A Necessarily Long Walk - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 3/30/2022
Wednesday of 4 Lent, Year Two

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 101; Psalm 109; Genesis 50:15–26; 1 Corinthians 12:1–11; Mark 8:11–26

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

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Genesis: “Am I in the place of God?” Joseph’s next-to-last words to his brothers in this last chapter of the Bible’s “Book of Beginnings” are powerful and moving: “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today. So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones” (Genesis 50:19b–20). Joseph’s words offer us rich and necessary life principles. Let God do all the righting of wrongs done to us. Trust that all our days are in God’s good hands, and that therefore any spite or malice or ill-will that comes against us will finally serve His good designs for us. Finally, therefore, give up the need to even things out ourselves; instead seek to repay evil with forgiveness and even with affection. 

As worthy of emulation as Joseph is in all these respects, it will take One who is greater than Joseph to offer himself on a gibbet to right all wrongs, secure payment of all debts, satisfy all grievances, and, in the words of the Great Vigil’s Exsultet: cast out pride and hatred, bring peace and concord, join heaven and earth, and reconcile God and humankind (BCP, p. 287). 

Prayer for Quiet Confidence. O God of peace, who hast taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength: By the might of thy Spirit lift us, we pray thee, to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (BCP p. 832).

Mark: What is the true “bread”? Apparently, the disciples forget to save leftovers from the feeding of the 4,000 (yesterday’s reading) to make provision for the next leg of their journey (Mark 8:14). On the boat ride from somewhere on the east side of Lake Gennesaret to Bethsaida at the lake’s north end they realize they only have one loaf of bread for the whole group. Jesus seizes upon a teaching moment: “Watch out—beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod …“Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand?” (Mark 8:15b,17b). 

What is the true lesson of the bread Jesus has shared with the 5,000 west of the Jordan and with the 4,000 east of the Jordan? He, Jesus, is the only Bread from Heaven for Israel and, indeed, the only Bread for the World. The disciples need to be wary, therefore, of the principal allurements of their day: hope for salvation through the moral force of piety (as promoted by the populist party of the Pharisees), or salvation through the corridors of power (as pursued by the upper-class party of Herod). Jesus will send out his followers with a focused message that salvation comes from “none of the above.” They will need to stay on-topic: the Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).

Collect for the Fourth Sunday in Lent: Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Mark: What is it to “see”? The second part of today’s passage in Mark captures a pivotal moment in Jesus’s shaping these men for that mission. By some reckonings, 97% of Mark’s material appears in at least one of the other two synoptic gospels (Matthew and Luke). The story of the blind man of Bethsaida (Mark 8:22–26) is unique to Mark, which makes it special. Not only that: this miracle is the only one in all the gospels in which Jesus’s first word or touch doesn’t bring about a complete healing. This is the only miracle that needs a follow up. Think about that! Jesus does an imperfect miracle!? Tiger Woods asks for a mulligan?! Lady Gaga stops a song and says, “Can we take that again from the top?” 

There’s nothing wrong with Jesus’s healing power; but with this two-stage restoration of sight, he creates a powerful object lesson. With Jesus’s spit (ugh, yes, spit!) and first touch, the blind man of Bethsaida gains just enough sight to see blurred “men like trees walking” (Mark 8:24). It takes a second touch from Jesus for his blindness to be entirely alleviated, and for him to “see everything clearly” (Mark 8:25). 

In the very next verses, Peter will confess that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. Peter “sees”! But Jesus’s stern order not to tell anyone indicates he knows Peter “sees” only partially. Peter’s protest against Jesus’s explanation of Messiah’s mission (suffering, death, and resurrection) is proof that Peter’s vision is blurred, and that he merely sees “men like trees walking.” For Peter and the other disciples to “see everything clearly,” Jesus will have to go over the mission again and again (Mark 9:30–32; 10:32–34). 

The forty days of Lent can feel like a long time for self-examination and for consciously seeing ourselves walking with Jesus toward Calvary — a long time to live in “the valley of the shadow” — a long time to remind ourselves, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It’s a necessarily long walk, though, to wean ourselves from thinking we can make ourselves better with maybe a little help from God (with the Pharisees) or that it’s OK to seek prosperity and success in the world (with the Herodians). It takes a singular and sustained focus on “the fellowship of the sufferings” if there’s any chance at all that we will enjoy “the power of resurrection” that comes with Easter. 

From the Collect for Palm Sunday: “Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen” (BCP, p. 99, 220, 272, 420). 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

God Gathers His People - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 3/29/2022
Tuesday of 4 Lent, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; Genesis 49:29–50:14; 1 Corinthians 11:17–34; Mark 8:1–10

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

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God gathers his people. “Just as this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains and then was gathered together and became one, so may your church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom; for yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever” — Didache 9.4. So says an early Jewish Christian catechism, nicely capturing a theme in today’s readings: God gathers his people. He gathers them to feed them, and to make them one with himself and one another. 

