Daily Lesson for July 28, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 74 verses 16 and 17:

16 Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
17 You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
you have made summer and winter.
Psalm 74 is a plea by someone who feels cast away, a people forgotten of God. The sanctuary has been destroyed, the nation in tumult, the city of God in ruins.

"How long, O God?" he asks.

And then the words from our lesson: "Yours is the day, yours also the night."

In the midst of his own fears and turmoil and the foreboding of what is to come, the psalmist holds fast to his faith -- that God is near and present and holding things fast, even in the darkness.

Many of us saw the movie "The King's Speech", based on the events leading up to the radio speech King George VI of England gave to his nation on Christmas Day 1939, in those bleak and terrifying days just at the break of WWII. In the speech he quoted from Minnie Louise Haskins's poem "God Knows":

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

God knows; in day and night, summer and in winter, God knows and God will guide.

Daily Lesson for July 29, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 73 verses 25 and 26:

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

A year and a half ago Ted Dotts, one of Second B's former pastors and one of the great mentors in my life, came back to for an evening talk which he asked to title: "A Discussion on Death and Dying with a Dying Man".  Ted was indeed dying with cancer and would pass away within a month.

The thing that made that night so holy was Ted's honesty about his death, his courage in facing it, and his abiding faith in the God of resurrection life.

In the end, Ted said that the gift death gives us is the knowledge that, "Only God can save us."  Ted then went on to name a litany of things that we trust in life as if they will save us: money, possessions, reputation, retirement accounts, medical care, and even our own morality.  The gift of death is the disillusion that any of these things can be trusted for ultimate security.  In the end, only God can save us.

Our Lesson today reminds us as much. Our flesh and our hearts and all the relationships and "things" of this world will fail us. But God is our strength and portion forever.  In other words, in Jesus' words, it is "the one necessary thing -- the thing that cannot be taken away."

To watch the extraordinary conversation with Ted from that evening go to: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg0S9mlE7c8

Daily Lesson for July 27, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 72 verses

 Give the king your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to the royal son!
2 May he judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice!
3 Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people,
and the hills, in righteousness!
4 May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the children of the needy,
and crush the oppressor!

Here is the prayer offered by the priest at the coronation of King Solomon of Israel.

It begins with a plea for just leadership, Justice being both individual and also social. The priest prays that the king will make decisions which flow out from his own just and right character, which then in turn yield a more just community and nation. The court is to be a place of equality and justice for all people.  Fair standards and equal weights for all are the cornerstones.  The wellbeing of the poor is to be especially considered in the public square.

Prosperity of nation is prayed for. There is hope that the country's storehouses will be full.  This prosperity is not seen in a strictly economic harvest. The harvest of righteousness is also prayed for. The priest knows that in order for the nation to be great it also must be good.

Again, the interests of the poor are lifted up. Their children are remembered also.  These are the most vulnerable in society.  The king is charged to protect their interests, to care and watch over them, and to protect them from harm and exploitation.  The king must be a strong faithful champion and defender against all the enemies of his people -- foreign and domestic.

This is a prayer not only for King Solomon in his time; this is a prayer for our time and for our next leader also.

Daily Lesson for July 26, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 27 verses 39 through 43:

39 And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads 40 and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” 41 So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, 42 “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44 And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way.

This week at camp out Bible memorization was Hebrews 12:1b-2:

"Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

It's interesting to talk to kids about scorn and shame and ridicule because they are so present to it in so many ways. Whereas we adults, having learned to keep our heads down and avoid standing out, have become masters at avoiding shame and ridicule, children on the other hand are still exposed.  The kids I was with last week are still being mocked and terrorized by playground bullies and "mean girls".  Because of that a week at camp involves talking about the cross on an entirely deeper and more challenging level than most of us adults ever experience.  These children, seeking to hold onto themselves, their dignity, and the dignity of Christ's way, challenge and inspire me.

The last night of camp we sang a song called "The Summons", a line in which says:

"Will you risk the hostile stare
Should your life attract or scare?"

