Trust in the Father - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 4/5/2023 •
Holy Week 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 55; Jeremiah 17:5–10,14–17; Philippians 4:1–13; John 12:27–36 

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 Holy Week. We are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. 

There’s little worse in life than being betrayed by someone you thought was a friend. All the honest things you’ve told them about yourself, truths you’d only tell someone you trust implicitly, now they are ammunition in the hands of an enemy. There’s the question now about your own ability to gauge friendship: “What did I miss? What’s wrong with me? Can I trust myself to trust anyone?”  

In Psalm 55, we find that King David has had this experience, although scholars are unsure of exactly which event this psalm describes. The betrayal of a friend has led to a conspiracy taking over the city of Jerusalem (Psalm 55:11–12). David’s first instinct is to pray. Therein lies his greatness. And his gift to us is that he writes his prayer down.  

Image: From "Betrayal" by vidalia_11 is licensed under CC BY 2.0  

An even greater gift is the way David’s own experience turns out to provide us an advance view of our Savior’s experience. As often in David’s psalms, when he opens his heart to Yahweh about his troubles, he provides an anticipatory glimpse into the experience of Jesus Christ, the true Son of David who was to come a thousand years later. This Holy Week, I find myself noticing several features of Jesus’s life in David’s prayer about friendship betrayed. 

Betrayal hurts (Psalm 55:13–14,21–23). Jesus Christ is not untouched by any grief we bear. He has known what it is to have a close companion offer “speech [that] is softer than butter, but war is in his heart. His words are smoother than oil, but they are drawn swords” (Psalm 55:22–23). Jesus had entrusted the disciples’ finances to someone he had treated as a “familiar friend,” and with whom he “took sweet counsel” … and worshiped together “in the house of God” (Psalm 55:14,15). When betrayal leaves us alone and abandoned, we can know we are not truly alone and abandoned. Jesus is right there with us, a “man of sorrows and acquainted with our griefs” (Isaiah 53:3).  

Jesus could have prayed for escape, but didn’t (Psalm 55:7–9). David imagines himself escaping with “wings like a dove.” Running away to the desert where he doesn’t have to deal with people. Finding rest and shelter in a far-off place, protected from storm and tempest (Psalm 55:7). Similarly, for a brief moment in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus wonders if there might be another way to accomplish his task. He asks that the cup of death’s judgment might pass from him. But he submits: “Not my will, but Thine be done.” Happily, over the course of his life, Jesus’s deeper prayer to be delivered “out of death” has prepared him for his cross and vindication (Hebrews 5:7). Praise be!  

Jesus could have called down judgment, but didn’t (Psalm 55:10,16, 25–26a.) Understandably, David calls upon God: “Swallow them up, O Lord,” and predicts his enemies will be brought “down to the pit of destruction” (Psalm 55:10,25). What makes Jesus our Savior (and David’s) is that while his ancestor David prays for God to ruin the betrayer and the enemies who have come against him, Jesus responds and prays differently. He expresses nothing but sorrow for his betrayer: “It would have been better for that man not to have been born” (Mark 14:21). And he asks the Father to forgive those who scourge him, mock him, and nail him to the cross: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Thanks be, especially since, if we are honest with ourselves, we know we belong as much with the betrayer as with the betrayed.  

Jesus took his pain to his Father (Psalm 55:18). “In the evening, in the morning, and at noonday, I will complain and lament, and he will hear my voice.” David is saying pretty much: “All day long, I bring my just cause and my grief to you, Father.” The New Testament is as candid about Jesus’s own emotions before God. Our authors aren’t embarrassed about the passion that leads Jesus to whip the moneychangers, the vituperation he pours out on phony faith, his grief for the daughters of Jerusalem who will go through the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, the tears he sheds at the grief of Lazarus’s mourners, the “loud cries and tears” he lifts up over the course of his life, or his anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane (when you have time, check this long list of references: John 2:17; Matthew 23:13–39; Luke 23:28; John 11:35; Hebrews 5:7; Mark 14:32–50). The New Testament writers attribute to Jesus a blunt and raw honesty before God. He knows his Father cares about what is on his heart. That’s good news for us: our blunt and raw honesty won’t push our Heavenly Father away from us either.  

Jesus trusted his Father for deliverance (Psalm 55:17,24,26b). David can acknowledge all of the gritty things in Psalm 55—his hurt over a friend’s betrayal, his wish that he could just fly away from it all, his desire for vengeance, and his pain —because, at bottom, he knows his Father’s love for him. In spite of the betrayal and ugliness which follows for Jesus, he, too, knows his Father’s  love for him (and for us). He is confident of his Father’s determination to see deliverance all the way through, for him (and for us). “But I will trust in you.” 

Collect for Wednesday in Holy Week. Lord God, whose blessed Son our Savior gave his body to be whipped and his face to be spit upon: Give us grace to accept joyfully the sufferings of the present time, confident of the glory that shall be revealed; through Jesus Christ your Son 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+ 

No Longer Lost and Alone - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 4/4/2023 •
Holy Week  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 6; Psalm 12; Jeremiah 15:10–21; Philippians 3:15–21; John 12:20–26 

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 Holy Week, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.   

