Daily Lesson for December 31, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from James chapter 4 verses 13 through 15:

13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

"What is your life?"

Now there's a question for us to ponder on the eve of the turning of another year. What are our lives about? Where do our days go? On what do we spend our minutes? On whom?

And what if we had fewer minutes to spend than we might count on?

Here is a secret worth knowing: we do have fewer minutes to spend than we are counting on.

Lines from Mary Oliver's poem "A Summer Day" make the point and ask the essential question: "Doesn't very thing die at last, and too soon?  Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life."

The calendar says this year is fast winding down. A new year will soon be here. The calendar says we will soon have a new year.

But wisdom tells us we still have today. Wisdom says we only have today -- this day; now.

Daily Lesson for December 30, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Kings chapter 17 verses 17 through 22:

17 After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18 And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” 19 And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. 20 And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” 21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child's life come into him again.” 22 And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived.

Many of you have pieced it together now that most of my Daily Lessons are from the prescribed Daily Office readings for each particular day. It's a good practice that keeps me thinking and praying with the wider church.

In today's Daily Lesson readings we are given three references to children. There is the reading I selected above with Elijah healing a woman's son, there is the story of Jesus healing the son of a Roman official in Capernaum, and there is the Apostle John's word about having "no greater joy" than for his children to walk in the truth.

I know many who read these Daily Lessons have children they worry about and even agonize over. These children do not walk in the truth. Some do not believe there is any truth -- at least not a truth worth walking in. Some are lonely; their loneliness has turned them inward where they are even more alone. The light is gone from their eyes. Like the boy in today's lesson, there is a body but no longer any spirit.

It is here that a remarkable thing happens in this story. The mother is so worried over and afraid for her child that she does what most people do: she blames. In this case she blames the preacher. In effect, she is blaming God -- though she probably hasn't given herself permission to do so. As long as there is a focal point, a person to place blame with then she remains under the delusion that though things might not be under control they are still controllable.

But here is where the remarkable thing happens. Elijah tells her to let go, and she does. The man of God tells her to give her boy to him -- in effect saying, "Give your boy up to God." -- and she does it.  She is asked to give up control, or the delusion of control and to release her boy from her clutched grasp into the provident arms of God, and she consents -- she let's go.

I have a friend who was once a terrible alcoholic. He had been not only at death's doorstep but even into it's foyer. "I didn't get better," he told me, "until my family gave me up to the LORD."

Letting go may be the hardest thing we ever do -- especially when it's letting go of a child -- but it may also be the only way we ourselves will walk in the truth of the knowledge that the life of others is never in our hands, but in the LORD's.

Daily Lesson for December 29, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 2 verses 1 through 11:

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. 3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. 9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

Earlier this year I had the honor of officiating the service for L.E. Anderson, proprietor of Honey Child Catering here in Lubbock. As I was thinking on what text to preach from the story from the Wedding Feast at Cana came to mind. "It was a wedding disaster!" I said. "A food fiasco!  -- They hired the wrong caterer. They should have hired Honey Child."

Because I was eulogizing a caterer I was given insight into the Wedding Feast story I had never seen. Just like a good caterer, who has done his job when nobody thinks of him except to wander at the food, so too Jesus is behind the scenes at Cana.  He takes it as his role to make the bride and groom look good -- not his own self. And when the good, I mean the really good stuff, comes out nobody even knows it's Jesus. The bridegroom gets all the credit.  And Jesus doesn't say a word otherwise -- he saves the day but nobody gets thrown under the bus for being unprepared.  All anybody knows is that there was plenty of wine and it was plenty good.

Wedding disaster averted.

Jesus the Good Caterer.

We're coming up on 2016 and here are two of my New Years Resolutions:

1) Fewer meetings and more parties -- because all the interesting things Jesus did happened at parties.

2) Be a good caterer -- be less about who gets the credit (or blame) and more about making others look good.

If I keep both of those it'll be proof that the miraculous wine at Cana is still flowing . . .

Daily Lesson for December 28, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson is from Matthew chapter 2 verses 16 through 18:

16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,
    weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
    and refusing to be comforted,
    because they are no more.”

This year we received a crèche scene for Christmas and just like all our others we see Joseph and Mary and the baby and a few shepherd and, in a couple wise men, but no Herod. Out of all the crèche scenes I've ever had I've never seen Herod in the crèche.

But Herod was there. He was just a few miles away from there anyway -- his dark shadow cast from his palace in Jerusalem toward the little town of Bethlehem 15 miles away.  And when word came to him that another king had been born the shadow lengthened and cast its dark pall over the city of David.

Aside from the Bible, no other historical source from the time remembers the slaughter of the innocents. That is understandable. Violence and war and the massacring of villages was the way the world was; it's the way the world still is in many places. It's easy to overlook the killing of a few dozen or hundred children in a small backwater. It's easy to forget.  But the Bible remembers. In other words, God remembers.

