Radiant Presence - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 2/17/2023 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. 

Although this is the sixth week of Epiphany, we’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings this week. Instead, we’re thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts (sometimes lightly edited) from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  

They come from a season in my life when I was on a journey from more generic free-form worship to worship shaped by the classic liturgy. I hope these observations help you in your own quest to love God and your neighbor. We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office next week. 

Rediscovering the Trinity and Spirit-led Worship, Part Three of Three 

The Holy Spirit and Worship 

There have sometimes been Sundays when a conversation at my house goes like this: 

“What’s the matter?” 

“I just want to quit.” 

“Why?” 

“Why? Easy. You were there. Didn’t you sense it?” 

“Sense what?” 

“The lack of worship. We were putting out all we had from up front, and nothing was coming back. Worship just wasn’t happening.” 

“How do you know? Because maybe people weren’t singing the way you thought they should be? You know the Spirit’s presence is about more than that. You can’t always see what God is doing. Sitting in my row I saw something you didn’t see: a woman who stopped singing because she had begun crying. I think the Spirit may be doing things His way, not yours.”  

Hmmm.  

What characterizes Spirit-led worship? Are there marks of the breath of the Spirit?  

Image: H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Stained glass window Holy Spirit in the nothern wall of the Iglesia de San Bartolomé de Tirajana, San Bartolomé de Tirajana, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain 

The Spirit Creates Life 

Jesus came back from the dead to breathe God’s very life into us. I’ve arrived at the place where I’m simply thankful to have been given eternal life in Christ, and to be allowed to share that life with others whom the Spirit has graciously made alive as well. I challenge myself to be more amazed at the presence of faith than depressed over possible signs of lack of faith. In other words, what I’m looking for as a prime marker of the Spirit’s presence in worship is this: by God’s grace, redeemed sinners show up seeking more grace.  

I believe that there is a radiantly alive presence in our midst when we worship. That presence is Jesus who has become “life-giving Spirit.” While bodily he is in heaven constantly advocating for us before the Father (Heb 7:25), he is simultaneously among us by the Spirit, breathing God’s presence into us, proclaiming the Father’s name, and orchestrating our praise (Heb 2:12).  

He’s there whether I feel him or not. He’s in charge and is working his good pleasure, whether I hit all my marks or not. He’s constantly compensating for all my weaknesses and mistakes, and perhaps more importantly, for all my strengths and the things I get “right.”  

I have to remind myself the “condensation on the sunglasses” is not necessarily about any of the things I do or don’t do. Chesterton suggests that the only way to explain the fact that the church hasn’t died over time as one cultural, political, or philosophical support after another has fallen away, is that there is a Presence in the church that won’t go away. If Arianism, Gnosticism, Pelagianism, imperial patronage, humanism, scientism, modernism, and postmodernism can’t make the Holy Spirit go away, I probably can’t either.  

The Spirit Makes One out of Many  

The worship of God now takes place not in a single, localized house of brick and mortar where the songs of Zion are sung in but one tongue. God’s house of worship — where “Spirit and Truth” reside — is worldwide! It consists of a near infinity of “living stones” who happen to sing in many tongues. Beginning with the likes of respectable Nicodemus and the fallen woman at the well, the Holy Spirit has been making a worldwide community of worship that is greater than the sum of its parts. Amazingly, under the baton of the Spirit of Christ, those many tongues make “one voice” (Rom 15:6).   

“Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace,” says Paul (Eph 4:3). The Spirit’s unity is most evident, I’ve come to believe, precisely where there is diversity rather than uniformity. Unity is not difficult to sustain when everyone shares the same preferences/musical tastes, an “age and stage” affinity, compatible theological nuance, congruent Myers-Briggs profiles. When there’s unity despite differing penchants, a unity that is born out of heroic forbearance and costly deference, it seems more likely that it is the Spirit who is at work.  

The Spirit Exalts Others  

Fourth century theologian Basil the Great’s defense of the deity of the Holy Spirit is skillful because it is indirect. Basil observes that Scripture has many direct statements about the divinity of God the Father, fewer about the divinity of God the Son, and precious few about the divinity of God the Holy Spirit. You can’t help but conclude, he insists, that the Holy Spirit is God in the same way that the Father and the Son are — otherwise, to baptize in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would be blasphemous. Nonetheless, it’s almost as though there is in Scripture a modesty about the Spirit’s identity.  

A fundamental characteristic of the Holy Spirit is that he does not call attention to himself: “He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you,” said Jesus (John 14:16).  

Some people walk into a room and they make everybody else feel larger. Some walk in and make everybody else feel smaller. The first breathe life into the room because they make everybody else the center of their attention. The latter suck the life out of the room because they make themselves the center of attention. Here is a principal way of knowing when it’s the Spirit at work, and when it’s the flesh.  

That was Paul’s problem with the church at Corinth. He wanted those brothers and sisters to understand that worship is always about the exaltation of Jesus and the edification of others, not the exaltation of self and the display of personal giftedness (1 Corinthians 14). That’s why Paul encouraged them — and he would, I’m certain, encourage us likewise — to promote in worship the real way of the Spirit, the way of love (see 1 Corinthians 13).  

Breathe in. Breathe out.  

Of course, there’s so much more to say about the Spirit and worship — about the mission, about the gifts, about uniting old and new. But for now, this will have to suffice: not unlike that lifeless puppy I saw on the side of the road, we were dead to intimacy with our Maker, and dead to the way our relationships with one another were to mirror the eternal communion within the Trinity — until the Son came, died, rose, and breathed the breath of God into us. 

As a worship leader there’s probably nothing greater that I can contribute to worship than making sure that I keep breathing God’s breath myself. In the Word daily — breathe in. In prayer daily — breathe out. Confess “my stuff” — breathe in. Lift his name in praise and adoration — breathe out. Come to the Table — breathe in. Wish my neighbor Christ’s peace — breathe out. Ponder the wonder of his grace to me — breathe in. Find the lost, tell the story, feed the hungry — breathe out.   