Jeremiah prefigures our Savior. There are subtle ways in which the prophet Jeremiah prefigures the sufferings of our Savior. It was clear from the start of Jeremiah’s ministry that he would face resistance and rejection. As a youth, he had been told by Yahweh: “Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jeremiah 1:10). Jeremiah would be, like Dante, “a party of one,” or like Lincoln, “a majority of one.” He would “sit alone” in his prophecies against the majority opinion of his day (Jeremiah 15:17). And, like Jesus, he would come to his own people, only to be treated like a stranger (compare John 1:10–11). 

Nonetheless, Jeremiah, like Jesus, would so internalize God’s words that they, and they alone, would be sustenance and joy to him: “Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts” (Jeremiah 15:16). In this, Jeremiah was like Jesus, who said his food was to do his Father’s will (John 4:34), and who also said we were made to live not by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).  

A sinner just like the rest of the people to whom he prophesies, Jeremiah must go into exile with them. Even there, God will deliver him from his opponents, and God’s Word will sustain him as he continues his lonely mission of proclaiming truth in the face of error (Jeremiah 15:19–21; 43–44). Simultaneously sinner and saint, alone and in solidarity with fellow sinners, Jeremiah foreshadows a greater prophet. Jesus, that greater prophet, would be like us in every way, save sin. Jesus would be with us as sin-bearer, and at the same time he would be alone in resisting sin’s lure to the end.   

Image: "110908-A-NR754-002" by USAJFKSWCS is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0 

John—Jesus suffers alone, but not alone. While Jesus suffers alone, like “a grain of wheat that falls into the ground,” he does so in order that he will not be merely “a single grain.” For by his death, Jesus “bears much fruit” (John 12:24). It is, after all, the inquiry of “some Greeks” that has prompted Jesus to exclaim at last: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (John 12:23—compare with the “not yets” of John 2:4; 7:6,8,30). When he is lifted up on the cross, he will say, in tomorrow’s passage in John, “I will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).  

Life can be messy. We can feel alone at work. We can feel alone with our sins. We can feel alone, without family. We can feel alone, without friends. It can feel like a kind of dying. Jesus, too, experienced aloneness, pain, and suffering on the cross. He understands anguish. We can thus feel God himself accompanying us in our aloneness, our sense of dying. And in that sharing we can see to the other side, to the gift of a resurrection-life of abundance and companionship.  

Philippians—independent, yet belonging. There is a splendor to Paul’s letter to the Philippians (most of whom are, like those who approach Jesus in John 12, Gentiles). In this letter, Paul unpacks what it is to be independent of anybody else’s assessment of personal worth, and yet at the same time what it is to be part of a great new “commonwealth” or “citizenship” (Philippians 3:29—the Greek is politeuma).  

One thing to keep in mind during Holy Week is that the loneliness of Good Friday’s cross yields to the fellowship of Easter Sunday. Jesus, indeed, as the old hymn puts it, “walked this lonesome valley, he had to walk it by himself.” But with his rising, he brings, not only us, but a great company of others, with him. Once dead, we are made alive: our resurrection begins because of his resurrection. Once feeling friendless, we have the dearest and best of friends: God himself, in the person of Jesus. Once lost and alone, we have a destination and companions on the journey: the Body of Christ.    

Collect for Tuesday in Holy Week. O God, by the passion of your blessed Son you made an instrument of shameful death to be for us the means of life: Grant us so to glory in the cross of Christ, that we may gladly suffer shame and loss for the sake of your Son 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+  

The Weeping Prophet - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 4/3/2023 •
Holy Week  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 51:1–18(19–20); Jeremiah 12:1–16; Philippians 3:1-14; John 12:9–19 

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 Holy Week, and we are in Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary. 

Jeremiah’s life and ministry plunge us into a vortex of confusion. Guilty people prosper. “The beloved of [God’s[ own heart” are given over “into the hands of her enemies.” God forsakes his own house. God’s “pleasant portion” is made into “a desolate wilderness” (Jeremiah 12:1,7,10). No wonder Jeremiah is called “the weeping prophet.” No wonder portraits envision him looking out over a barren and depressing landscape.  

Image:  Ilya Repin: Cry of prophet Jeremiah on the Ruins of Jerusalem    http://www.art-catalog.ru/picture.php?id_picture=11437Wikimedia. Public Domain. 

And still, for Jeremiah, God’s promises stand: “I will again have compassion on them, and I will bring them again to their heritage, and to their land, every one of them.” (Jeremiah 12:15).  

Philippians. Paul’s life and ministry confront us with the existential discovery that all our credentials are worthless skubala (the Greek language’s own “s” word for excrement!—Philippians 3:8). Pedigree, education, exactness in theology, correctness and righteousness of political and ethical cause (Philippians 3:4–8)—all of it, as Jesus says in another context, is like “whatever goes into the mouth, enters the stomach, and then passes into the latrine” (Matthew 15:17 New American Bible). According to Paul, it’s all a bunch of skubala!  

Paul can muster up raw self-renunciation like this because the loss of these markers of identity and importance have, for him, yielded to “the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). Paul realizes there is no “righteousness of my own” that can be established, buttressed, or maintained by all the credentialing in the world (Philippians 3:9). Instead, Paul discovers, to his wondrous amazement, that there is a credentialing “that comes by way of Christ’s faithfulness—a righteousness from God that is in fact based on Christ’s faithfulness” (Philippians 3:9 New English Translation).  

