Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 12 verses 24 and 25:
24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
We cannot stay as we are. Free and happy as we may now be, we cannot remain as we are. We will eventually stagnate and then begin to harden or shrivel and eventually desiccate and die. This is the death of not only body but also soul. Our freedom and our happiness are wonderful gifts, but when they become ends in themselves then death sets in. They must be given to and for others lest they be lost.
There is a deep and mysterious paradox in life -- bodily and spiritual -- that one cannot live for oneself alone forever. If we live for ourselves and for our own pleasures alone then we will die. But if we die to ourselves then we shall live. This is the mystery of eternal life -- that it can only be discovered first through dying.
Jesus says of the single grain which neither falls to the earth nor dies nor bears any fruit, "It remains alone." But we know from the beginning of Genesis in the Garden of Eden that it is "not good" to be alone. We were made not only for our own freedom and happiness but also for others'. When we cleave too much to our own lives then something in us eventually dies. But when we let go of our own lives and surrender them over for the sake of others then something inside us is reborn to eternal life.
There is life. And there is death. And then there is the life that is discovered only through death. This is the eternal life of the spirit -- which can only be found after first being buried in the dust of the earth.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Monday, April 10, 2017
Daily Lesson for April 10, 2017
Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 51 verses 16, 17 and 19:
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.
19 then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar. (ESV)
The Christian High and Holy Days are upon us and this week even the vast majority of the most low-church churches are planning something special for Good Friday and Easter. With Easter comes the Easter only crowd -- a group not to be despised nor scolded for its lack of faithfulness the rest of the year, but exhorted to greater faith, which always begins with deeper conversion.
Transformation at the deepest level never begins with money or sacrifice. For these are often used by the head-strong recalcitrant as forms of appeasement. I think of the man in our church (now nearing sainthood) who in the fledgling and cantankerous beginning of his discipleship decided that doing his part meant totaling up the entire church budget figure and then dividing it by the number of individual members. That was the part he owed -- nothing more.
The more deeply converted know they owe more than that. They know they owe everything and they know they could never pay it all back. The more deeply converted have been humbled. There is now no longer any sense of arrogance or entitlement. They have discovered the deep truth of what God truly wants: a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. These things God will not despise. These God delights in; for God can really work with humility -- someone who knows that without God he's nothing more than a lump of clay.
Sunday before last the men's ensemble at our church sang an old hymn:
Lord, now indeed I find
Thy power and Thine alone,
Can change the leper's spots
and melt the heart of stone.
Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.
The heart of stone needs needs breaking. This is the first real step towards the deeper conversion -- a crack in the suit of armor.
And between the cracks grace sneaks in.
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.
19 then will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
then bulls will be offered on your altar. (ESV)
The Christian High and Holy Days are upon us and this week even the vast majority of the most low-church churches are planning something special for Good Friday and Easter. With Easter comes the Easter only crowd -- a group not to be despised nor scolded for its lack of faithfulness the rest of the year, but exhorted to greater faith, which always begins with deeper conversion.
Transformation at the deepest level never begins with money or sacrifice. For these are often used by the head-strong recalcitrant as forms of appeasement. I think of the man in our church (now nearing sainthood) who in the fledgling and cantankerous beginning of his discipleship decided that doing his part meant totaling up the entire church budget figure and then dividing it by the number of individual members. That was the part he owed -- nothing more.
The more deeply converted know they owe more than that. They know they owe everything and they know they could never pay it all back. The more deeply converted have been humbled. There is now no longer any sense of arrogance or entitlement. They have discovered the deep truth of what God truly wants: a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. These things God will not despise. These God delights in; for God can really work with humility -- someone who knows that without God he's nothing more than a lump of clay.
Sunday before last the men's ensemble at our church sang an old hymn:
Lord, now indeed I find
Thy power and Thine alone,
Can change the leper's spots
and melt the heart of stone.
Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.
The heart of stone needs needs breaking. This is the first real step towards the deeper conversion -- a crack in the suit of armor.
And between the cracks grace sneaks in.
Friday, April 7, 2017
Daily Lesson for April 7, 2017
Today's Daily Lesson comes from Jeremiah chapter 29 verses 4 through 9:
4 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord.
Sometimes we have to simply make peace with where we are in life.
Acceptance is a part of life. Not everything can be fixed. Rescue is not always imminent. One generation may simply have to quit waiting for supernatural rescue and instead learn to do its best in the here and now. Sometimes the Deus Ex Machina isn't a part of the script. The script exile and the script calls for us to make the best of a bad situation -- to build gardens and plant trees right where we are and not wherever else it is that we thought we should be.