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Spirit - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 2/16/2023 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. 

Although this is the sixth week of Epiphany, we’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings this week. Instead, we’re thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts (sometimes lightly edited) from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  

They come from a season in my life when I was on a journey from more generic free-form worship to worship shaped by the classic liturgy. I hope these observations help you in your own quest to love God and your neighbor. We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office next week. 

Rediscovering the Trinity and Spirit-led Worship,” Part Two of Three 

The Spirit in John’s Gospel 

If we reflect on some of Jesus’s sayings and conversations in John’s gospel we get a glimpse into the vision that animated Jesus that day he cleansed the Temple.  

The Spirit must remake the innermost parts of us, he tells Israel’s preeminent (but clueless) teacher, Nicodemus (John 3). The Spirit will bring together in worship of the Father both a respectable, over-educated Jew like Nicodemus and a promiscuous, disreputable non-Jew like the woman at the well in Samaritan Sychar (John 3 and 4). The Spirit will create such worship through the One who is the Truth (4:24), but who also is the Way and the Life (14:6).  

Image: Guercino (1591-1666), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

Besides the Passover, the one named festival in John’s gospel is the harvest-time Feast of Tabernacles, a celebration of God’s provision in the wilderness during the exodus. On the last day of the Feast, celebrants pour out water to remember the way God had taken care of his people’s thirst in the wilderness. While that is taking place on one such occasion, Jesus steps forward and declares that anybody who is really thirsty needs to come to him. Conjuring Ezekiel 47’s image of rivers flowing out from the threshold of the Temple, Jesus says that he himself will provide the Spirit for everyone who comes to drink from him (John 7:37-39).  

In his Final Discourse, Jesus outlines the transfer of life from himself, to the Spirit, to his followers, and then to the world (John 13-17).  

Jesus explains that his disciples will experience an absence that, incongruously, makes his presence nearer. They will do greater works (14:12). All the time that Jesus has been “alongside them” (14:25) the Holy Spirit has also been “alongside them” (14:17). The Spirit who came upon the Son “and remained on him” (1:32) at his baptism has been accomplishing the Father’s works through Jesus. Because Jesus goes away, that divine presence — the divine breath — will not be just alongside, but “inside them” (14:17). After Jesus’s bodily departure, the Holy Spirit coming inside them will be the means by which Jesus himself comes back “to them” (14:18) — with a presence that is better than his pre-death and pre-resurrection presence. A closeness emerges that some have called “coinherence,” a mutual indwelling: “I in my Father and you in me and I in you” (14:20).  

Spirit Representing Trinity 

What is so utterly characteristic of the Holy Spirit, “the Spirit of Truth,” is that he does not come to represent himself, but the Son and the Father who have sent him (15:26; 16:12-15). In this, the Spirit reflects the Son, who has come not to serve his own ends, but his Father’s (see John 5:19,30; 14:28). As the Son has glorified the Father, the Spirit will glorify the Son (17:4; 16:14a). He will do so by explaining the things of the Son to us and by convicting the world of sin and righteousness and judgment (16:14b, 8).  

What the Spirit does is create among us a communion of love that externalizes in time and space the eternal communion of love that has existed from before time and space. What the Spirit creates among us is a life of mutual deference — a life Jesus models at the beginning of the Final Discourse in the foot washing (John 13) and prays for at the Discourse’s close: “… that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (17:21).  

With literary artistry, John describes Jesus’ arrest, suffering, death, and resurrection, but then announces Jesus’ ascension without ever describing it (20:17). Instead, John provides a number of vignettes illustrating the way Jesus prepared his followers for life without his physical presence. The vignettes are lessons in how to worship now under this new regime of “in Spirit and Truth” (4:24).  

The promise of a new order of worship that Jesus had announced at the Temple cleansing receives fulfillment when Jesus first appears in his risen body — the very body that he said would be the beginning of the building of a new house for worship. Pointedly, Jesus tells his gathered disciples: “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you” (20:21). Dramatically, he breathes on them, and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” By his breath, mere disciples become apostles, equipped to build God’s house and to lead worship “in Spirit and Truth.” 

The Book of Acts has its own way of telling the same story, first, with the transfer of Jesus’ ministry here on earth (the Gospel According to Luke) to his ministry at the right hand of God by means of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:29-36), and second, with Pentecost’s amazing manifestations of the new life rippling from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.  

The apostle Paul, too, tells the same story through his developed theology of how the “Last Adam” became “Life-Giving Spirit” (1 Cor 15:45) in order to make dead people come to life (Eph 2:1-10) and to unite once estranged people into a dwelling for God (Eph 2:11-22).  

But John’s gospel has taken us to the heart of what the Spirit of God effects in our worship.  

Tomorrow, the third installment of thoughts on the ministry of the Holy Spirit in worship… 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Spirit-Led Worship - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 2/15/2023 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. 

Although this is the sixth week of Epiphany, we’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings this week. Instead, we’re thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts (sometimes lightly edited) from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  

They come from a season in my life when I was on a journey from more generic free-form worship to worship shaped by the classic liturgy. I hope these observations help you in your own quest to love God and your neighbor. We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office next week. 

Rediscovering the Trinity and Spirit-led Worship, Part One of Three 

One minute the puppy was playing on the side of the street. The next, he darted into traffic. That was it. I saw him spin off a passing car’s wheel and collapse in a lump at the side of the road. A police officer happened by and stopped to see if he could help. I expected him to feel for a heartbeat. Instead, he took off his sunglasses and held them to the puppy’s nose.  

Image: Millenium Singh, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons 

“No breath,” he said to me, “he’s gone. Poor guy.”  

