The Bread of Life - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 8/7/2023 
Monday of the Tenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 13) • Year One 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 80; 2 Samuel 7:1–17; Acts 18:–11; Mark 8:11–21 

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 Monday in the Season After Pentecost our readings finds us in Proper 13 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

There are so many ways we can put our relationship with God on the wrong footing. Mercifully, the Lord is not content to let us get away with it.  

Image: "Doh, I knew I forgot something!" by THX0477 is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

2 Samuel: getting straight on who is the gift-giver. After God allowed him to have a fine cedar house, David wished to return the favor. Commentators suggest David would thereby make himself God’s benefactor rather than vice versa. At first, the prophet Nathan affirms David’s plan. But the Lord intervenes. He tells Nathan to inform David that he’s not the person to build God a “house.” Instead, God will do that “house” building. In God’s ongoing and relentless grace, David will build, not a physical building, but a royal house: a dynasty, a lineage that will always rule. 

What Yahweh will do for David is infinitely greater than anything David could do for Yahweh! “Thus says the Lord of Hosts, ‘I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel’” (2 Samuel 7:8). The leaders of Israel  acknowledged David as their shepherd: “The  Lord  said to you: It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you who shall be ruler over Israel” (2 Samuel 5:2). And Yahweh will do extraordinary things for his people through the shepherd-kings who follow David. He will plant them in their homeland, free them from evildoers, grant rest from their enemies, take up residence among them, and provide perpetuity to David’s line (2 Samuel 7:10–17).  

David is to understand — and it’s an invaluable lesson for you and me — that God’s gifts to us far outweigh our gifts to him.  

Mark: don’t try to replace God’s gift. God’s preeminent gift, we find in the New Testament, is David’s greater Son. Jesus comes as the Good Shepherd (John 10). In Mark’s gospel, Jesus has shown himself to be that great Davidic shepherd-king. With compassion for “sheep without a shepherd” he has taught them (Mark 6:34). And by means of the feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000, he has shown himself to be the ultimate shepherd who finds green pastures and sets a banquet for his flock (Mark 6:30–44; 8:1–9; see Psalm 23). King Jesus is simultaneously Good Shepherd and Bread from Heaven.  

Believing that Jesus is heaven’s gift and God’s provision for the deepest needs of our life is not an easy thing. Despite just witnessing these two powerful miracles in Mark, and despite listening to the accompanying extensive teaching in John, Jesus’s disciples still don’t get it. On a boat journey recounted for us in today’s reading, the disciples panic to realize they have forgotten to make adequate provision for themselves. They’ve only brought one loaf of bread.  

Jesus sees a teaching opportunity: “Watch out—beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod” (Mark 8:15). Jesus and Jesus alone is Bread of Life. On the one hand, Jesus warns those in the boat with him against a graceless piety like that of the Pharisees — those who attempt to climb a stairway to heaven by stiff-necked rule-keeping. On the other hand, Jesus warns his disciples against a secular worldliness like that of the Herodians — those who make peace with the earthly powers-that-be and live as lavish a life as possible.  

I pray we may look past the allures of anything else, whether the pride of hyper-spirituality or the sloth of materialism, and graciously receive God’s gift of himself in his Son. May we feed richly on the Bread of Life.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

David's Elevation - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 8/4/2023 
Friday of the Ninth Week After Pentecost (Proper 12) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 69; 2 Samuel 5:1–12; Acts 17:1–15; Mark 7:24–37 

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 in the Season After Pentecost. We are in Proper 12 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Samuel and David’s elevation. At this his third anointing David (finally) becomes king over God’s united people. Samuel first anointed him in promise (1 Samuel 16). Judah anointed him as king in the south (2 Samuel 2). Now “all the tribes of Israel (the northern tribes) came to David … and said, … ‘The Lord said to you: It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you who shall be ruler over Israel’” (2 Samuel 5:1–2). The leaders of the northern tribes make a covenant with David, “and they anointed David king over Israel” (2 Samuel 5:3).  

Image: "King David Statue-4" by zeevveez is licensed under CC BY 2.0  

The next few chapters of 2 Samuel recount the measures by which David secures his reign. David wins Jerusalem as capital and center of worship (2 Samuel 5:6–6:23). Yahweh promises an everlasting dynasty (2 Samuel 7). And David suppresses attacks by Edom, Moab, Ammon, Philistia, Amalek, and Zobah (2 Samuel 8–10).  

It’s been a long and winding road, as Paul McCartney might have put it: from shepherding on the family homestead, to receiving Samuel’s promissory anointing, to taking out Goliath, to singing to soothe Saul’s soul, to bonding with Jonathan, to running from Saul, to receiving Judah’s anointing, to lamenting Saul’s demise, and now to being anointed by Israel as king over a united nation. David’s life takes on the cruciform shape the New Testament describes for the Lord’s anointed, his Messiah: “…it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead” (Acts 17:3; and see also Luke 24:26; 1 Peter 1:11).  

Today’s Psalm 69, “A psalm of David,” is a reminder of just how aware David himself was of the way Yahweh had called him to this pattern of life. This psalm is also a reminder to us of how David sang and worshiped and prayed his way through it all — and how, in worship, the Lord gave him glimpses of the greater Son who would follow (see verse 23, below)!  

1 Save me, O God, * 
for the waters have risen up to my neck. 
2 I am sinking in deep mire, * 
and there is no firm ground for my feet. 
3 I have come into deep waters, * 
and the torrent washes over me. 

