Words Sent to Mock the Living God - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 10/6/2023 •
Friday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 102; 2 Kings 19:1–20; 1 Corinthians 9:16–27; Matthew 8:1–17 

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 21 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

I love three things especially about the story of Hezekiah and Isaiah in 2 Kings. 

That the king consults the prophet. “When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah…” — 2 Kings 19:5.” Here’s a wonderful picture of interdependence within the Kingdom of God. You complement me, and I complement you. One of us may be more of a doer, and the other more a pray-er. One a leader, the other a petitioner. One a person of action, the other a person of contemplation. We need one another in the Body of Christ.   

That the king lays Sennecharib’s letter before the Lord. “Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; then Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord” — 2 Kings 19:14. I appreciate the physicality of the act of spreading that haughty letter out before the Lord, and crying out, “Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God” (2 Kings 19:16).  

Image: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons 

I’m sure that the words alone would have sufficed, and that Hezekiah could have prayed from his palace. But he goes to the temple, the place where God says he meets with his people in a particular way. And Hezekiah adds the visual and tactile dimension to the words. To paraphrase: “See, here are the very words the pagan king has sent to mock you! He’s talking about destroying this very place where you and I are meeting. You can’t let him get away with that!” The connection between Hezekiah and Yahweh is so very visceral, existential, and real.  

Scripture records this encounter because we need to see it. Likewise, we need the physicality and the earthiness of the liturgy—all its sensory aids, all its motions and all its “stuff” (sacraments and sacramentals). Without them, faith can just be mere make-believe mind games.  

That God works through contingencies beyond our ability to imagine them. Who would have thought that the deliverance of Judah and Jerusalem would come by internal conflict and division within the enemy army?   

And then, looking briefly at today’s gospel: In Scripture, Israel’s mission in the world, as a “kingdom of priests,” was to do something like what Hezekiah did. That is: to take the brokenness of the human situation and lay it before the Lord, crying out over the millennia, “How long, O God, will the adversary scoff? Will the enemy blaspheme your Name forever?” (Psalm 74:9). And year after year, offering up a sin offering—all this, from a New Covenant perspective, in anticipation of a final doing away with sin and of the restoration of fellowship forever.   

Who would have thought that God’s means of responding to that cry would have been to send his Son in the likeness of our flesh, to overcome sin and all its effects right here in the weakness of our flesh, to “take our infirmities and bear our diseases”? That is what the prophet Isaiah, to whom Hezekiah went, foresaw happening. That is what Matthew depicts in today’s Gospel reading. Jesus heals a leper, a paralytic, demon-possessed person, and all kinds of sick people. Each healing is a foretaste of his conquest of sin on the cross and his banishment of death at his resurrection. Each is a demonstration of what Isaiah had prophesied: “This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, ‘He took our infirmities and bore our diseases’” (Matthew 8:17, quoting Isaiah 53:4). Praise be! 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

You Don’t Mess Around With the Lord - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 10/5/2023 •
Thursday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105; 2 Kings 18:28–37; 1 Corinthians 9:1–15; Matthew 7:22–29 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 8 (“The Song of Moses,” Exodus 15, BCP, p. 85); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you. On this Thursday in the Season After Pentecost our readings come from Proper 21 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Life seems to afford abundant opportunities to make monumentally bad decisions. One of them, Jim Croce sings, is to mess around with “the pool-shootin’ son of a gun,” Big Jim Walker:  

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape 
You don’t spit into the wind 
You don’t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger 
And you don’t mess around with Jim.  
(Jim Croce, 1972, from the album Photographs and Memories) 

Today’s readings recall some “you don’t mess around” moments, except these passages are talking about Somebody much bigger than Big Jim Walker.  

2 Kings: You don’t mock the Deliverer of Israel. The King of Assyria has been plowing his way through the Ancient Near East. He’s brought down one kingdom after another, razing capital city after capital city. He’s destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, and he has dispersed its citizens abroad.  