Worship Leaders and the Spirit 

Worship leaders are always on the lookout for condensation on the sunglasses. We develop an acute sense for when we think the Lord is in the house and when he’s not. When he’s there, there’s life — maybe loud life, maybe quiet life, maybe joyful life, maybe sorrowful life. When it feels dead, it seems like he’s not there.  

The thing worship leaders fear the most? The absence of God’s breath. It’s the thing we work hardest not to allow: if we’re liturgical, by making sure we’ve got every prescribed element in the right place; if we’re Reformed, by making sure we’re not doing anything Scripture doesn’t require; if we’re “praise and worship,” by following the worship funnel’s progression from loud to soft; if we’re “emergent,” by giving everybody unlimited, unprogrammed, authentic options. All along, though, if we have any sense at all, we’re aware that Jesus says, “The wind (the Spirit) blows where it will” (John 3:8).  

Worship Leaders and the Trinity 

Because the theology of the trinity seems to be more implicit than explicit, we Christians have struggled mightily to explain the triune God we know. Writer G. K. Chesterton observes that at the bottom of everything is a “holy family.” Instead of Judaism’s or Islam’s single god-entity, we find an eternal communion of love. Instead of polytheism’s riot of competitive god-egos, we find a harmony of mutual deference. 

Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann describes the godhead this way: there is an “eternal Lover” (the Father), an “eternally Beloved” (the Son), and “eternal Love itself” (the Holy Spirit). As Love itself, the Holy Spirit’s role is to make that eternal communion between Lover and Beloved present to us. It’s no accident that the biggest clue Scripture provides for the identity of the Holy Spirit is the metaphor of “breath.” Hebrew uses the same word for “breath” and for “spirit.” Greek does the same. The Holy Spirit’s job is to breathe into us that great Loving that exists between Lover and Beloved, drawing us into something early church fathers described as a dance.  

Leading worship is the privilege it is because it amounts to cooperating with the Holy Spirit in inviting people back into the dance.  

The One Worship Leader and the Spirit 

One of the most gripping moments in all of Scripture takes place when Jesus declares a new pattern of worship from the Temple in Jerusalem in the second chapter of John’s gospel. This is the day the one genuine Worship Leader comes to church and applies the sunglasses test. Here stands the One who bears the title “Liturgist of the Holy Things and of the True Tent (Gk, skēnē)” (Heb 8:1). Here is God’s presence “tenting” among us — that’s literally what John 1:14 says: “the Word became flesh and dwelt (Gk., skēnoun) among us.” The eternally Beloved has come to the eternal Lover’s house to see if there’s a hint of Love’s breath in the place, and he does not find what he’s looking for.  

Jesus stands there in the Jerusalem Temple. It is, significantly, the Passover (John 2:13). Where now is the Presence that had rescued the children of Israel from Egypt and then walked beside them in the figure of cloud and fire, escorting them to the land of promise (Exodus 13:12)? Where is the Presence that had taken up residence in the original Tabernacle-tent, the “mobile field unit” God had commissioned for himself while his people were on the move (Exodus 40:34-38)? Where is the Shekinah Glory that at its dedication so filled this building’s predecessor — the Temple Solomon had built to give God a more permanent residence — that the priests had had to run for cover?  

“… then the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God” (2 Chron 5:13b-14).  

For the Temple leadership of Jesus’ day, it’s time to run for cover again. And, ironically, for the same reason. The Presence is back. The house that was still standing — the jewel of Herod the Great’s extensive building program throughout Israel — is about to lose its franchise. It is time for a new house for a new form of the presence of God.  

Holy Emotion 

It’s hard to know what synapses were firing for Jesus the day he cleansed the temple — you feel almost blasphemous trying to imagine it. But the Gospel According to John does unfold a certain logic for us.  

Out of a bubbling, broiling passion for his Father’s house — an emotion the Psalmist originally and now John chastely calls “zeal” — Jesus weaves himself a whip (John 2:15-17). Shocking, given the traditional portrait of the cow-eyed, “gentle Galilean.” With the whip he brings a temporary halt to the financial exchanges that enable the daily sacrifices — and in this season, the Passover sacrifices — to proceed. Implicitly, he declares that, beginning with the whips that would be wielded against his own back, a singular Passover Sacrifice is in the making that will end all other sacrifices.  

But more, he announces it is time for a new building project: “Tear down this building (not the physical Temple, but Jesus’ own body) and I will raise it up again” (John 2:19). Different materials would comprise this building: “He spoke of the temple of his body” (John 2:21). Peter, who was no doubt there that day, would later explain the architecture in terms of the risen Jesus becoming “the head of the corner” (or “keystone,” as the Jerusalem Bible so nicely puts it) and of regenerate believers becoming “living stones” in a Spiritual house (1 Pet 2:4-7). Condensation will return to the sunglasses — the new, living house will be filled with the very breath of God, his Holy Spirit.  

More about the Holy Spirit, and about Jesus’s house-building project tomorrow…  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

One Offering - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 2/14/2023 • epiphany 6 year 1 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. 

Although this is the sixth week of Epiphany, we’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings this week. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts (sometimes lightly edited) from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  

They come from a season in my life when I was on a journey from more generic free-form worship to worship shaped by the classic liturgy. I hope these observations help you in your own quest to love God and your neighbor. We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office next week. 

“One Offering” 

The offertory has always seemed an odd thing to me. When I was a kid, the offering followed the sermon, and for all intents and purposes concluded the service. I thought this was where you paid the pastor for the sermon. I remember thinking, “That’s a lot of pressure for a preacher.” 

In recent months, the pressure preachers seem to feel is to how to convince people to give generously during hard times.    

The question of generosity became an especially pressing one for me in 2008, when the world’s economy tanked. Like other families, mine, too, was affected.   

Nevertheless, it proved to be a ruinous blessing. It was a time to rediscover the generosity of God, and to give thanks. Our refrigerator was, after all, still full. And it was  a time to remember that ours is the God of the “refrigerator-less.”  

