Daily Lesson for April 17, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 12 verses

“Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’?No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.”

Jesus lived fully into the hour that was at hand. He did not wrangle or evade or seek to escape the day at hand. When his moment came he lived into it — fully and completely and without fleeing. 

He came for the very moment that was given him. It was his time; and when he came he did not fail to live in and up to it. He did not ask God to spare him from the time that was at hand. 

We all have our times of crucible and crisis. This may be a difficult conversation at work, a hard time as a parent, an undesired but necessary move, a moment when someone must speak up and we know it’s us. 

These are moments from which we know we cannot ask God to deliver us. For the moment is ours. The time is at hand. And we trust always that God is also. 

Daily Lesson for April 16, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 12 verse 24:

“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

T.S. Eliot said, “April is the cruelest month.”

Surely, by the losses marked we believe so. 

On April 4th we observed the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  on April 9th we observed the execution date of  Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Yesterday morning we reflected on the death of President Lincoln and then yesterday afternoon there was the horrific fire in the Cathedral of Notre Dame.  Then Friday we shall publicly mourn the death of Jesus. 

Death is in the air.  

And yet the ultimate meaning of each of the lives of these martyrs lost is the powerful legacy they left upon this earth, the ways in which their lives in the singular burial of death have sprung up again in an array of life — like lilacs in the Spring. One seed died; but from it’s death was born a whole new world. 

Our hearts are so heavy now for what has happened to Notre Dame. It is more than the loss of a church building, or even a cultural and religious icon. It is the loss of a public sacrament, an outward and invisible sign of the invisible human spirit.

And yet, even with this terrible tragedy, there is some hint of resurrection, of life and meaning beyond the grave. This is true of President Macron’s pledge to rebuild Notre Dame. But perhaps it is also true in thousands of other places outside of Paris and people outside the French. People the world over are grieving and in their grief we see the psychic and religious power of the Temple alive yet again even in this purportedly post-religious age. 

A spire has fallen to the earth this cruel April. But in its singular fall others round the world rise and even call out:

“Come, ye who are weary and find rest beneath our shadow; and raise your weary heads unto the heavens.” 

Daily Lesson for April 15, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson:

42:1 Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.

42:2 He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street;

42:3 a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. (Isaiah 42:1-3)

Today marks the 154th anniversary of the death of President Lincoln, who was shot by John Wilkes Booth in Ford’s Theatre the night of April 14, 1865. 

It was more than the death of a single man, or even president. Lincoln’s death was a symbolic death, a dying for both the virtues and also the sins of the nation. 

I keep in my Bible a sermon by the famous 19th century Northern divine Phillips Brooks, preached in the days after Lincoln’s death, as his body was being transported from Washington, DC back to Springfield, Illinois where it was buried. The train carrying the casket stopped at various major cities along the way and his body lay in state that public mourners might come and pay their respects. The sermon was preached at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Philadelphia on April 23, as Philadelphians came in the thousands to pay respect to the fallen president. 

In the sermon Brooks laid the murder charge not only at one man, but against the whole institution of slavery.  He called it “the horrible sacrament of slavery, the outward and visible sign round which the inward and invisible spiritual temper gathered”.

Slavery would soon end, amidst those latter days of the Civil War, but Brooks said that it’s spirit would not die:

“Do not say that it is dead. It is not, while its essential spirit lives. While one man counts another man his born inferior for the color of his skin, while both in North and South prejudices and practices — which the Law cannot touch, but which God hates — keep alive in our people’s hearts the spirit of the old iniquity, it is not dead.”

Brooks went on to say that Lincoln embodies the best of the American nature, “ready to state broad principles of the brotherhood of man, [and] the universal fatherhood and justice of God”.  But there was another nature at war with the first, a nature bent on “the false pride of blood”, the scorn of the laborer, and a commitment to its “own established prides and systems” “dearer to it then the truth itself.”

It was this latter nature which killed Lincoln and still threatened the nation at large. 

A century and half later these two natures of America are still in some ways at war with one another. There are still sacraments — outward and visible signs of an invisible and vehement spirit. And there are still men and and also women who embody even today the grace and virtues of “a more Union”. 