13 Those who sit at the gate murmur against me, * 
and the drunkards make songs about me. 
14 But as for me, this is my prayer to you, * 
at the time you have set, O Lord: 
15 “In your great mercy, O God, * 
answer me with your unfailing help. 
16 Save me from the mire; do not let me sink; * 
let me be rescued from those who hate me 
and out of the deep waters….” 

23 They gave me gall to eat, * 
and when I was thirsty, they gave me vinegar to drink. 

31 As for me, I am afflicted and in pain; * 
your help, O God, will lift me up on high. 
32 I will praise the Name of God in song; * 
I will proclaim his greatness with thanksgiving. 
33 This will please the Lord more than an offering of oxen, * 
more than bullocks with horns and hoofs. 
34 The afflicted shall see and be glad; * 
you who seek God, your heart shall live. 
35 For the Lord listens to the needy, * 
and his prisoners he does not despise. 
36 Let the heavens and the earth praise him, * 
the seas and all that moves in them; 
37 For God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah; * 
they shall live there and have it in possession. 
38 The children of his servants will inherit it, * 
and those who love his Name will dwell therein. 

Each of us is offered our share in “the fellowship of his sufferings,” in promise of “the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10). The privilege, in a word, is to join David in being formed in the likeness of his greater Son, and in singing, praying, and worshiping our way through it all.   

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Holy and Unholy - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 8/3/2023 
Thursday of the Ninth Week After Pentecost (Proper 12) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 70; Psalm 71; 2 Samuel 4:1–12; Acts 16:25–40; Mark 7:1–23 

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. On this Thursday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 12 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

“For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person” (Mark 7:21–23).  

Image: Justmee3001, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons 

Jesus’s opponents—the scribes and the Pharisees—can be too easily dismissed, I think, as fools and dullards. When it comes to their scruples about cleanliness at mealtime, well, perhaps it took the late 19th and early 20th century discovery of the germ-origin of many diseases to make us appreciative enough of the importance of hygiene. Hand washing and food preparation do help people avoid disease, and even death. 

Nonetheless, Jesus isn’t talking about physical hygiene, is he? He’s talking about a different sort of hygiene. A hygiene of the heart. Waste from food that comes into us simply exits as excrement. As Jesus notes: “…it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer” (Mark 7:19). What should concern us, he contends, is the filth that comes out of unclean hearts: “It is what comes out of a person that defiles” (Mark 7:20). Jesus finds it especially loathsome that we have the capacity to cover irreligion and unrighteousness with a veneer of religiosity and righteousness: “Sorry, Mom and Dad, we pledged so much to the church that we can’t help you make ends meet” (Mark 7:11, paraphrased, of course).  

Part of the gap between us and the contemporaries whom Jesus critiques is that they, at least, distinguish between clean and unclean, between holy and unholy. At least they recognize the categories. At least they are trying. For various reasons, we don’t get it. Some of what separates us from that world is the rank secularism and disenchantment of life that modernity has brought with it. Aided and abetted, I would contend, by a hyper-Protestant, anti-sacramental insistence that “all things, not just some things, are holy.” The result is that we’ve encouraged a mindset that says playing golf or soccer on Sunday is as good as going to church; “bagels and coffee” at Starbucks is as sacred as “wafers and wine” in the assembly. If everything is holy, eventually nothing is holy. If there’s a difference between Jesus’s world and ours, that’s it. And people in that world were closer to the truth than we are.  

Where Jesus’s contemporaries get it wrong is that the difference between holy and unholy isn’t “out there” — in food, or things, or people. The difference is within us. Our hearts manufacture excrement which we spew on everybody and everything around us. Or … our hearts produce what the apostle Paul describes as the fruit of the Holy Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22b–23a). And those are the things — and they are holy — that come out of us onto everything and everyone whose lives we touch.  

There are probably worthy observations to be made from the ignoble examples of Ishbaal’s assassins, his lieutenants Rechab and Baanah (2 Samuel 4:5–12). And worthwhile observations as well from the noble example of the Philippian jailer whose question, “What must I do to be saved?” opens up to him a world he never could have imagined.  

But this morning, I can’t get past this astounding challenge from Jesus to look within: just what is it that flows out from the depths of my being?  

Collect for Proper 12. O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; 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+ 

Lord of Creation - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 8/2/2023 
Wednesday of the Ninth Week After Pentecost (Proper 12) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 72; 2 Samuel 3:22–39; Acts 16:16–24; Mark 6:47–56 

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 in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 12 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Samuel: David is a complex figure. The Bible is unflinching in narrating David’s flaws, but its estimation of him is that he is “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). His abiding passion is to promote love for Yahweh, a theme that courses through his psalms: “I love you, O Yahweh, my strength” (Psalm 18:1). And love for Yahweh is his guiding political philosophy as well. That love explains why, whether by sword or diplomacy, he is determined to bring all twelve tribes of the children of Jacob into a united kingdom. Beyond the unification of the kingdom, that love is why, as we shall see in coming days, he will aim to consolidate God’s people’s worship in the city of God.  