The liturgical church I’ve become a part of takes up an offering as part of its weekly communion, following the Book of Common Prayer: 

Representatives of the congregation bring the people’s offerings of bread and wine, and money or other gifts, to the deacon or celebrant. 

The pattern is ancient, and embodies profound truth. The offering begins the ministry of the Table, which follows the Ministry of the Word. Ushers pass plates, and then, on behalf of the whole congregation, bring forward a dual offering: the elements for the Table and the monetary donations for the church. (In other times and places, the donations might include livestock or produce or handiwork.)  

A prayer of “Great Thanksgiving” follows, celebrating God’s attributes along with his creative and redemptive acts. Then the prayer asks the Lord to bless the gifts — explicitly the bread and wine, implicitly the monetary donations.    

For whatever reasons, in many churches (like the church of my upbringing) the offertory is no longer linked to communion, and I wonder if that’s created a disconnect between our offerings and the whole story of redemption.  

The Table reminds me of God’s extravagant generosity. He was generous not just in word, but in deed. Jesus came, and he made the one Offering that counts. “Christ loved us and gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:2). The only true worship is Jesus, Offering and Offerer. Staggering gift and overwhelming love, on lavish display especially at the Table.   

When the “stuff” of his redemption (the communion elements) is wedded to the “stuff” of my life (my gifts), my story gets folded into the Bible’s story line. As the bread and wine embody Jesus’s totally giving himself for me, so my gifts bespeak my surrender to his total claim on me. “You are not your own,” Paul reminds me, “you were bought with a price” (1 Cor. 9:19b-20a). Not only me, but all my stuff, everything that’s in my wallet — it’s all his.   

More, our offerings imitate Jesus’s Offering, and are made holy by that One Offering. The bread and wine establish no merit — the merit is all of his death and life. The money is not a payment for the sermon. It’s a means of saying, “Thank you for rescue. Thank you for freedom from the Egypt of sin. Now, who around me lives in a kind of Egypt, and how may I — on your behalf — participate in their rescue?”  

Moses had required: “… you shall love the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:19) — in effect, have an eye to the “refrigerator-less” among you. Now Jesus commands: “A new commandment I give you: that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). The generosity of the Exodus with its “mighty hand and an outstretched arm” yields to the generosity of the Incarnation with its arms stretched out on a cruel cross. I give, in part, to participate in God’s care for those still in need of redemption.  

Some truths are better perceived than conceived, to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan. One such truth is the dynamic of divine generosity, displayed most extravagantly at his Table. God’s generosity comes to us in his Son, then calls forth from us an answering generosity, expressed first in the offering of ourselves back to him in thanks, and second in the offering of ourselves and our gifts to one another and to a needy world. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

One Voice - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 2/13/2023 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. 

Although this is the sixth week of Epiphany, we’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings this week. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts (sometimes lightly edited) from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  

They come from a season in my life when I was on a journey from more generic free-form worship to worship shaped by the classic liturgy. I hope these observations help you in your own quest to love God and your neighbor. We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office next week. 

“One Voice” 

Sometimes it takes just one voice. 

Image: "Shandi-lee {pieces II}" by Shandi-lee is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

“You know, some of us in the congregation are visual learners. We’d be helped if you put some art behind the lyrics you project.”  

That one voice put me on a quest to craft worship that “shows and tells.” 

“I love the contemporary songs we do in worship. But when you include the hymns I grew up with, something special happens for me. The faith I’m figuring out for myself and the faith my folks tried to instill in me stop competing with each other.”  

That one voice made me more conscious about trans-generational worship. 

There’s another kind of voice, too. I teach. At the end of every course, students have a chance to tell me (and my administration) what they think about my teaching. Nearly every semester, one student hates a course I’ve taught. That one voice makes me reflect on how to do better.  

My friend Joel Hunter is one of the most perceptive people I know. One of the wisest things he ever said was, “The way to handle criticism is to listen hard for the One Voice that’s always embedded there. Sometimes you have to completely ignore specific criticisms. Sometimes they are right on target. Always, though, Jesus has something for you.”  

Always there is One Voice.   

While introducing the concept of “mere Christianity” to his readers, C. S. Lewis acknowledged that the specific forms Christianity takes are myriad, confusing, and seemingly contradictory. Nonetheless, he maintained, at the center of the church’s life “each communion is really closest to every other in spirit, if not in doctrine.”  

And this suggests that at the centre of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice. 

I think I know what he means. I’ve been hearing that “same voice” recently.  

On Sunday mornings I worship at an Episcopal/Anglican cathedral, with full formal liturgy (largely chanted), incense, lectionary readings, a less-than-20-minute homily, weekly Eucharist, gorgeous old school architecture, stained glass windows and classical music.   

On Sunday evenings I worship at a trans-denominational mega-church, with infinitely variable “content-driven” worship, a 30-minute story-laced sermon, a state of the art worship center with stunning electronic visuals and polished rock-n-roll music.  

One Sunday, both services happened to pivot around the same gospel reading. In the cathedral, the passage simply came up in the normal sequence of the Christian liturgical calendar and its telling of the story of Jesus. Readings in the weeks before led up to this passage, and the OT and the epistle readings of the day illuminated it. The service created the quietly satisfying sense that we were on a journey together, and this week was an expected and encouraging stop along the way. 

Later that day in the mega-church, the identical passage seemed at first to come out of nowhere. But it was powerfully accentuated by lights and music, and in the end vividly underscored a point from the sermon. Few eyes were dry, and few people could have missed how Jesus had come to meet them.  

On reflection, I concluded that Jesus had made a point about who he is in both services. Through one church Jesus voiced the settled resolve with which he came among us. Through the other he voiced the immediacy of his presence with us. In both, as Lewis might have put it, he spoke with the same voice.  

