We Do the Very Thing We Hate - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 3/21/2023 •
Week of 4 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; Jeremiah 17:19–27; Romans 7:13–25; John 6:15–27 

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 fourth week of Lent, as we prepare for Holy Week, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.   

The Law puts the spotlight on sin—Romans. 

Every single one of us knows that it is one thing to want to do good, and another actually to do good (Romans 7:18–19). 

The apostle Paul has this same experience. “I delight in the law of God in my inmost self.” And yet, “I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:22,15). This is a stark juxtaposition, put as profoundly and poignantly as one could imagine.   

It seems odd to many students of Romans that as passionate a follower of Christ as Paul acknowledges such a deep, existential internal conflict: “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:21–24).  

Image: "Split Personality" by CariSometimes is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 

Nonetheless, it seems to me, Paul describes an agony of soul that is unique to those who have been tracking with him. People who are “in Christ” now have the potential: no longer to let sin reign in their lives (Romans 6); truly to find the law as the delight of their inner selves (Romans 7); and genuinely to desire to walk by the Spirit (as he will discuss in Romans 8). They—and especially they, for most others could care less!—detect within themselves a resistance they recognize as being foreign to who they truly are in Christ (“sold into slavery under sin” … “another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin”—Romans 7:14,22). Paul’s agony of soul besets those whom Christ has reclaimed, and in whom he has begun his titanic campaign to reshape them after his likeness.  

It is the confession of countless saints through the ages that the closer they grow to Christ, the more tender their consciences become. There’s a very good reason why it was the desert fathers who formulated for us “the seven deadly sins.” They had left the evil world behind so they could pursue their relationship with Christ without all the world’s distractions and temptations, only to find that they brought “a world of iniquity” (James 3:6) with them, for it resided within them. It was in the purity of the desert environment that they discovered the pride, envy, bitterness, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust that dwelt in their hearts. Their gift to us is to affirm the struggle that Paul articulated so well in Romans 7. A Paul who can describe himself in terms of Romans 7 can also register an increasing tenderness of conscience as he matures in Christ: in 1 Corinthians, he is “least of the apostles”; by Ephesians, he is “least among the saints”; and by 1 Timothy, he is “chief among sinners” (1 Corinthians 15:9; Ephesians 3:8; 1 Timothy 1:15).  

The trick is to stay in the fight. It’s one thing to acknowledge helplessness in the face of an oppressive force. It’s another to surrender to it or to appease it. That is not the way of Paul. It was not the way of the desert fathers. Theirs was the way of repentance and confession—of naming the problem. And then of calling out for rescue: “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” With that cry comes the immediate and instinctive response of the heart that lies more fundamentally under the dominion of Christ (Romans 6). It finds its deepest delight in God’s Word (Romans 7) and is where the Spirit vibrantly lives (Romans 8): “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25a).  

Prayer from the Rite of Reconciliation: Therefore, O Lord, from these and all other sins I cannot now remember, I turn to you in sorrow and repentance. Receive me again into the arms of your mercy, and restore me to the blessed company of your faithful people; through him in whom you have redeemed the world, your Son our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (BCP, p. 450).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Law is Holy - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 3/20/2023 •
Week of 4 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89:1–18; Jeremiah 16:10–21; Romans 7:1–12; John 6:1–15 

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 fourth week of Lent, a season of preparation for Holy Week, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. 

On the 2nd through 5th Sundays in Lent, in our church we chant the 10 Commandments, and after each commandment we sing this couplet: “Lord, have mercy upon us, And incline our hearts to keep this law.” Today’s and tomorrow’s readings from Romans (chapter seven) remind us why the Commandments make us ask for God’s mercy: “Lord, have mercy upon us.” Wednesday’s, Thursday’s, and Friday’s readings from Romans (chapter eight) remind us why we can honestly ask for God’s help to obey: “And incline our hearts to keep this law.” 

“You have died to the law.” “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good,” insists Paul (Romans 7:12). The first five books of our Old Testament are called “torah” in Hebrew.  Paul embraces torah: the “law” as our total obligation, any “commandment” as a particular obligation, and “instruction” about how to implement God’s law—all of it—comes from God and expresses who God is. It outlines God’s character; and provides a template for what it is for the bearers of God’s image to, well, bear his image.  

Coming from God, then, “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, just, and good.” The law tells us whom and how to worship, that we are to honor our parents, refrain from taking innocent life, honor wedding vows, respect our neighbor’s property, speak truthfully, and guard our hearts against covetousness. All of this is holy, just, and good.  (Much mischief in the history of the Christian church could have been avoided if this simple truth had been kept in mind. The law is not evil. It is not cruel. A person is not being “legalistic” or “moralistic” if they care about what God’s law says and what his commandments require. But that’s a complicated discussion, for another time and setting.)    