Because the commander Abner defects from the deceased Saul’s army, David sees the potential for ending civil war, for uniting the northern tribes (loyal to Saul) and the southern tribes (loyal to David). Sadly, Joab, David’s chief general, doesn’t share that objective. Joab assassinates Abner. This act, he believes, accomplishes two things. He avenges his brother’s death in battle at Abner’s hands (2 Samuel 2:18–23), and he eliminates a rival for power within David’s inner circle. 

Bemoaning Abner’s death, even to the point of composing a lament for him (2 Samuel 3:33–34), David makes clear he had trusted and depended on Abner. In a bold, if unwise, political stroke, David retains Joab as general-in-chief. Nevertheless, David invokes a divine curse against him: “The Lord pay back the one who does wickedly in accordance with his wickedness!” (2 Samuel 3:39b). And on his deathbed, David will warn Solomon, his son and successor, that he would do well to dispose of Joab (which Solomon does—see 2 Kings 2).  

Mark: Jesus’s mastery. When David’s greater son, Jesus, comes on the scene, he demonstrates his own mastery over forces that overwhelm and engulf us. Walking on the water, he shows he is Lord of creation — and more, that he is with us in the storm of life so that we need not “be afraid.” In a most intriguing side note, Mark says the disciples’ astonishment at all this is due to the fact that “they did not understand the loaves, but their hearts were hardened” (Mark 6:51–52). If I may offer a considered opinion: I believe that this remark is Mark’s way of referencing the teaching that Jesus had offered about his being “the Bread of Life” that John’s Gospel had narrated following that day’s miracle of the Feeding of the 5,000 (compare Mark 6:30–44 with John 6:1–71). It is assumed by some students of the New Testament that John fabricated this explanatory material and put it into Jesus’s mouth long, long after the events. In my view, Mark’s “they did not understand the loaves” makes better sense as a comment on the disciples’ initial failure to grasp Jesus’s “Bread of Life” discourse.  

Acts: release from captivity. And when David’s greater Son rises from the dead, he commissions servants like Paul to go to the nations: “to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18). In Philippi, Paul’s gospel about the crucified and risen Jesus releases a young girl from the dual bondage of Satanic possession and predatory exploitation of her “gift” of divination at the hands of her owners. As a result, the girl’s owners have Paul and Silas flogged and thrown into prison. Tomorrow we will see how ineffective those measures are against the power of Jesus to release people from all kinds of captivity—including jail.  

God himself has stepped into the ambiguity and confusion of our lives. He has used complex and fallen people in service of designs larger than themselves. He comes to comfort the disheartened, and those near to being drowned in the storms of life. He sets free the used and abused. I pray that each of us can learn to trust him and to follow him.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Gospel-Bearers - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 8/1/2023 
Tuesday of the Ninth Week After Pentecost (Proper 12) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 61; Psalm 62; 2 Samuel 3:6–21; Acts 16:6–15; Mark 6:30–46 

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 Tuesday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 12 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Samuel. There are not nice, neat Sunday school applications to be drawn from today’s passage in 2 Samuel. It’s a world of civil war, concubinage, broken promises, busted up marriages. Unworthy motives and less than honorable means toward a worthy goal: the establishment of a united kingdom under Yahweh’s anointed.  

It’s important to remember that the Bible isn’t always being prescriptive (telling us what we ought to do). A passage like this one is more descriptive (telling us what happened). The Bible is realistic about the fallenness of the creatures through whom God is working his plan. To my mind, it’s part of what gives the Bible the ring of truth. Some actions are recorded not to inspire emulation, but to evoke from us, “Lord, have mercy. Give us grace to see your hand at work in the world around us, because bringing good out of evil is what you do. Praise be.” 

In the wake of King Saul’s death, war breaks out between the house of Saul and the house of David. Abner, Saul’s former general, offers to go over to David’s side after Saul’s son Ishbaal accuses Abner of “going in” to Saul’s concubine. (Apparently, Ishbaal suspects Abner of making his own play to become Saul’s successor.) David accepts the offer under the condition that Abner bring him Michal, Saul’s daughter whom Saul had betrothed to David but had given instead to a different husband. Weeping, Michal’s husband, Paltiel, accompanies Michal and Abner until he is told to go home. 

Today’s passage ends with the solidification of the pact between Abner and David, chiefly marked by Abner’s promise that he will convince all the generals from Israel (the northern tribes) to join David, thus uniting all Judah and Israel under David, just as Samuel had predicted.  

Image: San Jose, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons 

Mark. Thankfully, among the things the Bible describes are the unique acts by which God invades his fallen world to bring redemption and rescue. All four gospels celebrate one of those redemptive acts: the feeding of the 5,000. Here, anticipating the offering of himself in the Eucharistic feast, Jesus “takes … blesses … breaks … and gives” the bread and the fish (Mark 6:41). By God’s grace, what should feed only a handful of people nourishes a multitude. God comes to replace scarcity with plenty, and hunger with satisfaction.  

Acts. As though to illustrate the dynamic of multiplication that Jesus’s Eucharistic act enacts, today’s reading in Acts shows breakthroughs in the gospel’s progress — the invasion of light into darkness.  

Unwilling to force God’s hand (the Spirit has said “No” to their attempts to evangelize western and northern Asia Minor [“Asia” and “Bithynia”]), Paul and his itinerary wait in Troas on the western shore of Asia Minor. (It may be noted that Troas is the site of ancient Troy, the staging area for the Persian king Cyrus’s attempt to invade Greece and Europe centuries earlier.)  

