Daily Lesson for April 15, 2021

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 3 verses 3 through 6 and 10 through 12:

3He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,

‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

“Prepare the way of the Lord,

make his paths straight.

5 Every valley shall be filled,

and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

and the crooked shall be made straight,

and the rough ways made smooth;

6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” ’

10 And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’ 11In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ 12Even tax-collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ 13He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ 14Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’

The hugely-influential-to-me South African pastor Alan Storey says that John was baptizing in the River of Justice.

That is a powerful way to look at what John the Baptist was doing down their in the Jordan valley, as he preached the call to repentance, the dismantling of personal and societal sin, and the reclaiming of community.

Read the first few verses of Luke and we get a sense of what John's justice looked like. The making of a more equal society. The straightening of the crooked. The sharing of what is essential for human life and decency. The establishment of a more just system of taxation. The end of abuse of power.

It was indeed the River of Justice that John was calling the people to come and be baptized in. And his voice is still heard. The altar call has not closed.

May those with the ears to hear John's still-summoning voice come and be baptized . . .

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Less for April 14, 2021

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 17 verses 20 and 21:

‘I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.'

In September in the wake of the death of George Floyd and the subsequent events of the Black Lives Matter summer I wrote a letter to the our Board of Deacons at Broadway calling for the establishment of a new Church council to address the systemic issues and sins which have historically divided the body of Christ even in our own congregation and work towards a more whole and complete unity within our Church. The following is an excerpt from that letter:

"The Broadway mission is to 'share in Christ’s work of reconciling the world to God.' We are also called to the work of reconciliation with one another. To that end, I am requesting that a special ACT Committee be formed, with the express purposes of studying, identifying, and developing a vision relative to the acronym ACT: Acknowledge, Confess, and Transform. I ask that the ACT Committee be charged with helping both the members and institution of Broadway to acknowledge our histories of both confrontation with and also complicity in the personal and societal sins of racism, segregation, white supremacy, and other forms of prejudice and/or exclusion, including discrimination relative to gender, sexual orientation, and denominational affiliation. The purpose of this Committee is to give a broad account of the history and harm which has been done by our individual and corporate support of what Ephesians calls 'the dividing wall' of separation (Eph. 2:14), and a greater recognition of the Spirit’s ongoing work of dismantling that wall in our personal and congregational lives, thus bringing about greater healing and wholeness for ourselves and our Church, and helping us all to 'reach unity in the faith . . . and attain to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ' (Eph 4:13).

The Body of Christ must not be divided. For Christ is not divided. Christ is One with God and we are called to be one with God and one another in Christ. This is not easy, but it is the work to which we are called. For the Church is called to the full inclusion and reconciliation of all people everywhere.

11am on Sunday is still the most racially segregated hour in America. This is a shame with a history. 11am Sunday is also segregated in many other ways as well. This too is a shame with history. Our task is to understand those histories and do the the difficult work of undoing their harm.

There were many things Jesus could have prayed for on that last night of His life. He chose to pray for our unity.

It's up to us to put feet to those prayers. In other words, it's up to us to do the hard, and systemic work to do what it takes to be one together in God in Christ.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church.

Daily Lesson for April 13, 2021

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 John chapter 2 verses 8 through 10:

8Yet I am writing you a new commandment that is true in him and in you, because* the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. 9Whoever says, ‘I am in the light’, while hating a brother or sister,* is still in the darkness. 10Whoever loves a brother or sister* lives in the light, and in such a person* there is no cause for stumbling.

On his death bed Goethe is said to have cried out, "Light, light, more light," -- a significant word from someone who had the light of more knowledge than perhaps any man or woman of his time.

But the Spanish philosopher Miguel Unamuno responded that Goethe was misguided. The dying claim out to be, "Warmth, warmth, more warmth! For we die of cold and not of darkness."

What times we are living in. What sorrows and terrors afflict this nation. Our morality has not yet caught up with out technology. The light which makes mechanism exceeds the warmth which creates humanism. We are talking of putting a man on Mars, but millions are still not yet even on their feet.

As Dr. King said, "We've learned to fly the air like birds. We've learned to swim the seas like fish. Yet we haven't learned to walk the earth as brothers and sisters."

And Jesus said, "The hearts of many will turn cold."

Warmth, warmth, warmth. Our problem is not lack of knowledge. It's not dearth of facts (if we'll heed them). It is want of care, and compassion, and simple, decent love for neighbor. It is lack of concern for the people being killed by bad public policy, poor public schools, and a very sad state of caste that keeps so many from reaching their potential in life.

It is lack of love that keeps justice from rolling down like waters. It's frozen upstream. Blocked by the coldness of a society's heart.

Warmth, warmth, warmth.

Dear God, melt our cold, cold hearts; and make us kindred to one another again we pray.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for April 12, 2021

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Daniel chapter 1 verses 3 through 7:

3 Then the king commanded his palace master Ashpenaz to bring some of the Israelites of the royal family and of the nobility, 4young men without physical defect and handsome, versed in every branch of wisdom, endowed with knowledge and insight, and competent to serve in the king’s palace; they were to be taught the literature and language of the Chaldeans. 5The king assigned them a daily portion of the royal rations of food and wine. They were to be educated for three years, so that at the end of that time they could be stationed in the king’s court. 6Among them were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, from the tribe of Judah. 7The palace master gave them other names: Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

I've known these servants names since I was a boy, and I've always liked how they rolled off my tongue.

But it wasn't until seminary that I learned Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were not these men's names. They were the names given them as servants by the king who took them, their parents, and/or grandparents into captivity. But they were not their true, given names. Nor were they the names of their own choosing. They were the names imposed upon them.