Genesis: God gathers the dead to himself. “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my ancestors…” — Genesis 49:29b. In instructions in advance of his death, Jacob hints at a hope for resurrection, life beyond death.* According to Jesus, “And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living…” (Mark 12:26–27a, quoting Exodus 3:6). 

This lovely and powerful centripetal force in Hebrew faith is a persistent factor in Israel’s story. At various burial sites in Israel, accessible today (Beit She’arim and Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, for instance), the bones of deceased family members were gathered together, to wait for the day of resurrection.

Mark: Jesus gathers Jew and Gentile. “They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full” — Mark 8:8. Jesus has come to inaugurate the great ingathering — a gathering that will encompass the living and the dead, Jew and Gentile alike. 

In the sixth chapter of Mark’s Gospel, while on Israelite soil, Jesus had fed 5,000. The overflow from that feeding had filled twelve baskets, representing the renewal of the twelve tribes of Israel. Here in Mark 8, Jesus feeds 4,000 on the far side of the Jordan, in Gentile territory; and he does so after ministering among pagans in Tyre (on the coast of the Mediterranean) and in the Decapolis (in Syria and the Golan Heights). This time his disciples collect seven baskets from the overflow. Seven baskets, commentators suggest, recall the displacement of seven nations during the conquest under Joshua. ** 

With the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus symbolizes he is Manna for Israel. With the feeding of the 4,000, he symbolizes he is Bread for the World. In both feedings, he foreshadows the fourfold Eucharistic action of taking bread, blessing it, breaking it, and distributing it (Mark 6:41; 8:6). 

Jesus has come to fulfill Israel’s mission to be light for the nations, to see an end to death with God’s great end-times banquet, and to re-create the human race as the worldwide communion of love God had intended in the first place: “On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. On that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage’” (Isaiah 49:6; 25:6–8; 19:23–25;). 

1 Corinthians 11: The Table gathers “haves” and “have nots.” “When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper” — 1 Corinthians 14:20. Paul is so upset because the Corinthians  are turning the most powerful symbol of God’s “gathering” intentions into a means of separating, not uniting. 

The Corinthians’ Table is a sham. It’s being used to differentiate between “haves” and “have nots.” The Corinthians “humiliate those who have nothing” by inviting them to the community meal late, after the “somebodies” have had their fill of food and drink. The favored ones get the best of meats and the finest of wines, while the “have nots” (that.is.literally.what.Paul.calls.them!) get leftovers. 

In allowing this practice, the Corinthians contribute to the surrounding society’s division, instead of creating a new unity in Christ. The destroy rather than build God’s building (1 Corinthians 3:16). They dismember rather than re-member Christ’s very Body. Paul doesn’t even want them calling what they are doing the Lord’s Supper: “When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper” (1 Corinthians 11:20). 

Praise be! The Lord does gather, but he gathers only those who admit the worst about themselves, only those who know they need him. He gathers those who trust him in this life and the next. He gathers “haves” and “have nots.“ He gathers “those near” and “those far off” (Ephesians 2:17). He gathers all who trust him. Trust him! 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: iStock

* See the discussion in Nahum M. Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), p. 347. Joseph, Sarna contends, calls for physicians to embalm Jacob’s body to preserve his remains for the journey back to Canaan. He does not ask for the professional embalmers who would have mummified the body in hopes of immortality.

** Bargil Pixner, With Jesus Through Galilee According to the Fifth Gospel (Liturgical Press, 1996), pp. 67-86. For the seven nations, see Deuteronomy 7:1b, Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites; Acts 13:19.

A Vision of Creation Restored - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 3/28/2022
Monday of 4 Lent, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89; Genesis 49:1–28; 1 Corinthians 10:14–11:1; Mark 7:24–37

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)

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Today’s passage in Genesis, comprised of Jacob’s words to his sons, is our next-to-next-to-last reading in that book before we turn to Exodus. The Book of Genesis is a book of “beginnings”: the beginning of creation, the beginning of the rule of sin and death, and the beginning of God’s campaign to restore creation. Here near the end of the book, Jacob’s words  capture the heart of the book.  

To Reuben, Simeon, and Levi: dead ends to redemption. Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn son, has violated Bilhah, one of Jacob’s wives: “You went up to your father’s bed; then you defiled it” (Genesis 49:4b; see 35:22). In doing so, Reuben shows himself not to be what the firstborn should be: preeminent in dignity and power (Genesis 49:3). Rather, he is ungovernable, “uncontrolled as water” (Genesis 49:4a). 

Simeon and Levi purport to bring to justice those who have violated their sister Dinah (Genesis 34:25–30). But they do so with self-willed, anarchic, viciousness. Their way is not God’s way: “Let my soul not enter into their council … Cursed be…their wrath, for it is cruel” (Genesis 49:6a,7ab). 

Genesis is an account of the beginning of the rule of sin and death. Brutality and violence manifested themselves in family and home life immediately after the Fall of Adam and Eve: Cain’s murder of his brother Abel. Reuben, Simeon, and Levi illustrate hell’s hold on humans. Through these words of Jacob, Genesis’s message is twofold. The family through which redemption comes needs redemption as much as anybody else. And God will not solve the problem of the Fall through entitlement and pride like Simeon’s, nor will He reverse the curse through explosive, vindictive rage like Simeon’s and Levi’s.  

