Be Silent and Listen - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 9/21/2023 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, I’m Reggie Kidd, I’m glad to be with you on this Thursday in the Season After Pentecost. We are taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. 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.   

Be Still  

“Mr. Kidd, your mom’s heart is pumping blood as if she was 20 years old, not 91,” explains the ER doctor. 

Flabbergasted, I reply, “OK, so why’s she in the ER?” 

“She has congestive heart failure. (Pause, apparently taking in the blank look on my face.) Your heart has to have a constricting strength to pump blood out. She’s got plenty of that. But your heart also has to have an expanding strength to receive blood. Your mom’s heart is losing that ability. If the heart can’t relax and expand, blood can’t enter, and fluid gets backed up in the body. Eventually the congestion will take her out and cause her death. All we can do is manage things until that happens. I’m sorry.” 

Several months later my mom’s congestive heart failure was indeed being managed … for the time being. She was doing well, even if, as she said, “Getting old will either make you tough or kill you!” 

Heart Health 

My mom’s particular heart ailment – power-to-pump-out-but-not-to-take-in – had given me pause, though. I think of my laundry-list prayer life, and of my affection for non-stop, high-octane, über-decibel worship. Of all the pressures I feel to be producing, conducting, crafting, designing, tweaking, critiquing, supervising, and leading worship. I wonder about my spiritual heart-health – and that of those I’m leading.  

Shortly after my mom’s hospital stay, the Robert. E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies, where I teach, was in session. I was accustomed to then-Chaplain Darrell Harris leading our morning devotions with unusual spiritual perceptivity. But one morning I was caught unawares.  

I can’t go into detail – but let’s just say I was mired in some inner conflict. So, I’m pouring myself into the praise and prayer, looking to “worship” my way out of the funk. After his message Darrell says, “We go now to a period of silence. By silence, I mean silence. I don’t mean silent prayer. I don’t mean silent meditation on Scripture. I don’t mean rehearse your day’s schedule. I mean: be still. Be quiet, and just listen.”  

We knelt, and sang a lovely setting of “Be Still” (from Psalm 46:10a) that Darrell and Eric Wyse had written.  

Image: Fra Angelico , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

Take in 

Then the silence set in – glorious quiet, healing peace, grace-filled silence. I felt my heart relax and expand. I felt Spirit entering. I felt conflict flee. When, after a few minutes passed, we rose to sing “The Lord’s Prayer” (Eric Wyse’s version is something of an IWS anthem) I rose a different person.  

In that moment I realized why the ancients revered silence, why many sought the desert, wanting to hear a voice the city drowned out. They knew the vision of God was a “Well, shut my mouth!” sort of affair: “The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth be silent before him” (Habakkuk 2:20). They noticed that in Scripture some visions demand modesty of expression: “Do not write this down” (Revelation 10:4). They observed that even in heaven itself when something big is about to happen, silence may be what the moment requires: “When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour” (Revelation 8:1). They perceived that, like Job, if you get the audience you wish for with God you just may have to say: “I lay my hand on my mouth” (Job 40:4-5).  

Worship needs the same sort of rhythm our hearts require. Pump out: “I lift my hands in praise, for you are majestic and mighty and worthy of honor.” Take in: “You are merciful and tender of heart, and yet unsearchable in your judgments and inscrutable in your ways – and so I bow and wait and listen in silence.”   

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+  

Telling Time by Jesus - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 9/20/2023 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, I’m Reggie Kidd, I’m glad to be with you on this Wednesday in the Season After Pentecost. We are taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. 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.   

Telling Time by Jesus 

Roger wears two watches. Because he travels a lot, he sets the watch on his left wrist to whatever time zone he happens to be in. He sets the watch on his right wrist to the time zone “back home” in Switzerland, where his heart always is and where his family lives.  

Stability on the right wrist gives him equilibrium for all the changes on his left.  

Lost in Time 

A church is like a person whose left wrist is lined with watches that demand we keep up with different “time zones” all at the same time. There’s church programming for the fall. There’s Christmas ramp-up. There’s the first of the year blues. There’s Easter ramp-up. There’s the summer doldrums. There’s always some sports season time that affects people’s attendance and attention span (are we on NFL, NBA, or MLB time?). There’s “Hallmark” time (Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day).  

God gave Israel a pattern of life, from the beginning of the year at Rosh Hashanah. Thus he taught her to number her days according to his provision for spiritual and physical life. The church understood – and so Paul taught them – not to come under the calendar as law (see Gal. 4:10). Nonetheless, the church also understood – and so Paul also taught them – that Christ has brought “the fullness of time,” the time of “new creation” (Gal 4:7; 6:15).  

Image: Image: from "My 2006 March Madness picks" by jakebouma is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0; "Happy 4th of July! The American Flag in Fireworks" by Beverly & Pack is marked with CC PDM 1.0; Arturo Pardavila III from Hoboken, NJ, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Super Bowl image – public domain 

Christ Our Measure 

Over time, the church sensed that we needed to “name” the time that God had “claimed.” And so over the first several centuries of the church a fairly wide consensus emerged that we would order our days according to the life of Jesus Christ.  