Image: "Beth El Synagogue Torah Mantels" by Sherri Lynn Wood is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 

Paul’s point here in Romans 7, is that we are the problem. Or rather, the sin that has tainted our every wish, thought, inclination, and action—that is the problem.  

And so, in Romans 7, Paul uses an analogy of a marriage, in which the law is compared to a condemning husband who only points out our flaws and magnifies our errors (Romans 7:1–3). For when we look at the law, and then look at our lives honestly, we have to confess (at least we should confess): “I am undone!” Paul wants to help us understand that this bad “marriage” in which we know only condemnation, abuse, and barrenness of soul ends when we come to Christ. Our accuser (the law) is dead. We are no longer bound to the law. We belong to another: Jesus Christ (Romans 7:5).  

Then Paul reframes his analogy. Our accuser is dead, yes. At the same time, our “old self” has died, too. We are brand new creatures in Christ, free from the condemnation of the law. We belong wholly to Jesus Christ, with new life and new purpose. “In the same way, my friends, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God” (Romans 7:4).  

When our “old self” dies, that is, when it is crucified with Christ, we are fully free to belong to another, to Christ himself. When we belong to Christ, we will know ourselves to be loved, nurtured, and cherished—and we will find “the new life of the Spirit” flowing through us (Romans 7:6—more about that in Romans 8).   

The law’s first function in our lives is to make us cry out for mercy, for freedom from its condemnation. This mercy flows from the wounds of Christ on the cross. Lord, have mercy upon us…  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Slavery and Freedom - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 3/17/2023 •
Week of 3 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; Jeremiah 11:1–8,14–20; Romans 6:1–11; John 8:33–47 

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 third week of Lent, as we prepare for Holy Week.   

Three passages on slavery and freedom.  

A break with sin—Jeremiah. The covenant that Yahweh established through the exodus experience should have re-oriented God’s people around lives of freely offering themselves in grateful service to the Lord of the covenant. Alas, it didn’t. The overt demands that the Egyptians had laid on them, it turns out, were nothing compared to the covert demands imposed by their own disobedient, stubborn, and idolatrous hearts. “Cursed be anyone who does not heed the words of this covenant, which I commanded your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron-smelter, saying, Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you” (Jeremiah 11:3–4). Rather than to Yahweh, God’s people gave themselves to “an evil will,” to “vile deeds,” and to offering empty sacrifices to idols instead (Jeremiah 11:8,15).  

Baptism is the believer’s exodus—Romans. Baptism into Christ’s death means to become dead to a former life of slavery, and to be made alive to a new life of freedom not to sin. With Christ’s resurrection, Paul believes that death to sin and newness of life are possible: “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).  

Image: "BREAKING THE CHAINS" by marc falardeau is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

Freedom—John. “The truth will set you free,” Jesus declares to people who had come to believe in him (John 8:31–32). Thus he implies that they are in a state of slavery from which they need to be released. They are flummoxed and insulted by his insinuation. They protest, “We have never been anybody’s slaves” (John 8:33). Jesus could have responded, “Never? Never to the Philistines or the Assyrians or the Babylonians—or now to the Romans?!” Instead, he goes deeper. “I tell you the solemn truth, everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34 New English Translation).  

His listeners are slaves to sin because they are children of the devil. Strong words: a challenge to examine what—or rather, whom—they love. “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here” (John 8:42). Love me, he says, and become children of my Father. And be rescued from your sin, and be set free!  

Collect for the Third Sunday in Lent. Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Paradise We Desire - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 3/16/2023 •
Week of 3 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: (Psalm 83); Psalm 42; Psalm 43; Jeremiah 10:11–24; Romans 5:12–21; John 8:21–32 

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 third week of Lent.  

Romans: Christ and Paradise Regained.  

The most revealing words Paul ever wrote just may be these: “…Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come” (Romans 5:14). Paul’s entire perspective on life, on the world, and on us lies in these words. In sum, Paul is developing for us the central story of the Bible: in Adam, paradise is lost. In Christ, paradise is regained. Adam’s disobedience had led to the dissolution of the entire human race. Christ’s obedience leads to its restoration.  

Think back to Romans 4, and the way that Abraham is to be an example to us of faith (4:12). In several ways, Abraham’s faith in Romans 4 stands in contrast to the faithlessness of humanity as Paul outlined it in Romans 1. As the NT scholar E. Adams observed in a 1997 article in the Journal of the Study of the New Testament, entitled “Abraham’s Faith and Gentile Disobedience: Textual Links Between Romans 1 and 4”: 

• While humans had ignored God their Creator (1:20,25), Abraham believes in God who gives life and calls things “that are not” into “being” (4:17). 

• Humans did not glorify God as God (1:21). But Abraham, being made strong in faith, gives glory to God (4:20).  

• Though they are fully aware of God’s power (dunamis), humans refused him worship and thanks (1:20). Abraham, however, is fully convinced that God has the power (dunatos) to do what he has promised. Abraham does not doubt. 