To Judah: a king will come. Hope, however, does lie in the line of Judah. Somehow, as a gift of God’s profound grace, Jacob gets a vision of how God will bring redemption through this son in three ways. 

First, Jacob has given him a name that means “Praise,” a fact that Jacob underscores when he says Judah’s brothers will “praise” him (Genesis 49:8 — yehudah comes from yadah). Worship is Israel’s chief gift to the world. Through Cain the rest of the human race was given gifts of city-building and animal husbandry and manufacturing and music-making. Through Seth the people of promise were given one gift, and one gift alone: “to invoke the name of Yahweh” (Genesis 4:16–26 JB). Through Israel, however, and specifically through the line of Judah, humanity will learn how the praise of Yahweh gives value to every other aspect of life. 

Second, Jacob calls Judah a “lion’s whelp,” and compares him to a crouching lion, “Like the king of beasts—who dare rouse him? The scepter shall not depart from Judah” (Genesis 49:9,10). In Israel’s history, it is King David who embodies the hope engendered by Jacob’s words to Judah. The mighty “lion of Judah” becomes a theme of Jewish art and the symbol of messianic expectation. The Book of Revelation identifies Jesus Christ as the great fulfillment of these words: “See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so he can open the scroll of the seven seals…” (Revelation 5:5). 

Third, Jacob dimly perceives a mystery surrounding the identity of the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Older, more wooden, translations respect this mystery when they translate Genesis 49:10c, “…until Shiloh comes.” The term is really quite ambiguous — it could mean a place, it could mean tribute, it could be a veiled reference to the Messiah as “Sent One.” 

I’d prefer to leave the question of the interpretation of the term open. I think it may be here as a reminder that the Old Testament is a book filled with hints and shadows, adumbrations and whispers, figures and mysteries of marvelous and wonderful things to come. After all, when, in the Book of Revelation, John is permitted to see that Jesus is the great Lion of Judah, he also sees that he is simultaneously “a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered,” and therefore worthy both to open the scrolls and “to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:6,12). 

Jacob’s son Judah will bequeath us a son —a Son like no other, a Son to teach the world to praise Yahweh, a Son to rule as King, and a Son to give his life a ransom for many. 

To Joseph: a vision of creation restored. A promise of the re-Edenization of the world. Jacob’s words to Joseph climax in the vision of blessing flowing through Abraham’s line to all of creation, bringing in return the blessing of heaven above, of the deep that lies beneath, of the breasts and the womb, of fathers and ancestors, of everlasting hills. It’s a vision of all creation released from the forces of death and decay and destruction and dissolution. 

At its heart, Genesis is the story of the beginning of the end of the darkness that fell upon Eden. May this Lenten season prepare us to own the darkness of sin that led our Savior to his cruel cross, that we may rejoice anew in the promise of a new day that his resurrection on Easter Day brings. 

Be blessed this day. 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Pixabay

A Rich Heritage of Spiritual Pilgrimage - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 3/25/2022
Friday of 3 Epiphany, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; Genesis 47:1–26; 1 Corinthians 9:16–27; Mark 6:47–56

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

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As we near the end of Genesis and thus approach the close of Jacob’s life, it’s wonderful to see three aspects of his self-understanding that have matured over time: his capacity to bless, his understanding of himself as a pilgrim, and his perspective on suffering.

Jacob blesses. When Jacob finally appears before Pharaoh, he does for the Egyptian king what Yahweh told Abraham he and his progeny would do for nations: “…and Jacob blessed Pharaoh…”  (Genesis 47:7c; compare Genesis 12). And then once again at the end of their interview, “Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from the presence of Pharaoh” (Genesis 47:10). Blessings fore and aft. Blessings coming and going. The power and the authority to bring a good and kind and beneficent word from God to the world — that is the special mission of Abraham and his children. 

Through Joseph’s able administration during the famine, the people of Egypt proclaim him “Savior.” For a long time, the Israelites prosper and flourish in their Egyptian home-away-from-home. 

The irony is not to be missed that the mutual blessing and prosperity that transpire between Egyptians and Israelites here at the end of Genesis contrasts with the situation 400 years later at the beginning of Exodus, when another Pharaoh “who knew not Joseph” curses Israel, and is himself cursed as a result. 

Jacob is a pilgrim. “The years of my pilgrimage….” (Genesis 47:9b KJV; and see Deuteronomy 26:5). For all his heart-investment in his family and in the land of Canaan, Jacob, along with his father Isaac and his grandfather Abraham, seek more than earthly goals. Their life-journey has as its aim, “the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:9–10). They are on a purposeful journey through life. 