John. May we appreciate that first Palm Sunday for what it is: the humble King presents himself for his Passion. God’s own dear Son rides into Jerusalem, where he will bring down on himself all the desolation we deserve at the hand of God, and all the rejection. Our pretense to self-credentialing merits God’s rejection, which Jesus will experience in our place. Out of sheer love, he comes to endure, on our behalf, the skubala-storm of God’s wrath against sin. By Jesus’s Passion, desolation becomes heritage, wrath becomes joy, and self-pride is replaced by a grateful “pressing on toward the prize of the heavenly call” (Philippians 3:14).   

Collect for Monday in Holy Week. Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son 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+ 

Fragrance of Worship - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 3/31/2023 •
Week of 5 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 22; Jeremiah 29:1,4–13; Romans 11:13–24; John 12:1–10 

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 Lent, as we prepare for Holy Week.   

If there are anything like “best friends” in Jesus’s life, they would have to be the sisters Mary and Martha of Bethany, along with their brother Lazarus. Of the three, Mary appears to be the one who understands the implications of Jesus’s plan to go to Jerusalem. In Luke 10, she is the one who sits at Jesus’s feet rather than wait on tables. Here in John 12, Martha is once again waiting on tables, and Mary is once again at Jesus’s feet. This time, she’s not listening. She is offering a gift of powerful symbolism, anointing his feet with costly oil and wiping them with her hair (John 12:3).  

Image: "Mary anoints Jesus' feet" by Lawrence OP is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

“Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him” (John 12:1–2). Shortly before the events of John 12, Jesus had restored to life Mary’s recently-deceased brother Lazarus. The raising of Lazarus is the last provocation for the Jewish leadership. They are planning to kill Jesus (and Lazarus as well, as it turns out—John 11:50; 12:10). Jesus avoids traveling to Jerusalem for a short while. People wonder if he will dare to make a showing at the upcoming Passover. In fact, he will. To prepare for his entry into Jerusalem for the religious celebration, he stays with his three friends in Bethany about a mile outside the city. Mary and Martha and Lazarus throw a dinner party in Jesus’s honor.  

Like everybody else, Mary has heard the buzz. The cynical leaders are conspiring to take “one man’s life” in a ridiculous ploy to “save” the nation. Mary’s loving act is a wonderful counterpoint to the ironic and unwitting prophecy by Caiaphas that Jesus would die “for the nation … and not for the nation only,” as John comments, “but to gather into one the dispersed children of God” (John 11:52).  

Mary has comprehended the political climate following the restoration of her brother Lazarus. She’s become aware of the conspiracy against both Jesus and Lazarus. More than anything, I suspect, she has given thought to what Jesus had proclaimed of himself in advance of raising Lazarus from the dead: “I AM the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25). Somehow, she has rightly inferred Jesus’s “being resurrection and life” means he must first die. Resurrection, after all, comes only after death. Such an understanding accounts for the NRSV’s sage rendering of Jesus’s defense of her extravagance: “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial” (John 12:7).  

Mary has bought for Jesus an expensive and fragrant ointment that ordinarily would be used to prepare a corpse for interment. Perhaps she had just planned to show him the bottle she had acquired in advance, signaling her readiness to prepare his body for resurrection from the dead. With the purchase of the “pound of costly perfume made of pure nard” (John 12:3), Mary acknowledges, if reluctantly, that she understands what it’s going to take for him to be “resurrection and life.” If she had intended to anoint him on this occasion, you might have expected her to have a towel at hand for wiping his feet. Instead, in a spontaneous gesture, while Jesus is reclining at table, Mary pours the fragrant burial ointment on his feet and towels them with her hair. Here is one of the most poignant, tender, and loving scenes in all Scripture.  

“The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume” — John 12:3. The reader will be pardoned for being reminded of the powerful symbolism of smell elsewhere in the Bible. Paul describes Jesus as sacrificing himself as “an offering and sacrifice to God as a smell of fragrance” (my literal rendering of the Greek of Ephesians 5:2). Paul welcomes a gift from the Philippians as “a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, very pleasing to God” (Philippians 4:18 NET). We ourselves “are a sweet aroma of Christ to God” (2 Corinthians 2:15).  

Every time I walk into the Cathedral Church of St. Luke, my first sensation is that of the fragrance that exudes from the incense-soaked stone walls and pillars. And I think to myself, “That’s what church is supposed to smell like. It’s good to be here and to take my place among the generations who have offered up the sweet fragrance of worship to the Crucified and Risen Savior.” 

Contrast the beauty of the fragrance that Mary’s gift releases with the moral stench of Judas’s crass and disingenuous objection: “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (John 12:5). This isn’t the last time, alas, a moralistic voice is raised to deride beautiful and heartfelt worship in the name of a righteous cause, masking hypocritical and base motives. Happily, in the deeper experience of the church, generosity towards God encourages, rather than negates or frustrates, generosity towards our neighbor. In the realm of the Spirit of God, some things are not a zero-sum proposition.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Faith in Redemption - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 3/30/2023 •
Week of 5 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 131; Psalm 132; Psalm 133; Jeremiah 26:1–16; Romans 11:1–12; John 10:19–42 

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 Lent.  

Through Jeremiah and Paul, God calls us today to embrace, and live with, a couple of challenging but encouraging truths.  