Paul has a nighttime vision of a man from across the Aegean Sea: “Come over to Macedonia (northern Greece) and help us” (Acts 16:9). Paul and his group decide that the Lord is calling them to take the gospel to Greece. The long-lasting effects of this incursion of God’s tiny army of evangelists from Asia to Europe will prove to be far more significant than Cyrus’s failed invasion. Europe will be forever changed by this boatload of gospel-bearers.  

(Incidentally, for the first time, the narrator of Acts (Luke) includes himself in the account: “…we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them” — Acts 16:10-17; and see also, 20:5-15; 21:1-18; 27:1–28:16). Most commentators think this is a significant note. Some suggest the man from Macedonia was Luke himself, and that he himself came over to Troas from Greece and appeared before Paul that night. Alternatively, the “vision” may have been a true “vision.” The Greek Luke may have already been a part of the traveling band, and who now begins to write himself into the story as the gospel begins its foray into his homeland.)  

In Philippi, the first named convert is a woman named Lydia, a merchant in expensive purple cloth. The Lord opens her heart to believe (one of several notes indicating Luke’s understanding that faith itself is God’s gift — see Acts 16:14; and also 13:48; 18:27). She becomes host and patron to Paul and his company. These are profound breakthroughs for the gospel — reminiscent of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes — from Asia to Europe, with the anchoring of ministry in the home of a woman.  

Collect for Proper 12. O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal; 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+ 

A Hot Mess in Need of Fixing - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 7/31/2023 
Monday of the Ninth Week After Pentecost (Proper 12)  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 56; Psalm 57; Psalm 58; 2 Samuel 2:1–11; Acts 15:36–16:5; Mark 6:14–29 

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) 

Image: "Good news bad news" by PORTOBESENO is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 

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 Monday in the Season After Pentecost our readings finds us in Proper 12 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

I made the mistake this morning of checking the news services before beginning my devotions. Evil and folly have such a grip on our world! I’d list examples, but you can fill in the blanks. Tomorrow’s examples will be different. Except they won’t be. They’ll be different expressions of the same old same old.  

Or maybe it wasn’t a mistake. The world I found when I finally read today’s biblical texts is like ours: a hot mess badly in need of fixing. Abner, former commander of recently deceased king Saul’s army, refuses to accept David’s rule. Paul and Barnabas split up because they disagree about John Mark’s reliability. Herod Antipas beheads John the Baptist. Their world and ours are aptly described in the words of the Eucharistic prayer: “When we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death….”  

Always, though, always, the God of the Bible is working to reclaim a world and people he created and that he has never stopped loving.  

2 Samuel: the messy unification of the kingdom. This week’s readings in 2 Samuel begin with David’s anointing as king of Judah (in the south), and they will conclude on Friday with his anointing as king of Israel (in the north). Amidst a great deal of intrigue, betrayal, and Realpolitik, a united kingdom is coming together under the Lord’s Anointed. Despite our fallenness (including the fallenness of our heroes), God is advancing his plan ultimately to redeem the world through his one true King of one united People.  

Acts: when even the good guys can’t get along. The power of evil and folly emerges within the apostolic band — Paul and Barnabas and John Mark are made of the same stuff as we. For unspecified reasons, the young John Mark abandoned the mission during the first missionary journey after success on Cyprus (Acts 13:13). He is cousin to Barnabas, and he may be upset by a reorganization of a mission that began as “Barnabas and Saul” but is now “Paul and Barnabas.” Regardless of the reason, when it’s time to begin a second missionary journey, Paul is unwilling to have on the team someone whose loyalty or dependability he can’t count on. Barnabas lobbies Paul unsuccessfully for John Mark’s inclusion. These two gospel-allies are at an impasse.  

This story could have taken any number of destructive turns, but it doesn’t. Rather than seek some sort of severe sanction against each other, they separate, and continue ministering the gospel. Barnabas takes John Mark back to Cyprus. Paul makes Silas his number two (Silas likely, years later, becomes the amanuensis for Peter) and heads into mainland Asia Minor, where he adds Timothy as young protégé. Through division, the ministry expands. What’s more, evidence from three of Paul’s later letters (Colossians, Philemon, and 2 Timothy) indicates that over the course of more than a decade of ministry, the breach between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark is healed. On the eve of his martyrdom very nearly the last words Paul pens are these: “Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is a great help to me in ministry” (2 Timothy 3:11).  

Our best intentions, it turns out, are themselves in need of redemption. The Bible knows that. I’m so glad for that.   

Mark: when fools are “large and in charge.” Somehow, buffoons wind up at the head table. Reckless fools are given power over life and death. It’s that way now. It was that way then. “King Herod” is case in point. Note the quotation marks. Mark is thoroughly tongue-in-cheek when he refers to Herod Antipas this way. Antipas’s father King Herod “the Great” (would-be assassin of baby Jesus) divided his kingdom into fourths, so that each of his sons was a “tetrarch” (ruler of a fourth), not a king.  That first Herod’s ego was so “great” it would not allow any son to become greater than he.  

Antipas fancied himself “king,” but he wasn’t. His promise to Salome (early historian Josephus names the story’s dancer) of up to half his “kingdom” is the empty bluster of a blowhard. He has no “kingdom” up to half of which to give! Moreover, his aspiration to become a king will cost him everything. He has tried to dominate his brother Philip by stealing away Herodias, Philip’s wife (and Antipas’s own niece). To do so, Antipas has divorced his first wife, whose aggrieved father, a few years later, will defeat Antipas in war. Antipas is then  permanently and shamefully banished. Antipas is a king in braggadocio only.  