The old Serenity Prayer asks for God to "grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change and the courage to change the things we can."
What we cannot change may very well be our circumstances; but what we can change is how we deal with them.
"Bloom where you're planted," the saying goes; and out here in blustery West Texas we might say, take root wherever the wind has blown you -- even if it's sand soil.
4 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 8 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord.
Sometimes we have to simply make peace with where we are in life.
Acceptance is a part of life. Not everything can be fixed. Rescue is not always imminent. One generation may simply have to quit waiting for supernatural rescue and instead learn to do its best in the here and now. Sometimes the Deus Ex Machina isn't a part of the script. The script exile and the script calls for us to make the best of a bad situation -- to build gardens and plant trees right where we are and not wherever else it is that we thought we should be.
The old Serenity Prayer asks for God to "grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change and the courage to change the things we can."
What we cannot change may very well be our circumstances; but what we can change is how we deal with them.
"Bloom where you're planted," the saying goes; and out here in blustery West Texas we might say, take root wherever the wind has blown you -- even if it's sand soil.
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Daily Lesson for April 6, 2017
Today's Daily Lesson comes from Jeremiah 26 verses 7 through 11:
7 The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord. 8 And when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, “You shall die! 9 Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant’?” And all the people gathered around Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.10 When the officials of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king's house to the house of the Lord and took their seat in the entry of the New Gate of the house of the Lord. 11 Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and to all the people, “This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.”
This is what got Jesus killed.
It was the prophetic word spoken against the city of Jerusalem and the Jewish people which nearly cost Jeremiah his life and in the end did cost Jesus'. The people had no ears to hear what they were saying. They could not grasp the Godliness of the deep, prophetic word which always comes hot and burning like freshly forged steel. The sword cut too deeply.
Last week I watched online as the Texas Senate debated an amendment to an education bill having to do with so-called "anti-American" education in the classroom. While I understood the impulse of so many of the senators to see that language in unequivocally positive terms, I did wonder how many of the teachings of the prophets and of Jesus were they talking about.
Freedom Rider and anti-Vietnam War preacher, William Sloan Coffin said, "I like to believe that I am an American patriot who loves his country enough to address her flaws."
That was Jeremiah; and that was Jesus. But it was too much for the people to bear. They simply did not have the will to understand that the word that was against them was in fact for them.
May we with ears to hear, let us hear.
7 The priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord. 8 And when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, then the priests and the prophets and all the people laid hold of him, saying, “You shall die! 9 Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant’?” And all the people gathered around Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.10 When the officials of Judah heard these things, they came up from the king's house to the house of the Lord and took their seat in the entry of the New Gate of the house of the Lord. 11 Then the priests and the prophets said to the officials and to all the people, “This man deserves the sentence of death, because he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your own ears.”
This is what got Jesus killed.
It was the prophetic word spoken against the city of Jerusalem and the Jewish people which nearly cost Jeremiah his life and in the end did cost Jesus'. The people had no ears to hear what they were saying. They could not grasp the Godliness of the deep, prophetic word which always comes hot and burning like freshly forged steel. The sword cut too deeply.
Last week I watched online as the Texas Senate debated an amendment to an education bill having to do with so-called "anti-American" education in the classroom. While I understood the impulse of so many of the senators to see that language in unequivocally positive terms, I did wonder how many of the teachings of the prophets and of Jesus were they talking about.
Freedom Rider and anti-Vietnam War preacher, William Sloan Coffin said, "I like to believe that I am an American patriot who loves his country enough to address her flaws."
That was Jeremiah; and that was Jesus. But it was too much for the people to bear. They simply did not have the will to understand that the word that was against them was in fact for them.
May we with ears to hear, let us hear.
Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Daily Lesson for April 5, 2017
Today's Daily Lesson comes from John chapter 10 verses 7 through 15:
7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.
Last week I was given a book on the history of the XIT Ranch by J Evetts Haley. When I was a boy my uncle lived in Mr. Haley's former home in Canyon, Texas and I spent many a weekend there as a child; so the book has a personal connection.
The XIT ranch was comprised of 3,000,000 acres of land given by the Texas Legislature in exchange for the building of the Texas State Capitol Building. Because the allotment included part or all of ten counties in the Panhandle of Texas the ranch took its brand "XIT" in reference to the "Ten in Texas".
The book tells the story of the constant struggles the ranch foremen had with bad cowboys who made their way onto the Plains ranch mostly after being fired or chased off from everywhere else they'd ever worked. Drinking, gambling, and simple dereliction were constant problems. Alcohol-fueled gun violence was enough of a threat that the carrying of firearms was strictly forbidden amongst the cowboys.