What could possess a person to do such a heinous thing as slaughter innocent children?  Today's lesson says Herod was enraged when he ordered the massacre. And surly he was. But there is something before and something deeper than the rage. And that something we are told was: Fear. Saint Matthew says when the Magi came and told him of another King being born Herod was afraid, "and all Jerusalem with him."

Fear can motivate one to do many cruel and barbaric things.  And it can motivate others to go along with them. This is why fearful leaders who whip up the fears of others are so dangerous. We could see almost anything as reasonable action when we are afraid -- even barbarism.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. It is a day to be mindful that while Christmas was a great day of joy, the shadow of death soon was to fall over Bethlehem. It is a day to remember the sacrifice and loss of those children's lives. We remember those children because God remembers them -- which means their lives were worth remembering.

But we remember something else also; we remember what fear can do to us and our humanity. And we remember then that we have a choice -- to choose to walk in the way of fear, or to walk in another way, the way of love, which "casts out all fear."

May the remembrance of the innocents teach us which path we should choose, and may we walk the path with deep wisdom and courageous faith.

#deepwisdom #courageousfaith

A Bob Cratchit Prayer

"I am a happy man; I am a truly happy man."

Bob Cratchit, after visiting his son Tiny Tim's grave and the reminisciencing on the gift his boy was to him and the world.

This is my prayer for many friends and loved ones.

Daily Lesson for Christmas Day, December 25, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 John chapter 4 verses 7 through 12:

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

What changes us?  What warms a cold heart?  I ask because I have been watching and rewatching "A Christmas Carol" over the last weeks and discovered something beautiful that I had not seen for the first time.

When Ebenezer Scrooge is mysteriously transported to Christmas Past, the sights and sounds of his youth take him back and a surprising mirth appears on the old miser's face. Next Scrooge sees a his boyhood school where a lone, solitary child sits alone. A tear then runs down Scrooge's stone-hard face. Scrooge sees himself as a child. And we for the first time see that Scrooge has a heart capable of compassion and love -- even if it is compassion and love for his own self.  It is then that Scrooge remembers something seemingly small and inconsequential, but monumental in its significance. "There was a boy singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night," Scrooge says, "I should like to have given him something."

Today is Christmas Day. It is the day when the gift of Love came down from God in heaven to us on earth. We can accept this love first by showing more love and more compassion for ourselves. Sad and miserable and even Scrooge-like though we may be, we are nonetheless worthy of the gift of love. God has already decided this. We would do well to accept the gift and begin loving ourselves.

And as we accept the gift and begin loving ourselves, it inevitably dawns on us that there are others too out there who need to be loved and shown compassion -- the same kind of love and compassion that God showed us.

The gift has come. Love is born.  And we Scrooges have another chance to give ourselves and others what we should like to have given: love and compassion and kindness and all of what we might imagine a heart full of the Christmas Spirit might bring.

Merry Christmas.

#beLoved      #beLight        #beOne

Daily Lesson for December 24, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 1 verses 18 through 20:

18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. 20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit."

Joseph was a just man, a righteous man, a good, good man.  If somebody in the community needed something done there he was. He was the man to call on -- good with his hands and knowledgeable about all manner of things from woodworking to plumbing to agriculture.  He was always willing to help -- quietly, and never asked for more than his cost in materials if that. He was salt of the earth, and as kind and generous and good-hearted of a man as you could find.

So when Mary turned up pregnant Joseph was going to do what we'd expect him to do. While he could run her name from the mud and even demand that she be stoned according to the letter of the Law prohibiting adultery; instead he decided to do what a guy like Joseph would do: dismiss her quietly, without saying a thing. He'd be heartbroken, but he'd also be quiet. It was the right thing to do he thought. And in Ratzinger's words, in deciding to do so Joseph showed that he "lived the Law as Gospel."

That is beautiful. And we love Joseph for it.  But in the end, it also wasn't enough. An angel of the LORD came to him in a dream and told him to do more than simply dismiss her quietly.  "Embrace her."  "Accept her." "Take her as your wife," the angel said.  "The child is of the Holy Spirit."

There are many people like Joseph -- kind and generous and righteous people. Churches are full of them.  We live the Law and seek to follow its dictates as closely as we can. And when someone or something seems to go against the Law we seek to be at once kind and firm about where we stand.  We try to live the Law; but we try to live it as if it were Gospel.

But at some point in our lives -- and this is the moment of radical spiritual transformation -- an act of the Holy Spirit comes along which requires us to go beyond the Law into the stunningly-new summons of Gospel. This is what Kierkegaard called the "leap to faith".  This is the leap that includes Gentiles, gives voice to women in sanctuaries, and welcomes takes expectant mothers to be a bride.

"I have not come to do away with the Law," Jesus said, "but to complete it."  By that he meant that while the Law was good, in the end it too fell short.  The Law -- even if it is lived as Gospel -- always falls short.

But the leap beyond the law requires a letting go -- of certainty, of where we currently are, and of the way we thought things were to be.  The leap demands great courage, and none of us I am sure would ever make it if it were not for the same angel who came to Joseph also coming to us and saying the same thing it said to him, "Be not afraid."


"Deep Wisdom and Courageous Faith"