In Christ, every voice matters. Yours. Mine. Those who have been. Those who will be. Big steeples. Little steeples. No steeples. Visual learners. Auditory learners. Kinesthetic learners. Psalm singers. Praise song singers. Hymn singers. Above them all there is One Voice who has spoken in Scripture, who has blessed many distinct voices in the history of his church, and who is now raising up new voices for ministry in a future we know to be his.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Scriptures Are the Breath of God - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 2/10/2023 •
Week of 5 Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; Isaiah 61:1–9; 2 Timothy 3:1–17; Mark 10:32–45 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday of the fifth week of the Epiphany of Christ.   

“You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come” (2 Timothy 3:1). Maybe it’s a bit counter-intuitive, but one of the things that can give Timothy courage to stand up against foolishness in the church is the realization that the persistence of evil is to be expected, even in his age. And it’s clear that for Paul, those days are upon us. They are an odd accompaniment of the victorious work of Christ.  

Isaiah had predicted “the year of the Lord’s favor” (Isaiah 61:2), and Jesus had declared he was inaugurating that new age (Luke 4:19,21). You’d think Jesus’s faithful followers would know nothing but good times. Life would be all “oil of gladness” and “mantle of praise,” all “enjoying the wealth of the nations” and “everlasting joy” (Isaiah 61:3,6,7). Paul himself says earlier in this letter that Christ has “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10).  

And yet, Jesus warned his followers they would carry their own crosses, even in the wake of his victory. Throughout Paul’s campaign of proclaiming the good news of Christ’s saving work, he endured sufferings. When Timothy first became acquainted with Paul, Timothy saw some of those sufferings in his own hometown of Lystra (2 Timothy 3:11). And now, as he writes this letter, Paul sits in a Roman prison awaiting his probable martyrdom at the hands of Nero.  

Part of the sufferings that “the last days” would bring upon Christ’s church, Paul says, will be the assault of foolishness from within the church itself. God is surprised by none of this, by the way. And we shouldn’t be, either.  

Image: Eagle Lectern, Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, FL 

Thus, the need for faithful—and courageous—teachers and shepherds.  

Here’s the situation Paul is addressing, and why it’s important for us. False teachers in Ephesus (Paul calls them goētes, “magicians,” by which he means charlatans or imposters—2 Timothy 3:13) have woven a spell of an “over-realized eschatology” (the mistaken notion that the resurrection is “already,” and there is no “not yet”). They agree that the new life is our born-again life. But they depart into a non-Christian direction by teaching that “now” is all there is. In other words, it’s in this life that you need to maximize your possibilities, your potential, your prestige, and your pleasure. What it led to in Timothy’s church is what it has led to throughout the history of the church: rank narcissism. To deny the need for resurrection is to deny that sin still besets us and that it must die one last death at Jesus’ return. Ironically, this false teaching opens the floodgates to an unbridled religion of self.  

It is not accidental that Paul’s list of vices opens with lovers of themselves and closes with lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Everything in between is about building up oneself and destroying others. Religion stressing only the “already” with no room for the “not yet” cannot help but produce a self-serving and abusive lifestyle. Whatever appearance of godliness such teaching maintains, it has nothing of the Spirit of God about it. The only power it knows is Satan’s, not God’s.  

Chief among Paul’s antidotes for Timothy (and for us) is the Scriptures (by which Paul means our Old Testament, but for us includes the New Testament). The Scriptures are entirely trustworthy. They are the very breath of God, and they find their coherence (make you wise for salvation through faith) in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 3:15,16).  

When he writes, “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work,” Paul characterizes the Old Testament’s benefit using four terms that have been much discussed. It is probably best to understand them as a Jewish Christian’s use of the traditional categories of Scripture.  

First, teaching: the Law told the story of God’s redemption of his people and spelled out implications for life in covenant with him.  

Second, reproof: the Prophets had brought God’s covenantal lawsuit against his rebellious people; the Prophets wrote in such a way as to convict an erring people of their waywardness, pointing them to One in whose sufferings and glory their hope lay.  

Third, correction: in the so-called Writings (the Psalms and the wisdom literature), God had provided songs and sayings designed to realign his people’s hearts with his own heart, teaching them to lament and rejoice and live in accordance with his wisdom.  

Finally, there is training in righteousness: an all-encompassing term for education and spiritual formation in Paul’s world. With this last phrase, Paul indicates that the world’s highest aspirations for wisdom are more than met in the account of redemption in Christ, long anticipated and embedded in Israel’s Scriptures.  

Collect for Proper 28. Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Our Blessings Come From the Gracious Giver - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 2/9/2023 •
Week of 5 Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 83; Psalm 146; Psalm 147; Isaiah 60:1–17; 2 Timothy 2:14–26; Mark 10:17–31 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This is Thursday of the fifth week of Epiphany, the “manifestation” of God’s glory in Jesus Christ.   

One of the most important lessons a course in Driver’s Education teaches is not to over-compensate if the car starts to swerve out of control. Over-compensating is the fastest way to spin completely out of control.  

A master-teacher of pastoral theology, Paul teaches Timothy a similar lesson. Paul has told his young protégé that he needs to see himself as a soldier in Christ’s army (2 Timothy 2:2–3). But when his authority is challenged and he needs to “fight,” Timothy needs to do so without falling into the youthful trap of overcompensating and becoming quarrelsome and pugnacious. “Shun youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness” (2 Timothy 2:22–25).  

The situation is this: Timothy’s opponents have wrongly concluded that Christ’s resurrection in the past is the only resurrection that’s going to happen. False teachers, Paul says, “have swerved from the truth by claiming that the resurrection has already taken place. They are upsetting the faith of some” (2 Timothy 2:18). They have probably inferred that our new birth or regeneration in this life (see John 5:24; Ephesians 2:4–7) is all the resurrection we are going to receive. The consequence is a theology that says: “This life is all you have, so go for the gold now. Demand your best life right now!” That approach had had devastating consequences in Corinth, where believers were suing each other and allowing the Lord’s Supper to become a showcase for the display between the “haves” (God’s “somebodies”) and the “have nots” (God’s “nobodies”— see 1 Corinthians 1:26–29; 6:1–8; 11:27–34).  