And why did we not learn their real names in Sunday School? Maybe because Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego sounded so cool. But probably more likely because we were raised in a culture with a long history of renaming slaves, and servants, and students, and players, and drivers, and anybody else whose names didn't quite please the people in power. They just changed them -- on a whim. They took their names, and in doing so they were participating in a very long and systemic process of trying to take their dignity as well.

Telling someone what their name is a way of parenting them. It's a way of owning them. And yes, that's true even when "their names are just so hard to pronounce". A name is something sacred and personal and a sign of someone's dignity and worth. We can't take that from somebody, even if it means we have to teach our own tongues to do new things.

So, it's no longer Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It's Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. That's their names.

Say them.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for April 9, 2021

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 16, selected verses:

‘I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling. 2They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. . .

‘I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. 5But now I am going to him who sent me . . . 7Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

Today marks the anniversary date of the execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor turned doubled agent against the Nazi regime who was condemned for his role in the failed assassination of Hitler and other activities subversive to the Nazi regime. He was executed on April 9, 1945, just days before Allied forces liberated the camp where he was imprisoned.

In the last months before his arrest, just as the attempts to assassinate Hitler were being considered, Bonhoeffer wrote a pastoral letter to his co-conspirators. It is titled "After Ten Years", and is a reflection on the ten years of Nazi rule, and the courage they need to go on resisting Nazism, though doing so greatly imperiled their own lives.

In the letter Bonhoeffer writes of courage and says this:

"I believe that God will give us all the strength we need to help us to resist in all times of distress. But he never gives it in advance, lest we should rely on ourselves and not on him alone."

In today's Lesson Jesus promises courage and strength are coming in the Spirit. The disciples do not have it yet; but they also do not need it yet. But it is on the way, Jesus says. And what is in Him will be given to them.

Do not fret or worry about the future, beloved, and whether you will have what you need. The Spirit will come and give you what you need for the facing of the day and of the hour. The Spirit will come and strengthen and encourage you that you will not lose heart.

So be not afraid.

The old Lutheran hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, says:

"Did we in our own strength confide,

Our striving would be losing;

Were not the right Man on our side,

The Man of God's own choosing."

It is not in our own strength that we confide. The strength of God is given us. And this is the strength of the spirit, the advocate -- the one who stands at our side and gives us the words to speak and the courage to speak them.

So be not afraid, indeed. For the spirit will come to strengthen and help you right when you need it most -- and not a moment too soon, or too late.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for April 8, 2021

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from Ezekiel chapter 37 verses, selected verses:

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2He led me all round them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3He said to me, ‘Mortal, can these bones live?’ I answered, ‘O Lord God, you know.’ 4Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord . . .

7 So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath:* Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath,* and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ 10I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

I've been thinking a lot this week on the organization of church and congregational renewal. Some of this is in response to a recent survey which reported that now fewer than half of all Americans belong to house of faith of any kind. That's the first time that number has dipped that low since the survey began 80 years ago.

So, from a business perspective, we have what you'd call a shrinking market, and it could feel hopeless. But I am not hopeless at all. In fact, I am hopeful. For I believe in renewal and even in resurrection. And I believe, as text says this morning, even old bones can live again.

But not without spirit!

So many church re-renewals and new church plants are all about changing organizational structure and culture. They make church governance easier and more streamlined and appropriate for the 21st century. Or they say, "Come as you are," which means in t-shirt and jeans, but not really as a fully out gay person. Outer forms are changed, but mostly its the same old heterosexist, patriarchal, and disembodied-get-you-to-heaven theology that's underneath the cool clothes.

What makes me hopeful for the church is something much deeper than all this. I see in places, hopefully like my own, where people of faith are joining with the spirit of the times in which we are living to truly bring about a more just and beautiful world, and a more prophetic and inclusive church. There is spirit there. There is energy. And there is a serious movement of God. These churches and other communities of faith may not have a majority of people in their congregation, but they have something much more important -- they have life.

An old hymn says:

"All is vain unless the spirit

of the Lord comes down".

I tell you, the spirit is down here. It's among us. And it's in a whole lot of churches. It's even in some very old churches.

Old bones are living again. The spirit has caused them to rise and walk again. The valley of dry bones is marching again.

And it really is Easter.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Daily Lesson for April 7, 2021

 Today's Daily Lesson comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 4:

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.

Yesterday the world lost two iconic and iconoclastic churchmen.

The most globally notable was the death of Swiss Catholic priest and theologian Hans Kung. Kung made a name for himself in the 1960s as a reformer within the Catholic Church and ended up being ordered not to teach as a Catholic professor.

The other loss was Broadway member and retired director of citizenship and public policy with the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission. Acerbic, learned, and dry-witted, Weston organized with Caesar Chavez, took on gambling as a state-run policy of harm inflicted on the poor (he lost), and was studying French in the last years of his life.

As a Catholic, Kung called into question the power of the curia and even the doctrine of infallibility of the Pope. As a Baptist, Ware on the other hand had a habit of questioning the infallibility of the Texas Legislature. That should have be self-evident, but it turns out a lot of people in Austin see themselves as just as God-appointed as anyone in the Vatican. And that was essentially what Ware and Kung had in common -- questioning the wisdom and ways of those in power. That, and courage.

Both men were strong and influential voices in their own spheres. Now, this side of Easter, they go from glory unto glory. Though, knowing what I know of each, I don't know that either one would want to make too much of either.

Requiem eternal and rest in peace, gentlemen. We will watch and listen for you in the balcony.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.