The Christian New Year begins with Advent, the four Sundays before Christmas when we anticipate the incarnation of our Lord. We rehearse the Old Testament promises and the annunciation to Mary. We remember that Christ has come, and we celebrate the fact that Christ does come now in our lives and will come again at the end of the age.  

Celebrate 

From December 25 and for the next 12 days (the original “12 Days of Christmas”) we rejoice in his birth. We exult at the fact that Christ’s incarnation is the beginning of the destruction of all that is evil.  

From January 6 up until Ash Wednesday, we celebrate Epiphany, the “Manifestation” of Christ in his mission to become Lord of the whole world. Here, worship focuses on Christ’s baptism, his turning water into wine, his teaching, healing, and preaching – and his transfiguration as he prepares to journey to Jerusalem.  

Reflection, Fasting and Prayer 

Beginning on Ash Wednesday, in anticipation of Easter we spend 40 days considering the call of the cross, a season called Lent. Lent climaxes with Holy Week: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday (concluding with the best kept secret of the Christian year, the Great Easter Vigil).  

Easter is more than a day – it’s a season, running from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday, fifty days later: 7 weeks of Easter! While many modern churches put more of their energy into celebrating Christmas, the ancient church highlighted Easter. Christ lives, and so shall we! During the Easter season, worship emphasizes Christ’s post-resurrection appearances and teachings.  

The Great Mission 

From fifty days after Easter to the first Sunday in Advent (almost half the calendar year!) we celebrate Pentecost and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit reversed the curse of Babel and launched the church’s mission to the nations. The extended Pentecost season gives us ample opportunity to reflect on our place in that great mission.  

In the Christian calendar, the church offers a timepiece for the “right wrist” that anchors us in the “back home” of God and his story. We’re not just passing time according to the secular calendar or sports seasons or greeting cards. We are defined by our relationship with Christ, and he is the one by whom we tell time.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

The Power of Song - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 9/19/2023 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, I’m Reggie Kidd, I’m glad to be with you on this Tuesday in the Season After Pentecost. We are taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. 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.   

Singing the “Symbol” 

“So say we all!” began as a fortunate ad lib by actor Edward James Olmos in his role as Commander Adama during a rally-the-troops speech in Syfy’s television series Battlestar Galactica. The line became a communal ceremonial affirmation of humans in their battle against the genocidal Cylons and in their galaxy-wide quest for a new homeland. Whenever I’d hear members of the Colonial Fleet raise the shout on their way to fight the Cylons, I’d recall from the book of Exodus the gathering on Mount Sinai. There, God’s people heard God’s Word and twice roared, “All that the Lord has said, we will do!” as they prepared for the covenantal sacrificial act and the meal by which God and his people bound their lives to one another (Exodus 24:1-11).   

Singing: Bridge and Invitation 

I have come to love many features of worship with friends who emulate early Christian worship. No feature more so than the way we bridge from the ministry of the Word to the ministry of the Table. Having heard the Word read and proclaimed, we use the Nicene Creed to voice our “So say we all!” Then, and only then, are we ready to pray for the needs of the world and to break bread in the presence of our God and King. Placed right there, the Creed invites us to “re-enlist” in a cause that is more momentous than war against mere cybernetic enemies and in a quest that is also more assured than Adama’s for a New Earth.  

The Presbyterian church of my upbringing taught the baptismal creed: the Apostles’ Creed. But my Episcopal/Anglican friends use the church’s Eucharistic creed: the Nicene Creed. It spells out in greater detail the significance of Christ’s incarnation: that he who “for us and for our salvation came down from heaven and became incarnate” is “true God from true God.”  

The Nicene Creed came to be called “The Symbol of the Faith.” It stood as the best summary of the truths for which Christians had to contend during the first half-millennium of the church’s existence (issues which have only become more urgent in the 21st century): the Savior had the authority to save because he was divine, and the ability to do so because he had become one of us.  

Power of Song 

What is not often appreciated is that for centuries (emerging as custom probably in the 4th century and becoming a matter of decree with Charlemagne in the 9th), it was normal for the Creed to be sung as part of the worship service. Because it was not merely recited, but sung, the Creed took on the features of a “national anthem” for citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. These days, ordinarily when Protestants use the Nicene Creed, they simply recite it. Maybe that’s a loss (though on festival days at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke in Orlando, we chant the Creed in monotone, accompanied by improvisation on the organ).  

Intrigued by the idea of singing it, and also because it’s embarrassing for me to have to read the Creed while all the cradle-to-grave Episcopalians around me say it from memory, I came upon plainsong chant versions in the hymnal, one in a minor key that feels a little like “O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus,” and one in a major key that feels a lot like “Of the Father’s Love Begotten.”*  

Three surprises: 1) how easy it has been to memorize the text as song; 2) how differently the two tunes nuance the text; 3) and most importantly, how having the chanted Creed in my being makes its truth sing in my soul.  

Many Songs, One Voice 

There are many ways to declare the faith in worship, from Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress,” to Graham Kendrick’s “We Believe,” to Rich Mullins’ “Creed,” to the simplest affirmations of God’s goodness, like Darrell Evans’ “Trading My Sorrow” (“Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, yes, Lord, Amen!”). We all have different settings … and different souls.  

