Daily Lesson for February 28, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Proverbs chapter 27 verse 10:

“Do not forsake your friend or the friend of your parent.”

Yesterday I had a touching call with a woman who is in her nineties. She wanted to tell me about the son of a close friend who has looked after her for years, after his own parents’ passing. He is a member of her church calls her every Sunday to check in on her, tell her about worship, and report on life. The Sunday calls are a ritual for them both, and an important connection for the home bound woman. 

What a beautiful thing. 

There is so much ugliness and brutality and violence in the world. And what this man does is do small.  But it matters. 

“And when I was a shut in you called me.”

This is the near end of love for this man. He has grabbed hold. 

Let’s all take hold where we can. 

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

 

 I have just read a powerful letter from our brother Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili, whose own country the Republic of Georgia was attacked by Putin in 2008.

In the letter Bishop Malkhaz says:

“. . .  these circumstances should never blind our perspetive that in the end justice will prevail, hatred and lies will be defeated, love and compassion will definitely win. It is essential to believe that forces of darkness and stupidity will fail. It has always been the case, it shall always be the case.”

Reading these words, I am reminded of what Bonhoeffer said as the Nazi tanks blitzkrieged across Europe, rolling over Poland in the blink of an eye:

“It’s all over now . . . I mean we are at the beginning of the end. Hitler will never get out of this.”

The forces of darkness and stupidity will fail. It shall always be the case. 

Daily Lesson for February 25, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 140 verses 1 through 3:

To the leader. A Psalm of David.

1 Deliver me, O Lord, from evildoers;

protect me from those who are violent,

2 who plan evil things in their minds

and stir up wars continually.

3 They make their tongue sharp as a snake’s,

and under their lips is the venom of vipers.

Selah

This morning's Psalm is a particularly poignant one given the events yesterday and today in Ukraine.

Our hearts break for what is happening to the people there.

We shame also in our unwillingness to do more to stop the attack.

I think of Reinhold Niebuhr's book "The Irony of American History" and what he called the necessary "modesty about the virtue, wisdom and power available to us for the resolution of [the world's] perplexities" and "contrition about the common human frailties and foibles which lie at the foundation of both the enemy's demonry and our vanities".

In other words, being a superpower ain't all it's cracked up to be. There are limitation to our power. And there are vanities in both our action and inaction.

This is where the words of the Psalmist are of some comfort this morning.

A violent, evildoer has stirred up war in the world. We are in part restrained in what we can do to respond in the West. But we must not be guiled into thinking our restraint is an act of superior virtue. It is both an act and inaction of realpolitik, self-preservation, and exasperation.

Exasperation may be the right word. The psalm concludes with the word "Selah". No one quite knows what it means. It may be a musical score direction. Or, relatedly, it may be a kind of note to a singer -- a breath mark.

Peaceful people are under attack. Prominent allies will soon be searched for. A free nation is in the throes of a madman.

But there is not much we can do immediately. To escalate to global war would be catastrophic. We must be sensible. In some ways our enemies are counting on us to be sensible. This is the irony of the American and world history right now.

So what is there to do? Breathe. And pray. Ask wisdom and good counsel for sane minds and sound plans. And trust, as the Psalmist later says in the Psalm, that

"the Lord maintains the cause of the needy,

and executes justice for the poor."

Selah

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for February 24, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 12 verses 4 through 8:

4But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5‘Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii* and the money given to the poor?’ 6(He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. She bought it* so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.’

Today is the Feast of St. Matthias, the Apostle chosen to replace Judas after his betrayal. 

The story of Judas is tragic and disturbing. Why he betrayed Jesus is a question for the ages, but surely it had something to do with the guilt and shame he felt for having pilfered from the poor. There had to be an anger and deep dis-ease within him, that alienated him from Jesus and the community. 

As a pastor now for nearly 20 years, I can say it is sometimes hard to know what all is going on inside the minds and hearts of people.  What can be said is that something sinister and evil had taken hold of Judas, and Jesus could see it. That is why Jesus told Judas to “Do what you have to do.” Jesus somehow knew Judas could not be helped. He had for whatever reason set his heart to coverup and destruction. 

There is a prayer for the Feast of St. Matthias which says these words:

“O Almighty God, who in the place of Judas chose your faithful servant Matthias to be numbered among the Twelve: Grant that your Church, being delivered from false apostles, may always be ordered and guided by faithful and true pastors . . .”

Judas is a sobering reminder that there are false apostles, and false pastors, and false leaders within the church. It is painful when these are revealed. The harm they have done is often irrevocable and life shattering. The coverup is often worse. 

We do indeed pray to the Almighty for faithful and true pastors and leaders. Christ continues to suffer harm when he is betrayed by those said to be closest to him, and the betrayals destroy churches, families, and friendships. They also destroy the soul. 

Yes, betrayals are bound to come; “But woe unto them by whom they come.”  

