Daily Lesson for November 6, 2014

Today's daily lesson is from Luke chapter 13 verses 20 and 21:

20 And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? 21 It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.”

The kingdom of God always begins small, hidden, and a little subversively.

When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God he used the image of leaven. What a shock that must have been to his hearers as throughout the Scriptures leaven is always used as a negative image and something to be avoided --"A little leaven spoils the loaf."

But Jesus intended to shock his hearers into thinking in new ways -- to see the coming of the kingdom of God in new ways. So, he said, it is like a little tiny bit of leaven that a woman hides in a loaf until the whole thing is leavened.  I was in a Bible study with some seminary students not long ago and we were reflecting on the meaning of this image. "So let me get this right," one of the students said, "so Jesus is saying the kingdom of God is like a passive aggressive baker?"  It certainly gets us thinking.

Jesus wants his hearers to know that even though it may not be big or extravagant or even respectable the kingdom of God is among us. Even if it has to be small, hidden, and subversive right now.  And one day, it will grow to be large, impossible to ignore, and even beautiful.

When I think of this text I always think of the little black boy in the ghettos of Sophiatown who in the 1930s saw and was stunned when the white Anglican priest Trevor Huddleston doffed his hat to the boy's mother.  The act was small, yet subversively defiant  of the Apartheid racial cast system of the day. And seeing it, the little boy -- who would grow up to be Desmond Tutu -- later said you could have knocked him over with a feather; his people, black Africans, were a people worthy of having whites doff their hats.

The Kingdom of God may be small, it may be hidden, it may even have to be subversive; but one day it will leaven the whole world. 

Daily Lesson for November 5, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Luke chapter 13 verses 10 through 14:

10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” 13 And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. 14 But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.”

For some folks it's just never the right day for other folks to find freedom.

There's always an issue, or a consideration, or a more sound and prudent time.  Bottom line, we need to wait.

In his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King responded to criticism that he and other civil rights leaders needed to slow down their demands for equality. "For years now I have heard the word 'Wait!'" Dr. King said, "It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This 'wait' has almost always meant 'never.'" He then went on to quote Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in saying, "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

Freedom, equal rights, equal access, and justice equally applied -- there are some things that just shouldn't be delayed. 

And we should thank God for those willing to lay it on the line in order to see that they're done today.

Daily Lesson for November 4, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Luke chapter 13 verses 6 through 9:

6 And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. 7 And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ 8 And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. 9 Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

Now here's a provocative image. The crap in our lives we would rather not have to deal with or do, turns out to often be the fertilizer that makes capable of growing into who God wishes us to be.

I'm not sure I like that. In fact, I'm sure I don't.  I prefer my growth to come by being well-watered and given plenty of warm sun-light, not having horse manure come my way.  But, looking back it does seem that at certain times it really was the horsecrap that made me stronger.

Richard Rohr says that at some point in life we have pretty much learned all we can from success, but it is failure which still has things to teach us. In other words, it's life's crap that can keep us growing.

So, the next time something seriously manure-like gets thrown your way, it may be just the crap you needed.

Daily Lesson for November 3, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 56 verses 9 through 11:

9 Then my enemies will turn back
in the day when I call.
This I know, that God is for me.
10 In God, whose word I praise,
in the Lord, whose word I praise,
11  in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can man do to me?

To arrive at a place of complete peace about one's circumstances in life and the knowledge that God is for us and that that is enough is to be set free from all fear and literally find ourselves in God's eternal love. For it is often said that hatred is the opposite of love; but that is not true. Fear is the opposite of love. And "perfect love  (knowing perfectly that we are perfectly loved by God) casts out all fear."

To live in this love is to be set free from the fear of all rejection, failure, rebuke, scorn, belittling, hatred, judgment, and ultimately even death. Or as St. Paul put it, "If God is for us, who can be against us?  Who will separate us from the love of God?  . . . He who did not spare his own son."

This past weekend we celebrated All Saints Day, remembering all the saints who have gone before us. I remembered specifically Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed by the Nazis as an enemy of the state. He was stripped naked and led into the execution field where he was hanged on the gallows. It was all intended to shame the prisoner; but in fact Bonhoeffer was not the prisoner. He was one of the freest men who ever lived. For he knew his God was for him; and in God he trusted and was not afraid.

If we could have 1/50th of that we'd really be something else.

All Saints Day

Remembering today Pastor Jean Vianney, who upon receiving a signed petition denouncing his fitness for ministry added his own signature unto the document.

He later became Saint Jean Vianney, patron saint of pastors.

Daily lesson for October 31, 2014

Today's lesson comes from Luke chapter 12 verses 13 through 15:

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Man, uwho made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

It really is astonishing how often and how heated are the disputes between heirs after the passing of a patriarch or matriarch. I have seen arguments over cash, CDs, books, businesses, art, guns, clothes, cars, and even cats and dogs -- no birds yet.

One day in a counseling session with a son locked in an inheritance dispute with his brother after the death of their father.  As I listened it dawned on me that what they were arguing about we often call "belongings". It occurred to me that what these boys were longing for, and what they had "been longing" for all their lives, and what they were still "longing" for was a healthy relationship with their father. They were "longing" for him to tell them, "I love you," and take an interest in what they were involved in and what their lives were about. They were both longing for their father to say, "I'm proud of you." That never happened and so now what was left to fight over were their father's "belongings" -- poor substitutes for what they were really missing. 

When Jesus was asked by one brother to tell his other brother to divide the inheritance with him Jesus broke into a story about a man who struck it rich and then built bigger and bigger barns to hold all his stuff. But that night God came to him and said, "Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?"

That question is not answered in the Scripture but I can tell you from experience whose they'll be -- his disputing sons'.

So it is for the man who is rich in things but poor in soul, for the man who having withheld from his sons the love of his heart leaves them fighting over the belongings of his closet.

Daily Lesson for October 30, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Luke 12 verses 1 through 3:

He began to say to his disciples first, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.”

Politicians these days are always being caught talking when they think nobody else is listening. They whisper something smart-Alec or ugly, not knowing there's a "hot mic" picking up their every word.

Probably the worst in recent years was when French President Jacques Chirac was pushing Paris over its main rival London as the site for the 2014 Summer Olympics. He turned to cuisine as one thing that set Paris apart from London.  And not knowing a microphone was on, Chirac offered this case in point about British food:

"The only thing that [the British] have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow disease," he told Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. "You cannot trust people who have such bad cuisine."

Well, as we all now know, London won the Olympic bid and nobody ended up going mad.

Jesus said whatever we say in hushed whispers will be shouted from rooftops. And I guarantee it won't be as cute, witty, or funny to the neighbors as it is to us. In fact, it will pretty much make us look like hypocrites. There is nothing worse than being shown to be hypocritical.

Hot mics are everywhere -- certainly the hot mics of heaven are anyway. And as Jesus said elsewhere, there will be "a day of judgement for every careless word uttered."

A good way to avoid humiliation at judgment is to remember what our mothers told us, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

That's even more important today for us today than when we first heard it.