For all of us, though, there’s a power in how singing the faith anchors truth in us, augmenting what we know, re-focusing what we read, and shaping what we practice. There’s a Presence in how singing the faith binds us together, making us both His and one another’s. “So say we all!” 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

* Respectively, S 103 in the Episcopalian Hymnal 1982, and S 361 in the Hymnal 1982 Accompaniment Edition. 

The Word Became Flesh - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 9/18/2023 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, I’m Reggie Kidd, I’m glad to be with you on this Monday in the Season After Pentecost. We are taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. 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.   

Mystery Matters 

Ahmed: Our religions are the same. You call him Elohim and I call him Allah. Both words mean the same thing: “God.” We both believe Jesus is God’s Son and was born of a virgin. We both believe he will come again at the end of time. 

Me: But do you worship Jesus, Ahmed?  

Ahmed: Of course not, that would be blasphemy! The Son is not the same as Allah.  

Me: Then, no, friend, our religions are not the same.  

In my conversation with Ahmed, I realized how easy Christianity’s “sell” would be if we could just accept the logic that if there is one and only one God, then Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can’t each be God.  

The church of the first half-millennium bequeathed to us a fabulous gift: their stubborn refusal to surrender the lessons they had learned from Scripture and in worship to other voices. 

One voice said: “Just put Jesus a little below the Father and as high above us as we wish. Make Jesus a fellow creature with us, one through whom we worship, but not one to whom we offer worship.”  

Image: The Infant Jesus, oil on canvas, attributed to “Old Master,” Italian,  17th century 

Its opposite said: “Elevate Jesus so far above us that he becomes just a ‘face’ that God condescends to use to communicate with us without dragging him down to a material existence.”  

Make Jesus less than fully divine or less than fully human. Either way, he becomes more plausible, more understandable … more, well, marketable.  If early Christians had accepted either of these options – the one at the hands of Arians, the other at the hands of Gnostics – the church could have known early, easy success.  

As it is, though, Scripture told our spiritual forebears that “the Word became flesh.” Worship taught them both sides of the equation: THE WORD became flesh, and the Word BECAME FLESH.  

THE WORD: Only God Can Save 

Scripture teaches truths that worship shapes into habits of the heart. One is that only God can save. Even Jesus’ enemies recognized that statements like “Rise, your sins are forgiven” were claims to deity. John the Baptist declared Jesus to be “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Instinctively, the church has translated that statement into prayer: “Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us.”  

Early Christians cultivated the habit of praying to Jesus: “You are seated at the right hand of the Father. Receive our prayer. You alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.” Thus, they insulated themselves from claims that the Word is less than fully divine.  

Most of us live in a cultural environment in which Jesus is considered a great man, perhaps larger than life, maybe even semi-divine. But not GOD. However, if he is not God, then he doesn’t really save. We’re left to try to save ourselves, however we define salvation. The greatest thing we can offer our secularist friends, our Muslim friends, our Jehovah’s Witness friends, is to worship not some generic “Lord,” but the distinctly Trinitarian God. This is the God who redeems – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.   

BECAME FLESH: Not a “Drive by” 

To some people, it seemed (and still seems) unworthy of God to think of him actually becoming human. So they sought (and still seek) to protect the purity of God by having a fully divine Christ, but one who sort of passed through Mary rather than took substance from her. Jesus’ humanity disappears, or at least withers. Unfortunately, then so does ours.  

Most Christians, however, understand that since our problem – sin – includes body, mind, soul, and spirit, so does our solution. To heal us and rescue us, Jesus had to become one of us. The incarnation was not a “drive by” salvation. Jesus has come, and is coming, in the flesh (compare 1 John 2:26 & 2 John 7). Thus, we look for new bodies, not angels’ wings.  

That’s why “matter matters” in worship. Baptismal waters are simultaneously “our tomb” (the death of the “old man”) and “our mother” (the birth of the “new man”), as Cyril, Jerusalem’s 4th century bishop put it. Anointing with oil at baptism (Greek: chrisma) makes us little “Christs.” Just as Jesus turned water into wine then, he now turns wine into blood, so that in Communion “we become one body and blood with Christ. In this way we become Christ-bearers (a Greek word from which comes the name ‘Christopher’) as his body and blood are spread around our limbs.” Thus, the kiss of peace at Communion is not just any old greeting, but an expression of “a union of souls.”* 

Here’s what I wish I had thought to say to Ahmed: The difference in our religions is a mystery you more experience in worship than figure out in your head. We worship Jesus because it’s the Son’s divinity that gives him the right to forgive. And we worship alongside Jesus because the Son has become our brother and made his Father ours.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

* References in Cyril are to his Mystagogic Catecheses 2.4; 3.1; 4.3; 5.3, in Lester Ruth, et al., Walking Where Jesus Walked: Worship in Fourth-Century Jerusalem (Eerdmans, 2010).  