The children I was with are risking hostile stares in their schools.  They're risking hostile stares to love science, to dance, to befriend the disabled child in the class, to embrace having two moms, to read their Bible at lunch.  They're risking hostile stares in order to live the lives to which Christ is summoning them.

We must become like them.

Daily Lesson for July 25, 2016

Today's Daily a lesson comes from Matthew chapter 27 verses 24 through 26:

24 So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of bthis man's blood; see to it yourselves.” 25 And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” 26 Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.

There is a quote by Martin Luther King, Jr. that I think of when I read this passage about Pilate acquiescence to the crowd:

"Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?
Expediency asks the question, is it politic?
Vanity asks the question, is it popular?
But, conscience asks the question, is it right?"

Day in and day out we all have our little questions about what we should or should not do; how much we should get involved, whether or not we should speak up, what good it would do if we did. We are not that different from Pontius Pilate. We all have within our spheres the choice between sticking our necks out or keeping our heads down, getting our hands dirty or washing them clean.  We ought not to throw stones at Pilate. I dare not. He turned over Jesus to prevent a riot; I have turned him over for a mess of pottage.

Earlier this year during Lent I kept saying to the church that Jesus has set his face hard towards Jerusalem and the Cross and we are trying to follow as far and as faithfully as we possibly can. Few set out at all.  Others quit when their mother calls. The rest scatter when the authorities arise. All fall short.

And so, in the end it's true: only grace can save us.  We can't save ourselves -- not even when we save ourselves.

I know today I will give up, I will give in, I will give out. I'll wash my hands in some way to spare myself the ire of the crowd or the misery of the cross. But for now, I see the Galilean on the Hill and I hear his words, and I think to myself maybe I can get a few yards closer . . .

Daily Lesson for July 22, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 51 verses 15 through 17:

15 O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Humility is the path to our redemption.

The word "humility" comes from the same word we get "hummus" from. It is the Latin word "humando", meaning "of the earth".  To be humble is to think of oneself as being of the earth.  Humility keeps us "grounded".

I once heard Richard Rohr say he prays for a daily dose of humiliation, some daily reminder that he is human and not God.  It's a pretty radical practice to pray to God to be humiliated today. It's an even more radical practice to pray it again tomorrow.

There is an old story of a young man who came to a monk saying he feared his sins were too much for God to forgive.  The monk replied, "God is an artist; and his favorite medium is mud."

When we finally get it they our real name is mud, that we are sinners, and that all our sanctimony and sacrifice and playing church won't change it, then we're ready.  Then it's time for the artist's hands to get hold of us, and make us into something new and beautiful.

Lord, give me the humility to let it happen today.

Daily Lesson for July 21, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Romans chapter 15 verses 5 and 6:

5 May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Over the last few weeks I have been gathering with a number of pastors from across our city to discuss and seek to positively and proactively respond to the events now afflicting our nation. We are both interdenominational and interracial in makeup, important characteristics for a group trying to model unity in a time of so much division.

"We need to be in harmony with one another," one of the pastors said.  "We can all be singing the same words to the same hymn from the same hymn book, but unless we are in harmony with one another it's just not going to sound good."

In music, harmony is the mixing of varying, yet simultaneous pitches or chords.  You need the sopranos, the altos, the tenors, and the basses all singing to reach harmony.  Each voice has its place and it's pitch; and knowing just how and when to pipe in is the art of making harmonious music.

There's a debate going on right now across our country about the place  of certain slogans like "Black Lives Matter", "Blue Lives Matter" and "All Lives Matter".  Let me suggest that all these slogans belong. They make up our chorus and each is important in its own right, in its own place, and with its own volume.  They each belong in their own right; but they also belong to and with and for one another.  They each and all belong; but they belong together -- in harmony.

In his "I Have a Dream"speech, Dr. King used the metaphor of music when he encouraged us to "transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood."  That's the dream. And even if we haven't heard it yet in chorus, we read it on paper and hear it in our heads.  Harmony. It's music to our ears. And our hearts. And God's heart also.

Now, who wants to join the choir?