My deepest prayer is that what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature” might yet prevail in this two-natured America, that we as a nation might not yet again be torn asunder but rather rise to the standard of our pledge “one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.”

Daily Lesson for April 12, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 11 verses 17 to 27:

17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’ 23Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ 24Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ 25Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ 27She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

The Resurrection is a present tense event. 

We usually speak of Resurrection as an event to come. And surely that is true. But Resurrection is not only in the future. Resurrection is also in the present.  

Here in today’s Lesson from the book of John Jesus says, “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” — present tense. Jesus said this in the context of death, to Martha the sister of Lazarus who had just died. It may seem like a peculiar time to speak of Resurrection and Life. But there was Jesus; and with him came also Life and Resurrection.  John’s theological message is clear; wherever there is Christ or the Spirit of Christ there is also Resurrection and Life, even in the midst of Death.

In my profession I am often around death. The gravity of Death can sometimes feel like a great and crushing black hole. Yet even in the midst of Death I often witness Resurrection and Life. There is sorrow and grief and the deep, deep pain of loss, but there is also hope.  There is Resurrection in present tense even in the present midst of Death. 

Death may be now; but it is not eternally now.  Death may be; but it will not be forever. For the  one who is the Resurrection and the Life is and was and ever shall be. And as Jesus said, even those who believe in Him, “even though they die, shall live.”

Daily Lesson for April 11, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Romans chapter 11 verses 1 through 5:

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? 3‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.’ 4But what is the divine reply to him? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’ 5So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.

There are times when we can feel so alone, like the whole world has gone after the false gods of money, media, and hyper-militarism. We wonder where our sense of values has gone. We wonder what the world is coming to. We wonder if God has left us to our own devices. 

Then we hear the promise in this morning’s Lesson. “God has not rejected God’s people.”

Remember Elijah, Paul says. He contended against his own people. He had written them all off for good. He thought he was all alone. But there was a remnant, 7,000 who had not bended the knee to kiss the god of Baal. Seven thousand is a Biblical number of completion.  It is a symbolic number for sufficiency. It is enough. 

“So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace,” Paul says.

God does not leave us to our own devices. By grace a remnant is left.  It may not seem like much. But it is sufficient. It is enough. By God’s grace it is enough to keep the world from falling apart. 

Daily Lesson for April 10, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 10 verses 11 through 15:

11 ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 14I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.

This is Jesus deciding to stay.

He could have chosen to flee and hide; and surely no one would have blamed him.

But in the depths of his soul Jesus knew what he must do. The Good Shepherd had to stay and lay his life down for his sheep.

There are moments in all our lives when we must choose to either stay put and face the fire or flee. We already know within ourselves what is the answer.  And though it may not be comfortable, or easy, or even at times safe, it is right. LORD knows it’s right.

Elsewhere the Bible says Jesus “loved his own . . . to the end.”  In other words, he loved his sheep fully and completely and without any reserve. It cost him everything. Staying and loving cost him his life. 

But to have not done so would have cost so much more.

The psalmist says, “In God I trust and shall not be afraid; for what can mortals do to me?”

Mortals can do much.  They can rob us of our lives and our livelihood. They can kill and steal and destroy. But one thing they cannot do is make the sheep wonder if the shepherd is true. The shepherd himself has already decided that question. 

And that is why we call him Good. 

Daily Lesson for April 9, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson is in remembrance of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was hanged for treason by the Nazis at the Flossenberg concentration camp on this date in 1945.

Recently I have been reading a 1982 play by Douglas Anderson about Bonhoeffer’s life titled “The Creaking of the Beams”. In the play there is an early exchange between Bonhoeffer and his brother Klaus Bonhoeffer, who was also executed by the Nazis for purported crimes against the state. Dietrich and Klaus are amongst the few who see what is happening in the early days of the Third Reich, comparing the release of Nazism fanaticism to the work their father Karl Bonhoeffer does as a psychiatrist. 

Dietrich: . . . It’s worse than I’d imagined.

Klaus: That’s no surprise; politics are always worse than we imagine.

Dietrich: They seem to be gaining strength.

Klaus: We’re not worried. Hitler has merely flushed the crazies out of the Garret’s and into the open — just what Father has been trying to do for years.