Jeremiah says that we can change God’s mind. God’s absolute control over everything could mean that nothing I do matters. It could be that his decisions are final, and there’s nothing I can do to make him change his mind about anything. But Jeremiah says that that isn’t quite true.  

Yahweh, in today’s reading, sends Jeremiah to the courtyard of the temple to tell the people of Jerusalem that the coming desolation he’s predicted is not inevitable: “It may be that they will listen, all of them, and will turn from their evil way, that I may change my mind about the disaster that I intend to bring on them because of their evil doings” (Jeremiah 26:3).  

There was precedent for this. When the pagan king of Nineveh heard about Jonah’s prophecies of doom, he called for people to cry out to God and turn from their evil and violent ways. “‘Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.’ When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it” (Jonah 3:9–10). And thus Nineveh was spared. However, because in Jeremiah’s day, the Jerusalemites did not “turn from their evil way,” Yahweh’s purpose of a punishing destruction does come to pass.  

Image: Daybreak, Reggie Kidd photo 

Lent is a time for taking stock. When I am walking on a rebellious path that can only lead to destruction, there’s nothing inevitable about my remaining on that path. Which means the consequences aren’t inevitable either. As the apostle John later writes: “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).  

Paul says human failure can produce God’s greater good. Paul wrestles mightily with the failure of his fellow Israelites to embrace Jesus as their Messiah. Once he has seen that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all the promises of Scripture, it’s mystifying to him that others who have been shaped by Scripture’s story don’t see that as well. But then he comes to understand that the failure of the Jewish mission has forced a Gentile mission that is wildly successful. He realizes that that Gentile mission is the very means by which God is fulfilling his promise that Abraham would be the father of nations (Genesis 12). Through Israel’s failure to believe, other people groups can experience the mercy of God. Paul calls this a mystery, a truth long hidden in Scripture that has now been revealed: “…how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).  

Gentiles who were living in darkness and undeserving of God’s mercy have now been offered mercy, thanks to Israel’s rejection of the gospel. Ironically, Israelites are now in the Gentiles’ position, living in darkness and in need of just as much mercy. “Just as [Gentiles] were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of [Israel’s] disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all” (Romans 11:30–32). What a wonderful punchline: “…that he may be merciful to all.”  

The long and the short of it is that biblical faith is a faith in redemption, because God has a way of turning evil on its head and producing good out of it. That’s something for all of us to keep in mind when we find relationships to be challenging, self-discoveries to be disappointing, and headlines to be depressing. Paul closes today’s passage in Romans this way: “Now if [Israel’s] stumbling means riches for the world, and if their defeat means riches for Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!” (Romans 11:12). There’s a wonderful hopefulness here. With his pointing to the prospect of “full inclusion” for Israel, Paul opens for us an always-buoyant approach to life under our God of mercy.   

Collect for the Fifth Sunday in Lent. Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

We Need Fear Nothing - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 3/29/2023 •
Week of 5 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:145–176; Jeremiah 25:30–38; Romans 10:14–21; John 10:1–18 

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

It so happens that the very first posting of these Devotions appeared on the Wednesday of the fifth week of Lent in the year 2020, at the beginning of the outbreak of a worldwide pandemic.  

On this anniversary of a sorts, I’d like return to some orienting thoughts I offered at the time. Here’s an excerpt from the first Devotional I wrote: 

“Social distancing” can be, at one and the same time, lonely and suffocating.  

Lonely because you’re isolated from friends and coworkers.  

Suffocating if there’s no break, on the one hand, from family (and maybe work-from-home?) obligations, and, on the other, from bombardment by the media with oppressive and frightening words: pandemic … testing … economic collapse … hoarding … escalating deaths.  

One way to resist loneliness is to join millions around the world who practice Daily Morning Prayer, a daily routine of Scripture reading and of prayer (I follow the Book of Common Prayer 1979’s, Rite II, pp. 75–102). In Daily Morning Prayer (shorthand for which can be the “Daily Office” or simply the “Office”), Scripture reading is governed by a lectionary that takes us all together over time through the Bible’s amazing story of God’s saving, loving grace. And prayers are guided by biblical canticles and daily themes, uniting our hearts to lift “one voice,” and freeing space for our individual hearts to voice their unique needs.  

When I pray the Daily Office, I know that Jesus’s promise is being fulfilled, the one that says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them.” I know that friends around the world are doing exactly what I am doing. We become Christ’s Body gathered throughout space, and even throughout time, as we read what someone has called “ancient words ever true” and as we pray prayers crafted over centuries by godly hearts.  

At the same time that I resist loneliness through the Office, I push back against the suffocation of the day’s pressing demands and the oppressing assault of the news cycle. Instead, I breathe the fresh air of God’s promises, and I take my place among the kingdom of priests that intercede for a world that one day will be released from its bondage to decay. In Scripture reading, I inhabit a world in which there is hope, and in prayer I defy the darkness that otherwise seems so prevalent. …  

You don’t have to be alone. You can be a part of a vast family united by Word and prayer. You don’t have to be suffocated by obligations and fear. You can take in the vivifying truths of God’s goodness and offer up in prayer the world he promises to restore.  

As we travel in this next through the other half of the Old Testament and repeat the whole of the New Testament, may God richly form us in his Son, by the Spirit as we read and pray together.  