Image: The Rich Young Ruler, stained glass, Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, FL 

To mount a measured resistance against foolish teaching like this, Paul reminds Timothy of several things. 

First, it’s important not to get mired down in trivial arguments about meaningless words. Paul wants Timothy (and us too!) to prioritize, and to pick his (and our!) battles. Not everything is worth fighting over. The resurrection is, but many other things are not.  

Second, all ideas that seem to be progressive aren’t necessarily so. The opponents are claiming a kind of advancement over a seemingly boring and staid orthodoxy that calls for waiting for a future resurrection. Their heresy will cause something to grow, and it will be an advancement of something; but it is the growth of disease, not health, the advancement of decay, not well-being. Paul likens the effect of their teaching to gangrene, which is the progressive dying of body tissue due to lack of blood. The false teachers’ your-best-life-now mindset will promote greed, not generosity; selfishness, not servanthood; viciousness, not love. And so, Timothy must stay at his post, and be “an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness” (2 Timothy 2:24–25).   

Third, the reason that Timothy can be both resolute and gentle is that he can rest in the confidence that the Lord is sovereign and in control. “But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this inscription: ‘The Lord knows those who are his’” (2 Timothy 2:19). Timothy stands in the line of Isaiah who had cried out to a people suffering in exile: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you” (Isaiah 60:1). In that day, God was going to bring about a new exodus, a return from exile, that his people could never have engineered for themselves. Timothy’s God is that very same God, the One who builds “the City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 60:14).  

Timothy’s God is also the God in whom Jesus had invited the rich man in Mark to trust, the God of generous provision. Jesus invites the man to step into a whole new level of trust in God: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’” Jesus’s loving desire was that the man realize the blessings in his life did not come from his riches, but from the gracious giver of all good gifts. In addition to his love for the man, Jesus has confidence in the sovereign goodness of his God and Father. Even though he does so sadly, Jesus can step back and allow the man to walk away, because (I think) he knows the man’s story is not over, and is in the best hands it could possibly be in.  

Finally, the reason that Timothy can be straightforward in defending the truth but not be defensive in doing so, is that he will be giving God room to grant repentance. Here, I think, is the sense of the last portion of today’s epistle: “Correct opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and that they may escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him [the devil] to do His will [i.e., ironically, God’s will]” (2 Timothy 2:25b–26). Timothy can lead with what Paul calls elsewhere “the meekness and gentleness of Christ” (2 Cor 10:1), and leave the convicting to God himself.  

A good lesson in “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) for all of us! 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Jesus Encourages Us to Come to Him - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 2/8/2023 •
Week of 5 Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:97–120; Isaiah 59:15b–21; 2 Timothy 1:15–2:13; Mark 10:1–16 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we ask how God might direct our lives from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Wednesday of the fifth week of Epiphany. We are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. 

When it’s all become just too much… When you’re ready to walk away from everything, and say, “I’ve had enough: enough responsibility, enough feeling of failure, enough worry and anxiety,” — what keeps you going?  

What keeps me going is Paul reminding Timothy (and through Timothy, me): “…he [Christ] remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).  

Time and again in 2 Timothy, Paul prompts Timothy to remember examples, and counterexamples, of faithfulness. Clearly, Paul wants Timothy to emulate the faithful, like his mother and grandmother, Onesiphorus, Paul himself, and Christ. Moreover, Paul wants Timothy to identify “faithful people” and to train them so they can pass on the faith (2 Timothy 2:2). And Paul wants Timothy to avoid the counterexamples: Phygelus and Hermogenes who abandoned Paul, and Hymenaeus and Philetus who are intentionally teaching falsehoods to oppose Paul (1:15; 2:17).  

Image: Christ Blessing the Children, stained glass, Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, FL 

In the context of putting before Timothy examples and counterexamples of faithfulness to the gospel and courage in ministry, Paul creates (or quotes) some poetic lines (some scholars think Paul draws upon an early Christian hymn): 

11 If we have died with him (that is, Jesus), we will also live with him; 
12  if we endure, we will also reign with him; 
      if we deny him, he will also deny us; 
13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful— 
    for he cannot deny himself. (2 Timothy 2:11–13) 

Notice that there are four “if” clauses. Each of the first three “ifs” is followed by an “also.” The logic for these three clauses is a natural “if ‘x’ …, then also ‘y’ ….” One thing follows another. A person receives the expected result of their action. If we have shared in Christ’s death, then it follows that we will also live with him (Romans 6:8). If we endure, it follows that we will also reign with him (Romans 5:17; 8:17).  

The third “if” clause still has an “also,” but it is otherwise unusual in its construction. It has a future tense in the Greek, which is difficult to bring out in English: “if we will deny him.” It’s a form of expression that Greek writers use to express something they don’t want, or that they fear and are trying to avoid. The gist is this: If, lamentably, on the last day, we should deny Jesus, he will have to deny us. That is what Jesus, in fact, said during his earthly ministry: “…but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven” (Matthew 10:33). This is the trajectory of life, Paul fears, that those he denounces are on. 

But it’s the fourth “if” clause that gives interpreters pause: “if we are faithless.” What stands out is that there’s no “also” following it. In this case, the faithless person does not get the expected result. What Paul has learned in his own life is that despite his faithlessness, he has received mercy. “Christ Jesus our Lord … judged me faithful (understood, even though I wasn’t!) … I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief (or faithlessness), and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:12–14). The faith (or faithfulness) that was not in him, Paul says, came to him as a gift because they were “in Jesus.” Where Paul was faithless, he confesses, Jesus was faithful on his behalf. Where he was loveless and deserving of no mercy, Jesus was love and mercy on his behalf. That’s who Jesus is, “for he cannot deny himself.”   

