Daily Lesson for February 29, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 5 verses 21 through 43:

21 And when Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered about him, and he was beside the sea. 22 Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet 23 and implored him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” 24 And he went with him.
And a great crowd followed him and thronged about him. 25 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, 26 and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. 28 For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” 29 And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 And he looked around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. 34 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”
35 While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” 36 But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” 37 And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. 38 They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” 40 And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child's father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. 41 Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” 42 And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement. 43 And he strictly charged them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

This, for me, is one of the most powerful stories in all of Scripture, as it speaks so deeply to the power of pain and even terror of social exclusion and the universal need for mercy and compassion.

At the two ends of the story we have a very powerful family in the village, the ruler of the synagogue Jairus, his wife and their 12-year-old daughter.  They would certainly be the envy of almost everyone in the village, except for one thing -- the daughter his sick, gravely sick.  And in a moment of desperation, the most powerful man comes and does a most desperate and even shameless thing, he falls down at the feet of Jesus.

In the middle of the story is a woman, afflicted with an issue of bleeding which left her a social outcast for twelve years. It is impossible for me to imagine what kind of shame and pain she must have endured those during that long time. She was silenced and excluded and driven to separation. As a friend recently wrote in a monologue for this woman, she was "cursed".  She too is desperate.  And when this Jesus arrives in her town, she too comes to him, reaches out her hand and touches him.  She reaches out to hold on with and to whatever last sense of personal agency she has left. And what she grabs is Jesus' outer garment, or as one translation says, "the fringe of his garment."  She reaches out and hangs on to the fringe -- the fringe of his cloak, and the community, and life.

And there in the center is Jesus -- between two very different people from very different stations in life, one male and the other female, one named the other not, one powerful and the other pariah. And they are both there, reaching out to him, longing for his healing, for his compassion. And Jesus ministers unto both.

My great aunt used to say that it's not only the down and out who need mercy, but the up and out need it too. At some point every one of us, the rich and powerful and the poor and powerless, comes to a point of needing mercy and compassion.  Some have to come Jairus, powerful in the eyes of so many, yet desperate and humble enough to bow down. Others come as the nameless woman came, exerting the single bit of power she has left, which is the power to not remain paralyzed in shame and victim hood, the power to reach out on behalf of herself. And there at the center we discover this amazing and beautiful truth -- that all who come are healed, that Jesus heals all.

Daily Lesson for February 26, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 69 verses 13 through 15:

13 But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.
At an acceptable time, O God,
in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.
14 Deliver me
from sinking in the mire;
let me be delivered from my enemies
and from the deep waters.
15 Let not the flood sweep over me,
or the deep swallow me up,
or the pit close its mouth over me.

We would like rescue to come before we get bogged down in the mire and prior to the rising of the flood tides.

But that wouldn't really be rescue; and it wouldn't demand our prayers -- not mine anyways.

Rescue comes. It always comes because God is the great rescuer. God's saving faithfulness knows no end.

But rescue always comes in its own time and in its own way. We have to wait upon it. We have trust it. We have to hope in it.  This is what we call learning to have faith, which the Bible describes as "the substance of things hoped for, yet unseen."  We see the tide rising and we feel overwhelmed. The bog is thick and we're mired down with no prospect for either forward progress not backward retreat; we're stuck. This is when we know we can't rescue ourselves. Salvation won't be our own doing. It has to come from somewhere else.  And, therefore, we will have to wait on it -- right where we are.

And in the meantime, there's prayer.

Daily Lesson for February 25, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 4 verses 26 through 28:

26 And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. 28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.”

There is an old Grimm's Fairy Tale I've always loved about a little tailor on a long journey who encountered a great giant. The giant would not let the little tailor pass unless the tailor could defeat him at a test of strength. The tailor agreed, so long as he himself could choose the test of strength. "How about a rock throwing contest," he said. Elated with the tailor's choice, the giant picked up a huge rock, spun around and hurled it into the air. The rock went as far as the eye could see before finally coming back down with a thunderous crash. Then, quietly, the little tailor bent down and picked up a tiny pebble off the ground. Then he reached into one side of the coat and opened the breast pocket which he himself sewed inside. Out of the pocket he pulled out a small string and tied it to the rock. Then, still without a word, he reached into the other side of his breast and slipped his hand into yet another pocket he himself had sewn inside. Slowly and carefully he pulled his hand back out, to reveal a small dove cupped in the palm of his hand. He removed the dove from the coat then tied one of its legs to the string which was tied to the stone. He cupped them all three in his hands, said a prayer, then tossed the dove gently into the air. It never came back; and neither did the pebble. 

The point?  Anyone you like I suppose. But my point today is this: if it was not meant to fly, no matter what strength you put in it will always come crashing back down to earth; but if it has wings of itself, if it was meant to fly then all we have to do his sit back and watch it soar. 

That's a pretty good lesson for life. 

Daily Lesson for February 24, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 119 verses

89 Forever, O Lord, your word
is firmly fixed in the heavens.
90 Your faithfulness endures to all generations;
you have established the earth, and it stands fast.
91 By your appointment they stand this day,
for all things are your servants.
92 If your law had not been my delight,
I would have perished in my affliction.
93 I will never forget your precepts,
for by them you have given me life.
94 I am yours; save me,
for I have sought your precepts.
95 The wicked lie in wait to destroy me,
but I consider your testimonies.