Image: Historien d'art, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

Now, for today’s readings: Wednesdays always take us through a portion of Psalm 119. Today’s section reminds us that we need fear nothing in this life. “You, O Lord, are near at hand, and all your commandments are true. Long have I known from your decrees that you have established them forever” (Psalm 119:151–152 BCP). May the nearness of the Lord and the truth of his Word sustain us this and every day.  

Jeremiah offers heartening words for those of us who grow weary of the “bad guys” always seeming to win, of evil seeming consistently to triumph over good, and of error seeming to be more plausible than truth to too many. Jeremiah promises that Yahweh will not let evil and error triumph: “Like a lion he has left his covert” (Jeremiah 25:38). One day, he will roar, and he will set all things to rights. 

Romans. Until that day, Paul urges us with joy to be about the task of proclaiming the fact that in the midst of the fallenness and brokenness of the human condition, God has planted his standard. God has raised his Son from the dead as the beginning of the setting of all things to right, and as a refuge against the coming storm of judgment.  Our chief task until he comes again is to proclaim that good news: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:15; quoting Isaiah 52:7). May we take our part in telling the good news of God’s risen Son. May we enjoy the beauty of participating in God’s reclaiming lost souls for his “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15).  

John introduces us today to one of his favorite themes. Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Fierce though he may be in judgment against the false shepherds and the wolves, fiercer still is he in his love for his sheep. Fierce enough to give his life that they may live. May we know beyond a shadow of a doubt the ferocity—and the tenderness—of his love.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+  

Lift Up Our Sight - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesdayˀ• 3/28/2023 • 
Week of 5 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 121; Psalm 122; Psalm 123; Jeremiah 25:8–17; Romans 10:1–13; John 9:18–41 

More extended thoughts on today’s Romans reading in this post from last summer: on Romans 10:1–13 

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

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

God turns things on their head: 

Judgments about power. Judah (“all the tribes of the north”) have failed to keep God’s covenant. As a result, Yahweh will subject them to seventy years of exile at the hands of the Babylonians. To that end he has raised up Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, even calling him “my servant.” While Nebuchadnezzar shows some signs of recognizing Yahweh’s lordship (see the account of his wrestling with faith in Daniel), his successors see themselves as the source of their own power. Yahweh will hold them to account for that arrogance. The “cup of the wine of the wrath” that Judah drinks will pass next to the nations that come against her. “For thus the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and go out of their minds because of the sword that I am sending among them” (Jeremiah 25:15–16).  

Whatever power and authority we have in this world is a gift, and, “Every good gift comes from above,” says James, brother of Jesus (James 1:17). We do well to remember the gift comes with the special obligation of remembering its source. Only then will we use it for the good that he intends.  

Image: El Greco, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

There will always be ultimate vindication for those who pray (per one of this morning’s psalms):  

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy, * 
for we have had more than enough of contempt, 
Too much of the scorn of the indolent rich, * 
and of the derision of the proud (Psalm 123:4–5).  

Assessments about righteousness and goodness. Power is not the only thing that must be received and treated as a gift. So is righteousness or goodness. In Romans 10, Paul teaches that the purpose (the telos, or goal or aim) of the Law for him and his fellow Jews was, in the first place, to make them understand that they could not depend on a righteousness of their own. The Law, then, had its second purpose, to paint a portrait of the coming Christ. He would bring a righteousness “from God” that would be God’s own gift to us (Romans 10:3).  

Even for those of us who enjoy the privilege of being raised in a home where values and morality have been instilled in us, today’s passage still rings true. We all fall short (Romans 3:23). Nobody lives up completely to the standards to which they aspire. All of us face, then, the question of whether we should trust that our “best” is good enough, or whether we need to trust the inner voice that insists that our “best” is not enough. But more, can we trust what the Bible says about the Christ who has come down to us? We don’t have to (pardon the Led Zeppelin allusion) “climb a stairway to heaven.” Can we look to the One who did keep the law perfectly?  He offers the gift of his righteousness and goodness to be our own, if we will just accept it.  

Conclusions about (in)sight. Jesus says that his coming prompts the most amazing of reversals when it comes to spiritual sight: “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind” (John 9:39). This statement follows the authorities’ close investigation of the facts about the blind man’s healing (facts which their resolute lack of faith prevents them from acknowledging). Despite being stewards of the great tradition that looked for the world’s Redeemer, they refuse to “see” what is happening right before their very eyes. As for the man born blind, he continues to share the facts as he is dragged into a second inquisition. And with every expression of the plain truth that, “I once was blind, but now I see,” he awakens a bit more to who it is who has given him his sight. Eventually, he is granted spiritual sight as well as physical sight: “He said, ‘Lord, I believe.’ And he worshiped him” (John 9:38).  

Spiritual blindness is a constant, whether there is a “great tradition” like that of the Jews of Jesus’s day, or whether whatever “great tradition” that may have held sway in a society’s past is crumbling, as is the case in our day. May our eyes, as Psalm 123 says, stay open and lifted up. May we not be blinded by the purported light from competing sources around us—whether crazed conspiracy theorists, saccharine and smug defenders of the status quo, wannabe saviors from the left or the right, or self-styled prophets and prophetesses of narcissistic religion.  