Image: The Angel of the Divine Presence Clothing Adam and Eve with Coats of Skins. The William Blake Archive, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

Abraham-like faith was what Yahweh’s people were supposed to bequeath to the whole world. Although they failed to do so, God brought forth, from this faithless nation, Christ, who, according to Romans 4:23–25, was “given over for our transgressions (see Isaiah 53:5,12) and raised for our justification” (Isaiah 53:11,12). What Paul explains in the first half of Romans 5 is that this justification brings peace now, the sure hope of glory later, and an unshakeable confidence in God’s love on the road to that glory.  

Here, in the second half of Romans 5, Paul explains how paradise, lost in Adam, is regained in Christ. The reason we can have peace, hope, and confidence is that Christ has more than made up for Adam’s fall, and has more than made up for its fallout as well. In today’s passage from Romans, Paul makes these points: 

• The “fall” was a natural and just consequence of Adam’s disobedience; but the free gift is an extraordinary manifestation of “God’s grace” and his “gracious gift in Christ” (5:15). 

• It would have been easy for God to intervene to fix things right after Adam and Eve tasted the forbidden fruit, but God decided to do so only “following many trespasses” (5:16), that is to say, only after the world had become an impossibly tangled, hot mess of sinfulness. God waits to fix things only after they are seemingly super-unfixable. To him be the glory! 

• As Paul summarizes in 5:18: One man, Christ, offers “the one righteous act” (dikaiōma New English Translation) that leads to the “right-wising/justifying/making right” (dikaiōsis) of all. One man, Christ, offers obedience that undoes the first man’s (Adam’s) disobedience. Right now, in the present, “death reigns” because Adam forfeited his (and therefore our) right to rule. When all is said and done, however, “those who receive … the free gift of righteousness [will] reign in life” (5:17 NET). And just as “sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (5:21 NET). 

• Result: the entrance of sin into human experience will only prove, in the end, to have brought about God’s greater grace (5:20–21).  

With Paul’s tour-de-force, he would have us know that because of what Christ has done, everything we have done wrong has been undone. Every hurt we’ve inflicted, he will make up for. Everything that would keep us punishing ourselves, he has forgiven. He has folded into his good design every regret and every bad decision. The paradise that probably every one of us grew up imagining for ourselves, and then eventually learned to despair of—it’s ours in Christ Jesus. And it’s on offer to everyone around us.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Tears and Joy - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 3/15/2023 •
Week of 3 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:97–120; Jeremiah 8:18–9:6; Romans 5:1–11; John 8:12–20 

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) 

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 third week of Lent. We are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. 

I grew up looking for the stoic middle ground between happy and sad. “Don’t let your highs be too high, son, or your lows too low,” was my dad’s advice. Coming to faith in Christ shook all that up. Christ’s death and his embracing of the worst of human suffering made space for me to “weep with those who weep.” Christ’s resurrection and his jubilant cry, “Behold, I make all things new,” made space for me to “rejoice with those who rejoice.”  

Image: Jeremiach Lamenting. Rembrandt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

Weep with those who weep. The prophet Jeremiah so loves Yahweh, for whom he speaks, that he feels Yahweh’s own grief over the plight of the unfaithful soon-to-be-exiled nation. Jeremiah’s and Yahweh’s feelings become so intermingled in today’s reading that it’s impossible to tell who is speaking when. It is a combined voice of agony and lament: “My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land… O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!” (Jeremiah 8:18–19; 9:1).  

God’s people are stuck in their rebellious, idolatrous, and truth-bending ways. They only know how to complain about the lack of God’s provision for them, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved” (Jeremiah 8:20). They don’t get it: the lack of blessing is penalty for not acknowledging Yahweh. They’ve forgotten how to repent, and how to ask for forgiveness. They only know how to “wear themselves out in their iniquity” (Jeremiah 9:5).  

Nonetheless, God’s heart and his prophet’s heart are broken: “For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me” (Jeremiah 8:21).  

Our world is not that different from Jeremiah’s. There is untruth all around us: “Fraud after fraud! Deceit after deceit! They refuse to acknowledge Yahweh” (Jeremiah 9:6 JB). And yet, like Jeremiah, it is for us to weep, not turn our backs. It is for us who know, as Jeremiah knew, and as the African-American spiritual knew, “There is a balm (a healing medicinal tree sap) in Gilead” (Jeremiah 8:22). We know that the blood shed on Calvary’s tree is for the healing of the nations. And so, like Jeremiah and like Yahweh himself, we weep for and with those who do not know—and especially for those who seem intent on not knowing. And with Jeremiah, we insist that Gilead has brought forth a Physician of souls (Jeremiah 8:22).  

Rejoice with those who rejoice.  Even though he expressed it differently, Paul had as much passionate love for his people as Jeremiah did (Philippians 3:6; 2 Corinthians 11:2). The big difference is that Paul had the privilege of finding himself on this side of the resurrection of Christ. And so, his writings pulse with an irrepressible joy—a knowledge that victory over deceit, over misplaced affections, over sin, over death, and over hell itself has been won.  