Dietrich: But does anyone know how to treat them?

Klaus: Probably not.

Reading an exchange like this inevitably draws us to comparison with the Bonhoeffer brothers’ time and our own. Comparisons are both accurate and inaccurate. I think too much direct comparison with Hitler has been and is still being made since the end of World War II. Polemic contrasts aside, Hitler was an emperor of evil we in America have still never seen.

And yet, at the same time, we can see that something has changed in America in recent years — going all the way back to the mid-1990s in the dark seeds of the Oklahoma City bombing and now daring to coming out into full light in the late 2010s— which resembles Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s. It seems everywhere we turn there are racist and anti-Semitic white nationalists and neo-Nazis defacing buildings, committing arson, and rallying openly. 

The crazies have somehow been let out, inspired and emboldened to act more boldly and maliciously; and we wonder with Dietrich in the play, “Does anyone know how to treat them?”

And the answer to that is to do what Dietrich and Klaus did — to stand up, to actively oppose, to defy, and actively protect and defend against. 

The mistake most of the Bonhoeffer family made was thinking that the things they were seeing were not in fact happening. They could not believe fascism could happen in so sophisticated a society as Germany. They were wrong. 

And lest we realize it could happen here then we could be wrong too. 

We say of the holocaust, “Never again.”  But that can only be said if in saying it we mean it should never happen again rather than meaning it could never happen again. For it can.  And it might, so long as we continue to treat the crazies like one-off troublemakers and cranks and not as actual existential threats.

We must wake up.

Daily Lesson for April 8, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 9 verses 1 through 5:

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ 3Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. 4We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.’

Somewhere still in the depths of our psyches we have subconsciously equated illness and disability with sin. This is probably an evolutionary development — a protective measure created to distance ourselves from anything which might be harmful. Long and considered analysis of gathered facts is not a part of the animal portion of the brain. All it knows is fight or flight and it acts on these impulses with immediacy. 

One of the great gifts of Jesus was the fact that he taught us not to moralize physical condition. He somehow rose out of the animal part of the brain, acting not only in the interest of self-preservation, but with behaviors like compassion and kindness and self-giving. He touched the lame, the lepers, and even the dead.

And in today’s Lesson, Jesus’ answer to those who wondered who must have sinned that a man was born blind was fundamentally revolutionary.  “The man was not born blind because some sinned, but rather that the glory of God might be revealed through him.”  And so, the light of the world was revealed through the blind man’s encounter with Jesus. 

We still often moralize disability with subtle forms of metaphor. Words like “Blind” and “Handicapped”, “Sick” and many others still remain moral metaphors for things other than actual illness or disability. This is deeply ingrained in us all; and I am working constantly to use more appropriate language which is less derogatory of persons who with disability and illness. It is not easy and is probably a lifetime work. I’m staying at it — like a lot of things. 

And somehow the less judgmental or afraid we are, the more it is true — we do see the revelatory work of God in all manner of places and people our eyes were closed to before. 

And the word for this is transformation. 

Daily Lesson for April 5, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Romans 8:18-23:

18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. 19For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; 23and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

I am writing this reflection on the 51st anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and remembering not only Dr. King’s famous words but also the words of his teacher and mentor Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays on the sad occasion of Dr. King’s memorial at Morehouse College on April 9, 1968:

“[Dr. King] was not ahead of his time. No man is ahead of his time. Every man is within his star, each in his time. Each man must respond to the call of God in his lifetime and not in somebody else’s time.”

Dr. Mays was telling the mourners that Dr. King’s death was not in vain. Dr. King’s message and ministry were not too much too soon; and he did not give his life for a non-viably premature cause. Though many who were opposed to full equality and justice for all were publicly blaming Dr. King’s death on the unreadiness of the times, Dr. Mays was adamant that the time for the world Dr. King lived and died for was at hand.

In today’s Lesson St. Paul speaks of a world in wait, a creation waiting and “longing for the revealing of the children of God.”

The world is waiting. Held in bondage, it longs for God’s children to rise up and say something, intervene, organize, make a difference, care.

We are God’s children. And the time is now; it’s always now.