Alas, while they’re at the head table, buffoons entertain their audience. As long as they have power over life and death, they do much harm — witness the fate of John the Baptist. But in the end, they lose. In the end, John the Baptist’s promise of being followed by one greater than he comes true. In the end, the baptism of Holy Spirit and fire comes. In the end, the Baptist will rise, showing buffoonery and reckless foolishness to be exactly the sham that they are.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Our Lives Will Tell Beautiful Stories - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 7/28/2023 

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

“Beautiful Things” 

Denise comes to church wearing makeup to hide bruises from hands that had once been pledged to love and cherish her. Daniel comes wondering if anyone will notice scars from cosmetic surgery he hopes will slow his late Boomer life down. Jason comes resolving to find the strength to stop overeating. Ellen comes doubting whether Jesus can forgive this week’s purging.  

Each encased in a cocoon of “felt” ugliness; yet all unknowingly united on the canvas of an incomparable Artist.  

The Poetry of Redeemed Humanity 

“The king will have pleasure in your beauty,” runs a line in the one wedding song that made its way into the Book of Psalms. No telling how many royal brides of Israel “walked the aisle” to this incredible lyric (Psalm 45:11 BCP). A greater King-Groom, Jesus, takes even greater pleasure in the beauty of a yet more royal Bride. We are his song of love, for he came to make us “radiant in glory” (my paraphrase of Ephesians 5:27). We are his poetry, for he came to make us his workmanship (Ephesians 2:10, Greek: poiema, from which “poem”). It’s hard to take in, but Jesus’ loving design for us is loveliness. He will have pleasure in our beauty – yours, mine, and ours together.  

That is worship’s new song. And perhaps it’s worth thinking about while we’re on the subject of artistry in worship and the effective worship leader.  

Beautiful Maker 

The true art in worship is not ours. It’s Jesus’s, because he doesn’t just save us from destruction. Jesus does more for us than getting us out of debtor’s prison (though he does), more for us than delivering us from an eternal death penalty (though he does), more for us than preventing us from being devils’ food (though he does). He pulls us off the scrap heap and redeems, reworks, remakes, and refashions us into works of art.  

“You make beautiful things, You make beautiful things out of the dust,” sings Michael Gungor, and that, rightly. In a scene in the Divine Comedy Dante describes sculptural reliefs of individuals whose lives are marked by God’s grace (Purgatorio 10). The reliefs are “living stone” tableaus of humility: Mary saying “Yes!” to Gabriel, David dancing before the Ark, a Roman emperor showing kindness to a widow. Meanwhile, in the very same scene, redeemed but pride-burdened souls carry back-bending stones – the very same stuff into which the lovely, grace-filled tableaus are carved. The promise for the redeemed is that eventually, in God’s own time, all our lives will tell beautiful stories.  

Along the way, we worship. In worship we participate in the beauty that will be complete one day, and that – at least according to the Bible – has already set in.  

How He Loves 

The “takeaway”? Simply a gospel-beautification inventory. Do our services cover a theological range of Christ as Guilt-bearer, Debt-payer, Dragon-slayer, Beauty-maker? A depth of sacred action: baptismal waters that purify, a kiss that confers peace, bread and wine that foretell a wedding banquet? An affective range of sorrow and joy, penitence and celebration?  

For me, though, the most critical question in crafting worship that participates in Jesus’ artistry is whether his interest in Denise and Daniel and Jason and Ellen is also mine.  

C. S. Lewis maintains that we are all helping one another to one of only two possible ends: either the Beatific or the Miserific Vision. We are all – every one of us – on our way to being either an “everlasting splendor” or an “immortal horror.” And in this life we can do nothing more important than take with full earnestness the question of our neighbor’s ultimate destiny.  

Healing Arts 

One of the reasons for tuning in to the voices of Christian neighbors from other generations is that sometimes their arresting idioms will recapture for us biblical truth. One of the greatest services we as worship leaders can provide our contemporary Christian neighbors is a remediation of these idioms and their healing truths.  

The anonymous 1st century composer of the Odes of Solomon sings: “My chains were cut off by His hands.” That’s good news for Denise. “I received the face and form of a new person.” It’s as though those words were penned for Daniel personally. “And I walked in him and was saved.” Jason and Ellen need to know that. More, we all could use a dose of: “Then I was crowned by my God, and my wreathed-crown is living. … I have been released from vanities and am not condemned (Ode of Solomon 17.4,1,3). Or, as John Andrew Schreiner elegantly adapts the lyric in The Odes Project: “Glory to You, Messiah. Glory to You, our God.”  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

There Is Only One of Us - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 7/27/2023 

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

“Self-stewarding in a Multiplicity World” 

“Sir, do you realize you were going 26 in a 15-mile-an-hour school zone?” asked the police officer as he approached my car. Then, as he started to write my ticket, he added an almost gleeful, “Oh, and you can put your cell phone away.” 

I knew the speed limit was 25, which is how fast I thought I was going. What I had missed—because I was more present to my phone call than to my driving—were the signs with the blinking yellow lights. Those lights changed the speed limit to 15 mph when children were leaving school. 