Trust the One Who Is Right - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 9/15/2023 •
Friday of the Fifteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 18) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 40; Psalm 54; 1 Kings 18:20–40; Philippians 3:1–16; Matthew 3:1–12 

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 18 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Being right vs. being made right. Somewhere along the way when I was growing up, I picked up the notion that I always had to be right. I had to know the answers, and I had to be 100% right about them. I lost a spelling bee in the fifth grade, and to this day, every occasion for using that word is an occasion to relive that crushing moment. If I got a 98% on a quiz, I would argue with my teacher for that additional 2%.  

For other people, the issues may be different: being the prettiest, being the star jock, being the “baddest,” or coming off as the wealthiest. It is all so exhausting. No wonder so many just give up.  

I gave up, too, because just at the point of exhaustion Paul’s words from today’s passage met me: “…that I may be found in him, not having my own righteousness…” (Philippians 3:9). Just when it began to occur to me that I would never know enough to justify my existence by always being right, along came Paul with a better claim than mine (“as to righteousness under the law, blameless”—Philippians 3:6). He said it was all garbage (actually, his term skubala means excrement). Skubala compared to “the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). And that, finally, was good enough for me, too.  

It was freeing to realize I didn’t have to justify my existence by being right all the time — which, ironically, gave me the freedom to pursue knowledge better. I had to trust the one who is right and who makes right: “…not having my own righteousness that comes from the law, but one that comes through (to render the Greek more literally) faith of Christ…” (Philippians 3:9).  

This phrase “faith of Christ” for Paul is multivalent—it is deep and fraught with meaning.  

In the first place, Paul means that Christ exercised faith towards God, and faithfully represented God on this earth. He knew his heavenly Father, and he was thus the first human to get God right. He believed his mission—set in eternity—was, in the thought-frame of Isaiah 53, death unto life. It was, on the one hand, to pour himself out to death, to bear the sin of many, to make intercession for transgressors, and therefore, on the other hand, to make many righteous, to find satisfaction in his knowledge, to see his offspring, to prolong his days, to be allotted a portion with the great, and to divide the spoil with the strong (Isaiah 53:8–12). Here on the earth as a man, Jesus trusted God to the point of allowing himself to die a criminal’s death for a world of criminals. He knew his Father’s promise to vindicate him by raising him up, and through him, to grant resurrection life to all who took refuge in him.  

Which takes us to the other side of “faith”: our faith in him. Our trusting that his death is ours. His death pays for our sins, sets a pattern for our giving up our own interests for the sake of others, and calls us to share in his sufferings. Faith is also our trusting that his resurrection likewise means our resurrection. It brings the birth of “the new man” within us, means the onboard presence of the living Christ in our lives, and promises that at the renewal of all things our very bodies will be made new like his.  

The bonus is that those who are “found in him” and who let go of everything else as so much skubala often find him giving much of it back. In him, those things are no longer worthless filth, but gifts that have been reclaimed, refurbished, redeemed, and ready to be used to his glory and for the welfare of others: whether smarts or looks or athletic prowess or moxie or resources. “For,” as Paul says elsewhere, “all things are yours, … the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God” (1 Corinthians 1:21b,22b,23).  

Collect for Proper 18: Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; 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+ 

God Is in Control - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 9/14/2023 •
Thursday of the Fourteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 18) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 50; 1 Kings 18:1–19; Philippians 2:12–30; Matthew 2:13–23 

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 18 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

God Is in Control  

In my view, one of the most striking vistas in all Israel is to be found at the summit of the Herodium, a hill in the Judean desert three miles southeast of Bethlehem that, according to Josephus the first century Jewish historian, King Herod the Great had had his engineers artificially make taller and “rounded off in the shape of a breast” (Josephus). The Herodium is most famous as Herod’s likely burial site. When you stand at the top of the Herodium and look northwest, you discover you are looking right down on Bethlehem, the place of Jesus’s birth and of the slaying of the innocents.  

Shortly before his own death from a consuming internal disease, and frantically trying to keep his hold on this life and his rule, King Herod had ordered the slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1–12). In addition to trying to kill the newborn infant he saw as a rival, Herod had ordered the rounding up of Jewish leaders. He had commanded that they be killed at his death, to ensure that there would be mourning throughout Israel upon his demise. Fortunately, his orders were reversed when he did in fact die, leading to much relief and celebration.  

It’s not difficult to imagine Herod’s funeral procession bringing his bier right past Bethlehem on its way to its burial place from Herod’s palace in Jericho a few miles away. Right past Bethlehem, and within earshot of mothers still bewailing the massacre of their babies. Mourning in Israel indeed, except as prophesied as part of God’s redemptive design, not as part of Herod’s maniacal narcissism:  

“A voice was heard in Ramah, 
    wailing and loud lamentation, 
Rachel weeping for her children; 
    she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:18).  

Thing is: God’s inexorable salvific plan rolls on. Pharaoh had failed to snuff out the life of baby Moses, and he rose to bring God’s people out of Egyptian slavery. Herod fails to snuff out the life of baby Jesus, for his parents whisk him away to Egypt. And as one like unto but greater than Moses, Jesus will return to “fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son’” (Matthew 2:15; Hosea 11:1).  

It’s good to keep in mind that God is always working behind the scenes in the most disastrous of circumstances, and that in the long run his goodness will prevail.  