Now his army stands outside the gates of Jerusalem, ready to demolish the city of God and level the temple consecrated to Yahweh. Yet he makes a fatal mistake: he mocks Yahweh the Deliverer (in our translation, the LORD). “Do not let Hezekiah make you rely on the LORD by saying, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ … Do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered its land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who among all the gods of the countries have delivered their countries out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’” (2 Kings 18:30,32b–35).  

It’s hard not to imagine (pardon the anthropocentrism) Yahweh’s ears perking up just a little more every time he hears his name being mocked—four times here! As we will see in tomorrow’s (and the weekend’s) reading, this abject failure to reckon with Yahweh, the Deliverer of his people, the God whose story is so vividly recounted in today’s Psalm 105 (“He turned their waters into blood … Their land was overrun by frogs … He spoke, and the locust came … He struck down the firstborn of their land … He led out his people with silver and gold”—see Psalm 105:29,30,34,36,37), will lead to an implosion within the Assyrian ranks. The Assyrian king will find himself forced to vacate the field and leave Jerusalem and Judah safe. That’s right, You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.  

1 Corinthians: You don’t demand your rights from King Jesus. It’s striking how much energy Paul expends helping entitled Christians recalibrate their understanding of what’s due them in the Kingdom of God. The “king’s kids” in Corinth want it all: justice through the courts (1 Corinthians 6), freedom either from sexual constraints (1 Corinthians 6) or from domestic responsibilities (1 Corinthians 7), license to display their supposedly enlightened consciences (1 Corinthians 8).  

Throughout 1 Corinthians, Paul calls on them to see things differently. The Christian life is not about asserting your rights. It’s about using privileges and advantages to improve the lot of others. In today’s passage, he describes how he has the right to be married and to receive a salary as a minister of the gospel … but how he foregoes that right because he does not want to put “an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:12). Scholars think that Paul means that if he exercised his “right” to financial support from the Corinthians, they would demand the “right” to control his message. He’s not going to play their game. He wants them to see what it is to imitate Christ who, “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). Jesus Christ isn’t about demanding rights, but about surrendering them for the sake of others. Right again, You don’t spit into the wind. 

You don’t not act on Jesus’s words. You don’t fill a thick notebook with nice notes on the Sermon on the Mount, and yet fail to do what Jesus says there. After listening to him, you don’t lash out when you’re angry. You don’t hold grudges. You don’t not rein in your wandering eyes. You don’t exit out the back door when marriage gets rough. You don’t cross your fingers when you make a promise. You don’t not tame your tongue. You don’t do religious stuff so others can see how religious you are. You don’t let your possessions possess you. You don’t worry endlessly about the kingdom of self. You don’t get “judgy” towards others. You don’t do to others what you’d never want them to do to you. Because, You don’t tug the mask on that old Lone Ranger.  

And, no, just no, you don’t mess around with the Lord of the Universe. He loves you too much to let you get away with that. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Love vs. Knowledge - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 10/4/2023 •
Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 101; Psalm 109; 2 Kings 18:9–25; 1 Corinthians 8:1–13; Matthew 7:13–21 

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 21 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

1 Corinthians: “love” versus “knowledge” 

I’ve only known a few people who live in fear of oppressive spiritual forces, fewer still who know the joy of being liberated from them by Christ. The conceit of modernity is to have banished God from the heavens and the devil from hell, leaving us alone in the universe (apart, perhaps, from UFO, or UAP, that is, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena sightings).  

It wasn’t this way in Paul’s day. The heavens were filled with beings who could help you or harm you. One of the chief ends of religious observation was to enlist good powers to your aid, and to ward off evil dominions and authorities. In his letters to the Colossians and the Ephesians, Paul tackles these issues head on, assuring believers that Christ is their Champion and that he has defanged hostile powers (see especially Colossians 1:15–20; 2:15; Ephesians 1:20–23).  

Image: Internet Archive Book Images, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons 

Some, but not all, Corinthian believers have gotten the message loud and clear. Christ’s resurrection has proved the impotence, indeed the nothingness, of “so-called gods in heaven and earth.” This is a liberating knowledge for these Christians, and Paul affirms them in it: “[Y]et for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Corinthians 8:6).  