May God grant us the grace to let our sense of what is real and true, of what we find to be beautiful and lovely, to be shaped more and more by His great story as it unfolds for us in these readings in the Daily Office. May our constant prayer be:  

To you I lift up my eyes, * 
to you enthroned in the heavens. … 
So our eyes look to the Lord our God, * 
until he show us his mercy (Psalm 123:1–3). 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Light of the World - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 3/27/2023 •
Week of 5 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 31; Jeremiah 24:1–10; Romans 9:19–33; John 9:1–17 

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

Good figs and bad figs. There are so many wrinkles in God’s plan to reverse our fallen state through the children of Abraham. Anticipating Judah’s exile, Jeremiah says there will be two groups of people, each of which he likens to a basket of figs. One basket “had very good figs, like first-ripe figs” (Jeremiah 24:2). These “figs” will be taken away into exile in Babylon, where Yahweh will “build them up and not tear them down; … plant them and not pluck them up” (Jeremiah 24:6). These figs will be given “a heart to know that I am the Lord; and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart” (Jeremiah 24:7).  

The other basket “had very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten” (Jeremiah 24:2). These “figs” will remain behind in Jerusalem or seek refuge in Egypt, where their evil ways will provoke the utter destruction of the city, making them “a horror, an evil thing, to all the kingdoms of the earth—a disgrace, a byword, a taunt, and a curse…” (Jeremiah 24:9–10).  

Image: Andrey Mironov, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons 

Objects of wrath and objects of mercy. These two baskets of figs, one good and one bad, become illustrations of the point that Paul makes in Romans 9:6, “not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants.” The principle that some are “objects of mercy” and some are “objects of wrath” cuts through the middle of the most favored people in the biblical storyline (Romans 9:22,23). The point is that nobody enjoys entitlement by virtue of pedigree. All of us depend upon a mercy that spares us the condemnation we deserve. All of us require God’s gracious gift of a heart that responds in love to God’s own loving heart.  

The determinative issue on our part is whether, like the “objects of wrath,” we think we are sufficiently good that we don’t need God’s mercy; or whether, like the “objects of mercy,” we know we ought to receive wrath, but gratefully discover we’ve been given the grace to ask for mercy through the cross of Christ. That’s really all we need to know about the whys and wherefores of the mystery of how God draws some into his work of new creation, and does not do so with others. In your mercy, Lord… 

The light of the world and faux light. One more wrinkle in God’s redemptive plan is the way the coming of the Light of the World, Jesus, exposes faux light for the darkness it is. 

Through the story of the healing of the man born blind in John 9, the religious leaders’ spiritual blindness becomes increasingly evident. So preoccupied with extra-scriptural scruples regarding sabbath-keeping are they (there is no law against healing on the sabbath in Torah!), that they fail to “see” the wonder of Jesus’s gift of light to the blind man.  

But there is also a more subtle faux light: the disciples need to understand the blind man’s state in the first place. They suppose there must be a direct, mechanical, tit-for-tat correlation between this man’s plight and sin. Either he sinned, they presume to think, or his parents sinned. The disciples don’t seem to grasp that sin is not that simple. There lies a powerful dominion of darkness beyond blithe answers and quick fixes. Jesus tosses aside their shallow supposition: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him” (John 9:3). What is happening before their very eyes is God at work, bringing back into the world the radiant glory that departed when our original parents said, “Yes,” to the serpent rather than to their Maker. Jesus, the Light of the World, is turning back the darkness that descended that sad day.  

The next time something bad happens to you, I pray that your first thought is not, “What unconfessed sin in my life brought this on?”, but rather, “Lord, help me to ‘see’ what you wish to do here, and how I can be a part of it. And, if part of that is confession, here goes… Let your kingdom come! Amen!!”   

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

A Righteous Branch - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 3/24/2023 •
Week of 4 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 95; Psalm 102; Jeremiah 23:1–8; Romans 8:28–39; John 6:52–59 

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 Lent, as we prepare for Holy Week.   

Promise of a new and better kingship in Jeremiah. After his conquest of Judah, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar appoints Zedekiah as a vassal king in Jerusalem (2 Kings 24:17). Though Zedekiah’s name means “Righteous is Yahweh,” he is no more righteous than any of his predecessors. Unwilling to be Nebuchadnezzar’s puppet, Zedekiah rebels. He is successful, however, only in provoking the utter destruction of Jerusalem and in bringing about the end of kingship in Judah. “He did what is displeasing to Yahweh, just as Jehoiakim had done. That this happened in Jerusalem and Judah was due to the anger of Yahweh, with the result that in the end he cast them away from him” (2 Kings 24:19–20 Jerusalem Bible).  

Jeremiah surveys the history of unworthy and ungodly shepherd-kings: “You have let my flock be scattered and go wandering and have not taken care of them. Right, I will take care of you for your misdeeds—it is Yahweh who speaks!” (Jeremiah 23:2b JB). Nonetheless, Yahweh is still the God of his people, the God who intends to renew his creation through these errant people anyway. Yahweh promises a return that will be so spectacular that the people will know him no longer as Lord of the Exodus, but as Lord of the Return: “So, then, the days are coming—it is Yahweh who speaks—when people will no longer say, ‘As Yahweh lives who brought the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt!’ but, ‘As Yahweh lives who led back and brought home the descendants of the House of Israel out of the land of the North and from all the countries to which he had dispersed them, to live on their own soil” (Jeremiah 23:7–8).  