And woe also unto them who think they or their church could never be victim or victimizer.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for February 23, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Proverbs chapter 6 verses 16 through 19:

16 There are six things that the Lord hates,

seven that are an abomination to him:

17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue,

and hands that shed innocent blood,

18 a heart that devises wicked plans,

feet that hurry to run to evil,

19 a lying witness who testifies falsely,

and one who sows discord in a family.

The clinking of the metal from marchers in the east can be heard now in the west. Three days ago the thunder of the tanks was not only heard but also felt.

"There will be wars and rumors of wars."

And there will be; and there is.

We pray for the innocent. We fear for the nation. We weep for its peoples.

"Woe to pregnant women and nursing babies in those days."

What kind of sickness sows such discord in families and in nations? What kind of smallness can only conquer in order to feel safe or significant?

God weeps. God weeps for victims. God weeps even for victimizers.

But in the end, God will not be mocked. And the schemes which are called "genius" will be called by their true name which is Evil.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for February 18, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 10 verses 33 through 36:

33[They] answered, ‘It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.’ 34Jesus answered, ‘Is it not written in your law, “I said, you are gods”? 35If those to whom the word of God came were called “gods”—and the scripture cannot be annulled— 36can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, “I am God’s Son”? 

This is an incredible Scripture. 

But it may make us uncomfortable.  “You are gods.”  It does indeed sound blasphemous. 

But Paul Tillich said all our language is metaphorical. And something can be metaphorically true while not literally true. 

Ask Irie and she will tell you I am not a god!

But the Bible says we are children of God and so gods in some sense. 

Imagine what it meant for what the great African American civil rights leader and theologian Howard Thurman called “the disinherited” to hear someone say that they were gods. What a word of empowerment. What a word of protest against the 

forces of occupation, oppression, and spiritual diminishment.

Jesus said he was the “son of God”.  For those he opposed and who opposed him was a pretext to have him killed. 

But, as John said at the outset of the Gospel, “to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” also.

Claim you inheritance, friends. You are children of God, and the word says, “You are gods.”

Be bold to believe and let no one take your dignity away from you. 

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for February 17, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 John chapter 2 verses 26 and 27:

26 I write these things to you concerning those who would deceive you. 27As for you, the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and so you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, abide in him.

On Sunday Broadway will participate in the Baptist Women Month of Preaching by joining many other Baptist churches in inviting women preachers to the pulpit in February.

For so long men have told women that they cannot preach and cannot pastor. But the Spirit has told them otherwise. The Spirit has said they can indeed.

When the Spirit calls you to preach you preach. When it calls you to pastor you pastor. When it calls you to be Vice President or President or priest in the order of Melchizedek you do it.

You do what the Spirit says. The world and the church will just have to catch up.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for February 16, 2022

 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. 

A good leader understands that there are wolves out there. They make provision. They guard. They sacrifice. They care.

A good shepherd cares for the well being of the flock. They are willing to put themselves at risk for the sake of the flock.

There are good shepherds out there. There are good leaders, good managers, good CEOs, good pincipals and superintendents, good deacon chairs, and good pastors. 

They don’t just think of themselves when trouble comes. They think of the flock under their care. They think of the sheep hurt, scattered, harassed, and abused. They think and they act, as best as they can. 

If you have a leader like that thank them today. The last couple of years have been hard, but they’ve laid on the line; and we owe them more than we could ever repay. 

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for February 15, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 9 verses 37 through 41:

37Jesus said to him, ‘You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.’ 38He said, ‘Lord,* I believe.’ And he worshipped him. 39Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgement so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.’ 40Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not blind, are we?’ 41Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, “We see”, your sin remains."

Our problem is often not what we don't see, but what we do.

We get a glimpse, and think we understand the whole thing. We look from one vantage point and think it's God's view. We get glimpses of God, through our reading of the Bible and our own experience, but we fail to see there are other experiences and other ways to read -- other things to read.

"We see through a glass darkly," St. Paul said. "We see only in part, and know only in part."

This should be cause for some real humility on the part of Christians.

Jesus said he came so that those who see may become blind."

Let's do something radical. Let's embrace that with humility. Let's receive it as the grace it is, even if we can't see it yet.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for February 14, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 John chapter 1 verses 8 through 10:

8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

"What is your history with having been forgiven?"

That was once of the most important questions ever asked of me -- by an old Methodist minister no less. Methodists believe in forgiveness.

Christians are supposed to. We are supposed to believe also in our need for forgiveness.

But even the Protestants have come somehow to believe in the infallible; and we even elected a president who said he had no need for forgiveness.

And Jesus' words were true: "He who is forgiven little loves little."

To be forgiven much should lead to our loving much. It should lead to our confessing and caring much. It should lead to our forgiving much.

So, how about you, "What is your history with having been forgiven?"