Elijah’s time in exile and the miraculous way he sees God take care of the widow of Zarephath prepares him for his confrontation with Ahab and the priests of Baal. Obadiah, though a lover of Yahweh, finds himself in charge of the court of militantly pagan Ahab’s court. Elijah calls upon him to risk “outing” himself by announcing Elijah’s coming.   

From prison, Paul has to learn to trust that the Lord will use the power of his words and his prayers to help believers do the dance between their responsibility to “work out your salvation” and to trust “God who is at work within you” (Philippians 2:12–13). He has to trust that people will see in his emissaries Timothy and Epaphroditus Christlike examples of what it is to “hold fast to the word of life” and to “shine like stars in the world,” even “in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation” (Philippians 2:15).  

The challenge is ever before us. We may face monstrous egos like Herod or Ahab, with the misery they create for everybody around them. We may cope with difficult providences like Paul, which would seem to limit any influence we could have for good. Or we may even be called like Obadiah to do what seems crazy—literally or metaphorically suicidal. Nonetheless, we can trust—truly trust—that, as Twila Paris sings, “God is in Control”: 

This is no time for fear 
This is a time for faith and determination 
Don’t lose the vision here 
Carried away by emotion 
Hold on to all that you hide in your heart 
There is one thing that has always been true 
It holds the world together 
 
God is in control 
We believe that His children will not be forsaken 
God is in control 
We will choose to remember and never be shaken 
There is no power above or beside Him, we know 
God is in control, oh God is in control 
 
History marches on 
There is a bottom line drawn across the ages 
Culture can make its plan 
Oh, but the line never changes 
No matter how the deception may fly 
There is one thing that has always been true 
It will be true forever 

He has never let you down 
Why start to worry now? 
He is still the Lord of all we see 
And He is still the loving Father 
Watching over you and me 
Watching over you, watching over me, 
Watching over… 
Every little sparrow, every little thing, 
Oh, God is in control! 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Embrace Life Himself - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 9/ 13/2023 •
Wednesday of the Fifteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 18) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:49–72; 1 Kings 17:1–24; Philippians 2:1–11; Matthew 2:1–12 

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 18 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Many, if not most, scholars of Paul’s letters believe that Philippians 2:6–11 is an early Christian hymn, whether Paul is quoting it from a song already in use in the church or composing it himself. In most modern Bibles, these verses are laid out in poetic form.  

From Philippians on, Paul’s writings show more and more traces of hymnic features. His articulation of Christ’s majesty becomes more evident in these later letters: Philippians, Colossians, and Ephesians, but I’d also add at least 1 Timothy and Titus to letters that develop more of Paul’s “high Christology.”   

It’s as though the longer Paul contemplates the goodness of the good news of redemption from sin, the more captivated he becomes by the wonder of what has been done for us—and by Whom it has been done. Praise rises reflexively.  

Image: Adapted from "Ctrl + Z" by michalska1 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 

The vista that opens before us in Philippians 2 is breathtaking. In the Garden of Eden, though bearing God’s breath within them and though given the godlike task of overseeing and nurturing life on the earth, Adam and Eve did not consider it enough. They grasped after a knowledge that was on a par with God’s own.  

Add to that Herod the Great from today’s reading in Matthew. Herod is a perfect embodiment of the same self-idolatrous striving. We know from historians outside the Bible that Herod dies of a wasting and consuming internal disease not long after Jesus’s birth. When the magi from the East inform him they have come to hail a new king, Herod pushes against the inevitability of his being dethroned, not just by another king, but by death itself.  

In one elegant turn of phrase in Philippians 2, Paul describes how Jesus Christ counters the idolatrous drive that took root in Adam and Eve and that has manifested itself in all the Herods—in fact, in all of us—ever since:  

… though he was in the form of God, … (Philippians 2:6a). In fact, Paul had come to recognize that he had to make room in his confession of the oneness of God (“Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one”—Deuteronomy 6:4) for the full divinity of God’s Son (Romans 9:5; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:15–17;2:2–3; Titus 2:13). 

… did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself  … (Philippians 2:6–7a). The divine Second Person of the Trinity lowered himself to take on our estate that he might raise us up from the brokenness and decay to which our foolishness, our pride, and our self-exaltation had lowered us.  

What is especially lovely about Paul’s articulation of this profound truth is that he puts it out there for us in order to inculcate among us that same mindset and attitude: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” To that end, he introduces his hymn to Christ by exhorting: oneness of mind, mutual love, fullness of accord, abandonment of selfish ambition or conceit: “in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:2–6). Be to each other as Christ is to each of us.  

To step into the richness of today’s verses from Paul is to yield ourselves to singing praise vibrantly and to living love boldly. It is to lift hands in worship and extend arms in service. It is to bend our minds and hearts towards one another, looking to find agreement rather than disagreement. It is to serve, rather than to be served. It is to take our place in the grand undoing—the reversal of depravity, decay, death, and destruction—that Christ came to accomplish here on earth. It is to embrace life itself by embracing Life himself.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Scripture’s Perspective - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 9/12/2023 •
Tuesday of the Fifteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 18) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 45; 1 Kings 16:23–34; Philippians 1:12–30; Mark 16:1–8 

For further thoughts on Mark 16:1–8, see the DDD for 4/13/2020, Monday of Easter Week, Year 2: https://tinyurl.com/ddwhntnf 

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 18 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Mark’s challenging ending. Whether by the providence of a longer ending having been been lost (as some theorize) or by Mark’s own design, the best ending of Mark’s gospel is Mark 16:1–8. It’s an odd ending, because it records the witnesses to the empty tomb leaving it in fear: “They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (Mark 16:8).  