Image: bybondservant007. Permission applied for.  

Moreover, Yahweh promises a new and better kingship. Jeremiah predicts that God will provide in the line of David a “righteous Branch” who will reign wisely and justly. His days will bring salvation and security to God’s people. Reversing the terms in Zedekiah’s name (“Righteous is Yahweh”), Jeremiah says “the name by which he will be called [is]: Yahweh is Righteous” (Jeremiah 23:6 my translation). Still, even after the return, no descendant of David mounts the throne. That is, until…  

A King in John’s Gospel. Though Jesus eludes a crowd that wants to force him to become king in John 6:15, his feeding of the 5,000 demonstrates that he is the Good Shepherd (that is, Good King) of his people (see John 10). Later, at his trial, Jesus makes sure that Pilate understands that, yes, indeed, he is a King, though “not from here” (John 18:36). In John’s soaring perspective (remember: the church’s symbol for John’s Gospel is the eagle), Jesus’s crucifixion is, ironically, a coronation. Pilate’s sign atop the cross tells the truth: ‘The King of the Jews” (John 19:17). When the chief priests demand the sign be corrected to say instead, “This man said, I am King of the Jews,” Pilate refuses. He says, simply, “What I have written I have written” (John 19:21–22). At some level, Pilate knows—and so do we. Jesus is King. At last, the Righteous Branch of David has come. At last, “Yahweh is Righteous” rules. At last, Emmanuel, “God is With Us” is with us (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23). At last, one worthy of the name Jesus (“Yah Saves”) is saving (Matthew 1:21).  

Therefore, we give thanks week after week for the Eucharistic Feast that Jesus inaugurates in John 6, when he takes the loaves, offers thanks over them, and gives them out for the people’s nourishment (John 6:11). Week after week, he gives himself to us anew, in the Bread of his Body and the Wine of his Blood. Week after week, he renews his gracious reign and nourishes his flock.  

Confidence in Romans. This reality accounts for the extraordinary confidence with which Paul climaxes the eighth chapter of Romans: “If God is for us, who can be against us? … Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” (Romans 8:31,35).  

God the Father has shown himself to be more than a match for the sin that has kept his creation in bondage (Romans 1–3) and that causes our hearts to shudder under condemnation (Romans 5:1; 7:1–25).  

God the Son has carried to the cross every single thing for which we could ever be condemned, and every single thing that could make us cringe with shame (Romans 3:24–26; 5:6–8; 8:3). Even now, at the right hand of God, Jesus prays for us (Romans 8:34).  

God the Holy Spirit intercedes for us as well, pours out God’s love into our hearts, dwells in our hearts enabling us to love God and neighbor, speaks confident assurance, sustains hope, and accompanies us all the way to glory (Romans 8:27; 5:5; 8:17). 

All of which gives Paul reason to exclaim, without minimizing or trivializing our hardships in any way, “All things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose….” (Romans 8:28).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

God's Word - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 3/23/2023 •
Week of 4 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 69:1–23(24–30)31–38; Jeremiah 22:13-23; Romans 8:12–27; John 6:41–51 

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 fourth week of Lent.  

A son of presumption. Jehoiakim, next-to-last king of Judah before the Babylonian captivity, is a sad study in the way a sense of entitlement leads to a desultory end. Jehoiakim’s father was Josiah, one of the good kings of Judah (2 Kings 22–23). Josiah had become king as a boy. Early in his reign, a forgotten copy of Scripture (perhaps the book of Deuteronomy) had been found by a member of his court. God’s Word captured Josiah’s heart, and he launched a life-long reformation that refreshed and renewed God’s people. Over the course of his long reign, Josiah practiced justice and righteousness, and “judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well” (Jeremiah 22:16).  

Amy Grant once sang, “When people look inside my life, I want to hear them say, ‘She’s got her Father’s eyes.’” Alas, that’s not the way it was for Jehoiakim. He did not have his Father’s eyes, though he should have been able to see Yahweh in his father’s eyes. Jehoiakim oppressed the poor, exploited labor, acquired illicit lovers, and built a lavish house as a monument to his own ego: “Are you a king,” asks Jeremiah, “because you compete in cedar?” (Jeremiah 22:15). All this, despite the fact that Jehoiakim had witnessed in his earthly father what Jeremiah means when he points to Josiah’s godly life and says: “Is this not to know me?” (Jeremiah 22:16).  

Image: Scroll of Esther, Wedding gift by Leah Jones, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

Jehoiakim becomes a foil for Jeremiah, an example of what it is not to have the law of God written on the heart. Jehoiakim’s future will be filled with suffering: “you will groan, when pangs come upon you, pain as of a woman in labor!”—but with no promise of redemptive offspring (Jeremiah 22:23). His death will be one unworthy of royalty: “They shall not lament for him, saying, ‘Alas, lord!’ or ‘Alas, his majesty!’ With the burial of a donkey he shall be buried—dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem” (Jeremiah 22:18b–19). He will suffer alone, and to no good end—except to serve as an example of where a life of narcissism and inflated ego leads.  

Finally, and perhaps most tragically, Jehoiakim’s ears were closed to the voice of God that constantly appealed to him, “I spoke to you in your prosperity, but you said, ‘I will not listen’” (Jeremiah 22:21).  

