Daily Lesson for April 9, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verses 4-6:

"4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who has made us sufficient . . ."

When it comes to doing what we do confidence really does make all the difference. In whatever we do, if we doubt we have what it takes to be successful, it is a guarantee that we will not be successful. If we have a CD tracking in our minds saying, "Not good enough, not smart enough, not gifted enough, not fit enough for the task at hand," then soon enough we'll stumble and fall. Psychologists call it a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is the way the ego-self, told from a young age that it is inadequate and even worthless, finally takes its own life.

The only way to break free all this is to get outside the ego-self and to begin living into the Christ-self. When the Apostle Paul says he has "confidence", his confidence does not come from anything within his self. His confidence - his steeled sense of readiness for whatever life throws his way, his ability to speak truth to power, his courage to walk aboard ships heading for rough seas, his calm demeanor even in the face of almost-certain death - all come from a power greater than Paul. It comes from the Christ.

Many of us struggle with inadequacies. And it's true; alone we are inadequate for the tasks at hand. But we are not alone. God is with us. And with God on our side - better yet, with God inside - we have all we need to rise to to today's challenges.

Somebody wise once said, "God plus one is a majority." That's pretty incredible news, so long as the one believes it.

Daily Lesson for April 8, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Mark 9 verse 42:

"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea."

One day the disciples of Jesus saw a man casting out demons in Jesus' name but tried to stop him because, as they said, "he wasn't following us."

Pardon me, but it's baloney like that that gives Christianity a bad name.

So much is being done to alleviate suffering in the world in the name of Christ. The hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, the enslaved are freed. In other words, the Kingdom of God is being built. Yet some of us sit around and argue and criticize saying, "They aren't with us. They are fundamentalists. They aren't doing this for the right reasons.". Or we say, "Those are liberals and their good works are the works of the devil in disguise." And the world watches as we argue and try to put a stop to one another and those who were young in their faith - those Jesus calls "these little ones" who believe in Him, are totally turned off. 

When we do that - when because of our own tribal theological preoccupations, we turn people off to Christ - one sad day we'll wake up and see what a disservice to Him we've done and we'll wish a great millstone had been tied around our necks and we had been thrown into the sea.

Here's another option. I get it from Habitat for Humanity. It's called "the Theology of the Hammer" and it basically says this: If you can swing a hammer then you are theologically qualified to come and help build God's Kingdom. 

And it has been my experience that even if you can't swing a hammer, you are welcome to come and learn.

Daily Lesson for April 7, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Exodus 4:

10 But Moses said to the Lord, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” 11 Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

When I was in eighth grade I ran for Vice President of the 9th grade student council. Things were going well at first. I was already one of the popular kids, my platform was good, and I had a great campaign slogan - "Price for Vice". There was just one problem; I had still to do the one thing that terrified me most - give a speech.

I was so terrified I didn't know what to say. I was too ashamed to ask for help from anyone, and so out of fear I put off writing the speech until the night before. Out of sheer humiliation I did not practice it before anyone - not a friend, not a parent, and not even myself before a mirror.

When Election Day came I wanted to throw up all morning. Just before the candidates walked onto the stage I actually prayed to God that I could be beamed somewhere else - anywhere else; I prayed I could be anyone else. We walked out onto the platform and I stood before the whole student body and I just wilted. During my speech I shook and I stammered and and my right leg took on a life of its own with a nervous twitch that was half Elvis and the other half mechanical paint mixer. I sweated. I turned red. I misread. And I never once looked up from my paper - not once.

Of course, I lost the election; and when I did I vowed that I would never ever again speak in public.

As you know, I am a preacher now; by God's grace I am a preacher. And while there are still times, even now, when I revert back to that scared, shaking, adolescent boy, afraid to walk out on stage, I remember that it is the LORD who made man's mouth. And it is the LORD who gives speech. And it is the LORD who puts the words He would have me to say on my tongue.

And not my words on my tongue only, but your words on your tongue also.

Daily Lesson for April 4, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Psalm 107:

10 Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death,

prisoners in affliction and in irons,

11 for they had rebelled against the words of God,

and spurned the counsel of the Most High.

12 So he bowed their hearts down with hard labor;

they fell down, with none to help.

13 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,

and he delivered them from their distress.

14 He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and burst their bonds apart.

Saint Augustine once said that sin was its own punishment. He spoke of what he knew; for Saint Augustine was not always a saint.

Though Augustine had been raised by his very devout mother, he chose to live a reckless and rebellious youth. It was a life characterized by both intellectual and sexual hedonism which he would later describe as a "hell of lust." His choices led him to a place of great emotional and spiritual misery. In a slight twist on an old saying, Augustine unmade his bed, and his punishment was that he had to lay chained in the misery of it. Sin was indeed its own punishment; for his choices had brought him to a place the psalmist describes as one of "darkness and the shadow of death."

It is living - or should I say dying - in that place that drives so many of us back to God. We make choices that are destructive and ruinous, and yet it is the fallout of our choices that finally gets us to the point of surrender. Like the prodigal son, it is the pain of our own lives that gets us to wake up to the mess we've made and decide to turn back home.

We get to that Dr. Phil moment when something inside or someone outside asks us, "And how's that working for you?" and we realize it's not working very well at all. We realize that we are prisoners of our own sin and in need of redemption. That's the moment when we cry out to God for help and rescue - when we realize the way we're working it doesn't work.