Sojourning creates a powerful impact on Israelites’ sensibilities. This mindset carries over to all who call themselves sons and daughters of Abraham. It is nicely captured in the hidden king Aragon’s poem from J. R. R. Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring: 

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Jacob stands near the fountainhead of a rich spiritual heritage of pilgrimage. As a young man Vincent Van Gogh aspired to the Christian ministry. One sermon from the days of that quest has been preserved for us. Vincent closes his sermon this way: “And when each of us goes back to the daily things and daily duties let us not forget that things are not what they seem, that God by the things of daily life teacheth us higher things, that our life is a pilgrim’s progress, and that we are strangers on the earth, but that we have a God and father who preserveth strangers, – and that we are all brethren.”

Jacob understands suffering. “…few and hard have been the years of my life… (Genesis 47:9d). As Jacob notes, the pilgrim’s life is not easy. Still, understanding that “not all those who wander are lost” gives God’s pilgrim-people resilience in the face of hardship. 

It is a theme that animates Paul’s writing, and that is especially heightened in his letters to the self-satisfied Corinthians. For the pilgrim Van Gogh, 2 Corinthians 6:10 was especially captivating and motivating: “…as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.” In the sermon we cited above, Vincent expands on this verse: “And the pilgrim goes on sorrowful yet always rejoicing — sorrowful because it is so far off and the road so long. Hopeful as he looks up to the eternal city far away, resplendent in the evening glow….” 

I pray that like Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and his wives and sons, we may receive God’s blessing in such a way that we become a blessing to those around us. And may we take our place alongside Vincent and generations of saints as pilgrims on the way. May we always, always have a sober yet hopeful perspective on the trials that come with the journey toward the “city that has foundations, whose builder and architect is God.”

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

An Island of Peace - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 3/24/2022
Thursday of 3 Epiphany, Year Two

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 83; Genesis 46:1–7,28–34; 1 Corinthians 9:1–15; Mark 6:30–46

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

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In Genesis 46, seventy souls go down to Egypt. They go with Yahweh’s blessing. 400 years later they will depart from there a mighty nation. When, in Mark 6, Jesus feeds 5,000 and recovers 12 baskets of leftovers, he signals that Yahweh’s great nation is being reconstituted around him, and around the meal where he “takes” bread, “blesses” it, “breaks” it, and “gives” it. 

Jesus is calm in the storm. All four gospel writers recount the feeding of the 5,000, but one subtle feature of Mark’s account stands out. Jesus is an island of calm and rest in a sea of frenetic activity. Mark tells us that the disciples have just returned from a mission in which they have spent themselves teaching and exercising “authority over the unclean spirits” (Mark 6:13b). When the apostles, whom he has sent out in pairs, come back together, they gather around him and start telling “him all that they had done and taught” (Mark 6:30). Imagine the buzz and excitement in that setting!

While all this energy is swirling around, Jesus says, “‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat” (Mark 6:31). Even then, notes Mark, while they are on their way to a deserted place for a retreat, “many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them” (Mark 6:33). Jesus and the disciples are sailing across Lake Gennesaret. Meanwhile a crowd is racing along the shoreline to beat them to their destination. 

Jesus desires rest for his disciples, but his compassion for “sheep without a shepherd” prompts him to teach “many things” to the crowd that has arrived ahead of them. The teaching runs so long that the day is ending. The disciples want to disacknowledge that they have any responsibility for the still-gathered multitude. “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away…” — Mark 7:35b. 

I sense such calm in Jesus’s instructions to bless and distribute the five loaves and two fishes. An island of peace in the storm, he provides the meal the people need, and more: “And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish” (Mark 7:42–43). 

In turbulent times like ours, it’s good to be reminded of the tranquility of spirit with which our Savior met, and continues to meet, every contingency. He met, and he meets, every emergency with equilibrium. He can make two loaves and five fishes feed 5,000, and he can provide exhausted souls the energy to keep giving. If all that is true, we can pray that he will make tyrants tremble, turn fools from their folly, raise up righteous people to protect the innocent, and enable fainting hearts to find courage. 

Collect for Peace: Almighty God, kindle, we pray, in every heart the true love of peace, and guide with your wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth, that in tranquility your dominion may increase until the earth is filled with the knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, p. 258)

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Pixabay

Redemption, Not Recrimination - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 3/23/2022
Wednesday of 3 Lent, Year Two

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:97–120; Genesis 45:16–28; 1 Corinthians 8:1–13; Mark 6:13–29

For thoughts on 1 Corinthians 8:1–13 from 9/29/2021, see  “Love vs. Knowledge”

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

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Two perceptive quotes on Genesis 45 by commentator Derek Kidner guide my meditations this morning. First, Jacob brings his family from Israel to Egypt, marking “a turning point…, long foretold (15:13–16): the beginning of a phase of isolation…, and of eventual bondage and deliverance which would produce a people that for ever after knew itself redeemed as well as called.” * 

Redeemed as well as called. Israel became “a people that forever after knew itself redeemed as well as called,” notes Kidner. That’s really quite a thought. Israel’s rescue from Egypt, of course, is a rescue from more than physical oppressors. It’s redemption from the Angel of Death that would have taken Israelite firstborn as well as Egyptian, but for the shed blood of the Passover lambs. It’s redemption through waters that would have drowned Israelites as well as Egyptians. It’s redemption by manna graciously falling from the skies despite the people’s grumbling and complaining. It’s redemption under the leadership of the Glory Cloud despite constant whining about how great it would be to turn around and go back!

