority to execute judgement, because he is the Son of Man. 28Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

Jesus has been given the power of life in and of himself just as God. So where Jesus is there is life — even in the midst of death. 

I am leading a class now on the Seven Last Words of Jesus and last night we focused on Jesus’ words to the penitent man on the cross beside him, “Truly today you will be with me in paradise.”  One of the things I tried to express is the idea that Resurrection can actually be present tense. 

Jesus came to the tomb of Lazarus and said to Lazarus’ sister Martha, “Your brother will love again.”  “I know he will live again in the Resurrection on the last day.”  And Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

“I am” — present tense. Resurrection is not only on the last day. It is now. It is wherever Jesus is right now, before the grave and beyond.

Jesus has life in himself. So there is no death. Yes; there is physical death — which is inevitable. But even though we die, we live. We die the first death, but never the second. We die the first physical death, but never the second spiritual death. We suffer not the death of condemnation.

So when Jesus is present there is no fear. For Resurrection is already present. Hope is present. Heaven is present. Even amidst death, there is life; and those believe in the one who is life pass from death to life.

Thanks be to God. 

Daily Lesson for March 20, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 5 verses 2 through 11:

2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralysed. 5One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ 7The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ 8Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ 9At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Now that day was a sabbath. 10So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, ‘It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.’ 11But he answered them, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Take up your mat and walk.” ’

Dr. King once said, “The time is always right to do the right thing.”

Jesus clearly believed this. When he saw a person suffering, he reached out to help and restore then and there, even when it meant violating the sabbath.  For as Jesus said elsewhere, “the sabbath is made for humankind, not humankind for the sabbath.”

The Pharisees who opposed Jesus did so on grounds of him having violated the sabbath by healing. But the truth of the matter was they were opposed to and threatened by his ministry more generally.  The sabbath accusations were a legal tactic to stop Jesus altogether. 

Note: it’s always a mark of oppression to control someone else’s right to freedom. When Jesus healed on the sabbath he was aware of the system of oppression which he was coming up against. He knew he was putting himself at risk. Yet, he chose to act nonetheless. And he did so because it was the right thing to do.

When after 38 years of lying there, the man was told by Jesus to walk he walked. He took up his mat and walked because he too now believed it was time and he was able.

And the word for that is empowerment. 

Daily Lesson for March 19, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 4 verses 46 through 54:

46 Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum. 47When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. 48Then Jesus said to him, ‘Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.’ 49The official said to him, ‘Sir, come down before my little boy dies.’ 50Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your son will live.’ The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way. 51As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive. 52So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, ‘Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.’ 53The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live.’ So he himself believed, along with his whole household. 54Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

For anyone who has ever worried or still worries over the wellness or the future of a child this is a scripture to which to cleave.

“Go; your son will live,” Jesus tells the father. And the father believes Jesus in his deepest place and goes — going solely in faith, “he certainty of things hoped for but not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

We must go on living even when we do not yet see. We must go on living, and trusting, and believing, and hoping in the truth of Jesus’ words. The Lord “is not willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9).  The Lord is on our side. The Lord is on the side of our children.  The Lord is on the side of all those for whom we worry. 

“Go;” Jesus says, “your child will live.”  We go on. Like the father in the story we come back down the mountain of prayer. We trust God has heard our pleas. We believe Jesus when he speaks life and not death.  We turn and we walk by faith and not by sight. We walk in hope and not in fear. 

In one of her “Showings” Julian of Norwich has a vision in which she wonders at all the sins and sorrows of this world. She wonders why God allows the onset of sin and of death. “Why are not all things well?”

And then the answer comes on her vision from the tender words of Jesus: “It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

All manner of things shall be well. And our children shall live. And we continue to walk down the road until our faith becomes sight. 

Daily Lesson for March 18, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Romans chapter 1 verses 9 through 12:

9For God, whom I serve with my spirit by announcing the gospel of his Son, is my witness that without ceasing I remember you always in my prayers, 10asking that by God’s will I may somehow at last succeed in coming to you. 11For I am longing to see you so that I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you— 12or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine.

