Daily Lesson for March 5, 2014 - Ash Wednesday

Today's Ash Wednesday Lesson is a parable from Luke chapter 18:

9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.”

Today is Ash Wednesday, the traditional beginning of Lent. Lent is a 40 day season set apart for the disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

What an irony then that the Church has prescribed the parable of The Pharisee and the Tax Collector as the reading of choice for this first day of Lent.

Did you notice that the Pharisee - a man of a very strict, observant, and set apart religious group - is a man of prayer, fasting, and tithing? And yet, he goes home unjustified, while the tax collector - an even more despised profession then than now - went home justified. Why? Because the Pharisee's religious disciplines led him to a place of spiritual arrogance (In an embarrassing hot-mike moment he actually said, "Thank you God that I'm not like this other guy."), while somehow the tax collector came to a much more humble recognition of his own shortcomings and sin before God.

Well, we miss the point if we now turn around and say, "Thank God we're not like that arrogant Pharisee." The truth of the matter is that there's a little tax collector and a little Pharisee in each of us. And the whole point of the story is to say that none of us is upright - no not one - and so we all are in need of God's justification and forgiveness.

I hope you'll keep Lent with me over these 40 days and I hope we will all keep it in the right spirit. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are good disciplines so long as we don't wear them as merit badges which tell us how good and set apart from others we are, but instead allow the disciplines to lead us into a deeper acknowledgement of what we have in common with all other people, whether saints or sinners - our absolute dependence on God's goodness and mercy.

A story on religious diversity in Lubbock

Forming friendship is at the core of what it means to be Christian.

http://www.ttuhub.net/religious-diversity-in-lubbock/

12 Years a Slave

A link to a substantive conversation about this year's best picture:

Homebrewed Christianity's theological conversation about 12 Years a Slave

Daily Lesson for March 4, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from John 18 verse 28:

"Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters. It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover."

Here is an example of religion gone really, really bad.

The religious leaders in Jerusalem have readied themselves for the Passover. They have made themselves clean through ritual bathing, abstention from sex and certain foods, and the avoidance of contact with foreigners. And yet, ironically, they have seem to have absolutely no qualms about railroading Jesus in a middle of the night trial and a hasty execution.

Religion that gets ritual right but fails on ethics fails the whole thing.

St. Paul said something to the effect that you can get up early, put on a nice suit, drive down to church and sign that little red roll as it comes down your aisle every Sunday of your life , but if you don't show love for the folks on the opposite end of he pew you miss the whole point.

Don't miss the point.

Daily Lesson for March 3, 2014

Today's Daily Lesson is from Psalm 25 verse 7:

"Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;

according to your steadfast love remember me,

for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!"

The conscience can trouble for a long, long time. 

Early in the morning before the sun has come up, I wake to pray alone and my mind thinks back on so many of the terrible things I have - things which still haunt me and which I cannot take back. If I dwelled on it too long I could literally make myself sick with shame and guilt. 

The Psalmist had that same sick, guilt-burdened conscience. In the alone hours of the morning, he too remembered things he had done and things he had left undone which agonized him in his spirit.

But then he remembered something else. He remembered that God can chose not to remember. He remembered that God can forget.

Of all God's great and powerful gifts attributes, in the end it is God's power to forget that we need most. And God chooses to use this power; God chooses to remember us not by be sinful things we have done, but rather by the grace of His faithful and enduring love.

St. Paul wrote, "Love keeps no record of wrongdoing." God has destroyed His records of our wrongdoing. We should destroy ours also.

Daily Lesson for February 28, 2014

Today's Lesson is from the book of Philemon - it's a story about learning to think differently about letting go of whatever recompense you think other people owe you:

"17 So if you consider me your partner, receive [Onesimus] as you would receive me. 18 If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. 19 I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it—to say nothing of your owing me even your own self."

Philemon was a man Paul met and apparently converted in Colossae in his missionary journeys. Later, while in Rome, Paul met a man named Onesimus. As it turned out, Onesimus had run away from Colossae and his master - you guessed it - Philemon. 

Somewhere along the way, Onesimus became a Christian and served as a great resource to Paul while Paul was in prison in Rome. But it troubled Onesimus and Paul both that so long as Onesimus was always a runaway, he would never be quite free either in the eyes of Roman law or in his conscience. Paul and Onesimus agreed that Onesimus would return to Philemon with a letter from Paul asking for Onesimus' freedom.

In the letter, Paul recognizes that Onesimus had broken the law. But then Paul appeals to a higher law. Paul says, the higher law is that Onesimus and Philemon aren't so much slave and master as they are both brothers in Christ. And because they are brothers, Paul says, Onesimus doesn't owe Philemon anything. 

In fact, Paul says, when you think about it Philemon himself is actually indebted. "Ok," Paul says, "I know you feel cheated of Onesimus's monetary value, so go ahead and charge that to my account. And by the way, remember that I introduced you to eternal life in Christ - when you put a monetary value on that it should be enough repayment for Onesimus."

This is a good thing to think on when we feel cheated and want to assert our rights for recompense over someone. Brothers and sisters wrong each other all the time and the wrongs are often significant. But then Jesus says to us, "Charge it to my account." And we do, and then we check the balance and we realize we really aren't owed anything afterward. We're still in debt, because He paid it all. And so we don't really have any reason to demand anything from anybody else. Instead, we learn to forgive our debtors as God has forgiven our debts.

It's a sobering word about all of our place in life - all debtors to God's grace. Not masters lording it over others, but slaves made sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, in the house of God.

Thanks be to God!

Daily Lesson for February 27, 2014

Today's Lesson is from Psalm 131:

"O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;

my eyes are not raised too high;

I do not occupy myself with things

too great and too marvelous for me.

2 But I have calmed and quieted my soul,

like a weaned child with its mother;

like a weaned child is my soul within me."

I love this Psalm. It is one of the many "Songs of Ascent" - songs Jews would sing as they made the journey up to Jerusalem for religious festivals. But there is an irony in the song. Even as they are going up to the holy mountain of God, they sing a song whose lyrics tell them not to think they can ascend to too high and lofty a place. It's a song that reminds them that there's a lot they don't know and a lot they have no control over. When these limitations are acknowledged then the song says the soul is calmed and quieted.

Learning to sing this song would put an end to a lot of the fighting I see going on in the media, on Facebook, at work, and in church. There's a lot I don't know about God and human beings and what we should or should not do. I've learned that saying "I don't know" is a remarkably freeing place.

St. Paul said we see through a glass darkly. When you get to the point of confessing that you see through a glass darkly it means you have begun to see yourself and God a little more clearly. We don't know a lot of things. But here's the good news: God knows that we don't know a lot of things. And this is the grace: walking humbly with God, we learn that He really does work all things to the good of those who love Him. In other words, whether our decisions in life are right, wrong, or indifferent, so long as they are made in a right Spirit of humility and love then we can trust that God will bless them. 

And that really is calming and quieting news for the soul.