Lesson: You really can only think about one thing at a time. According to molecular biologist Dr. John Medina in Brain Rules, our brains are wired that way. Spiritual corollary: multitasking is a myth. Our new media can extend our reach, but they cannot “disincarnate” us. 

Seduction and Captivity 

At the turn of the 20th century, sociologist Max Weber worried that people in the modern world had trapped themselves in an “iron cage.” Christianity had taught them to be productive. Capitalism had made their work profitable. But Christian belief was gone—in his opinion, at least. People were left with nothing but the technology they had created and the standard of living it had taught them to crave. Trapped. 

A hundred years later, we find ourselves stewards of an awesome new array of tools for connecting God’s people with one another and for aiding their adoration of the Lord of life. Lest we become trapped in a new iron cage, Christ’s followers need disciplines of the heart that make the new media our servants, rather than us theirs. 

Embodying Faithful Ministry 

As of this writing, I’ve been an “online minister” for two years. With all the busyness of the screen—the live streaming, the myriad “chats” going on, the scrolling avatars of logged-in worshipers, the world map with locations of worshipers—it’s astounding that worshipers can worship. But worship they do. I am grateful these brothers and sisters bring so much of themselves into our “virtual” worship space. 

I’ve discovered, though, that to do my job of hosting people’s worship, I have to make a conscious decision not to “leave” the service to check email, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo sports, or nytimes.com. 

What’s been helping me to avoid “disincarnation” is a new mediation of two ancient disciplines: fasting and Sabbath-keeping. 

Hunger Is good. 

Fasting makes you hungry. They say it makes you smarter. I know that an edge of hunger made my black lab, Lipton, unbelievably motivated in the obedience ring. But fasting doesn’t always have to be about food. I went out to dinner recently with a group of friends. I was fascinated to observe how many people in the restaurant—many obviously there on dates—were having a far more intimate relationship with their cell phone than with the person they were with. When I temporarily deprive myself of tools of connectivity and efficiency, I give my inner being an appetite for the relationships the tools are designed to enhance in the first place. 

Rest Is good. 

Some of our most creative thinking happens while we’re asleep. Really. That’s why we wake up sometimes with the perfect repartee for the conversation we had yesterday. We are hardwired to have a rhythm of work and rest. Rest restores. Sabbath recreates. So, I’ve been learning not to start the day checking email or my Facebook news feed, but with devotions. I’ve been schooling myself not to let my total existence be defined by the demand to respond to every call, text, chat, email at the moment it comes in, but by the enjoyment of a deep relationship with Jesus that requires seasons of rest. Naps. Meditation. Prayer. Simple conversation. Worship. Retreats. One day in seven for the important stuff besides work. Unplugged Sabbaths give me more to offer when I plug back in. 

What Michael Keaton’s character Doug Kinney learns in the movie Multiplicity is true for all of us. There is only one of us. An excarnate life—a cloned presence elsewhere—is a losing proposition. So we have to steward ourselves as best we can in the one place we can be at any given moment. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+

Diversions and Distractions - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 7/26/2023 

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

“Creativity, KOA, & the Wilderness” 

There’s no place for diversions and distractions when I have my creativity hat on. Well, there are exceptions—like when my wife says, “Full moon tonight. Let’s drive to the beach and take a walk!” Diversions are fun. Distractions, not so much. For me, creative moments are hard to come by, and it’s tough to overcome getting sidetracked. 

Then again … diversions and distractions provide a different angle of vision. Often, it’s the odd and the unplanned that make for great stories and unanticipated insights. 

KOA Diversions 

Recently, Peter Furler, former frontman for the Newsboys, visited the staff of Z88.3, Orlando’s Christian FM radio station, during our weekly devotions. He reflected on life since leaving the Newsboys in 2008. He spent a lot of that time in an RV with his wife, logging some 110,000 miles, seeing the USA, spending nights in KOAs (that’s Kampgrounds of America, for non-campers). Furler talked about the way that being with a different crowd—for some reason, his celebrity had escaped the KOA community—helped him see through other people’s eyes and gave him a chance to, well, slow down. 

The result? A closer marriage, a simpler lifestyle, and, in the end, a renewed sense of calling to the craft of songwriting and music-making. When he sings now it’s with a renewed sense of the power of familiar truths: “You hold the weight of the world, yet I don’t slip through your hands.” 

From the Wild 

It’s not just pleasant diversions that lead to creative insights. Consider David, the Bible’s best songwriter. Thirteen of David’s psalms bear superscriptions that place them in specific places in his life. Every tableau is painful, yet every psalm that results is a masterpiece. 

David paid no small price for the title “Sweet Singer of Israel” (2 Samuel 23:1). If our use of the psalms—whether as the basis for songwriting, prayer-composition, personal meditation, service-design—is to be more than “cherry picking,” we have to inhabit the stories from which they emerge. 

It’s when he’s hiding from Saul in a cave in a foreboding wilderness that David finds refuge in the shadow of God’s wings (Psalm 57:1; compare 1 Samuel 24:3). It’s when he’s feigning slobber-mouthed insanity among the Philistines that David discovers God has put his tears in a bottle (Psalm 56:8; compare 1 Samuel 21:11-13). It’s as a result of being “outed” about his horrible sin against Bathsheba and Uriah that David turns to the One who alone can “wash … cleanse … purge … blot out” his sins and iniquities (Psalm 51:2,8,10; compare 2 Samuel 12-13). David’s “broken and contrite heart” can indeed make God “hide his face” from David’s sins (Psalm 51:10, 18). 