Week by week for three decades now my friend Kyle Childress has concluded each Sunday service of his church with the same benediction he first learned from the great African American church historian Vincent Harding:

“Let’s take each other’s hands . . .  Now look at who you’re holding hands with, and hold on tight!  Because we’re going to need each other this week.”

He then concludes with the traditional Aaronic blessing, “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

“We’re going to need each other this week.”  What a powerful statement. We need each other. We need each other to for encouragement. We need each other for protection. We need each other hope. My word, in these days we need each other just for sanity. 

It’s not good for us to be alone. It wasn’t in the Garden and it definitely isn’t now. We’ve got to find each other. We’ve got to stick close. We’ve got to watch out after one another. We’ve got to encourage and hold on to one another. 

Where are the people you need right now for the sake of sanity and maybe even survival?  Find them.  Take their hands. Look at them and let them look at you. Covenant together. Covenant to stick together like blood brothers. Hold their hands; and hold on tight; because you’re going to need each other.

We’re all going to need each other this very week. 

Daily Lesson for March 15, 2019

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

25 Now a discussion about purification arose between John’s disciples and a Jew. 26They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” 27John answered, “No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. 28You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.’ 29He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. 30He must increase, but I must decrease.”

What a remarkable human being, this John the Baptist. Whereas so many religious leaders were tempted towards jealousy of Jesus and his ministry, John celebrated its growth as a gift from God.

Imagine how comfortable in our own skin and our own call we would have to be in order to be like John. Imagine how much maturity it would take to see another’s gifts and calling and say, “He (or she) must increase, but I must decrease.”

The Oscars were not too long ago, and I heard the term “Best Supporting Actor”.  When we aren’t the star of the show, we should still strive to be the very best supporting actors we can possibly be. For the drama now being played out in the world is epic and it is dependent upon the full cast playing each of their own parts and playing them well.

There is an old chasidic story about Rabbi Zusya, who understood with humility the import of his own place and time and ministry in the great drama of Judaism. One day he said, “When I get to the heavenly court, God will not ask me, ‘Why weren’t you Moses?’ Rather he will ask me, ‘Why were you not Zusya?”

Heaven did not ask John why he wasn’t Jesus. Heaven will not ask that of us either. Heaven will ask me if I was Ryon. I hope to be. For greater or less, come what may; let me be Ryon. 

Amen. Amen. 

Daily Lesson for March 14, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 3 verses 3, and 14 through 21 where Jesus says to Nicodemus:

3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again . . . 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. “

21But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

The snake is an ancient symbol of Christianity. This is of course ironic because so many of us are terrified by snakes and don’t want to think of them, much less think of them as symbols of our faith. 

But snakes were seen as metaphoric representations both because they slough off their old skin, and also because when the warm Spring sun comes they crawl out from their holes and come to the light. 

Nicodemus was in the slow process of transformation.  He was sloughing off his old life.  He had come to the light and was now ready to be birthed again. It was a slow and painful process; it was also terrifying. To choose the new life Nicodemus was choosing would put enmity between himself and his own people and class. They were conspiring against Jesus. In darkness they were plotting his demise. For those whose deeds are evil hate the light. They hated Jesus; they would surely hate Nicodemus also.

Yet the old snake Nicodemus had come out of his den. He had seen light. His old life was passing away. The new life might cost him everything. It might “risk the hostile stare”, as we sometimes sing at church. Yet, he could not say no. The light drew him.  The new life compelled him. He was being born again.  All that he knew before — his status, his future, his friends in high places — would have to be left behind like the old, moulted skin of a snake, and he would have to stand up and be counted in the full light of day. The old would have to die — and maybe even be killed — but the new would truly be born again into eternal life. 

Daily Lesson for March 13, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 2 verses 1 through 15:

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’ 3Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’ 4Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?’ 5Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.” 8The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ 9Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ 10Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

11 ‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

Nicodemus is afraid. That is why he comes to Jesus at night — “Nic at night” as the old joke goes. He is afraid because, though he is a Pharisee and a part of the religious elite dead set and plotting against Jesus, he has actually begun to listen to and be changed by Jesus. “We know you are from God,” Nicodemus says to Jesus, “for no one can do the signs you do without being sent from God.” Here is his confession — a first step in conversion. 