Either way, we readers know exactly what those first witnesses knew: a) Jesus is God’s Son (Mark 1:1, etc.); b) he has given his life as a ransom for our sin (Mark 10:45); c) we have been told he has risen from the dead and has told us to “meet him in Galilee” (Mark 16:6–7); and d) he has told us our life is now to consist of both suffering for and testifying to God’s kingdom (Mark 13:10,19,24).  

The question the empty grave poses for Mark’s original readers (and for us) is whether we will answer its call to meet the Risen Christ in our own Galilee. Even if we are “seized” by the same “terror and amazement” that struck the first witnesses to the empty tomb, we, just as they, can expect Jesus to offer us our share in his cross and in the venture of taking his message to the world.  

Image: Adapted from photo byAudreyYu. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. https://audrey-shark.blogspot.com/2014/05/trip-to-rome-encounter-with-st-paul.htm  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License 

Paul on living and dying. Imprisoned in Rome for testifying to Jesus, Paul provides a profound perspective on sharing Christ’s cross while taking his message to the world. Paul’s attitude is wondrous. He knows that his presence in a Roman prison has become a great conversation starter all over the city. Some Christians, out of love for him, share the good news of Christ eagerly. Other Christians, out of spite for him, do the same thing—but hoping to make his situation worse. Paul only cares that people are hearing about Christ, whether it improves his prospects of liberation from jail, or not. One of his more memorable or axiomatic statements is this: “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21 NASB).   

Here’s the gist of Paul’s saying: “I’m OK in either case, no matter how this turns out. If my Christian friends are successful in making Christ more attractive in Caesar’s courts, and if that leads to my release, then I will have more opportunity to live for Christ and tell others about him. If my (Christian!) enemies successfully irritate people by talking about Christ so much that it leads to my martyrdom, that’s all the better. It’s gain for me, because it means I enter the nearer presence of the Lord. It’s a win-win for me.”  

I can only hope for half this confidence, half this equilibrium for myself, but I am so grateful these words are here in Scripture to stimulate, stir up, and inspire. We have been given the privilege of knowing the Lord and suffering for him: “For to you  it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to  suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29). We stand in a long line of those who have counted themselves blessed with this dual honor: to know Christ and to suffer for and with him (see Philippians 3:10).  

1 Kings on appearance and reality. What a contrast with King Omri, and the line that he establishes in Israel. In terms of secular history and to all outward appearances, Omri’s brief twelve-year reign is successful. His rise ends a half century of civil war in the northern kingdom. He establishes a stunningly beautiful new capital, he makes alliances with surrounding kingdoms that bring regional stability, and he establishes a royal line that oversees prosperity and relative peace. But it is corrupt to the core, at least by biblical standards. Jezebel, the wife he secures for his son and successor Ahab, is a zealous and evangelizing devotee of Baal and Asherah. She will lead Israel further into idolatry. And the Bible’s verdict on Ahab’s twenty-two-year reign is that he “did evil in the sight of the  Lord  more than all who were before him” (1 Kings 16:30). This verdict comes, despite Ahab’s reign being, according to archaeological evidence, the most prosperous and powerful years of Israel’s existence as a kingdom separate from Judah.  

Scripture’s perspective is utterly amazing and radically challenging: Omri and Ahab, who thrive on their thrones, Scripture deems failures, while Paul, who writes from prison, Scripture considers a success. Indeed, if the tomb is empty because Christ is risen, as Mark knows it is, then everything is upside down: by dying we live, to bring news of true life to those whose existence is but a walking death.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Grace Wins - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 9/11/2023 •
Monday of the Fifteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 18)  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 41; Psalm 52; 1 Kings 13:1–10; Philippians 1:1–11; Mark 15:40–47 

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 18 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

1 Kings: rivalry kills. While Israel’s secession from union with Judah answers to a long-standing rivalry between the northern and the southern tribes, the writers of Scripture consider disunity among the redeemed to be contrary to God’s plan for a united family, nation, and kingdom. In particular, the narrator of the Samuel and Kings narrativesw, writing during the exile, looks to the day when Israel and Judah will be reunited back in the Land of Promise, with a rebuilt temple under a Davidic king.  

A powerful feature of today’s brief passage in 1 Kings 13 is the recording of the prophesy by the anonymous prophet from the south against Jeroboam (922–901 B.C.), the first of the kings of breakaway Israel. The prophet has traveled north to denounce the idolatrous altar Jeroboam has built at Bethel for the purpose of discouraging people from traveling south to worship in Jerusalem in the kingdom of Judah. Some 300 years in advance, the prophet names Josiah (640–609 B.C.) as the Judean king who will come and tear this altar down. The prophecy even looks forward to the detail of Josiah burning the bones of the priests who serve Jeroboam’s idolatrous purposes there—which Josiah fulfills in precise detail (2 Kings 23:15–19).   

