Daily Lesson for February 4, 2014

Today's Lesson is a personal reflection:

Early this morning I was present as my friend Tom Matthew Hodges passed away after a long and courageous struggle with Muscular Dystrophy. Doctors said he would likely pass away in his teens or early 20s. He was 32.

In my four years of knowing Tom Matthew I witnessed his journey from anger and bitterness into the peace that surpasses all understanding. When he passed this morning Tom Matthew was not only ready, he was holy.

This morning on the way to school I shared the news with my daughter Gabby who had a real fondness for Tom Matthew. There was a brief silence in the backseat and then she spoke. 

"I have a question about heaven," she said. "What happens to our bodies?"

I told her the Bible says there will be a new heaven and a new earth and we will receive new bodies also. "What is buried feeble and broken will be raised whole."

"When?" she asked.

"I don't know for sure," I said, "but I hope it's right now." Gabby said she hoped the same thing.

Tom Matthew hoped also. At the end, when he could do nothing else - neither walk not drink not eat- he could still hope. And he did. He grew into hope and then clung to it. He showed me the meaning of what it is to "hope against hope."

After Tom Matthew passed his caretaker Josh went into Tom Matthew's room and brought out CDs he had made for each of his family members. Each CD had a Bible verse Tom Matthew selected to leave behind as final words of consolation and hope.

To Tom Matthew's parents this from John 16:33:

"I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

And to Tom Matthew's sister this from John 11: 25, words of Jesus to Martha as she wept at the tomb of her brother Lazarus:

“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live."

Tom Matthew believed. And because of that he will live. In fact, he lives even now, whole and free with a new body. This is our great hope.

Daily Lesson for February 3, 2014

Today's Lesson from Genesis 19 verse 26:

26 But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Yesterday the world lost a great actor in Philip Seymour Hoffman. More than that, those close to him lost a beloved family member and friend. Our hearts are all heavy.

Apparently, Hoffman died of a drug overdose. Reports say he had a history with drugs but was clean for 20+ years before relapsing last year. It is disturbing to think that someone could be clean that long and then turn back.

I didn't know Hoffman so can't speak to his circumstance, which is obviously tragic.  I dare not add to that tragedy with presumptuous talk.

But I do think I can say something more general about relapse.  In the Big Book of AA the reasons given for relapse are always deep, spiritual reasons. They involve the inability to hope, the psychological weight of guilt and shame, the absence of inner-transforming practices like prayer and meditation, and a failure to reach out to others and share the journey of recovery.

These deep, spiritual maladies are not true for alcoholics only. These are the reasons any one of us could relapse back into our own places of spiritual darkness - whatever those places may be. The journey from the darkness of self destruction toward the light of eternal life is a life-long journey, made step by step, day after day. 

Today's Scripture tells of Lot's wife who while fleeing the city of Sodom stopped and looked back. I don't know why she looked back - perhaps in grief over what was lost behind her or perhaps in fear of what lay ahead of her. Regardless, the message is she stopped moving forward and became a pillar of salt.

Whatever our griefs or fears, we can't stop. We have to keep moving away from the city of destruction and toward freedom. As one friend - still clean after 20+ years - told me last week, "We either grow or we go."

One final thought. It appears that Philip Seymour Hoffman died like so many others who OD - alone. Physically alone and spiritually alone as well. Self-isolation is always the last stage before the beginning of the death spiral. If you in or near self-isolation reach out. Call AA, or NA or call me. It is the trick of evil to cut you off from others so completely that you think you're all alone and there is no way out. Trust me when I say there is and that there are people who know the way.

Daily Lesson for January 31, 2014

Today's Lesson from Psalm 51:

1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!

It is the psalm David prayed after it was found out that he had slept with Bathsheba and then arranged to have her husband killed. It is the prayer of a person who is truly sorrowful and repentant.

A little story about Psalm 51:

In 17th and early 18th century England crime was severely punished. Even theft of a very minor sum was a capital offence warranting execution.

But a person on trial could "plea clergy" - meaning that because there was a separation of church and civil authority, he could plea that as a clergyman he was immune from civil justice. And apparently the way one proved one was clergy was by proving one's ability to read. The charged would be asked to read - you guessed it - Psalm 51. It was known as the "Neck Psalm" because it saved one's neck.

What is most interesting is that historians researching the records have discovered just how inordinately frequent people plead clergy - far more than would be expected. The historians suspect what was happening was that even the unlearned and illiterate knew from memory this Psalm 51 and were able to recite it well enough to save their neck! Even more, these historians surmise that juries in these cases were loathe to meet out death and so willing to suffer through some pretty dismal readings of Psalm 51. Apparently, you could stumble your way through and still be found clergy because even in harsh 17th and 18th century England the people were merciful.

Which brings me to my point: just how loathe to meet out death and how full of mercy our God is. He is a God willing to blought out our transgressions and wash us clean of our sins if we humbly come before him in true repentance.

And that makes this a psalm worth reading so often and interiorizing so deeply that we know it by heart. And when we stand condemned by our own guilty consciences, we bring it forth from memory into prayer to remind ourselves that our God is a God of mercy and steadfast love - willing to forgive even the darkest of our transgressions and to wash clean even the vilest of us sinners.