That’s the story of the Bible. Theologians of the early church even found themselves giving thanks to God for “the happy fall” (felix culpa) that made redemption necessary. We love God more, the suggestion goes, more desperately, more passionately, more deeply because, in Christ, we know what it is to be “wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored” (BCP, p. 214). 

No need for recrimination. Second, Kidner adds an intriguing remark about Genesis 45:24, which says, “Then he sent his brothers on their way, and as they were leaving he said to them, ‘Do not quarrel along the way.’” Kidner comments: “Joseph’s parting shot was realistic, for the ancient crime was now bound to come to light before their father, and mutual accusations were likely to proliferate (cf. 42:22). * 

Indeed, it’s not difficult to imagine Jacob’s reaction to finding out the son he thought he had lost is in Egypt. Elation at first, of course. But then the question: It was reported that Joseph was dead. How is he alive? What is he doing in Egypt? How did he get there? The whole story will come out, and it’s not likely to be a pretty picture. Joseph anticipates the recriminations and says, “Let it go.” 

In this season of Lent it’s good to be reminded how important it is not to carry grudges. Grievances can embitter and cripple us in all sorts of ways. Lent is a good time to seek reconciliation with God and with one another. Jesus walked the Via Dolorosa to take all our estrangement and woundedness into himself, to take it with him into the tomb, and to leave it there. It’s good for us consciously and freely to give it to him and bid it a final farewell. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Adaptation, Pixabay

* Derek Kidner, Genesis, p. 208. 

God's Guiding Hand - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 3/22/2022
Tuesday of 3 Lent, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 78; Genesis 45:1–15; 1 Corinthians 7:32–40; Mark 6:1–13

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

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The very heart of biblical faith lies in Joseph’s response to his brothers: “It was not you who sent me here, but God….”

Joseph’s confidence in God’s guiding hand. Joseph has all along sensed that God was preserving him and protecting him. Joseph knows a God who brings about good despite and even through all the evil thrust upon him. All of it — being attacked and sold by these very brothers, being taken as a slave into Egypt, being falsely accused by Pharaoh’s wife, and being forgotten by Pharaoh’s cupbearer — all of it Joseph understood to be firmly in the grip of a higher hand that was working a larger purpose toward a good end. That end was good for Joseph himself, good for those he cared about, good for the whole world. He assures his brothers: “So it was not you who sent me here, but God; he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt” (Genesis 45:8).

Joseph’s heart of compassion. It’s easy to think that believing in God’s benevolent control of all things, including evil, leaves one with a cold, calculating determinism. As though people’s choices don’t matter, and as though people’s hurts along the way don’t matter either. As though “happy endings” come out of a divinely preprogrammed “Goodness” dispenser. But that’s not the case at all. Ours is not an unfeeling God, and he has made us to feel with feelings he has given us. Joseph is emotionally engaged with what’s happening around him. 

In today’s reading Joseph has carefully orchestrated things in such a way as to give his brothers a chance to recognize their sin and be transformed by grace.  Beholding a breakthrough on that front releases a flood of tears. When he sees his brother Judah’s willingness to exchange his own freedom for their youngest brother Benjamin, “Joseph could no longer control himself …  he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard it, and the household of Pharaoh heard it … Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept … And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them…” (Genesis 45:1,2,14,15). 

Tbe nimbleness of a redeemed person’s spirit is that they can be stricken with grief over their own sufferings and failings and over the sufferings and failings of others — and at the same time confident that God has the capacity and the intent to turn the worst evil into good. The God of the Bible creates beauty out of ugliness, peace out of strife, and order out of chaos. 

Scripture is filled with the understanding that God can use evil to effect his own good purposes. Fearlessly, the formerly craven Peter proclaims to the Sanhedrin that God had raised from the dead the one they had crucified: the stone the builder had rejected has become the cornerstone. The ultimate evil-into-good, of course, is the prayer recited by  the Jerusalem church after Peter and John are released from prison: 

“Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and everything in them, it is you who said by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor David, your servant: 

‘Why did the Gentiles rage,
    and the peoples imagine vain things?
The kings of the earth took their stand,
    and the rulers have gathered together
        against the Lord and against his Messiah.’

For in this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:24b–30; citing Psalm 2:1–2). 