Or as Dr. King himself put it, “The time is always right to do what is right.”

Daily Lesson for April 4, 2019

Today is April 4, the anniversary date of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 Dr. King’s witness and legacy continue to challenge us as a nation. His work for basic human rights, including adequate healthcare and basic income for all are still a Promised Land not yet reached. His 1968 death in the City of Memphis, where he was working on behalf of decent pay and working conditions for sanitation workers, continues to haunt a nation whose income gap is far worse now than it was a half century ago. Dr. King’s work is yet unfinished; and it is up to us not only to commemorate his life but also to continue the ever-ongoing work of his legacy.

Here is a prayer from the Episcopal Prayer Book for this day of commemoration:

Almighty God, by the hand of Moses your servant you led your people out of slavery, and made them free at last: Grant that your Church, following the example of your prophet Martin Luther King, may resist oppression in the name of your love, and may secure for all your children the blessed liberty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.  

Daily Lesson for April 3, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Jeremiah chapter 18 verses 1 through 6:

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2‘Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.’ 3So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. 4The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.

5 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 6Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.

There comes a time when all of us have to be broken in order to be remade again.

The Church’s historical word for this has been Reformation — literally a breaking and reforming, and both the Protestant and also Catholic Churches have had their seasons of reformation and counter reformation. Other metaphors are “death” or “Fall” Or “Babylon”. Whatever the language, there is a fundamental break from the former shape of things. The break is both religious and also social and always deeply personal. 

To be broken and reformed requires fundamental theological change. Things we thought were inviolable end up failing to protect us. The Temple falls. Our old conceptions are shattered. We have to think again about God and our place in it. The devastation is painful, sometimes agonizing so; but in the hands of the potter something new is made from the clay. 

John Donne wrote, “Batter my heart three-person God.”

Most of us are less inviting of the demolition life sometimes brings us. But invited or not it comes. The earth turns as the Potter’s wheel.  And with it comes formation and reformation and the breaking and remaking of ourselves and the whole world as we know it.

And in the tender yet firm hands of the potter, the clay must surrender itself; for there is no other way than to be reborn. 

Daily Lesson for April 2, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 6 verses 26 and 27:

26Jesus answered them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set his seal.’

There is an old saying: “You gotta make hay while the sun is shining.”

It means we need to do the work while we have the chance.  And LORD knows I’ve quoted it many times. 

But Jesus is warning us about work today — or at least overwork. He’s warning us about work without end, work without rest, work without perspective.

The LORD gave us Sabbath to remember to keep all things in perspective. To remember that we were slaves in Egypt without rest. To remember that we are human beings and not human doings. To remember that the sun will come up and the grass will grow even if we aren’t out there plowing.

Jesus said not to work for the food that perishes. By that he meant there’s a law of diminishing returns on the food we put on the table. There’s a law of diminishing returns on work and on finding our identity in work. We can never quite make enough hay or find enough pleasure and security in its stockpile. 

The LORD gave us Sabbath to free us from the delusion of simply working harder and harder to get our fill. 

Sabbath reminds us that God is the one in control. Sabbath reminds us God is still working even when we are at rest. Sabbath reminds us we are not just what we do. Sabbath reminds us that we belong to the LORD and not to Pharaoh. And sabbath reminds us God is the one who gives us our daily bread and our daily being. 

We really ought to practice it more. 

Daily Lesson for April 1, 2019

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 6 verses 1 through 10:

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. 2A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. 3Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. 4Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. 5When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ 6He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 7Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ 8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’ 10Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all.

So often we doubt that what we have could really be enough to meet the tasks at hand. We see the crowd and their hunger, and we think to ourselves our offering is so meager, our abilities so minor.

No wonder it is a child who is the one who dares to think what he has is enough in today’s Lesson. He has not yet learned to think, calculate, disbelief. He has not yet learned to doubt that all things are possible with God. 

“You must become a child again,” Jesus said. And it is true.  If we are ever going to please a crowd, or feed a hungry world, or do anything else miraculous in life, then we’re going to stop telling ourselves that what we have isn’t enough and like children believing again in God’s ability to multiply loaves and fish and whatever else we happen to have with us when the need arises.