Monday • 6/27/2022

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 106; Numbers 22:1-21; Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 21:12-22

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

Introducing Balaam. This week’s readings in Numbers recount the sad adventures of the Syrian fortune-teller Balaam. He’s most remembered for the fact that Yahweh rebukes him by making his donkey talk. Scripture never gives him a title, such as prophet. But he makes a living by taking fees as a diviner. He at least respects Yahweh, calling him “Yahweh, my God” (Numbers). To his credit, Balaam refuses to curse those whom Yahweh blesses. Numbers even records him rendering a powerful Messianic prophecy: “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near—a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel” (Numbers 24:17). 

Nonetheless, Scripture’s verdict concerning Balaam is not good. When it comes to Yahweh, Balaam is more a user than a believer. He is remembered as a false teacher who subtly led Israelites into immorality and idolatry (Numbers 31:15-20; Revelation 2:14), ever looking to turn a profit by hawking words from God (Deuteronomy 23:4-5; Joshua 13:22; 2 Peter 2:15; Jude 11). Numbers 31 records the fact that the Israelites eventually kill him—no doubt, to rid themselves of his pernicious influence. (Numbers 31:8). 

It’s only fitting that we begin a week’s worth of readings about someone who uses religion instead of submitting to it on the day we read the apostle Paul’s “Gotta Serve Somebody” passage, that is, Romans 6:12-23. 

You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

Grace has one rule: You’re free. Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means — Romans 6:15. In Jesus Christ, I am justified. I am accepted into the very presence of God himself, as the hymn says, “Just as I am without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me…” That means I can stop trying to justify myself. I can stop trying to prove to you that I’m good enough. I can stop sinning against you by using you to feel good about myself—like taking a girlfriend just so I can be seen with her, or calling you only when I need something from you. I am free to stop asserting my rights and getting my needs met, so I can focus on what benefits you. For Paul, that’s what it means to live under grace instead of law. 

And so, as Jesus says in Matthew 10:42, being ready to give a cup of cold water becomes an instinct I don’t even have to think about. As does Matthew 25’s visiting Him in prison and in the hospital, clothing him, feeding him—as our baptismal vows put it: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? 

Grace has one school: the church. … obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted — Romans 6:17. Having been submitted for years to a sensei to learn a martial art for cutting targets with a steel Japanese samurai sword, it’s scary to watch YouTube videos of “backyard samurai.” Not only are they dangerous, but they haven’t submitted themselves to learning the whole manner of being and the attitude that goes with cutting those targets—a way of moving your body in space, of timing, of grace that’s just as much a part of the art as is cutting the targets. 

The Christian faith is just like that. We can’t free-form it, or we will be in big trouble. That’s why Paul says we have been “entrusted” to a “form of teaching” to give us our bearings. That form of teaching is the Scriptures, and then the way the Scriptures were summed up in the creeds and embodied in the church’s worship. It’s why it’s important to make worship-filled reading of and submitting to Scripture your first appointment of the day. It’s why worship with the saints—even in pandemic via streaming—is vital. It keeps us from being dangerous “backyard samurai.” 

For Paul, we don’t have to—in fact, we can’t—face the challenges of each day on our own. Whether the challenges are the ones everybody is facing—like global pandemic or societal reckoning with race—or ones that are personal to us—a relationship that isn’t working or health that’s failing or income that’s vanishing—we are not left to sort things out all on our own. We need to begin with “the form of teaching to which we were entrusted.” 

Grace has one goal: sanctification. … so now you present your members as slaves to righteousness for (older translations render unto) sanctification. — Romans 6:19. Paul says that the arc of our lives is heading in one direction or another: “unto lawlessness” which will eventuate in eternal death, or “unto sanctification” which will eventuate in eternal life. Of course, his premise is that outside of Christ we are already dead, and that when we accept Christ it is as though we are alive from the dead—for eternal life has already taken hold. 

C. S. Lewis wrote a profound parable about this reality. In The Great Divorce, Lewis imagines a bus ride from hell to heaven. In his fantasy (and it is a fantasy), residents of hell have the option of staying in heaven if they wish. The problem is: few of them do so. They are so acclimated to the ghostliness and the isolation of their place in hell (habits they acquired over the course of their lives on earth) that the solidity of the things in heaven and the nonstop joyful companionship of heaven are distinctly uncomfortable. Lewis’s point is that eventually, every one of us is going to wake up on the other side. There we will find that our whole lives have been preparing us to feel right at home where we are: the hell of narcissistic isolation or the heaven of blessed fellowship. 

So, grace makes you free not to be a narcissistic jerk. Grace takes you deeper and deeper into Scripture and the Church’s story—and takes that story deeper and deeper into you. And grace makes this day one step further into the life of heaven that has already taken hold in you. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+