The Real Song 

I’m sure David knew he had a gift. I can well imagine him sitting in his palace, surrounded by lots of wives, children, and advisors: “Will everyone please be quiet? Can’t you see I’m trying to write a psalm of praise to God?!” But God’s interest in David’s creativity was secondary, I think. What God wanted was David himself—his heart, his mind, his affections, his obedience. Getting David’s heart took a barren wilderness, enemies that sought his harm, a meddling prophet, difficult children. The distractions made David look fully into his Father’s face. The creativity was reflex. 

When God calls us to a ministry in the arts, he seems to send us to strange places. Sometimes it’s to a KOA to make us slow down and consider another way of looking at things. Sometimes it’s into a wilderness so we can understand the desperation of our hearts, the hopelessness of life without our God. It’s in those strange places he draws from us what he seeks: our worship. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Character of Jesus - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 7/25/2023 

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

Samurai Sanctification: The Seven Deadly Sins & the Beatitudes  

A few years ago, I took up samurai swordsmanship. It has not been easy, because the sword is not just about cutting stuff. It’s as much about how you move your body. My body doesn’t do Japanese well. When my sensei shows me what I look like to him, he bounces like Tigger and sways like John Wayne. What my sensei is looking for, instead, is Obi-Wan Kenobi’s liquid smoothness. To learn fluidity of motion I have to force myself to take on a persona — almost an alternate me — when I’m on the floor of the dojo. I feel like a total phony, because I’m saying “No!” to everything that feels natural. But every once in a while, when I glance at myself in the dojo mirrors, I see what my sensei is after.  

The “liturgy” of the dojo reshapes me so I can take on the other me that I must be if ever I wish my swordsmanship to be samurai. Christian worship does something like that for followers of Christ. Worship shapes us to be citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Worship invites us to take on a new persona: a persona so new it feels phony sometimes, even though it’s not.  

It’s simply the character of Jesus.  

True Selves 

In Matthew 5:3-12 Jesus announced that the Kingdom — and therefore life with and in him — belongs to the humble, the mournful, the meek, the hungry and thirsty, the merciful and peaceful, the pure in heart, the courageous in suffering. Jesus prefaced each saying with, “Blessed are….”  He was not piling on guilt to prove we need a savior. He was describing himself and issuing a promise — on the far side of his cross — of what he had come to make us into.   

In the first few centuries of the church, certain believers “followed” Jesus into the wildernesses of Palestine, Syria, and Egypt, thinking the desert would be a place to free themselves from the dangers and distractions of the world so they could become more like their Lord. Unexpectedly, what many of those first monks (“monk” means “one who lives alone”) discovered was that they brought their problems with them. Thankfully, they provided a rich vocabulary of the obstacles to realizing the character of Jesus: the “seven deadly sins” of pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, lust, and gluttony.  

The Deadlies 

Worship reshapes me to take on the “other” me Christ says I am in him and to lose the “default” me the desert fathers describe in “the deadlies.” There are a thousand ways in which worship does this work in us. At the Table, in particular, to borrow an elegant phrase from C. S. Lewis, “a hand from a hidden country touches not only my soul but my body. … Here is big medicine and strong magic.”  

The Table is indeed “big medicine and strong magic” for life-transformation. I love the fact that in many churches the entire communion portion of worship is offered in prayer: “We give you thanks, Heavenly Father, that the Lord Jesus, on the night before he died, took bread, and after giving thanks to you, broke it, and gave it to his disciples….” Accordingly, I find myself coming to the Table praying that the Lord would impart more of that new other me for my default “deadlies.” 

Humility 

Lord Jesus, you came in the humility of our humanity. You freely accepted a cruel and shameful death to take away our shame and guilt. Touch me now, please, in the simplicity of this bread and wine to break my pride and give me your humble heart.” 

Compassion 

“Lord Jesus, you wept beside your friend’s tomb and showed compassion to the shepherd-less crowds. By the cup of your sorrow, teach me to mourn my neighbor’s hurts. Forgive my envy of those who have more, who seem to be in a better place than I. By the bread of your suffering, may I long for their well-being...” 

Forgiveness 

“Lord Jesus, in the strength of your meekness, you broke the back of evil. Forgive my bitterness towards betrayers, my self-protective ire against reality that won’t bend to my will, my offense at the merest slight. As you have drunk to the last dregs the cup of judgment, tether my anger and show me the power of forgiving love...”  

Involvement 

“Lord Jesus, you ‘troubled yourself’ (John 11:33) to come to our aid. You gloriously rose from the dead to reign over us. Forgive the sloth of my spirit. Forgive my indifference to you — and to the good, the true, and the beautiful. As this bread and wine are a foretaste of a great wedding festival, may I rise from this Table and live as one who hungers and thirsts for all things to be made right...” 

Sacrifice 

“Lord Jesus, your coming was but the overflow of the eternal self-giving communion between Father, Son, and Spirit. Forgive my greed and avarice. Forgive my obsession with gaining things and financial security. As you give yourself to me in this bread and cup, may I give myself to you, to all who share this feast, and to your good purposes in this world...” 

Restoration 

“Lord Jesus, creator and restorer of all things beautiful, you came to us in our corruption. You loved — and love — with holy passion, clean hands, and pure heart. Forgive the countless ways I corrupt your beautiful gifts. By this bread and wine, offerings of your lovely creation, give me satisfaction in you, and use me to restore honor and beauty and nobility to the creation you love...”  