God brought the greatest good (the salvation of the world) out of the greatest evil (the unjust crucifixion of his own Son). There’s no good thing he cannot accomplish, today, or in the future. And he promises that there will be not one iota of evil that will prevail on the last day. Whether it’s “turn[ing] the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents … and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous” (Malachi 4:6; Luke 1:16b), or whether it’s calling off the dogs of war or breathing godliness back into an apostate culture or taming deadly viruses—none of it is beyond him. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Adaptation, Pixabay image

The Sloppy Already/Not Yet - Daily Devotions with the Dean (Copy)

Monday • 3/21/2022
Monday of 3 Lent, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 80; Genesis 44:18–34; 1 Corinthians 7:25–31; Mark 5:21–43

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)

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Today’s readings offer an intriguing juxtaposition of passages about familial love. In Genesis 44, Jacob’s “life is bound up in the boy’s life,” so much so that if something were to happen to Benjamin (Jacob’s youngest son), Simeon claims, it would kill their father (Genesis 44:30–31). In Mark 5, Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, is so anxious about his daughter’s health, he seeks out Jesus, throws himself at his feet, and repeatedly begs Jesus to come and help her. 

Familial love is powerful and good. The 5th Commandment concerns the parent-child bond, the 7th Commandment concerns marital faithfulness, and the 10th commandment assures that marital faithfulness is as much about heart as about body. God blesses the parental and marital ties that bind. Paul lists “lack of natural (i.e., familial) affection” (astorgos) as one characteristic of universal sin and a special sign of end-times wickedness (Romans 1:31 2 Timothy 3:3). 

At the same time, Jesus challenges any claim that familial ties are more important than love for him: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me…and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” and “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Matthew 10:37; 19:12c; Luke 14:26–27). 

Paul echoes Jesus when, in 1 Corinthians, he urges Corinthians not to put aspirations for marriage and family life ahead of priorities about life with God. There are important questions about, say, whether or not to get married (and take on all the attendant responsibilities), or whether to remarry if you’ve been divorced or widowed. But Paul wants to make sure we put family-life questions in their place. As pointers to, and supports for, God’s love, those relationships are precious. As substitutes for, and blocks against, God’s love, those relationships are sinful. Family life is penultimate. Life with God is ultimate. 

In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis presents a parable about an imaginary bus trip some inhabitants from hell make to the outskirts of paradise:

A female ghost (whose name we never learn) is furious that Heaven will not give to her Robert, the husband she had sent to an early grave through her obsessive pushiness. On earth, Robert had been no more than a project for her and a means to her social ambitions. And she cannot imagine an afterlife in which he could be happy apart from her efforts to improve him: “Please, please! I’m so miserable. I must have someone to—to do things to.” Like “a dying candle flame,” she simply snaps, disappearing into a nothingness as empty as her earthly existence. 

In another scene, one of Heaven’s hosts informs Pam, the overbearing and controlling mother of Michael, that she is trapped in the hell of “your merely instinctive love for your child (tigresses share that, you know!).” God, continues Heaven’s host, wanted to turn that tigress-love “into something better. He wanted you to love Michael as He understands love. You cannot love a fellow-creature fully till you love God.” 

Pam cannot understand that without love of God, a mother’s love can be “uncontrolled and fierce and monomaniac.” It can become evil, a fact that cannot be hidden under the veil of a claim that “Mother-love” is “the highest and holiest feeling in human nature.” For, Lewis explains, “no natural feelings are high or low, holy or unholy, in themselves. They are all holy when God’s hand is on the rein. They all go bad when they set up on their own and make themselves into false gods.” 

In Christ, you see, all relationships are redeemable. Without him, all are subject to demonic possession. In Lent, may we renounce all idolatries, including ones that are relational. May we embrace lives of surrender — surrender of ourselves to our Sovereign and Lord, and surrender of our loved ones to His care and oversight. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Adaptation, Pixabay

C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, chapters 10 and 11. 

Your So-Called Rights - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 3/18/2022
Friday of 2 Epiphany, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 69; Genesis 43:1–15; 1 Corinthians 7:1–9; Mark 4:35–41 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

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The gift of celibacy. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul commends single celibacy like his own as a mode of living for the sake of Kingdom-service and devotion to the Lord. See 1 Corinthians 7:32–35: “The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord….” If one can receive the call to celibacy as a gift (charisma, 1 Corinthians 7:7b), singleness offers freedom from the obligations of domestic life. 

With its extra-biblical demand that clergy remain unmarried, Catholicism has overplayed aspects of what Paul calls “counsel” rather than “demand.”  (“I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that” — 1 Corinthians 7:7.) By the same token, with its championing of “traditional” family life for virtually everybody, Protestantism has underplayed Paul’s godly advice. Seldom do I meet Protestants who choose singleness and celibacy for the sake of a life of ministry. It’s something to think about. To those whom God gives the charism of celibacy, the surrender of their sexuality directly to the Lord is their “gift” to him. And that is a sacred thing. 

The limitations of “Just say No!” A cursory reading of Paul’s permission to marry regards Paul as seeing marriage as little more than a solution to lust: “better to marry than to burn (with lust)” (1 Corinthians 7:9b). To leave it there, however, is to do injustice to Paul’s advice.

Marriage alone does not tame that lust. Nor does it insulate relationally needy hearts from creating a dream world in which an imaginary perfect partner listens all the time, picks up their socks, and never has a bad day. 