And yet, Nicodemus is still in the dark. He is not yet willing to come and make himself known as a follower in the light. He is still in hiding. He is still afraid. 

And so, Jesus tells him, he “must be born again”.  Much has been made of this statement both rightly and wrongly. But I take Jesus to mean that Nicodemus must undergo the difficult and painful and very scary process of going from darkness into light, from fear into courage, doubt and hesitation to bold and life-changing faith. 

Of course the fear is very real and there is much for which one can be afraid. Rejection. Ostracism. Revile. These things keep Nicodemus in the dark, his belief in secret. 

Yet Jesus tells him the thing most feared is the thing when once seen in the light will bring salvation. Just as Moses made a bronze snake for the people to gaze upon and it healed them of their own snake-bitten torment, so too will bringing the secret out into the open be the way of salvation for Nicodemus and other secret believers like him.

“What I have told you in secret yell from the rooftops,” Jesus elsewhere said.

It is freedom to be no longer confined.  It is life to be rebirthed from the dark of fear into the light of courage. And it is salvation to face the thing of which we are most terrified and therefore rob it of its life-taking power. 

“You must be born again.”  We must be born again. We must face our own fears again and again and again, as we come out of the darkness of hiding and learn to live in the broad daylight of the courage of our own convictions.

Daily Lesson for March 12, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 2 verses 13 through 22:

13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ 17His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ 18The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ 19Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ 20The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Eighty-nine years ago today Gandhi and his followers began their Salt March, a 240-mile march of civil disobedience against the British monopoly on the salt trade in India. This was a major event in the movement for Indian independence, and an act which inspired other forms of civil disobedience throughout the world, including the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. 

Jesus cleansing of the Temple was itself also an act of civil disobedience, an economically intervening act dramatized to call attention to the exploitative taxation scheme religious authorities had invented to take advantage of all the poor people coming to Jerusalem for the Passover. An example of what we today might call non-violent, direct action, Jesus harmed no one in his protest.  He did, however, significantly disrupt trade in the marketplace. The intent was to call attention to the injustices through the highly-dramatized and disruptive act of protest.

Today’s Lesson reminds us that though it was said that Jesus was “more than a prophet”, he certainly was not less. His prophetic action was creatively disruptive to the very center of the religio-economic system which was exploiting his people and a model for later creative acts of disruption including the Boston Tea Party, the Gandhi’s March to the Sea, and mass demonstration throughout the American South.

It’s also a reminder of the deeply economic and therefore this and not just other-worldly significance of Jesus’ message. 

Daily Lesson for March 11, 2019

Today’s Daily Office comes from Deuteronomy chapter 8 verses 11 through 20:

11 Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. 12When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, 13and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, 14then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid waste-land with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, 16and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. 17Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’ 18But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. 19If you do forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20Like the nations that the Lord is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Before the Israelites entered the Promised Land, God gave them instructions on how to live when they crossed the Jordan and came into their own. The gravest danger they faced was not the enemies of other nations. It was the temptation they would face in taking the resources of this new land, acquiring all its wealth, then totally forgetting that it was God who lead them out of Egypt. For then they would begin to think that they had delivered themselves, earned everything they had either by brawn or brains, and could therefore justify leaving their neighbors

Behind. Then they would begin to set up an economic system just like the one they left — one built on dog eating dog exploitation.

“Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth. But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth.”

God instructs the Israelites to remember once they come into the Promised Land that they did not simply pull themselves up by their own bootstraps without help. They didn’t even have boots!  God delivered them. They were slaves; and the LORD delivered them from Pharaoh in Egypt. And now they had a responsibility remember to make sure Pharaoh stayed in Egypt. For he should have no place in the Land of Promise. 

Daily Lesson for February 8, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 31 verses 14 and 15a:

14 But I trust in you, O Lord;

   I say, ‘You are my God.’ 