Deliverance 

“Lord Jesus, you said that it was your food and drink to do the will of him who sent you and to accomplish his work (John 4:34). You place me in a world of hunger, and all I think about is food for me. Forgive my blind eye to the way the righteous suffer and your prophets are persecuted. Fill me now with heavenly food and send me to fill others. Send me not to devour but to deliver. May this meal truly be one in which I become what I eat. May my life leave a trail of crumbs to lead others to you, life’s Living Bread...” 

“Amen.”  

As to the samurai me, I got a vision of the long-term payoff for working at samurai swordsmanship, when my sensei (who is Anglo, by the way) got promoted to some ridiculously high rank by his Japanese sensei. One of our more senior students whispered in my ear during the proceedings: “You know what this means, don’t you? Now they consider him Japanese.”  

May the Lord Jesus so feed us with his own self that we become more and more “Japanese.”  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Dual Realities - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 7/24/2023 

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

On Plato & Boxing: The Art of Living in Two Planes 

In the “Heroes” episode of M*A*S*H’s 10th season, the show’s chaplain, Father Mulcahy, sits at the deathbed of one of his life-heroes, a retired boxer named “Gentleman” Joe Cavanaugh. As he comforts the dying boxer, Mulcahy recounts growing up as a scrawny, inner-city kid with big glasses who liked to read Plato. He loved Plato’s description of an “ideal plane,” which helped him imagine a better life: “rambling fields and trees. Sort of like the suburbs, only in the sky.” 

One of Mulcahy’s challenges was that he was an easy target for the neighborhood bullies. It didn’t help that he never fought back—thinking fisticuffs were “not very … Platonic.”

Then one night when he was 12 his father took him to see “Gentleman” Joe in a boxing match. “Gentleman” Joe was punching his opponent at will. With the crowd yelling, “Put him away!” Joe had stopped punching and told the ref to stop the fight because the man had been hurt enough.  

And I realized for the first time that it was possible to defend myself and still maintain my principles. If Plato had been a boxer, I suspect he’d have fought like you. That was when I made up my mind to keep one foot in the ideal plane and the other foot in the real world. I thought you might like to know that. And I just wanted to thank you. 

Uncommon Match 

Francis Mulcahy became an effective priest because he embraced his humanity. Now, the M*A*S*H scriptwriters never really allowed Father Mulcahy to have one foot “in the ideal world.” But they did show the way his keeping one foot “in the real world” lent power to his ministry: from rescuing orphans to performing orderly duties when the rest of the camp was sick, even to performing an emergency tracheotomy while under fire. All the while, he struggled with how useful his life was. Even with the scriptwriters’ muzzle, it always seemed to me, Father Mulcahy’s foot in the real world became a pointer to another plane of existence.     

Recently, a slender, but elegant, art book brought Father Mulcahy to mind. It was Thomas S. Hibbs’ and Makoto Fujimura’s Rouault-Fujimura: Soliloquies. The book comprises three things that, like Mulcahy’s character, remind us of the two planes of existence.  

First, the book catalogs an exhibition of paintings by Georges Rouault (1871-1958) and Fujimura (b. 1960) that appeared together in 2009 in New York City’s Dillon Gallery.  

Second, Baylor University professor Thomas Hibb compares the incarnational techniques and the Godward vision of Rouault and Fujimura. With his bold lines reminiscent of stained glass, Rouault firmly places God’s incarnate Son in this world of fallen Eves, sad clowns, imperious kings, and self-righteous judges. Fujimura has adapted a Japanese medieval technique of refracting light to take up forms and themes of modern abstract art, but with this twist: his refractions of light in abstract form are pointers to the Author of light. 

Third, Fujimura offers a personal testimony about how Rouault’s art saved him from existentialism’s “no exit,” and opened to him “a portal that peeks into ages past, and then, magically, invites us into a journey toward our future.”  

This slim (63-page) art book resonated with me because a worship leader is a lot like an artist. Artists and worship leaders both seek to communicate truth in a largely intuitive way. I share with these two artists a vision of God’s transcendent glory, and I realize that in my own way I’m called to “paint” in “the real world.” What Fujimura seeks to do by bringing medieval colors to dance, I seek to do through well selected songs and well crafted prayers: “inviting the City of God into the hearts of the City of Man.”   

Dual Realities 

By far, the hardest part of “leading worship” is doing those two things at once. “Leading” means staying in time, maintaining pitch, working at chops. “Worshiping” means leaving time and entering God’s eternal “now,” where “a joyful noise” may or may not be a technically excellent noise. “Leading” calls for paying attention to what’s happening among the worshipers. “Worshiping” calls for paying attention to no one except the worshiped.  

Sometimes I despair of doing both at once. But then hope comes as a heaven-sent gift. Regardless of how odd the form in which hope comes, I receive it. The television character Father Francis John Patrick Mulcahy, was one such gift. 

Mulcahy, Rouault, and Fujimura—each in his own way—remind me it’s worth continuing to work at the craft of “leading” worship. It’s important to keep working at scales and charts. It’s important to look for tools that enhance the physicality of the worship experience for the people I serve. But I also need—and desperately so—whatever it takes to keep my worship foot and my leader foot in the right places.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+