Daily Lesson for January 2, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 34 verses 18:

“The LORD is near to the brokenhearted

and will save those whose spirits are crushed.”

Leonard Cohen song Anthem ended with this beautiful lyric:

"There is a crack, a crack, in everything

That's how the light gets in”

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted.  For a broken heart is the only one that can be mended. The wound is the place where healing happens. 

The gift of our healing can only come to the broken. It’s not only in spite of but indeed because of our brokenness that the light of healing enters into the dark places. 

Only the crushed spirit knows the miracle of a single, life-giving breath. This was the first miracle, and the last, and the one to come. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, this is the hope of the dead — the next breath. 

The LORD does come near.  With gentle hands He remakes us from the dust we are, and then with tender lips she breathes yet again the spirit of life into our mortal flesh.

The hole is where the breath moves through. 

The crack is how the light gets in. 

Daily Lesson for December 29, 2017

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 18 verses 3 through 17:

3 I will call upon the Lord, 

and so shall I be saved from my enemies.

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 18 verses 3 through 17:

3 I will call upon the Lord, 

and so shall I be saved from my enemies.

4 The breakers of death rolled over me, 

and the torrents of oblivion made me afraid.

5 The cords of hell entangled me, 

and the snares of death were set for me.

6 I called upon the Lord in my distress 

and cried out to my God for help.

7 He heard my voice from his heavenly dwelling; 

my cry of anguish came to his ears.

8 The earth reeled and rocked; 

the roots of the mountains shook;

they reeled because of his anger.

9 Smoke rose from his nostrils

and a consuming fire out of his mouth; 

hot burning coals blazed forth from him.

10 He parted the heavens and came down 

with a storm cloud under his feet.

11 He mounted on cherubim and flew; 

he swooped on the wings of the wind.

12 He wrapped darkness about him; 

he made dark waters and thick clouds his pavilion.

13 From the brightness of his presence, through the clouds, 

burst hailstones and coals of fire.

14 The Lord thundered out of heaven; 

the Most High uttered his voice.

15 He loosed his arrows and scattered them; 

he hurled thunderbolts and routed them.

16 The beds of the seas were uncovered,

and the foundations of the world laid bare, 

at your battle cry, O Lord,

at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.

17 He reached down from on high and grasped me; 

he drew me out of great waters.

We are delivered, as out of great waters, again and again. From birth to baptism, which is a figurative death, we discover again and again that God rescues us from the confines of where we are, piercing the womb of all that we have yet to experience and know, and delivering us from a place of darkness into a new place of light and sound. This is life — birth and rebirth. For a man must be born.  And he must be born again. 

And birth is hard. Labor is arduous, grueling even. Before the birth takes place a death first occurs. It is the death of who we are. Who we are is dying. We have grown too small for the womb, what had been the cord of life until now  becomes an instrument of death. It entangled, strangles, and finally suffocates.  We must leave where we are. We must leave who we are. The womb must be breached. The waters must be torn open. We must be born.  And we must be born again. 

It is a leaving home. It is a parting of the Red Sea. There is slavery on one side; freedom on the other. There is salvation on the other side of the water. We must cross. We must be born. And we must be born again. 

Born of water and blood, the dying and the birthing never cease. We were born yesterday. We are born today. We shall be born again tomorrow. Mother earth shall push us out once more. Light shall kidnap us from darkness. New occasions shall teach new duties. New experiences shall make old opinions obsolete — cruel and confining, even. The Truth shall overtake truths. The death-entombing Letter shall be pierced by the sword of the life-giving Spirit.  We shall breathe.  On our own, we shall breathe. We must be born. And we must be born again. 

We must be born again, and again, and again. 

Daily Lesson for December 28, 2017

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 2 verses 13 through 18:

13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ 14Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’

16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.17Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
18 ‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
   wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
   she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

Today in the Church is the Day of Holy Innocents, the day we remember Bethlehem’s children who were killed by wicked Herod.  We remember also victims of violence in other times and other places. As the Collect for today asks in its plea for them to God: “Receive, we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims . . .”

Only the Bible remembers the slaughter of the innocents at Bethlehem.  On the cruel and brutal edges of the first century Roman Empire, violence was a way of life. It was the way the world’s problems were solved. It was the way powerful people retained their power. There was so much blood shed by Herod, in fact, when the historians didn’t even write down what happened to the children of Bethlehem. It was lost to the history books.

But it was not lost to the Bible.  Nor were the children lost to God. For God remembers. God remembers every single innocent victim lost to the cruelty of violence. As Jesus said, “in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father”. Jesus was saying that his Father is their Father also; and the Heavenly Father never forgets.

That cruel world of the first century Roman Empire is not altogether unlike our own. Violence is still with us — domestic, gang, gun-related, and political. Rachel still weeps today, refusing to be consoled.

May Rachel’s consolation come in the knowledge that Jesus’ Father has received her children the arms of His tender mercy where there is no more violence or fear.

And may we commit ourselves to doing what Joseph — whatever it takes to protect and watch over the children entrusted to our own tender care.

Daily Lesson for December 27, 2017

Today’s Daily Lesson is in commemoration of the Feast of St John.