The first half of Romans 5 shows Paul at his most exuberant best. Paul’s exuberance is not at all romantic sentimentality. His exuberance envelopes the full depth of suffering, and the need for an endurance that builds character and requires a posture of hopefulness (Romans 5:3–4). Paul knows that divine Justice has cleared us of guilt by the death of Christ: “…we are justified by faith” (Romans 5:1). At just the right time, Christ has died for us who are our weak, who are sinners, who are ungodly, who are God’s enemies (Romans 5:6–10). Paul knows that divine Mercy has taken away our shame and adopted us into the Father’s family: “…we have peace with God …we have access to this grace in which we stand” (Romans 5:2). Most of all, Paul knows that God loves us—and, indeed, that “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given us” (Romans 5:5).  

And Paul knows we have not arrived. But he knows that we will arrive! “Much more surely then … will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. … [M]uch more surely … will we be saved by his life” (Romans 5:9–10). So much so that he can look forward to that day anticipating that we will cross our finish line, “… even boasting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ…” (Romans 5:11—my translation*). Paul almost imagines us dancing across the finish line, filled with a sense of victory and joy.   

Two grammatical notes about this verse (Romans 5:11): 

First, readers who know Greek will recognize that verse 11’s kauchōmenoi (which I’ve rendered boasting) is a present aspect participle, meaning its action is contemporaneous with the future indicative verb sōthēsometha (we will be saved) in verse 10 that it qualifies adverbially (modally, in my judgment). In colloquial English we might say, “As we cross the finish line, we will be boasting.” All the translations miss this important nuance.  

Second, while some translations render the participle kauchōmenoi as “exulting” or “rejoicing,” the NRSV and the ESV rightly, in my judgment use “boasting.” Paul is saying that we will be crossing the finish line chest out, high-fiving ... or spiking the ball as we cross the goal line, … or doing the bat flip as we start the game-winning home run trot. Despite all the suffering and trials on the way, when we get there, we will be doing the Tiger Woods fist pump at the 18th hole of Augusta. Pick your sports metaphor. I think that’s exactly what the grammar of Romans 5:11 is saying. Yup: “we also boastingly will be saved!” Praise God from whom all blessings flow! 

Jeremiah’s tears and Paul’s dancing joy—both are true to the emotional life of followers of Christ. Especially during Lent, it is good to be reminded that our Lenten season of self-examination and repentance is a preparation “with joy for the Paschal feast” of Easter (BCP, p. 379).  

Lenten Preface: You bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts, and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast; that, fervent in prayer and in works of mercy, and renewed by your Word and Sacraments, they may come to the fullness of grace which you have prepared for those who love you. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

We Lead Others to the Living Waters - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 3/14/2023 •
Week of 3 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 78:1–39; Jeremiah 7:21–34; Romans 4:13–25; John 7:37–52 

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 third week of Epiphany, as we prepare for Holy Week, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.   

Of all the writing in the New Testament, John’s grammar and vocabulary are the simplest. Generally, he is the easiest writer to translate. Despite his overall clarity, however, he leaves some tantalizing puzzles. Two of those puzzles occur in the first two verses of today’s reading in John.  

The last half of verse 37 and the first part of verse 38 can legitimately be read one of two ways. Either: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said,….” Or: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. The one who believes in me, as the Scripture says,….” It’s a matter of punctuation. And, alas, Greek at the time of writing used no punctuation. Editors supplied it long after the fact.  

That grammatical puzzle would be easily resolved were it not for the fact that as verse 38 proceeds, it includes a pronoun (autou, “him”) that has an ambiguous antecedent. The quote from Jesus could have used a noun to clarify that it is from Christ himself, to whom the thirsty believer has come, that the living waters would flow (that’s the way the NET takes it), or that it is from the once-thirsty believer that the living waters would flow (that’s the way the NRSV takes it).   

As it is, the “him” is simply ambiguous. The “him” may refer to the one who drinks or to Christ. It may be indicating that when the thirsty person comes to Christ, that person will find that living waters flow to them from Christ. Or it may be indicating that it is from the believer who drinks that living waters will subsequently pour. The Greek itself could go either way, and scholars are divided.  

I’m pretty sure that if I had written these verses, my editor would have demanded that I clarify. My editor would insist on an “either/or”—either it is Christ who is the source of living waters, or it’s the believer who becomes the source of living waters after they have come to Christ. But then, John is a master of double entendre. Sometimes he purposely communicates double meanings: a person must be born anōthen, that is, “again” and “from above” (John 3:3,7); Jesus will be “lifted up,” that is, lifted up on the cross and lifted up in exaltation (John 3:14; 12:32–33).  