Image: Adapted from © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro / CC BY-SA 4.0 

Philippians: grace wins. Over the course of this week, we will read most of the apostle Paul’s epistle to the Philippians. With Paul’s ministry, and with the New Testament as a whole, life and history have turned a corner. In grace, God has come himself in the person of his Son to give his own life, so that all our idolatrous altars may be torn down, and so that the ashes of our old selves who worshiped at these altars may be burned.  

A powerful exemplar of this grace is the apostle Paul, namesake of that King Saul who had been displaced by David and David’s line (Saul/Paul in fact descends from King Saul’s tribe—see Philippians 3:5). By the blood of the cross and because of the risen Christ’s appearing to him, Paul finds himself an emissary of the good news of God’s plan to heal the breach between God and us and the divisions among ourselves.  

While he awaits his first trial in Rome, Paul writes a letter of thanks to the Philippians, one of his churches back in northern Greece. It is here, in Philippi, that the gospel had first been planted on European soil during the second missionary journey (Acts 16). With this group of believers Paul has enjoyed an especially warm relationship, and he wants them to know of his gratitude for that relationship and for their ongoing financial support of his ministry.  

“From the first day to now” they have been partners (koinōnoi) with Paul in gospel ministry. In the fellowship of this ministry, everybody is a “saint” (Philippians 1:1), no matter their story or place of origin. A person may be a Jew, whether of Saul/Paul’s tribe or another. Or they may be a Gentile of any demographic (perhaps a female merchant of purple finery, or a slave girl delivered of a divining spirit, or a jailer baptized at Paul’s miraculous release—see Acts 16:14–34). Regardless, they are all “saints,” that is, people made holy in God’s sight.  

Among them there are no rival kings. There is no spirit of Jeroboam-like idolatry or Rehoboam-like cruelty. Instead, they are fellow citizens of “the heavenly commonwealth” (to politeuma en ouranois, Philippians 3:21), who are learning, through the servant-leadership of “bishops and deacons,” how to “do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility [to] regard others as better than [them]selves” (Philippians 1:1; 2:3).  

Collect for Proper 18. Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; 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+ 

Promises Kept - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 9/8/2023 •
Friday of the Fourteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 17) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 31; 1 Kings 11:26–43; James 4:13–5:6; Mark 15:22–32 

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 17 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

1 Kings: a kingdom divided against itself. Solomon’s loyalty is split between Yahweh, on the one hand, and Astarte, Chemosh, and Milcom, on the other (1 Kings 11:33). His divided heart yields a divided kingdom. From Abraham to Moses to David, God has been nurturing a singular family, kingdom, and nation through which to restore all that humankind had lost in the Garden of Eden. But Solomon’s spiritual schizophrenia means God’s people relive the calamity of that original fall. Solomon has listened to the hiss of the serpent—the many-headed hydra of this god and that god. His kingdom will be divided into faithless Israel in the north and semi-faithful Judah in the south (stay tuned).  

Inspired by a prophetic word, Jeroboam (at first, one of Solomon’s chief slave-drivers—1 Kings 11:26–28) rebels against Solomon’s son and heir, Rehoboam. Jeroboam is even presented as something of a Moses figure, who goes into exile in Egypt and then returns to Israel to relieve people oppressed by Rehoboam’s continuation of Solomon’s use of forced labor (1 Kings 11:39; 12:2–5).  

The Lord takes ten northern tribes “from the hand of Solomon” and gives them to Jeroboam, leaving two southern tribes (Judah and Benjamin) with Rehoboam. Jeroboam introduces into the new northern kingdom of Israel worse syncretism than Solomon’s: he immediately establishes “high places” expressly to serve as centers of worship to displace Jerusalem (1 Kings 12:28–29). He even repeats the sin of Aaron by erecting at his high places golden calves and repeating that first generation’s idolatrous, “Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (1 Kings 12:28).  

In the southern kingdom of Judah, Rehoboam’s response is hardly godly or kingly. The underside of Solomon’s building success had been his extensive use of forced labor (see 1 Kings 4:6; 5:13,14; 9:15–22). Rather than back away from the injustice, Rehoboam threatens to rule even more harshly: “My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. Now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions” (1 Kings 12:10b–11).  

Idolatry and cruelty: we are reliving Adam and Eve’s treachery and Cain’s viciousness. The one bright spot is that Yahweh says he “will punish the descendants of David, but not forever” (1 Kings 11:39). The LORD has made promises, and he will keep them.  

Mark sees promises kept. “[B]ut not forever….” Those wonderful words sustain faithful believers through the following years of divided monarchy, exile, and return. All the way to the day when Mark writes of David’s true son and heir: “It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription of the charge against him read, ‘The King of the Jews’” (Mark 15:25–26). Unbeknownst to everyone, the macabre scene unfolding at Calvary marks the day God’s “but not forever” comes to fruition. This is the day the punishment ends, absorbed in the thorn-crowned brow, the nail-scarred hands and feet, and the spear-pierced breast of Jesus Christ.  