And theft of livestock was something to be constantly watched out for. All sorts of schemes were cooked up by crooked cowboys to steal cattle for personal profit. There were colluding efforts to sell calves before they were branded, or to "hair brand" rather than "hide brand" the calves so the brand would be lost once the coat came in full. And then there were efforts to rebrand the cows with all kinds of creative modifications of "XIT". Reading about these schemes made me think that these cowboys would really have done pretty well had they given their creative skills to good rather than ill.
Jesus did not know anything about cowboys; but he knew about shepherds. Drinking, gambling, dereliction, and theft were all known among the shepherds. Those were the preoccupations of the hired hands, who cared not a thing about the sheep nor their owner but only about their own personal gains. Just like there were bad cowboys all over the Panhandle, there were hired hands of dubious kind all over the hill country of Israel. A good shepherd was hard to find; when you found one you knew you had something worth keeping. If you did not find one then you had better learn to sleep with one eye open.
All this, for Jesus, was a parable for the nation and its leaders.
For we, like sheep, can be led astray and, like cattle, stolen by cowboys working for their own brand.
7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.
Last week I was given a book on the history of the XIT Ranch by J Evetts Haley. When I was a boy my uncle lived in Mr. Haley's former home in Canyon, Texas and I spent many a weekend there as a child; so the book has a personal connection.
The XIT ranch was comprised of 3,000,000 acres of land given by the Texas Legislature in exchange for the building of the Texas State Capitol Building. Because the allotment included part or all of ten counties in the Panhandle of Texas the ranch took its brand "XIT" in reference to the "Ten in Texas".
The book tells the story of the constant struggles the ranch foremen had with bad cowboys who made their way onto the Plains ranch mostly after being fired or chased off from everywhere else they'd ever worked. Drinking, gambling, and simple dereliction were constant problems. Alcohol-fueled gun violence was enough of a threat that the carrying of firearms was strictly forbidden amongst the cowboys.
And theft of livestock was something to be constantly watched out for. All sorts of schemes were cooked up by crooked cowboys to steal cattle for personal profit. There were colluding efforts to sell calves before they were branded, or to "hair brand" rather than "hide brand" the calves so the brand would be lost once the coat came in full. And then there were efforts to rebrand the cows with all kinds of creative modifications of "XIT". Reading about these schemes made me think that these cowboys would really have done pretty well had they given their creative skills to good rather than ill.
Jesus did not know anything about cowboys; but he knew about shepherds. Drinking, gambling, dereliction, and theft were all known among the shepherds. Those were the preoccupations of the hired hands, who cared not a thing about the sheep nor their owner but only about their own personal gains. Just like there were bad cowboys all over the Panhandle, there were hired hands of dubious kind all over the hill country of Israel. A good shepherd was hard to find; when you found one you knew you had something worth keeping. If you did not find one then you had better learn to sleep with one eye open.
All this, for Jesus, was a parable for the nation and its leaders.
For we, like sheep, can be led astray and, like cattle, stolen by cowboys working for their own brand.
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Daily Lesson for April 4, 2017
Today's Daily Office comes from Romans chapter 10 verses 1 through 4:
10:1 Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. 2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
The Law is good, Paul tells us. But the Law is only a tutor, a teacher of the pupil for a certain time before the pupil is ready to think and act for herself. The Law has its purpose and the purpose is good. But there is an end to the Law. The Law is not our God. We do not worship the Law. We are not enslaved to it. And we should not demand that others be enslaved to it either. The Law is not the LORD.
Getting this is the most difficult thing for religious people -- people who want very much to be good and know who all else is good and who else is bad. Obedience to the Law is the line which demarcating good from bad, us from them.
As part of a class on Dissenters this semester, I read the trial of Anne Hutchinson, the 17th century troublemaker who caused the great tempest in Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony by allegedly being willing to teach a man about the Bible. Though she knew more Bible than any man I've ever known, it was the Law of that Bible that a woman was not to teach a man, and for that apparent trespass she was brought to trial. The transcript is at once a lesson on the Bible and repartee.
Asking, shrewdly, why because she was not fit to teach a man in her home, why it was fitting to teach the all-male court, Anne Hutchinson showed that she would not back down. A strong spirit she was. But she showed herself best not as a lawyer but as a Bible scholar and theologian when she reflected on Scripture. Paul said he suffered not a woman to teach him; but, she noted, Paul also said, "the letter killeth; yet the spirit giveth life". It is not only the Old Testament Law whose letter can kill, Hutchinson said. New Testament laws like Paul's about women can kill also. Not only the Jewish Commandments, but even the Christian Gospel can be made into Law when we take hold of its letter and miss its spirit, she said. That is when even the Gospel's letter can kill and its spirit fail to give life.