Paul wants to fortify Timothy (and us) by reminding him (and us) of the utter grace of God in the face of apprehension, indecisiveness, or timidity. Despite the constant temptation to run and hide, Timothy can trust Christ to provide the courage he cannot find in himself. Even in our faithlessness, our final hope is the faithfulness of Christ, “for he cannot deny himself.” As Jesus bid the children come to him (Mark 10:14-16), he likewise encourages us to come, too. If we put our hand out to him, he will securely clasp it with his own.  Once he has taken hold of us, he cannot let go. That’s who he is.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

We Are Called - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 2/7/2023 •
Week of 5 Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 78:1–39; Isaiah 59:1–15a; 2 Timothy 1:1–14; Mark 9:42–50  

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we draw insights from that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. This is Tuesday of the fifth week of Epiphany, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.   

Isaiah: a call to justice and truth. Justice is dead among God’s people because they don’t care about what is true. “Justice is far from us,” because, Isaiah says, “truth is lacking” (Isaiah 59:9,15). “No one goes to court honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, conceiving mischief and begetting iniquity” (Isaiah 59:4).  

Throughout chapters forty through sixty-six of the Book of Isaiah, the prophet is preparing the children of Israel to return to their homeland. He means more than just a physical re-acquisition of their birthright. He means a complete reinhabiting of their identity as God’s “peculiar people,” a “holy priesthood,” a “kingdom of priests.” Isaiah calls God’s people to covenant renewal—to being the point of the spear in God’s campaign to reclaim this planet that has fallen temporarily to the power of darkness, death, decay, evil, injustice, and lovelessness. God is calling them once again to be the one people among the entire human race where the halls ring with truth, and where courts reward good and hold evil and folly to account.  

In later books, notably Ezra and Nehemiah, we will see efforts toward this end: a recapturing of a reverent reading of Scripture, and the realigning of lives in accordance with the description of the flourishing and faithful life given in the Law of Moses.  

I submit that if there is hope for a church that ministers in a world like ours, where, as in Isaiah’s day, “truth is lacking,” this hope lies down the same path: forsaking the downgrading of Scripture as a merely human witness and a merely negotiable life-option. It means learning to re-read it as God’s story and as divine prescription for human flourishing. Even where (especially where) it steps on our toes!  

2 Timothy: a call to courage and suffering. Who hasn’t felt like they are in over their heads? Timothy sure did, when, despite his youth, his mentor called him to lead the church in Ephesus, one of the largest churches of the new Christian movement! In an earlier letter, Paul urges Timothy: “Don’t let them despise your youth” (1 Timothy 4:12).  

In this letter, Paul calls upon his young protégé to do his forebears proud, and to fight like a good soldier, even to the point of suffering in the same way his Savior had done and as Paul, his martyr-in-preparation mentor, was currently doing. In a word, Paul urges upon Timothy the virtue of courage: “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7). Bracing words. Sobering words. But words filled with the promise of God’s renewing work by the Spirit.  

God has unleashed the “power of God for salvation” upon the earth. Timothy’s job is to proclaim that truth. In the face of those who claim that death is the end (more about that on Thursday), Timothy must bravely proclaim the truth that “the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus [has] abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10).  

Paul advises that Timothy’s love for his mother, his grandmother, his “father” in the faith (Paul), and most of all, for the Savior who suffered on his behalf, must ready him for his own share in those sufferings.  

And when everything in Timothy screams that he should turn and run, the Spirit who gives self-control gives him the principal thing that marks every good soldier: the sheer unwillingness to do anything to betray those who are counting on him. “Hold to the standard of sound words you heard from me and do so with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 1:13 NET). In other words, hold to the same faith the Lord Jesus showed in his Father to vindicate him on the far side of death, and the same love for lost sinners that led Jesus to spread his arms on the hard wood of the cross. Or, as Paul will tell Timothy in the next chapter: “Take your share of sufferings like a good soldier” (2 Timothy 2:3).  

Mark: a call to self-control and love. The strongest, most graphic exhortations Jesus ever gives are these about cutting off a hand or a foot, or cutting out an eye, if that’s what it takes to control our impulses. The recommendations to do so are hyperbolic, but they make their point powerfully. Every one of us would do well to give them serious thought, because we all have trouble saying “No!” to something.  

What may be easy to overlook here is the way Jesus brackets this portion of his teaching with considerations of love: caring about the “little ones” who believe in him, and being “at peace with one another” (Mark 9:42,50). The sad fact is that the indulgence of “secret sins” or of seemingly private acts of pleasure-seeking is not at all victimless. Alcoholics tend to abuse. Cultivators of an alternative reality of their own fantasy treat real people callously, even sometimes brutally.  

It’s just possible that that pausing to count what my self-indulgence could cost somebody else, and asking instead, “What would love do here?” and, “What would make for peace?”— doing so will lead to a far better result both for myself and for people around me.  

Collect for the 5th Sunday after the Epiphany. Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Rule of the Israel of God - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 2/6/2023 •
Week of 5 Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 80; Isaiah 58:1–12; Galatians 6:11–18; Mark 9:30–41 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. This is Monday of the fifth week of Epiphany, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. 

New creation in Galatians. Paul closes his letter to the Galatians with a flourish. It was customary for a person who had dictated the body of a letter to take the pen and write the conclusion in their own hand. Thereby, they could certify the authenticity of the letter and crisply summarize its contents. With his “large letters,” Paul emphatically confirms that this letter—this great charter of Christian freedom—is his. And in his own hand, he encapsulates his main point: “[A] new creation is everything!” Putting on a show of ultra-piety doesn’t matter. What matters is taking one’s place in the death of Christ in such a way that “the world is crucified to me and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14). What matters is belonging to “the Israel of God” that is being refashioned to include all who, by faith, are sons of Abraham and daughters of Sarah, and experiencing the peace and mercy that belong to those who “follow this rule” (Galatians 6:16).  