Psalm 51. Read it. Memorize it. It might just save your neck.

Daily Lesson for January 30, 2014

Today's Lesson is from John 5:

39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. . .42 I know that you do not have the love of God within you.

Some people I know who know their Bibles backwards and forwards also happen to be some of the meanest-spirited people I have ever met. They can quote what the Bible says chapter and verse, but somehow missed the whole point of the Bible in their own lives.

We do not worship the Bible. In other words, the Bible is not an end in itself. It is not to be used as a weapon for abuse nor a litmus test for inclusion and exclusion. Its purpose is to point us toward or "bear witness about" the things of Christ himself - his love, truth, mercy, and compassion.

The Apostle Paul said it himself, "If we have faith to move a mountain, yet have not love we are nothing." And to that Paul might have also added, if we have the Bible, yet somehow missed Christ's love then what we really have is just an old book.

The Scriptures are for finding life; find life in them and not death. Find Christ!

Daily Lesson for January 29, 2014

Today's Lesson from Genesis 16:

8 And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai." . . . 10 The angel of the Lord also said to her, "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” . . . 13 So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, "Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”

Yikes, this is ugly.

Abraham and Sarah, the chosen couple of promise, are having trouble conceiving. In what must have been a tense and grief-stricken conversation, Sarah offers Hagar, Sarah's Egyptian slave girl, for Abraham to sleep with. Abraham, old but not yet wise (as the saying goes, "There's no fool like an old fool."), obliges and soon enough Hagar is showing. Her young fertility then becomes the target for Sarah's abusive anger. Next thing we know, Hagar has run away into the desert - probably resigned to take her own life and that of the child in her womb.

Wow, and we thought our families were complicated. How did this get into the Bible?

Here's how. It comes from what happens to Hagar in the desert. An angel of the LORD appears to her and encourages her not to end her life in the desert because the angel says the LORD has listened to her affliction and is watching over her, her unborn child, and all the succeeding generations to come. So, Hagar named that place in the desert, "The place of the God who sees me."

Life can be complicated, ugly, and downright destructive. We are all born into systems of disfunction, manipulation and even abuse. The message of this text is that God is with us all. God sees us each and all and sends his angels to us to encourage us to choose life - however difficult living may be.

I am including a link to one of my favorite songs by Andrae Crouch. Andrae is of the African American people, a people who have known so much of the troubles of Hagar and what it means to go on living and trusting the LORD through it all:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CvIxwc90BEI

Daily Lesson for January 28, 2014

Today's Lesson from John 5:

5 One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The 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 going another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, "Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

"Do you want to be made well?" The question is jarring and perhaps a little off putting even. "How insensitive," we think. The man has been waiting beside this pool for someone to put him into the healing, mystical waters for 38 years. "Can't you see? Of course he wants to be made well."

But Jesus looks beyond what most people can see. He looks beyond the physical condition down into the very spiritual heart of the man and sees a truth most would have missed, or ignored, or felt too guilty to speak - that the man on the mat before him is wallowing in his own situation.

This world is full of cruel and terrible tragedies. Whether it be from a congenital defect at birth, an accident, an act of violence, or simply from a family or social situation into which one is born, many people are truly handicapped in this world. Feeling sorry for these people is natural and good; compassion is Godly.

But disabled persons need more than others to feel sorry for them. They need people who will encourage them beyond the paralysis of victimhood, and toward whatever quality of life may still be possible. Jesus does that for this lame man. Jesus gets man to see that he doesn't have to keep waiting for others to come and place him in the water so that he can then be healed. Jesus gets him to see that the truly healing waters are already inside him - already welling up and bubbling over to an abundant life.

I have a friend who was paralyzed from the waist down sometime ago in a freak accident. One day we were talking about his life now in the chair and he said, "My body is in a wheelchair, but my spirit is still soaring."

He not only wants to be made well; he is well.

Daily Lesson for January 27, 2014

Today's Lesson from Hebrews 8:
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.

The author of Hebrews is describing the difference between a former life of trying to do and be good to get to God, and a new life in Christ where our goodness comes out of our already-united oneness with God.

There is an old set of Grimm's Fairy tales about a little tailor who's sewed a jacket with many pockets. In one of the stories the tailor meets a giant who won't let him pass without first a test of strength.

The tailor scratches his beard, nods and then suggests a rock throwing contest. The giant then picks up a huge boulder and sails it into the air as far as the eye can see before finally coming down. The little tailor nods, kneels down and picks up a tiny pebble, and then reaches into one of his outer pockets a brings out a piece of string. Finally he reaches inside his coat, into an inner pocket, and pulls out a dove. The tailor then used the string to tie the tiny pebble to the foot of the dove and with a smile released the dove into the air. The dove never came back. Neither did the stone.

The point: what is set into flight by brute strength will always eventually come down; what flies of itself can fly forever.

The point of real transformation is when we recognize we can't fly of our own - when we see that we simply can't be good enough. We keep falling. That's when we realize the power has to come from somewhere else beside our willpower, and so finally we allow ourselves to be tied in a divine union with the God who invented flight.

How this happens I really don't know. All I can say is it involves the necessary step of admitting that we can't fly by ourselves; we need God's help. That's the first step toward soaring