One implication of this wonderful reality is that for Paul (and Corinthian believers with liberated consciences), marketplace meat that had previously been consecrated to pagan deities no longer carried the stench of idolatry. That taint disappeared with Christ’s resurrection. Now, it’s just meat, part of a good God’s created order, and a gift for our enjoyment and nourishment. As Paul will write later in 1 Timothy 4:4–5, “For every creation of God is good and no food is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For it is sanctified by God’s word and by prayer” (New English Translation).  

Not all members of the Corinthian church, though, have come to this realization. For them, the smell of idolatry still clings to meat that had been consecrated to pagan deities prior to being brought to market. Paul is more disappointed to find out that the “liberated” Corinthians lovelessly flaunt their “knowledge” in the face of their unenlightened brothers and sisters than he is that the conscience-stricken believers don’t know enough about the radical freedom that Christ has bought for them: “‘Food will not bring us close to God.’ We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. 9 But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. … [B]y your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. 12 But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ” (1 Corinthians 8:8–12). 

For Paul—and here’s the lesson for us—love eclipses knowledge: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Corinthians 8:1b). As he will write later in this letter in a related context, that of Communion, we are supposed to “wait for one another” (1 Corinthians 11:33c). Waiting for one another means not just making sure that everybody gets Communion before the service proceeds, it means making sure that progressive consciences don’t trample on traditionalist consciences.  

We’re not to be the people who grow up in strict temperance homes who discover “Christian liberty,” and then insist on indulging our new-found enjoyment of “adult beverages” in the face of recovering alcoholics. We’re not allowed to let “knowledge” trample on “love.”  

We’re not to be the people who embrace new theological insights (whether it’s the discovery of rich sacramentalism, or the ultimate solution for reconciling God’s sovereignty and human free will, or a satisfying approach to the end times), and then scoff patronizingly at supposed dullards who believe what we used to believe, or who are still mired in confusion or ambiguity or apathy.   

Over the next several chapters of 1 Corinthians, Paul lays out his desire that we sublimate our rights for the sake of serving one another (especially 1 Corinthians 9), that the powerful and the “important” people make room for the powerless and the “unimportant” (especially 1 Corinthians 11), that we learn to revel in the diversity of gifts in the Body (especially 1 Corinthians 12), and that, above all, we learn the way of love (especially 1 Corinthians 13), where love, as regards one another, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). 

Such “love” is itself the most convincing proof of the “knowledge” we have of Christ’s preeminence over all “so-called gods.”   

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

A Showcase of God's Love - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 10/3/2023 •
Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 97; Psalm 99; 2 Chronicles 29:1-3; 30:1–27; 1 Corinthians 7:32–40; Matthew 7:1–12 

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 21 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

2 Chronicles. The Daily Office’s tour of the history of the monarchy from Saul through David and Solomon and the divided kingdom thus far has followed the narrative of Samuel and Kings. The perspective has been rather gloomy, because this portion of Holy Writ was written during the Babylonian exile.  

Today, we take a brief side trip into the parallel narrative in 2 Chronicles, an account written after the end of Judah’s exile in Babylon. The perspective is different because the situation is different. We look ahead for a moment to the time when Ezra and Nehemiah have rallied the people of God to offer thankful worship for the restoration of their fortunes, and to celebrate the rebuilding of the city of God and its temple. From that perspective, 2 Chronicles looks back on the reign of one of the good kings of pre-exilic Judah, Hezekiah.  

Image: "Stained glass window, Ely Cathedral" by Jules & Jenny is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

Three points are worthy of note: 

1. Hezekiah’s call for unity of worship. Since the Garden of Eden, the bitter fruit of the rift between us and God has been the near infinity of rifts between humans, beginning with Adam and Eve’s mutual recriminations and Cain’s envious slaying of Abel. From that day on, God has been working to heal both the rift between heaven and earth, and all those rifts here on earth as well. God united a kingdom of worship, justice, and mercy under David and Solomon as a demonstration to the world of his own loving and reconciling purposes. Those purposes took a step backward when Rehoboam’s arrogance borne of entitlement and Jeroboam’s defiance borne of envy led to the division of the Kingdom … and thus to division in worship.  