15 My times are in your hand . . .

Our times are in God’s hand.

Dr. King wrote in his Letter From a Birmingham Jail that, “time itself is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively.”

Father Time has no conscience, no sense of the justice of history. Father Time makes no promises. This is why time doesn’t really heal all wounds. It’s also why time cannot be trusted to work all things out to the good. Time isn’t really working for us. Time is a River, ebbing and flowing, neither moral nor immoral.

We cannot be redeemed in good time; for time itself is neither good nor bad. Time is not on our side. Time is instead what we make of it. 

And, time is what God makes of it. Time is not like a clock, set and fixed at the hand of a clock maker, then left to its own random devices. No; time is in God’s hand, today’s Lesson says.  In other words, time like the sands of hour glass, susceptible to shift, to tilt, to nudge, and even to reverse. 

Our times are in God’s hand. God has not left us and our world to simply our own devices. God has chosen to intervene in time.  Rather than allowing the sands of time to will simply run their inevitable course; God has entered time and has become — in Auden’s words, written during the dark days of WWII — “The Time Being”.

The dark days of winter are behind us. The sun did not disappear. Time has not run out. There’s yet more time to come. It is God’s gift to us. 

Let us make the most of it.

Daily Less for February 7, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Titus chapter 1 verse 15:

“To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure.”

We live in an age of cynicism, a time when we believe absolutely everything which confirms our suspicions or preys upon our prejudices, while at the same time believing absolutely nothing from those with whom we’re ideologically opposed.

And billions upon billions of dollars are made perpetuating our suspicion.  Americans worship the LORD once a week, but worship at the Temple of the God of Cynicism and Suspicion both daily and nightly. What has been created then is a nation which sees and fears evil at all times and in all places. Many capitalize on these fears for personal and political gain. 

Today’s Lesson suggests that all the darkness and evil we see in others may in fact have more to do with us than it does them. For just as to the pure all things are pure, so too to the fearing all things are fearful. Or as Jesus put it, “The eye is the lamp of the body.”  Our eyes, or how we see the world, is the lamp by which we see others. 

Here’s a radical practice for today:  Assume good faith in others. Even in those with whom we disagree. Even those with whom we disagree vehemently. And look for their goodness. It’s there — even in our enemies it’s there.

“To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure.” 

Or, as folks used to say in West Texas, before we look out and say it’s muddy outside, we should first wash our windows. 

Daily Lesson for Ash Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day in the 40-day Lenten Season leading up to Holy Week and Easter. Today many of us will take on ashes as signs of our willing contrition and desire for personal and societal change.
 
The ashes are one sign of many, including fasting, the tearing of clothes, and the shaving or plucking of beards, which the Israelites used to express sorrow and regret at sin and blasphemy (the Contemporary English Study Bible).
 
The ashes seem especially fitting this year for the world-wide Church. With all the horrific stories of abuse we have learned of within both the Southern Baptist and Catholic bodies in recent past months, coupled with the United Methodist Church’s decision to continue its policy of LGBTQ exclusion in recent days, there is deep sadness and sorrow for the things we as the broader Christian Church have done and left undone. We have excluded those we ought to have included and harmed those we ought to have protected. For these things, the whole worldwide Church is diminished. And for these things, many of us are deeply sorry.
 
Ash Wednesday is a day to ritually express our penitence; and the Lenten season of reflection is the path we walk towards renewing our commitments to protect the vulnerable and defend the rights of the oppressed.
 
“Repent and believe in the Gospel.” These are the words often spoken by the pastor or priest as they mark the sign of the cross upon the head on Ash Wednesday. We repent of all our prejudices and practices not worthy of Christ’s Church. And we believe in the Gospel -- the good news that there is a path which can lead us to reformation and renewal.
 
That path is called Lent; and it is now upon us . . .


PS — This reflection is a part of the Broadway Baptist Church Lenten reflection series. To sign up to receive other reflections throughout Lent click Here.

Daily Lesson for March 5, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 16 

16 Do not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. 17You must diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his decrees, and his statutes that he has commanded you. 18Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, so that it may go well with you, and so that you may go in and occupy the good land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give you, 19thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised.