The heavens and the earth bear witness.

In times of struggle and travail, worry and doubt, the firmament is fixed. The moon shines. The earth courses around its light. The Stars abide.

They bear their witness.

Witness to what, you ask?  Witness to a North Star. Witness to a light that gives light. Witness to a God who is faithful.

As the old Celtic mystic so imaginative put it, "Goodly are the stars to behold; for they are the unstrung and scattered rosary of Holy God."

And what if a bead be lost?  What if all be lost?  What if the heavens and the earth should pass away?

God's Word shall not pass away. God's promises shall not pass away. Our faith shall not pass away. Our hope shall not pass away. Our love shall not pass away. These things abide.  Even longer than the stars, they abide.

This is the promise. When things fall apart, when what was new has grown old and then falls apart and then the dust turns to dust, when the heavens be rolled up like scroll and all which were are no longer . . .

God is. Alpha and Omega. God always is.

Daily Lesson for February 23, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 3 verses 22 through 30:

22 And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” 23 And he called them to him and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. 27 But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.

28 “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—30 for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

In today's lesson it's like Jesus is saying, "Now look, I know you're a bunch of fishermen and grew up the sons of fishermen and are bound to take the LORD's name in vain every once in a while, and you need to know that's not right. GD is just not okay -- even if you've been fishing all day and haven't caught a thing. But let me tell you boys that that is going to be forgiven. God's just bigger than that.  God's bigger than you saying GD.  Don't let that keep you from thinking you can't be with God. God's going to forgive your foul and blasphemous mouth and a whole lot more. 

"But let me tell what the real blasphemy is -- the blasphemy which won't be forgiven. And that's when God is up to something, something surprising and good and people call it evil. It's when somebody is doing the LORD's work -- reaching out, crossing the tracks, including, healing, restoring, and casting out demons of all sorts -- demons people didn't even know they had -- and it's called the work of the devil. That's the real blasphemy -- calling the work of the LORD the work of Satan.  And it will never be forgiven because the people who do it don't know to ask for forgiveness. They don't even think it's a sin. Imagine that, they think it's God's Word they're speaking and it turns out it's a sin. It's the eternal sin, the sin of every age -- saying the work of the Holy Spirit is the work of evil."

That's my interpretation anyway.

Daily Lesson for February 23, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1Corinthians chapter 4 verses 8 through 13:

8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! 9 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. 10 We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. 11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.

As part of my own spiritual preparation for our church's adult retreat in Santa Fe this past weekend I read Willa Cather's great Southwestern novel "Death Comes for the Archbishop".  It is a fictionalized account of the permanent establishment of the diocese in northern New Mexico and the missionaries who founded it. One has only to gaze at the austerity of the land to imagine the physical hardships those men endured.  Heat, cold, snakes, bandits, hostile native peoples, lack of water, and lack of connection with the outside world are but the things which immediately come to mind. All for the sake of the Gospel.

Our retreat leader for the weekend, Dr. Will Willimon, challenged us also to live for the sake of the gospel. One of his underscoring themes is that the Christian way is not a way of comfort and ease, but always one of risk.  And it's risk that gives our Way its appeal -- it's witness. But according to Willimon, the North American church has mostly lost its sense of adventure and risk and as settled for comfortability.

As he said in an earlier interview,
"We have lost precious few disciples because we've been so courageous or bold or radical . . . More people we've lost we've lost just through death . . . And it's hard to count the people we've lost through boredom -- [people who have] just given up on the idea of the church ever saying anything that was challenging . . . invigorating or even maddening."

Reading "Death Comes for the Archbishop" and hearing Willimon's words at the same time, the retreat was for me a reminder that we are called to be a church on mission -- a risk taking, invigorating, and certainly not boring people.

Near the end of Cather's novel one of the missionaries has grown old and frail.  He catches a chill, which will take his life. But the old missionary has a broader perspective than this most recent illness. In Cather's words:

"The old man smiled. 'I shall not die of a cold . . . I shall die of having lived.'"

Indeed.

Daily Lesson for February 19, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 40 verses 1 and 2:

 I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.

Patience requires waiting. To grow in patience requires endurance which by its very name necessitates our learning to endure something unsettling, unpleasant or altogether trying. Patience is a teacher, reminding us that we are not God and the universe's timing is beyond our ability to control.

The opposite of patience is frustration and agitation and ultimately destruction. This is the man who has not accepted his existential reality and is still trying to escape the locked room by running through the walls. We see this when there is no obvious escape from the current job or family circumstance or physical condition. The man who cannot accept the reality of the locked room ultimately destroys himself and anyone else with him. The man who does learn to accept the reality of the locked room is free -- even though he be imprisoned.

One cannot gain the patience of Job without hardship and loss. To learn to wait on God is to have to wait on God -- to act, to move, to answer prayers, to heal, to deliver us from evil, and to rescue us from death.

No one is born with patience; if we were we'd have all died from lack of attention.  But that was the beginning of life. The rest of life is a long journey leading us to a place where patience -- the faithful waiting on God -- is all we have left.

And that place is called Hope.