Hezekiah is mindful of God’s calling a united people to be a holy nation and kingdom of priests. He therefore invites people from the estranged northern kingdom of Israel to come to Jerusalem so that there could be healing between north and south, and so that God’s people could worship the way they were supposed to worship, “together” with “one heart” (2 Chronicles 30:12,13). Alas, very few northerners respond: “Only a few from Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem” (2 Chronicles 30:11). Nonetheless, “The hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do what the king and the officials commanded by the word of the Lord. Many people came together in Jerusalem to keep the festival of unleavened bread in the second month, a very large assembly” (2 Chronicles 30:12–13). Hezekiah represents a brief moment in which God’s people are once again something of a showcase and a greenhouse of Yahweh’s reconciling love.  

2. Hezekiah’s desire to worship “by the book,” but his display of flexibility. By the book, Passover is to take place in the first month of the year (Exodus 12:2,6); however, in this case, many people are unable to “sanctify themselves” in time. So, Hezekiah, in consultation with his officials and indeed the whole assembly, moves the celebration to the second month (2 Chronicles 30:2). He is otherwise careful to make sure that things are done “according to the law of Moses the man of God” (2 Chronicles 30:16). Even then, not everyone comes to Passover “sanctified,” and some people partake unworthily (we are spared the details). But rather than calling down the wrath of God, Hezekiah prays: “The good Lord pardon all who set their hearts to seek God, the Lord the God of their ancestors, even though not in accordance with the sanctuary’s rules of cleanness. The Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people” (2 Chronicles 30:19).  

(As someone who tries earnestly to do all things, especially worship, “by the book,” but is aware of constantly falling short, I am grateful—profoundly grateful—for this note of kingly flexibility and divine condescension.) 

3. Hezekiah’s and the people’s joy at the presence of Yahweh in their midst. “There was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the time of Solomon son of King David of Israel there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem. Then the priests and the Levites stood up and blessed the people, and their voice was heard; their prayer came to his holy dwelling in heaven” (2 Chronicles 30:26–27). Worship is indeed wondrously joyful when it captures the holiness and the kindness of our great God! 

1 Corinthians. Paul’s advice in today’s passage is a bit hard to discern. It’s likely that he advises engaged couples to slow down and consider not marrying so they can give themselves exclusively to the Lord’s work. Pointedly, Paul is offering counsel in this matter; he is not demanding obedience (“it is no sin” to marry, 1 Corinthians 7:36c). He believes that the Holy Spirit is at work in believers, and that this Spirit of wisdom and counsel enables us to discern how to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God (Romans 12:1–2).  

Nonetheless, Paul believes in the overwhelming urgency of the need to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. He understands we are all called to contribute to God’s house building project. He understands that we are living the reality which Hezekiah foreshadowed (see 1 Corinthians 3; Ephesians 2). And he wants us to know for certain that all other values have become second-tier considerations in view of the emergence of the Kingdom of God in our day. Therefore, Paul wants us all to take a breath and assess how we are investing our lives.  

Matthew. Some amazing wisdom as Jesus begins to wrap up his Sermon on the Mount: Don’t be “judgy” towards people around you, but rather extend the same sort of grace to others that the Lord has extended to you (Matthew 7:1–5). Don’t be so quick to offer advice that you fail first to assess how welcome it will be (Matthew 7:6). When it comes to your needs, pray first, and do so trustingly (Matthew 7:7–11). Above all, treat others the way you’d like them to treat you (Matthew 7:12).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Confused "King's Kids" - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 10/2/2023 •
Monday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21)  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 89; 2 Kings 17:24–41; 1 Corinthians 7:25–31; Matthew 6:25–34 

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 21 of Year 1 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Matthew. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” — Matthew 6:34c KJV. I’m not really quite the Eeyore I publicly present myself to be. However, I admit I am a bit of a worrier. So this saying of Jesus has anchored my soul for years (it’s also the first phrase I teach my Greek students … and I encourage them to memorize it: ἀρκετὸν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἡ κακία αὐτῆς). It sums up Jesus’s teaching in this entire paragraph: each day brings its challenges, but each day also promises God’s provision. Oh, brother, do I hang onto that! Praise be!  