I have great admiration for John, the brother of James. Amidst all the hyper masculinity of his time and the community of the disciples, there was in John a certain tenderness. He wrote of love, and our call to love one another. He wrote of himself as beloved. He wrote of our ability to love others because we know we are first loved by God (1 John 4:19).  When I think of John, I think of the image of the Last Supper, with the beloved disciple reclining next to Jesus. Or as Longfellow described it, with “his head upon the Saviour’s breast”.  There is intimacy in that image, there is trust, there is love and being loved. 

After the Resurrection, John lived what must have been a kind of lonely and solitary life. Many, if not all, of the other disciples were martyred for their faith and John was sent into exile on the Isle of Patmos. The Church has remembered him as “a martyr of intention”.  He was not martyred. He did not die for his faith; he did not receive that glory. Instead, he dreamt, and he wrote and he passed on the faith to the next generation. He shared with others the beauty of love and of being beloved. He shared with them first hand the beauty of meeting and falling in love with the one who is Very Love of Very Love. No, he did not die for his beloved Jesus; he lived for him.

The old Chasidic master Rabbi Zusya once had a dream wherein he saw the heavenly court on the Day of Judgment that is to come. The Rabbi described what he saw and heard, saying that God did not ask him, “Why weren’t you Moses?” but rather, “Why were you not Zusya?”

We are each and all beloved. We each have our own calling and journey. We have to take our own way. We each have to live the life of the beloved in our own way, and not somebody else’s. 

St John shows us how.

Daily Lesson for December 26, 2017

Today’s Daily Lesson on the Feast Day of St. Stephen, the Church’s first martyr, comes from Wisdom chapter 4 verses 7 through 15:

7 But the righteous, though they die early, will be at rest. 

8 For old age is not honoured for length of time,

or measured by number of years; 

9 but understanding is grey hair for anyone,

and a blameless life is ripe old age.

10 There were some who pleased God and were loved by him,

and while living among sinners were taken up. 

11 They were caught up so that evil might not change their understanding

or guile deceive their souls. 

12 For the fascination of wickedness obscures what is good,

and roving desire perverts the innocent mind. 

13 Being perfected in a short time, they fulfilled long years; 

14 for their souls were pleasing to the Lord,

therefore he took them quickly from the midst of wickedness. 

15 Yet the peoples saw and did not understand,

or take such a thing to heart,

that God’s grace and mercy are with his elect,

and that he watches over his holy ones.

On this day of commemorating St. Stephen and his martyrdom, the Church gives us these words from the book of Wisdom which remind us of the meaning of a full life.

Struck down in the prime of his life, Stephen did not live long.  Yet he lived fully. His lived well. He lived a life not great in length, but in depth — not in quantity, but in quality. He lived a life of wisdom and meaning beyond his years. 

Stephen was a model for us — not only in dying, but in living. 

A month before his own martyrdom, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached a sermon with words which may well have been Stephen’s also:

“The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important. If you are cut down in a movement that is designed to save the soul of a nation, then no other death could be more redemptive.”

The martyrs remind us there is something worth giving our lives for, something worth living and dying for. It is always greater than the quantity of our days. For it has within it the quality of eternity. 

As we make plans for our New Year’s Resolutions, we might resolve to find that one thing — so that whether we live or whether we die, it might be said that we’ve done well.

Daily Lesson for December 22, 2017:

Today’s Daily Lesson on the last weekday of the Advent:

It’s almost here. 

The stockings are all hung. The presents are wrapped and placed underneath the tree. The company has arrived. The lights beckon the arrival of the day.

And now we wait upon the mystery — the miracle of the coming of Christmas.

And parents turn their hearts towards their children. 

And children turn their hearts towards back home. 

The Lion and the Lamb in the family sit down at table together and talk.

The mighty mountain and the lowly valley both come forward to eat from the same loaf of grace. 

The Light is taken from the Christ Candle and passed to those without light.

And with the Light come Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love also.

And the soul feels its worth. 

I hope that wherever you are the mystery and miracle will make their way to you and yours this Christmas. 

Daily Lesson for December 21, 2017

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 25 verses 1 through 13:

‘Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them;4but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6But at midnight there was a shout, “Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.”7Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. 8The foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.” 9But the wise replied, “No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.” 10And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. 11Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, “Lord, lord, open to us.” 12But he replied, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” 13Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Here is a question for your consideration: why, if the bridegroom is near, did the bridesmaids with the extra oil for their lamps not share it with those without?  

The answer: Because he was not near. 

Oh yes; there was lots of loud shouting about his imminent arrival. Someone had seen him just on the edge of town and the like. 

But the wise know what the bridegroom said, “No one knows the hour or the day.”  No one. 

Somebody right now is writing a book to tell us all how the end of the world is coming soon and very soon: The Russian Bear is on the rise. There is some oligarch just being groomed to step into power. He is the anti-Christ.  Gas prices are the sign. Trump is the sign. Jerusalem being recognized as the capital of Israel is the sign. Did we know about those blood moons?

But the wise in the parable say, “No!”

Nobody knows the day nor the time. Nobody.

Don’t believe the shouts about the bridegroom’s coming.  Do not concern yourself with things too great.  Do not add borrow tomorrow’s troubles today. Do not add anxiety into your life. Rise. Eat. Study. Pray. Love your neighbor. Rest. Keep your lamps trimmed and burning — and not burning out.  When the bridegroom comes everyone will know.  Until then, nobody does.