Children without pretense. Paul ponders, by contrast, the state of those who do have their Heavenly Father’s eyes. Those who belong to Christ are, with him, made heirs of their Heavenly Father’s inheritance. They have his very heart within themselves, the Spirit of Christ: “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:15b–17).  

When suffering comes upon these children, their experience is entirely different than Jehoiakim’s.  

Jehoiakim suffered alone. Christ’s brothers and sisters suffer too, but in fellowship with him: “…if, in fact, we suffer with him.” Ours is not a Savior who accomplished a drive-by salvation, briefly inhabiting our valley of woe just long enough to win our assurance of heaven. He lies with us on our sickbed, walks the unemployment line with us, and absorbs every cruel word and gesture flung our way.  

Not only that, Christ’s brothers and sisters bear their “inward groaning” in hope. They know that their suffering puts them in solidarity with “the whole creation [that] has been groaning in labor pains,” eagerly waiting for the consummation of all things and the glory to come (Romans 8:18–23). For Jehoiakim, the end of suffering is destruction. By contrast, for Christ’s brothers and sisters, there’s a vision of a larger, loving purpose to everything they experience. Always, for them, the groaning is but a waiting for “adoption, the redemption of our bodies,” always an anticipation of resurrection.  

As a result, Christ’s brothers and sisters live, not lives of a “Jehoiakim-like” insistence on their “best life now,” but rather, “if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:25). It’s a patience that is willing to do without so that someone else can have. It’s a patience that is slow to anger and quick to forgive. It’s a patience that commits itself to serving the ends of justice and compassion, with high regard for the frailty of the human family and the dullness of the human heart.  

Finally, unlike Jehoiakim who persistently resisted the voice of God, Christ’s brothers and sisters find themselves keenly attuned to the presence of the very Spirit of God working within them. The Spirit intercedes for them when they’ve exhausted their own prayer resources. Providing something like a release valve for their troubled souls, the Spirit draws wordless (alalētos) sighs and groanings from deep within them (Romans 8:26–27). The Spirit leads them when they need wisdom, counsel, and even course-correction (Romans 8:4,13). And always, always, always the Spirit testifies to them that they are their Heavenly Father’s beloved, adopted treasures and heirs (Romans 8:17). 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Potter's Hands - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 3/22/2023 •
Week of 4 Lent 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 101; Psalm 109:1–4(5–19)20–30; Jeremiah 18:1–11; Romans 8:1–11; John 6:27–40 

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

Jeremiah and the Potter. Anybody who has tried to fashion something using created material—whether it’s pottery or weaving or painting or knitting—knows that sometimes the material you’re working with responds to your touch, and sometimes it doesn’t. At a certain point when it doesn’t, you give up. You undo, set the effort aside, or start over with fresh material.  

 Jeremiah is told in chapter 18 to imagine Yahweh as a potter who is looking for the clay (his people) to yield to the touch of his hands. Accordingly, the prophet urges God’s people to become pliable to the Lord’s touch. Otherwise, judgment and exile seem inevitable, just as Jonah’s pronouncements against Nineveh seemed inevitable. However, calamity is inevitable only if Yahweh’s people remain unyielding in the Potter’s hands, unresponsive to his touch. 

Image:"Potter's Hands" by dbnunley is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 

Jeremiah and Jonah remind us of the truth captured in the Prayer of Humble Access: “But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy” (BCP p. 337). Yahweh issues strong warnings such as these through his prophets because his yearning is not to give people over to the consequences of their own intractability. Lord, have mercy upon us!  

Paul and the Mercy. Gratefully astounded to find himself in the grasp of God’s mercy, astonished to find himself not rejected for his early resistance to Jesus, Paul writes of the incomprehensible love and power that is at work in himself and which is offered to everybody—Jew and Gentile alike—through the gospel of Jesus Christ.  

Having described in Romans 7 the tangled mess that sin makes of our hearts, Paul revels in God’s gracious antidote in Romans 8: the Father’s love, the Son’s sacrifice, and the Spirit’s indwelling. These three factors Paul weaves together throughout Romans 8 into an amazingly strong response to his question, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?”  

The Father chooses us in his love, sends his Son on a mission of rescue, and holds us tight so that nothing can separate us from his love.  

The Son takes to himself the likeness of our sinful flesh so his perfect sacrifice can cover any and all of our sins—the huge ones and the tiny ones—anything that could lead to our condemnation.  

And the Holy Spirit becomes the Father’s onboard presence in our lives to speak comfort and assurance into our hearts, and to enable a “walk” towards the likeness of the Son.  

Jesus and the Father’s will. For all the vacillations we find in our hearts, all the internal resistance to Father Potter’s hands (to return to Jeremiah’s image), Jesus assures us that our final hope lies not within ourselves, but in those strong hands that are determined not to give up on us, not to set us aside. “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37). And more: “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day” (John 6:40). The Father chooses, and will not unchoose. The Son will let go of none of those in his grasp. Period. Full stop.   

To be sure, Jesus puts before us the profound responsibility to do the one job necessary: “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent” (John 6:29). But it seems as though the only thing one needs in order to be driven to do that “work” is to be tired of being hungry and thirsty. “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). That works for me! 

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

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+