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for February 11, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Genesis chapter 28 verses

10 Jacob left Beer-sheba and went towards Haran. 11He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. 12And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13And the Lord stood beside him* and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; .  . .  16Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!’ 17And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’

The church where I was ordained was and still is a sleepy-looking little church on the outskirts of Durham.

“Welcome to Kudzu,” was what Pastor Gale said to me when I showed up my first day to intern. I didn’t know what Kudzu was, but later found out it was about a pastor (Will B. Dunn) and his community so backward that “even the Episcopalians handled snakes.”

Lowes Grove Baptist Church is the name of the church, though when my dad first saw it he said, “Looks more like Lonesome Grove”.

It ain’t much. But for a little — maybe a year in my it was everything. The church and Rev. Gale saved me. I found Jesus there — reluctantly.  I found myself too. 

Jacob was in the most lonesome and not much place of all. By appearance he could never have known that stone he took under his head had been an altar unto the Lord for his grandfather, as sacred a place as there is in all the earth. 

Walk the old cemeteries.  Pull over and look at the ruins of the old missions. See where a community once existed but vanished because the railroad decided to go through the Congressman’s hometown. There’s nothing there. Some old stones, a few barking dogs, and a bunch of buried Baptists. 

But if we had eyes to see we would know this is where a life was changed, it was where somebody met Jesus, where a a prophet was baptized, where a slave preacher read preached Exodus. 

If the old stones could speak then we’d know that there was the gate heaven. 

And here too then also.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for February 10, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Romans chapter 12 verse 15:

Several years ago at Wednesday night church a woman announced that her husband had been cleared of a terminal diagnosis he received just months before. He had been misdiagnosed, his symptoms were treatable, and he would die with his actual condition and not because of it.

Those present there that night erupted into a hearty thanksgiving, including joyous applause from the wife's best friend who I remember breaking out in a huge, and genuine smile -- and then tears of joy.

What made that moment so memorable for me was the fact that the best friend also had a husband who had been diagnosed with a likely terminal illness and they had not received nearly so good a news. Yet, the tears were genuine joy.

There's all kinds of things happening around us. Good news and bad. Someone just got their dream job, another is awaiting test results for their nephew, somebody's grandson just got kicked out of the military, while another grandson by another child was just accepted into Stanford with a full ride.

Let us rejoice with those who rejoice. And let us weep with those who weep. And let us rejoice and weep a wet tear at the same time.

God does. I am sure.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for February 9, 2022

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Romans chapter 12 verse 3:

3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 

Desmond Tutu just died. I loved his humor and will miss it so very much.

He liked to tell the story of being spotted by woman in an airport in America. “Wait,” the woman said, “I know who you are. You’re Nelson Mandela!”

The Lord has a way of keeping us humble. 

Let’s embrace it. 

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Daily Lesson for February 8, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 8 verses 2 through 7:

2Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him and he sat down and began to teach them. 3The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, 4they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ 6They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’

I once heard the legendary and very humble pastor Jim Jackson say that whenever someone came to him and confessed adultery his response was to first tell them they could never throw rocks at anyone else ever again.

I don't know what Jesus wrote in the ground. Someone once joked that he asked the question, "Where is the man?" That is a good question -- and a clue that this wasn't about adultery so much as it was politics. They were more out to get Jesus than they were the woman and her man. But they didn't mind destroying her life (literally) in order to put Jesus in a bad place. That happens all the time today. The rocks keep flying.

Another idea is that what Jesus wrote there on the ground were the sins of all those standing around him and the woman. They were written in sand -- not in stone, like the stone of Moses. They were forgiven and forgotten, but now brought to mind when the woman was brought before Jesus.

But anybody who has ever really themselves been guilty and then forgiven ought never to throw rocks, nor relish in those who do.

Our sins have been forgiven and largely forgotten, but they will always be brought to mind when we stand in the judgment seat over others. This ought to keep us from throwing rocks.

"Go and sin no more," is enough. Anything more than that and you can bet something ulterior and evil is at work.

And it's at work all the time.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for February 7, 2022

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Hebrews chapter 13 verse 2:

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.

This Christian hospitality stuff can be hard, and uncomfortable, and even dangerous.

When we were young and idealistic, Irie and I once allowed someone to stay with us for a fortnight. It grew to be a pretty exasperating experience. Some have indeed entertained angels, but this woman was not one of them!

It could have been worse. I had a friend up in Vermont who out of Christian sincerity invited a troubled soul to stay in the community with him and his family. The guy ended up burning down the town school. That wasn't a good day; and it reminds me that Jesus said we are to be "Innocent as doves and also as shrewd as snakes." My friend grew a lot more snaky shrewd after that disaster.

Be careful, friends. Be sensible. Don't put yourself or your kids or your church or community in danger.

But, remember, there are angels out there. And there are doves. And there are snakes. Feed and show hospitality to them all -- within reason, and as is required.

And also remember what our Lord said:

"When I was a stranger, you welcomed me . . ."

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.