The value of “Just do it!” Thus, it is a wonderful thing that Paul complements the negative aspect of his teaching with the positive. Yesterday we saw him champion sexual propriety for the sake of love for Christ, union with Christ, and the glory of God. Today we find him saluting the way a man and a woman can minister to one another. 

The Corinthians are a congregation of people utterly concerned with securing their perceived rights. They take each other to court. They argue about whether they have the right to eat meat from the marketplace. They want Paul to receive financial support from them so they can put him under obligation to them. 

Paul is working hard to get them to understand that the Christian life is not about claiming your rights. It is about surrendering them. We’re all called more to give love than to get love. What Paul wants the Corinthians to understand about marriage is that this is a special relationship in which two precious bearers of God’s image are entrusted as stewards of each other’s needs and desires. That’s the point of Paul’s instruction about relations between a husband and a wife: 

“The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife” (1 Corinthians 7:4 NIV). The passage is not a warrant for either side to pressure the other. The passage invites — indeed requires — each to ask the other, “What do you desire and need from me: a listening ear? doing the dishes? physical comfort?”  

Likewise, Paul builds into marriage the prospect of a mutual granting of permission for periods of abstinence. Paul says, “Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Corinthians 7:5 NIV). As we saw above, the call for each spouse to surrender “authority” over their body is no grounds for the other to make selfish demands. Neither, as Paul cautions here in verse 5, does the proviso of periods of abstinence warrant a kind of   blackmail or deprivation of physical intimacy. Rather, Paul leaves breathing space for mutual spiritual reflection and growth. 

Paul genuinely believes the power of the gospel and the example of the One who was rich but became poor for our sakes (2 Corinthians 8:9) can make a couple care more about each other’s needs and desires than about their own. Within marriage, cherishing one another in intimacy is a profound way we contribute to each other’s growth in Christ.

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Pixabay

Negative Plus Positive - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 3/17/2022
Thursday of 2 Epiphany, Year Two

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 71; Genesis 42:29–38; 1 Corinthians 6:12–20; Mark 4:21–34

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94)

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Negative Plus Positive 

I perform better when I receive positive coaching rather than negative. 

In basketball defense, I respond better to, “Stay on your toes,” than to, “Don’t play on your heels.” 

For hitting a baseball, “See the ball, hit the ball,” produces better results than, “Don’t strike out!” 

In Japanese swordsmanship, “Throw the tip of the sword like you were casting a fishing rod,” works, while, “Don’t try to muscle your cut,” doesn’t.  

When it comes to the ethical life, too, I’m more, “Just do it!” than “Just say no!”

“Just say No!” It’s fascinating to watch Paul offer instruction that is both positive and negative. His negative instruction for sexuality is: “The body is not for fornication…” and “Shun fornication” (1 Corinthians 6:13c,18a). He means: Don’t have sex outside of marriage. It’s his way of saying, “Just say no!” 

However, trying to “just say no!” can be as frustrating as trying not to play on my heels, trying not to be afraid to swing, and trying not to muscle my cut. It’s not that the “Don’t” instruction is wrong. It’s that I’m able to respond better to the vision offered by the positive coaching. Just trying not to do the wrong thing isn’t the same as doing the right thing. That approach can so tighten you up that you end up doing the opposite of what you want to do. The person you are guarding is past you before you realize it, the umpire is calling “Strike!” while you’re still worrying about your fear of missing the ball, and your sword blade weakly “thunks” the target because thinking about not muscling your cut has made you shorten your stroke and you muscle it even harder.

When all you’re doing is trying to just say no!, you are liable to wind up in places you regret later. You’re liable to find yourself grumbling Paul’s words, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Romans 7:19). Often, the harder you just try to resist temptation, the more tempting temptation is! 

“Just do it!” Now, if “Just say no!” were all that Paul said, it should absolutely be sufficient. However, I am grateful that Paul also offers several positive considerations, several points on the ethical “Just do it!”side of the equation.

He continues, “…but [the body is] for the Lord, and the Lord [is] for the body” (1 Corinthians 6:13d). Just focusing on what we are not supposed to do with our bodies leads many people to think that the body is evil. That way of thinking leads them either to decide that what they do sexually is irrelevant to their spiritual life, or that they should abuse and punish their bodies (sometimes through sex). Instead, Paul wants us to understand that our bodies are so valuable that Christ gave his body to raise our body up and reconstitute it for an indestructible, everlasting existence: “God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power” (1 Corinthians 7:14). The Lord is not against our bodies, he is for them. 

… you were bought with a price — 1 Corinthians 7:20a. It is because we are so profoundly loved  that we can’t just do whatever we please with or to our bodies. Christ has purchased us — our whole being, body, soul, and spirit — out of the slave-market of sin at the staggering cost of his own precious blood. If we really understand this, we would not think of doing anything to demean, degrade, devalue, or defile our bodies. Sexual integrity is part of how we live for love of him. As in every other area of life, we live for him because he lives for us!