Julian of Norwich had a wonderful way of describing all this. "First the fall, then the redemption - and both are the grace of God," she said. That is so true. Without the fall - hard and painful and humiliating as it is - we would never have even realized we were living in darkness and death, and never have cried out for light and life.

Daily Lesson for April 3, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from 1 Corinthians chapter 12:

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.

One of the greatest challenges in being church is learning to live together. It is also one of the greatest rewards.

I remember at my first church there was a man I had a really hard time with. He was a handyman and on the day I first arrived he was working in my office. We were talking about the usual things you talk about with the new preacher when you're trying to feel him out and he you - where to get a good burger, the schools in town, kids these days, the state of the world. "You know, he said, "sometimes I think we really ought to go back to them Leviticus days." Oh dear, I thought. That was of course just the first of many things that we didn't see quite eye to eye on. When it came to the war in Iraq I was ambivalent, he believed in his country right or wrong. I was good with women being called to pastoral ministry, he said if they had not called me to be their pastor but had instead called a woman - any woman - he would have walked. "Just isn't Biblical." Trying to open him up, I pointed out that a man like him - divorced and serving as a deacon - wasn't quite Biblical either. That of course backfired on me because he told me I was right and that he was thinking of resigning.

We were complete opposites. Only church could have brought us together. And only church could keep us together - long enough to grow together. I grew to respect him for his commitment to the church and see his skills as a handyman as absolutely essential. He grew to respect my counsel and sought it when his son was in trouble with the law. He came to me in tears when the economy went to pot and nobody was hiring handymen. I prayed for him on my knees with both of us in tears and then stood up and hired him to repaint my house. I helped him write his application to become a substitute teacher in the school district. He helped me keep my car running in the Vermont winters. I blessed his grand baby when she came into the world. He blessed me by having the snow cleared when I came into church each morning.

During my sermon where I was announcing my intentions to leave, he got up from his seat in the pews and came and hugged me and told me I was the greatest pastor he ever had. I consider him one of the greatest parishioners I've ever had.

Paul compares the church to a body. Every body part belongs. Every part is necessary. No part can say another part shouldn't be there. And when the parts come together, different as they are, they join to make a blessed and beautiful whole.

I love that.

Daily Lesson for April 2, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Mark 8 verses 23-25

23 And [Jesus] took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” 24 And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” 25 Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 

The Gospel of Mark is a surprisingly rich and complex story, with several subtle, yet persistent themes woven into the narrative. One of the primary themes in the book of Mark is blindness: namely the spiritual blindness of Jesus' own followers.

In the book of Mark there is something scholars call a "Markan sandwich" - it is a set of two similar stories which bookend other related stories, all put together to illustrate the same theme. Today's Lesson is the first piece of bread which precedes several stories of the disciples misunderstanding and even taking exception to Jesus' teachings and is then "sandwiched" by another story of Jesus healing a blind man in chapter 10. Mark's point throughout the section is to illustrate the disciples' need for clearer vision of what Jesus is about. They recognize he is messiah; but they think the messiah will come using might and power to establish God's kingdom. They do not understand the cross - the way of redemption which will come through suffering and shame. In other words, they do not see.

In today's lesson Jesus heals a man from the small town of Bethsaida - the same village where Peter and other major disciples are from. Jesus takes the man out of his village, symbolizing the necessity of the disciples to be taken out of their parochial, homeland thinking in order to see Jesus' mission with more global perspective. Jesus heals the man, yet his vision is only partially restored. Further healing is necessary. This foreshadows the next scene in Mark's Gospel when Jesus has a conversation with Peter - the man from Bethsaida - wherein Peter declares rightly that Jesus is messiah, yet then disagrees vehemently with Jesus when Jesus begins to teach that he must go to the cross and suffer before being raised in three days. Peter sees, but only partly.

Like Peter, I see Jesus as clearly a man from God.  Yet I struggle with the way of the cross - the way of selflessness, service, humility, pain, brokenness, loss, and death.  I struggle to see how this way can be the way of redemption.

In other words, I see people in my mind - Jesus and Peter and the other disciples, even me and my church - and they look like trees walking. But it's hard to make out that they're actually people carrying crosses. And when I do finally see it, I pretend to not see because it terrifies me what it might cost.

Daily Lesson for April 1, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Genesis chapter 50:

"Then Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him. 2 And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel. 3 Forty days were required for it, for that is how many are required for embalming. And the Egyptians wept for him seventy days."

Awhile back I was talking with a dear friend who lost his wife to cancer sometime ago. He said one of the most difficult things for him to deal with is the ways in which even some of his closest friends seem to so often forget that he is still in grief. He sees them at church and they say, "How are you?" in passing. "How am I?" he said he wondered, "I'm barely here, but I'm not going to tell you that in the church parlor over punch and cookies." Or they'll call and ask him to be on a committee without even mentioning his loss. "It's like the whole world has gone on, but I'm still stuck where I was."

The ancients knew that grief and mourning are hard work. They knew the processes of grief and mourning take time - months and sometimes even years. And they knew that the community's long-term support was an important part of helping the bereaved.

Do you know someone who lost someone dear a year or so ago? Chances are they are still mourning. Pray for them now; and then call them and let them know you're thinking of and praying for them.

I can't tell you how much your call will mean.