Image: "Plitvice Waterfalls" by jidanchaomian is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 

Sometimes, with John, it’s a “both/and.”  

For John, Christ is the source of living waters. That is the subject of discussion with the woman at the well in John 4. Moreover, it is from the pierced side of Jesus on the cross that blood and water flow (John 19:34), thus fulfilling, I think, Zechariah’s foreseeing a fountain being opened for the house of David for the cleansing of sin and iniquity (Zechariah 13:1). And Jesus himself breathes the Holy Spirit upon his apostles. He is the source of all that “living water” offers: cleansing and life.  

At the same time, it is through Jesus’s followers that living waters will flow to others. After all, Zechariah had envisioned that the fountain of cleansing for the house of David would also include “living waters flowing out from Jerusalem” (Zechariah 14:8), and Yahweh becoming “king over all the earth” (Zechariah 14:9). When the Holy Spirit is poured out upon the church at Pentecost by the risen and ascended Christ, life begins to stream into the world through the apostles’ proclamation.  

Paul writes in the wake of the wonder of Christ, the source of living water, as he ministers living water to the world through those who believe in him. That is why Abraham, father of all who believe, is such a pivotal figure for Paul. Abraham’s faith (and implicitly Sarah’s too) is an example for us of the awe that God infuses in us, and of the power that he works through us. Father to Jews who trust in Christ, Abraham shows that God can restore people who come from a rich tradition of faith that they have more or less abandoned: “…[who] gives life to the dead…” (Romans 4:17). Father to Gentiles who trust in Christ, Abraham shows that God can create faith where there was spiritual nothingness: “…and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Romans 4:17).  

I find this to be of great comfort ministering in a society that is simultaneously marked with a fading Christian memory (people who need “life from the dead”) and increasingly filled with people who know nothing about the faith and who could care less (people who, as far as the things of God go, “do not exist”—Romans 4:17). Some need to be called back to life from death, while some need to be called into being from non-being (kalountos ta mē onta hōs onta—Romans 4:17).  

May we drink deeply of the “living water” that Jesus offers. May we find “living water” flowing from our life and testimony. May we see, in our day, many return to a faith that they have lost, and many come to a faith that has always eluded them.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

An Example of Faith - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 3/13/2023 •
Week of 3 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 80; Jeremiah 7:1–15; Romans 4:1–12; John 7:14–36 

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 third week of Lent, a season of preparation for Holy Week, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. 

Sometimes a gift is hard to receive, especially if you don’t feel you deserve it. Or if receiving it will create an obligation you can’t or don’t want to take on. Or if you feel you haven’t earned it, and ought to pay for it instead.  

In Romans 4, Paul recalls the scene from Genesis 15 when Yahweh promises to protect Abraham and to provide for the future of his line. “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:1–6; Romans 4:3). “Abraham believed.” That’s it. That’s all he had to do. He knew he didn’t deserve it. He knew he couldn’t earn it or pay for it. He simply said, “Yes!”and believed...  

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

The requirement of circumcision follows two chapters later in Genesis. Paul’s interpretation of Genesis 17’s circumcision is that it is a certification testifying to the faith that had been expressed earlier in Genesis 15. “The sign of circumcision [was] a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised” (Romans 4:11). 

It was Genesis 15’s faith from the heart that saved Abraham, not Genesis 17’s cutting of the foreskin. Abraham is thus able to be “father to all who believe”—Jew and Gentile alike—because his faith came prior to his circumcision. For the Israelite descendants of Abraham, receiving circumcision was like receiving a membership card. It didn’t make anyone a member. It was a sign of the membership that faith was supposed to have already provided. That is why Moses and Jeremiah exhort God’s people to be circumcised in the heart (Deuteronomy 10:16; Jeremiah 4:4). Since baptism has succeeded circumcision as sign of belonging to God’s family in the new covenant (Colossians 2:11–14), with the acknowledgement of the need for redemption through Christ, it’s even easier to see that the relationship with the Lord begins in the heart, with the “Yes!” of faith.  

Abraham is an “example of faith” (Romans 4:12) to us because he shows how to receive God’s gift of righteousness. Righteousness was a gift that came to Abraham even when he was, as Paul says, “ungodly” and still “uncircumcised.” (Romans 4:5,10–11). We receive righteousness not because we deserve it, not because to do so would commit us to an odious obligation, not because we must earn it. It so happens that because it is a gift motivated by God’s own love, it is a gift that creates a lovely and sincere desire to return that love. (Paul has more to say about that in upcoming chapters.) But the first thing he wants us to know is this: despite all the bad news we learned about ourselves in Romans 1:18–3:20, God nevertheless set forth his Son as a redemptive sacrifice that covers it all, making the good news of justification and new life available to us. It’s available, Paul wants to make clear, through faith—sheer faith, unadulterated faith, a simple faith that says to God, “Yes!” 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Mercy Seat - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 3/10/2023 •
Week of 2 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 69:1–23(24-30)31–38); Jeremiah 5:1–9; Romans 2:25–3:18 (and Saturday’s Romans 3:19–31); John 5:30–47 

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 second week of Lent, as we prepare for Holy Week.   