…your bodies are members of Christ — 1 Corinthians 7:15. There is an intimacy with Christ that is so deep that in some respects the slave-market image takes a subordinate place to the marriage image. Christ has wooed us as God wooed Israel, as Hosea wooed Gomer, as the Lover in Song of Songs wooed the Beloved. For as Paul puts it in Romans 7:4, “You have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to (i.e., be married to) another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.” 

A sublime mystery lies in the fact that physical union and procreation between a man and a woman is a sacramental picture of a greater union and life-generation between Christ and his people. So sublime is that greater union that it can be experienced as much by God’s celibate saints as by his married saints — such is the testimony of generations of ascetics and faithful singles. Sexual faithfulness is part of how we live in union with him!

… your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit … glorify God in your body — 1 Corinthians 7:19b,20b. As wonderful as it is to contemplate the glory that will constitute our bodies when they are raised in power, there’s perhaps something even more wonderful about contemplating the fact that God’s glory has already taken up residence in us. 

Paul says that our puny little bodies is where the Holy Spirit dwells. This Holy Spirit is the Shekinah glory cloud that inhabited Moses’s Tabernacle and led the children of Israel through the desert. It is the Shekinah glory cloud that so filled Solomon’s Temple at its dedication that everybody had to flee. This glory dwells in us! And the only place the world gets to see this glory in the present age is when it shines through lives that manifest God’s character of holiness, justice, mercy, grace, faithfulness, and love. Sexual purity is part of how we live to glorify God in our body! 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+ 

Image:  Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Coming Clean in Lent - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 3/16/2022
Wednesday of 2 Lent, Year Two

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 72; Genesis 42:18–28; 1 Corinthians 5:9–6:8; Mark 4:1–20

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

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When I was eleven years old I had enough of a temper problem that my parents arranged for a few after-school sessions with my physical education teacher, Mr. Tilton (many of my outbursts took place during P.E. class — you see, I wasn’t competitive at all!). It was the first time I recall anybody asking me: What is going on inside you? Is what you are doing who you want to be? And just who is it that you do want to be? 

It’s hard to say why, but things started to change for the better after that, because somebody cared enough to ask about my heart.  

I love Lent. Every year it puts before me those same questions: What is going on inside you? Is what you are doing who you want to be? And just who is it that you do want to be? Only now, it’s not Coach Tilton asking the questions, but God himself via the readings of the Daily Office.

Mark 4: The parable of the sower. When the words of Jesus come to me, do they find welcome in fertile soil, or are they rejected by impenetrable rock? Do his words sink deeply into me and produce verdant life, or sit shallowly and spring up quickly only to wither just as quickly? And do I protect his words from competing undergrowth, or let them get strangled by weeds? 

No parable can say everything that could be said. We know that God’s Word carries its own power: it doesn’t return void, it’s sharper than a two-edged sword, it’s made powerful by the Spirit of God (Isaiah 55:11; Hebrews 4:12–13; 1 Thessalonians 1:5). While all that is true, this parable makes a complementary point: it matters what sort of reception I give God’s Word. That is part of the point of a season of: “self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word” (BCP, p. 265). 

1 Corinthians 5–6: To judge or not to judge, that is the question. You don’t spend a lifetime in Christian ministry without being hit with some nasty surprises. Among the worst is finding fellow clergy friends losing their ministries due to adulterous affairs or financial shenanigans or patterns of self-idolizing and narcissistic leadership. 

At first blush, Paul’s words about “not associat[ing] with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral, etc.,” may seem too “judgy.” I for one, however, am grateful for relationships of mutual accountability. I’m grateful too for the Lenten season’s call to reflect on temptations to immorality, to bad-mouthing others, to greed and acquisitiveness, and to drunkenness and addictive behaviors. 

I’m grateful as well for the opportunity Lent presents for repentance of the entitled attitude Paul identifies in 1 Corinthians 6, where believers are suing one another to secure their perceived “rights.” May Lent serve as a persistent call to follow Jesus in preferring rather to be wronged than to wrong, especially regarding brothers and sisters in Christ. 

Genesis 42: You have to deal with your guilt. Joseph’s brothers have been carrying their guilt over their mistreatment of him for so long that it colors everything they do. When Pharaoh’s agent in Egypt (who happens to be their brother) lays out harsh conditions for their return home, their immediate thought is that God is punishing them for sins the Egyptian stranger couldn’t even know about: “Alas, we are paying the penalty for what we did to our brother; we saw his anguish when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen. That is why this anguish has come upon us” (Genesis 42:21). 

And when they discover on the way home that the money they had brought to purchase grain has been secretly returned to them, they can’t conceive that it might be a gracious gift (which it is!). Instead, they assume God is setting them up so he can bring the hammer of justice down on them: “At this they lost heart and turned trembling to one another, saying, ‘What is this that God has done to us?’” (Genesis 42:28b). 

A guilty conscience can radically color the way we perceive everything. Lent creates a special place in the calendar for us to take stock and to come clean with anything that needs to be brought to the Cross and laid at the feet of Jesus. Only then can we know in our hearts the certainty of the truth we affirm in our heads and confess with our lips: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). 

May we pray deeply and often during this season: 

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23–24. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Image: Pixabay