In the Garden of Eden, in the same breath with which God pronounces judgment against serpent, woman, and man, he also promises reversal of the fall, vindication of his purposes, and salvation for sinners: “[the woman’s seed] will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15). The reign of idolatry and cruelty that Adam and Eve unleash and to which Solomon and Jeroboam and Rehoboam become accomplices are not the endless fate of the human race.  

On the cross of Calvary, the heel of the woman’s seed is indeed struck, and that redemptively. For on the cross of Calvary “David’s Son and David’s Lord … gives his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 12:35–37; 10:45). On the cross of Calvary, the head of the serpent is struck, and that definitively; for on the cross hangs the end of idolatry and cruelty. On the cross hangs the hope of the world. On the cross hangs eternal life for you and for me.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Obey God's Word - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 9/7/2023 •
Thursday of the Fourteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 17) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 37; 1 Kings 11:1–13; James 3:13–4:12; Mark 15:12–21 

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 17 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Maybe I’ve been reading the Bible for too many years, but I don’t often find myself being stopped in my tracks and weeping over the foibles of one of the characters. But today it happened as I read about Solomon’s fall.  

Deficit of love. Solomon bore the name of love. His parents’ special name for him was not Solomon (which, of course, means “Peace”). David and Bathsheba’s pet name for him, given by the prophet Nathan on behalf of Yahweh himself, was “Jedidiah” (which means “Beloved of Yah”; see 2 Samuel 12:25). The LORD’s deepest wish for him was that he know, regardless of the sinfulness of his parents’ early choices, he was himself an expression of God’s love. 

If the Song of Songs is any indication, Solomon learned how to translate divine love into human love. But somewhere along the way, a deficit emerges. He longs for a kind of love that it takes 700 wives and 300 concubines to satisfy. No matter how many of these relationships may have been established for the sake of political alliances (and that was probably many, many of them), Solomon sought in them something more. He was looking for love. “King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh… Solomon clung to these in love” (1 Kings 11:1a,2b). There’s a certain desperation in a man who “clings” to 1,000 women in love.  

Image: King Solomon, Simeon Solomon, 1872 or 1874.National Gallery of Art , CC0, via Wikimedia Commons 

What was missing for Solomon? Did he, after all, not know what it was to be “beloved of Yah”? Of course, I don’t hold the Rosetta Stone to Solomon’s heart. However, I do have to ask myself: Is the Lord’s love enough for me? 

Disobedience to God’s Word. Sometimes, as simplistic as it seems, the sheer willingness and determination to obey God’s Word can keep us from going off the rails. Even if we’re not sure why we’re told to do what we’re told to do, obedience can save our life. It goes for stopping at red lights, paying our taxes, not cheating on our spouse, following the training manual on an assembly line.  

Most especially, it goes for paying attention to God’s “Thou shalt nots…” and his “Thou shalts.” The history of the human race would have taken a different course if Adam and Eve had simply shrugged off the serpent’s, “Hast God really said?” If they’d said, “He hast indeed, Slithering One. That is good enough for us. Now, slitherest thou off.”  

If only Solomon had said, “All those marriages and concubinages make political sense. They might promise delights, and they might satisfy the deficit in my heart. But my Lord and Sovereign, who loves me more, who loves me better, and who therefore owns my heart—he says in his Word, ‘You shall not enter into marriage with them … for they will surely incline your heart to follow their gods.’ So.I.just.won’t.do.it.”  

If only. For us, there stands the perennial challenge: When our heart inclines in one direction, and God’s Word points definitively in another, to which inclination will we yield? Jesus, give us grace! 

Drift over time. The especially chilling words in today’s portion of Solomon’s story are these: “For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David” (1 Kings 11:4 emphasis added).  

Like moisture that seeps into the walls of a house and, gradually and invisibly, creates deadly mold, Solomon’s faithlessness in marriage created faithlessness in his own Divine Marriage. As young poet, Solomon composes Song of Songs’s celebration of romance between husband and wife; his love song serves as a sacramental portrait of love between Yahweh-as-Lover and Israel-as-Beloved. But as Solomon follows a different trajectory over time, adding wife after wife and concubine after concubine, he opens his heart to false god after false god. Without even realizing it, his very identity gets buried in a flurry of promiscuous trysts with pagan divinities. The consequences for the people whom Solomon is called to love and serve are grave. In the next generation, the kingdom will be torn in two, just as he had allowed his own heart to be torn between Yahweh and the bevy of deities he had cultivated.  

James and spiritual adultery. Solomon has become the kind of double-minded spiritual adulterer that James takes on in today’s epistle reading (James 4:4,8). James warns such a person, “Adulterers! Do you not know that whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God?” (James 4:4). I find myself wishing that James could have time-traveled back to Solomon’s day and urged him to repent of the drift of his heart and turn back wholeheartedly to God, or, as he urges us: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:8–10).  

Mark: Jesus stands in our place. We are left with the hope of the Cross. Jesus bears abuse and false condemnation, ready to stand in judgment’s place for all the Solomon-likeness in us, crippled as we may be by a deficit of love, cavalierly (or neglectfully) disobeying God’s commands, or drifting into spiritual adultery. His pain, our gain. Praise be. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+