The devastating truth towards which Paul has been driving since Romans 1:18 is that all of us—no exceptions—are “under the power of sin” (Romans 3:9). Some of us sin “with the law (awareness of the Law in the Old Testament),” in which case the law clarifies our sin. Some of us sin “without the law (without knowledge of Old Testament law),” in which case our own consciences tell us much of what the law would have told us anyway. Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, fill-in-this-identity-marker, fill-in-that-identity-marker. It doesn’t matter. The entire human experience is one loud verification of the Eucharistic Prayer’s confession: “…we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death.”  

Paul wants us to take a good look at our hearts, and view ourselves under the harsh light of honest, difficult truths. Beating a lethal disease, only to lose your soul to the more deeply fatal sickness of sin is no victory. Personal effort to help build a perfect society, only to succumb to the inner rot of envy, rage, pride, or lust is no accomplishment, either. As Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28 NIV), and “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:36 NIV).  

The reason Paul confronts us with the bad news of our sinfulness is that he wishes to comfort us with the good news of God’s provision. The God who loves us has done something about our iniquitous condition! (Which, of course, is what Paul had earlier declared as his purpose in Romans 1:16–17.) It’s brilliant. We just have to stay with him long enough to get here. And be honest about the way that Paul’s indictment holds the mirror up to each of us—again, no exceptions.  

What we are ready to see, if only we have been able to see ourselves through the lens of Paul’s indictment, is:  

God set forth redemption. “…through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood…” — Romans 3:24. “Redemption” means purchase price. The phrase “sacrifice (or place) of atonement” here translates a single word in the Greek: hilastērion (literally, “place of laughter”), and it was used in the Old Testament to refer to the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies. Older translations render the term “propitiation,” and here in Romans it refers to Jesus’s self-offering as being a covering for our sin, how God’s displeasure with our sinfulness gives way to his delight in extending us forgiveness and welcome.  

Image: Mercy Seat, Illustrator of Henry Davenport Northrop's 'Treasures of the Bible', 1894, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

“...the righteousness of God (which is attested by the law and the prophets) has been disclosed...” — Romans 3:21 (NET).  It’s a story long in the telling. God gave us a picture of it when he covered Adam and Eve’s nakedness with animal skins in the Garden (Genesis 3). God gave us a picture of it when he told Abraham to sacrifice the ram as a substitute for Isaac (Genesis 22). God gave us a picture of it when he provided the blood of Passover lambs to cause the angel of death to pass over the Israelite homes during the tenth plague in Egypt (Exodus 12). God gave us a picture of it when he covered and forgave David’s sins of adultery and murder (Psalm 32:1–2; see Romans 4:7–8). Year after year, God gave the children of Israel a picture of it when, on the Day of Atonement, blood would be sprinkled on the mercy seat (Leviticus 16). During all those years, asserts Paul, God “God in his forbearance had passed over the sins previously committed” (Romans 3:25 NET). And it all culminated in Christ himself becoming the mercy seat, offering his innocent blood on the cross of Calvary as a perfect sacrifice for sinners.  

That redemption is free to us. “…for all who believe… they are now justified by his grace as a gift… For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works” — Romans 3:22,24,28. No one has to be good enough, rich enough, talented enough, smart enough, “in” enough, of the right lineage or social class or racial make-up to obtain this redemption. All anyone has to do is open their heart to God, and receive the free gift he offers. Period. Full stop. Exclamation point! 

God’s redemption reconciles seeming opposites. Law and grace come together in God’s being just (he upholds his own justice) and justifier (he extends grace, mercy, and forgiveness to us—Romans 3:26).  

Furthermore, Paul wants us to know that the gospel shows how Jew and Gentile have one God: “Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith” (Romans 3:29–30). There isn’t one tribal deity for one set of people, and a different tribal deity for another set of people. The hope of life for every person is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And, because we all come from and give account to one God, we can treat each person as precious bearers of his image. Because of what Paul is teaching here—the bad news about our sinfulness and the good news about redemption—Christians can be a reconciling, peacemaking, and truthful presence in a world of strife, confusion, and incoherence.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Son and The Father - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 3/9/2023 •
Week of 2 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 70; Psalm 71; Jeremiah 4:9–10,19–28; Romans 2:12–24; John 5:19–29 

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 second week of Lent.  

Yesterday, we saw that Jesus’s detractors are upset by his claim to be “equal with God” (John 5:18). In today’s reading in John, Jesus begins carefully and patiently (and yet also quite plainly) to unpack what his being “equal with God” means.  