"We are not under Law," Paul said, "but under grace."
When we get this we will stop demanding impossible things of ourselves and others, and start receiving the truth that women and others like Anne Hutchinson -- once excluded -- have to speak.
10:1 Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. 2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
The Law is good, Paul tells us. But the Law is only a tutor, a teacher of the pupil for a certain time before the pupil is ready to think and act for herself. The Law has its purpose and the purpose is good. But there is an end to the Law. The Law is not our God. We do not worship the Law. We are not enslaved to it. And we should not demand that others be enslaved to it either. The Law is not the LORD.
Getting this is the most difficult thing for religious people -- people who want very much to be good and know who all else is good and who else is bad. Obedience to the Law is the line which demarcating good from bad, us from them.
As part of a class on Dissenters this semester, I read the trial of Anne Hutchinson, the 17th century troublemaker who caused the great tempest in Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony by allegedly being willing to teach a man about the Bible. Though she knew more Bible than any man I've ever known, it was the Law of that Bible that a woman was not to teach a man, and for that apparent trespass she was brought to trial. The transcript is at once a lesson on the Bible and repartee.
Asking, shrewdly, why because she was not fit to teach a man in her home, why it was fitting to teach the all-male court, Anne Hutchinson showed that she would not back down. A strong spirit she was. But she showed herself best not as a lawyer but as a Bible scholar and theologian when she reflected on Scripture. Paul said he suffered not a woman to teach him; but, she noted, Paul also said, "the letter killeth; yet the spirit giveth life". It is not only the Old Testament Law whose letter can kill, Hutchinson said. New Testament laws like Paul's about women can kill also. Not only the Jewish Commandments, but even the Christian Gospel can be made into Law when we take hold of its letter and miss its spirit, she said. That is when even the Gospel's letter can kill and its spirit fail to give life.
"We are not under Law," Paul said, "but under grace."
When we get this we will stop demanding impossible things of ourselves and others, and start receiving the truth that women and others like Anne Hutchinson -- once excluded -- have to speak.
Monday, April 3, 2017
Daily Lesson for April 3, 2017
Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 31 verse 5:
"Into your hand I commit my spirit;
you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God."
Two years ago my friend and mentor Ted, who was badly sick with cancer and only had a month or so to live, came to speak to our church in what he titled, "A Conversation About Death and Dying with a Dying Man". Ted was very straightforward and he very much wanted to disabuse everyone of the denial of death. It is the acceptance of our death, he said, which truly allows us to live.
Death frees us from the notion that anything else save God can save us. Death puts everything into perspective. In the end, it is not our job or our title or our income or our access to good health care, or even our own righteousness. We all have a death to pay; and in that death we die and everything dies with us. Only God remains. Only God can save us.
And as the psalmist prayed, "Into your hands, I commit my spirit."
In the old funeral liturgy there is at the end of the funeral service or at the graveside a rite of committal and final commendation. The committal is the final act of the people on behalf of the deceased. At that moment in the service I always offer a prayer to God where I offer the deceased up to God and imagine in my own mind God taking them into his strong yet gentle hands. "We trust them with you, dear LORD," I say, "and we trust you with them."
In the end it all has to be in God's hands. And it will be. It will be in God's good and steady hands.
In the end only God can save us. And we trust that He will.
"Into your hand I commit my spirit;
you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God."
Two years ago my friend and mentor Ted, who was badly sick with cancer and only had a month or so to live, came to speak to our church in what he titled, "A Conversation About Death and Dying with a Dying Man". Ted was very straightforward and he very much wanted to disabuse everyone of the denial of death. It is the acceptance of our death, he said, which truly allows us to live.
Death frees us from the notion that anything else save God can save us. Death puts everything into perspective. In the end, it is not our job or our title or our income or our access to good health care, or even our own righteousness. We all have a death to pay; and in that death we die and everything dies with us. Only God remains. Only God can save us.
And as the psalmist prayed, "Into your hands, I commit my spirit."
In the old funeral liturgy there is at the end of the funeral service or at the graveside a rite of committal and final commendation. The committal is the final act of the people on behalf of the deceased. At that moment in the service I always offer a prayer to God where I offer the deceased up to God and imagine in my own mind God taking them into his strong yet gentle hands. "We trust them with you, dear LORD," I say, "and we trust you with them."
In the end it all has to be in God's hands. And it will be. It will be in God's good and steady hands.
In the end only God can save us. And we trust that He will.
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