What marks “the Israel of God” in Isaiah. For his part, Isaiah reasserts what has always been the rule for people who experience Yahweh’s redeeming and rescuing love. It is not their hyper-spirituality that aligns their hearts with Yahweh’s and draws them near to him—their fasting and self-humiliation in sackcloth and ashes (Isaiah 58:2,3). When it masks injustice, oppression of workers, quarreling, fighting, “striking with a wicked fist,” tolerating hunger, homelessness, and nakedness among their own kin (Isaiah 58:4,5,7), all the fancy “religious” activity in the world amounts to nothing.  

In fact, it’s worse than nothing—it’s active rebellion! Even as Isaiah promises a new exodus, he calls for a return to the ethical logic of the exodus. Those who have had their own bonds of oppression loosed do the same for others. Those who have been brought home do all they can for the homeless among them. Those who have enjoyed the bountiful table of the Lord share their table with the hungry. To do so, as Paul puts it above, is to follow the rule of the Israel of God.  

Image: Adaptation, stained glass, Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, FL 

“Following the rule” in Mark. “Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest” — Mark 9:33–34. Jesus extends following the rule of the Israel of God to guarding our hearts from seeking privilege and status in our service to him. Setting a little child before his disciples, Jesus points to the least and the littlest among us, and says basically, “Serve me in them” (Mark 9:36–37). He extends the rule to treating charitably others who follow him, but who do it differently than we do—whether it’s different manifestations of the Spirit, whether it’s a different style of worship, whether it’s different priorities in ministry. The “rule” of “the Israel of God” is: “Whoever is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:40).  

Oh, for the rule of the Israel of God to prevail among us, for the reality of “a new creation” to pervade followers of Jesus Christ, for us to be crucified to the world (and its way of measuring worth and getting things done) and the world to be crucified to us! 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+  

The Spirit Empowers - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 2/3/2023 •
Week of 4 Epiphany 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; Isaiah 61:1–9; 2 Timothy 3:1–17; Mark 10:32–45 

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) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday of the fourth week of the Epiphany of Christ.   

Transfiguration in Mark. The prelude to today’s reading about Jesus’s Transfiguration is yesterday’s reading about Peter’s confession of Jesus’s Messiahship, and Jesus’s setting Peter straight about Messiah’s mission. It’s a cautionary tale against recreating Christ in our own image, demanding salvation on our own terms, and projecting our expectations onto a Messiah of our own manufacture. Bad idea! The only way to say “Yes!” to Jesus’s Messiahship, is to accept his sufferings, his cross, his resurrection, and our place in his story  

With today’s account of Jesus’s Transfiguration, we get a brief glimpse into the glory of his resurrection. Moses’s and Elijah’s appearance with him bears promise that we will share in the likeness of that glory. Jesus did not come to let himself be made over into our image—despite countless attempts throughout history to do precisely that. He came to make us over into his. As early theologians put it, “He became what we are that we might become what he is.”  

Whether it’s revolutionaries, reactionaries, therapists, marketers, or self-help gurus, those who assume they know the messianic plan ahead of time get the same rebuke Peter did: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (Mark 8:33). But for those who are willing to let Jesus be Jesus, and who are ready to find in his cross the way of life and peace, all the promise of a new heaven and a new earth, and of our own transfigured life there, lies ahead. Amen!  

Image: Detail from stained glass, Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, FL 

Transformation in Galatians. But God doesn’t just promise transfiguration at the end of time. He is interested in transformation right now. Galatian believers had sought transformation through law-obedience. The law will only prompt what Paul calls the “works of the flesh,” of which he provides a compendious list of examples, ranging from sins of the spirit to sins of the body (Galatians 5:19–21). Instead, according to Paul, the Spirit of the age to come has invaded this life, in order to begin the transformation of our lives.  A more accurate translation of Galatians 5:16 is this one: “But I say, live by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh (NET).” In the Greek, the second half of that sentence is a very strong promise. The Spirit will empower a life that the law can’t.  

God sends the Spirit of his Son into our lives to make us over us in the direction of that transfiguration. That transformation will one day be complete when our glorified Lord returns in victory to glorify us. Jesus’s work in us, by the Spirit, is to change us over into the very image of Jesus himself. Doing so, the Spirit produces all the things the law had pointed to but could never actually put into us: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22). And this list climaxes in the splendid litotes (an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite): “Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:32 NET), meaning that this list comprises the very life—the Jesus life—that the deeper reading of the law was supposed to incline us toward in the first place.  

Togetherness in Isaiah. For a brief moment, Isaiah looks with a wide-angle lens at Yahweh’s plan for human transformation. Anyone who keeps covenant is welcome into God’s holy temple, including “foreigners” and “eunuchs” whom the law of Moses had explicitly excluded from intimate fellowship with Yahweh and his people (Exodus 12:43; Deuteronomy 23:1). God’s ultimate design is that his place of worship serve as “a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7). And so all those who “join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants” are welcome in that house.  

In Isaiah’s day, joining oneself to Yahweh and loving Yahweh’s name meant keeping sabbath and practicing circumcision. In Paul’s day and ours, keeping covenant means finding sabbath-rest in Christ (Colossians 2:17; Matthew 11:28–30) and in undergoing, not circumcision, but baptism, the new sign of membership in God’s covenant family. “[F]or in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:26–29).  

I pray the vision of Christ’s transfiguration makes us long for the day when he returns, and we receive our share in the glory of his resurrection. I pray the Spirit of God fills our lives right now with power to transform us into the likeness of Jesus. I pray that we never outlive our love for Jesus, who puts all who trust him together in the same family, side by side in the waters of baptism and elbow to elbow at the same Table.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+