First, Jesus’s equality with his Father does not put him in competition with his Father: “…the Son can do nothing on his own” (John 5:19). He’s not like Apollo, who supplanted his father Zeus in Greek mythology. God’s Son is not in any way running his own “program,” or pursuing his own agenda. During the history of the church, the Father and the Son have, at times, been wrongly placed in opposition to each other. Some have imagined an angry Father needing to be placated by a supplicant Son. John’s Gospel provides a perfect antidote against that wrong kind of thinking. It asserts, “God so loved the world that he sent…” (John 3:16). At the heart of the dynamic between Father and Son is mutual love. Amazing love, how can it be! 

Second, the Son shares the Father’s power to raise the dead and to give them life (John 5:21). What will differentiate Father and Son in this regard is that as a man, the Son will taste and defeat death from within death itself. His giving of life will be on the far side of his having received—as one of us!—the same life that he will confer. Unfathomable mystery!  

Image: Detail from St. John the Evangelist, Basilica di San Vitale (AD 526-548), Holly Hayes photo. https://www.flickr.com/photos/sacred_destinations/2880428337/in/album-72157604983837920/ 

Third, just like his Father, Jesus the Son has an eternal, non-derivative life within himself: “For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (John 5:26). Thus, Jesus anticipates and provides in John’s Gospel an argument against the later heretical Arians who believed that Jesus was not eternal, but merely the first created being in the cosmos. Because of what Jesus says here, the maturing church of the fourth century was able to assert that while the Son is “eternally begotten of the Father,” there was “never a time in which he was not and had to be born.” More glorious mystery!  

Fourth, the Son, as much as the Father, has authority to judge. His mission, indeed, is not to bring condemnation, but rather, in love, to bear condemnation on behalf of an errant human race (John 3:16–17). However, he, no less than his Father, has authority to judge. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner! 

Fifth, the Son has the right to receive the same “honor” as the Father (John 5:23). In fact, Jesus boldly says, we can’t honor the Father without honoring his Son as well. Sometimes, Christians are accused of being “Jesusolaters” in our worship of Jesus. Well, we do worship Jesus, though not as an independent, stand-alone, deity. We both worship the Father through Jesus our worship leader, and we worship Jesus as equal in authority and as one in very nature with his Father. The math is complicated (especially when you consider, as other Scriptures require us to do, the deity of the Holy Spirit as well). But the math works: we worship one God in three Persons. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, world without end! Amen! 

We noted a few weeks ago, on the Feast of St. John, that John’s Gospel became associated with the “eagle,” because of its soaring and majestic perspective on Jesus’s identity. I pray this outlook on who Jesus is creates in us power to persevere in whatever hardship we face, courage and hope for whatever task lies before us, and a passion for worship and praise all the days of our lives.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+  

Sin and God's Kindness - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 3/8/2023 •
Week of 2 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 72; Jeremiah 3:6–18; Romans 1:28–2:11; John 5:1-18 

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 second week of Lent. We are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. 

Sin is powerful, pernicious, and pervasive. 

Despite being called to be God’s loving bride (Jeremiah 2:1), God’s people (Judah in the south even more than Israel in the north) allow themselves to be charmed into committing spiritual adultery with false gods (Jeremiah 3:6–11). That’s how powerful sin is.  

Sin can make us so conditioned to its rule over our lives, that we, like the lame man in John 5, wouldn’t have a strong answer, if the Lord of healing approached and asked, “Do you want to be healed?” Sin can make us so mean-spirited that we, like the Jewish inquisitors in John 5, can find fault in the face of the most amazing of manifestations of goodness. That’s how pernicious sin is.  

For Paul, people’s imaginative capacities are inexhaustible when it comes to inventing and justifying sin. Perhaps the height (or nadir) of those sinful capacities is our facility for being “judgy” towards others whose sins we fancy to be worse than our own: “Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things” (Romans 2:1). That’s how pervasive sin is.  

God’s justice is unalterable. 

There are, however, two great “nonethelesses.” First, regardless of how cleverly we justify ourselves, God’s justice stands. Every single one of us has an intuitive sense that right is right, and wrong is wrong. That’s a whisper from God. The Bible declares its truth. We cannot change the rules of the cosmos because we didn’t create the cosmos. The Creator did, and he governs it by his rules. Not ours. His rule is: “For [God] will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. … God shows no partiality” (Romans 2:6–8,10).  

Each one of us must give an answer. Each one of us confronts the choice of which direction our life faces: God-wards or self-wards. Nobody is exempt.  

Image: “Rise and Walk” by Lawrence OP is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

God’s kindness is even more unalterable.  

The other great “nonetheless” is how powerful, restorative, and personal God’s kindness is. Jeremiah had not been sent just to destroy idolatrous pretension, but also to invite a return to the God who had never stopped loving his people: “Return, faithless Israel, says the Lord. I will not look on you in anger, for I am merciful, says the Lord; I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt, …” (Jeremiah 3:12–13a). Eventually, Jeremiah will promise a covenant in which God will transform the hearts of intransigent sinners: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33). That’s how powerful God’s kindness is.  