20 When your children ask you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that the Lord our God has commanded you?’ 21then you shall say to your children, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22The Lord displayed before our eyes great and awesome signs and wonders against Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his household.

Sunday I’m preaching from the book of Deuteronomy and I’m thinking about how few people ever read it.  The word “Deuteronomy” literally means “Second Law”; as it is the second book recording the laws given to the Israelites during their wilderness wandering. The phrase “book of laws” pretty much explains why so few are familiar with what is in Deuteronomy. A book of ancient laws doesn’t exactly sound like exciting stuff.

But truly it is. What we have in Deuteronomy is a vision for who the people are to be, and how it is that they are to live together. They are not to live as the other nations around them. They are to be a different kind of nation, a nation of laws, given to protect the vulnerable and defend the rights of the oppressed and make a community just and decent for all. 

In this morning’s Lesson the children of Israel ask, “What is the meaning of the decrees and the statutes and the ordinances that the Lord our God has commanded you?”  In other words, they’re asking something akin to “Why do we have to eat our vegetables?” — something like, “Why do we have to read and study this long, difficult book of Deuteronomy?”

The answer: “Because we were slaves once under Pharaoh. We were slaves and we know what it’s like to live in bondage where there is no law to protect us from a madman and his taskmasters.”

The Book of Laws was given for the sake of community. It was given to protect and uphold and defend the rights of the people. And it was given in order that this nation escaping Pharaoh and his household might be something other than, something better than, the Egypt they just came out of.

That’s the import of the book of laws; and why we still do well to read it even today.

Daily Lesson for March 4, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 through 3a:

“Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. 3He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being . . .”

And John chapter 1 verse 14:

 “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

The great Quaker thinker and writer once said the truly radical claim of Christianity is not so much that Jesus was like God but rather that God is like Jesus.

This is indeed true. Christians believe God is like Jesus; and if we want to understand who God is — what kind of passion and character God has — then we look to Jesus.

And this is radical because it in fact circumscribes what we might say about God. It is fashionable to talk about God as vast and mysterious and absolutely beyond all our conception. This much is true; but it risks also speaking of God in all kinds of ways that are beyond Jesus.  All kinds of horrible things have been done in the name of God; but it is harder — or at least it should be — to do such things in the name of Jesus.

We near the end of the Epiphany Season. Epiphany means “light” or “revelation”. Jesus was the revelation of God on earth. Jesus was “the exact imprint” of God’s very being the Lessons today say. This means Jesus must shape and circumscribe our God language. When we think and speak of God, we as Christians must think and speak of Jesus. And if we can’t imagine saying what we say about Jesus then we shouldn’t ascribe it to God. 

We all remember the old question WWJD? — What Would Jesus Do? It’s what Jesus did do that teaches us who God is. God is kind; we see this in Jesus. God is merciful; we witness this in Jesus. God is love; we know this because of Jesus.

God is like Jesus. And Jesus must temper and shape our thoughts and words about God. 

Daily Lesson for March 1, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 1 through 10:

Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. 2We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practise cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God. 3And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. 6For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

7 But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. 8We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.

“We do not lose heart.”

What a powerful statement of resilience and determination. In the face of so much opposition and struggle, and amidst such uncertainty about the future of his ministry, Paul holds his hope, keeps his faith, continues to dedicate himself to running his race. He will not stop fighting the good fight.

How he will go on he does not know. How he’s made it this far he doesn’t know either. At the end of the day he can say, it’s only by God’s grace.  It was grace that brought him safe thus far; and grace he’s trusting to see him home.

The treasure is in a clay jar. He knows just how fragile it all is, how easily broken, and how feeble. He knows how feeble he himself is. But does not rely on his own power. It is the power of God that he carries. It is the power of God that goes with him. And it is the power of God that will make the way out of no way. 

So, yes, Paul is old and beaten and worn down from all the struggle.  But he hasn’t lost heart. Thank God, he hasn’t lost heart. 

And neither should we.