Paul says that God extends a patience that is designed to lead us to repent (Romans 2:4), and Paul writes to the end that stubborn-hearted people will do just that. When Jesus encounters the man who, somehow over the course of thirty-eight years, had not managed to get to the healing waters that were mere feet away from him, Jesus powers through the man’s lame excuses, and heals him anyway. While the legalists made sabbath-keeping a matter of virtue-signaling and pious one-upmanship, Jesus healed on the sabbath, showing the sabbath to be a picture of rest and re-creation. That’s how restorative God’s kindness is.  

Jesus’s interrogators rightly understood that the way in which Jesus called God “my Father” meant that he was making a special claim for himself. Jesus likened his work of healing on the sabbath to his Father’s continuing to uphold and sustain all of creation (obviously including even on the sabbath). Like Father, like Son. Jesus’s opponents recognized his claim for what it was: he was calling “God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God” (John 5:18). They think it’s blasphemous. To the contrary, Jesus is about to explain to them (in the following verses) the authenticity of his deity.  

What John is unfolding in his Gospel is the amazing reality that God’s kindness isn’t an immaterial attribute. God’s kindness is personal. More than that, God’s kindness is a Person. As Paul will later put it, commenting on Jesus’s incarnation: “…when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us…” (Titus 3:4–5a). In Jesus, God’s kindness has become a person—not an abstraction. He’s come to rescue, not an abstract humanity, but actual flesh and blood people. Like you and me.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Leave Us Alone - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 3/7/2023 •
Week of 2 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 61; Psalm 62; Jeremiah 2:1–13; Romans 1:16–25; John 4:43–54 

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 second week of Epiphany, as we prepare for Holy Week, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.   

Romans 1:16–17 sets forth a truth that cannot be heralded enough: In Christ, we receive the gift of a righteousness that comes “from God” and is given to us “by faith.” This is a glorious salvation, says Paul, that is “from faith to faith” (Romans 1:17). It is from Christ’s faith in the Father’s promise to accept his obedience in place of ours (see Romans 5:12-21) to our receiving that gift with the open heart of receptive, obedient trust (what Paul calls the “obedience of faith”—see Romans 1:5; 16:26).  

In Romans 1:18–3:20, There’s an obstacle, Paul explains, that must be overcome in order for us to enjoy the benefits of this gift of righteousness, this glorious salvation. That obstacle is the fact that we have, as the BCP puts it, “fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death” (p. 362). Paul wants us to know how desperate our situation is so we can appreciate how wonderful it is that God responds, in his infinite mercy, by sending Jesus Christ, his “only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to [him], the God and Father of all” (again, BCP, p. 362).  

Image: "miserere" by Mitchell Haindfield is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

“Therefore God gave them over…” — Romans 1:24 (NET). The most sobering words that the great Anglican lay theologian C. S. Lewis ever wrote are these: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done’” (The Great Divorce). Paul views the entire human race as falling into that second category, and as needing to be moved into the first.  

We have made the tragic choice of denying what we know about God—that is, that he is the Creator who has made us for the joyful task of reflecting his glory into the world. Instead, we have presumed a self-made glory, cultivated hearts of ingratitude rather than thankfulness, and worshiped the creation rather than the Creator (Romans 1:18–23).  

We’ve declared, in effect, that we want God to leave us alone! Accordingly and chillingly, God gives us what we’ve demanded. Not just once, but three times, Paul says it: “And God gave them over….” (Romans 1:24,26,28). In Romans 1:24–25, God gives us humans over to the impure and unworthy desires of our hearts. In Romans 1:26–28 (verses which the Daily Lectionary delicately skips over), God gives us humans over to use our bodies in ways that do not reflect his design for us as sexual beings. He lets us follow our desires into disobedient choices. In Romans 1:28–32 (from tomorrow’s reading), God gives us over to develop patterns of thinking that rationalize our wayward wants and lamentable choices. It’s all pretty close to Thomas Cranmer’s formulation (I paraphrase): “What we want, we choose. And what we choose, we justify.”  

Happily, Paul is not writing to describe God’s final verdict. He’s writing to show the vast chasm between what we deserve (total and utter wrathful judgment) and what we receive (unspeakable love, grace, and mercy). He writes to make us cry out, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!” He writes to make us all the more grateful for the fact that God has made himself known to us in the merciful, all-suffering Jesus.  

What Paul aims for in Romans, this, his most expansive explanation of the gospel, is how, “from faith to faith,” God recasts our affections (“the love of God is poured out in our hearts”), redirects our wills (“so now present your members as slaves to righteousness”), and renews our minds (“by the renewal of your minds”—Romans 5:5; 6:19; 12:2). God’s aim is that we may bear anew the image of his dear Son (Romans 8:29), our Elder Brother and the Champion of our Salvation. That’s a pretty fantastic lesson for Lent.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+