Image adapted from Amitchell125, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons 

Our Old Testament and Epistle readings shore up the teaching: 

2 Kings. “Then the king of Assyria commanded, “Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there; let him go and live there, and teach them the law of the god of the land.” So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel; he taught them how they should worship the Lord. But every nation still made gods of its own…” — 2 Kings 17:27–29a.   

Being in the ministry myself, I can’t not think about the perspective of the lone priest whom the Assyrians send back into Israel. They sent him to teach the ways of Yahweh to pagan newcomers whom the Assyrians themselves have used to resettle the land, as well as to that minority of Israelites who had been left behind after the deportation.  

What a discouraging scenario this priest faces. His Assyrian overlords think he’s representing a merely territorial deity. The newly arrived Assyrians are not about to abandon the deities they’ve brought with them. And the local Israelites have been accustomed for so long to syncretistic ways (fusing religious systems), that they are perfectly content to reconcile their loyalty to Yahweh with the pagan ways of their new neighbors.  

How does this priest get up every day and face the same eyerolls and insincere head-nods? He does so, I imagine, because he knows in advance, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” The only measure of success is faithfulness to the call. That goes for all of us—not just professional clergy.  

1 Corinthians. There’s also the perspective that Paul must maintain for himself and also must inculcate among his readers in 1 Corinthians. Christians in Corinth have mistakenly gotten the idea that with Jesus’s resurrection from the dead and with their own spiritual regeneration, they have come into the full experience of “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15). Because they have “arrived” (so they think), they don’t think they need a physical resurrection. They think they are “kings,” already reigning with Christ, and that they are “rich” with all the fullness of the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 4:8). They’ve allowed themselves, therefore, to confuse the blessings of this world (status, wealth, and either freedom of, or freedom from, full sexual expressiveness) with God’s (better) ultimate blessings. Too many Corinthians look down on the little people, the “foolish,” the “weak,” the “low and despised in this world, things that are not” (in the Greek, “the nobodies,” yes, literally, “the nobodies” — 1 Corinthians 1:27–28).  

It’s led them to overvalue their present life status. And so, Paul writes:  

“I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away” — 1 Corinthians 7:29–31 NRSV.  

Paul is not saying that spouses need not love one another. He’s not saying that neither sad nor happy feelings should be felt. He’s not saying that possessions and endeavors in this life are a waste of time.  

Paul is saying that we still live in anticipation of Christ’s return, and that until then we live with less than perfection. He is saying we dare not demand from a spouse an infinite love that only Christ can supply. He is saying that we cannot expect in this life a completely whole emotional life. He is saying that possessions must not possess us. He is saying that in our worldly affairs we will not accomplish all our hearts desire, even when our desires are that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That day will not arrive until the Lord returns in triumphant glory.  

Until then, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Christ (not the other stuff) is our hope, as Paul says elsewhere (1 Timothy 1:1). And that’s good enough, because Christ is good enough.   

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Thinking Large - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 9/29/2023 •

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

Sing a Widescreen, HD Paradise 

I am unutterably grateful when a Christian artist enables me to see spiritual reality in widescreen, high-definition. Ephrem the Syrian, a brilliant hymn writer for his era (ca. 306-373), does that for me. His lyrics – especially his Hymns on Paradise– still captivate.  

The beauties (of Paradise) are much diminished  
by being depicted in the pale colors  
with which you are familiar.* 

* All quotations from Ephrem are in Ephrem & Sebastian Brock, St. Ephrem: Hymns on Paradise (St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1998).

Sing the Power of Metaphor 

Ephrem trumpeted the mystery of Christ’s incarnation. He resisted the demands of those who “over thought” the faith. They insisted on a straightforward explanation of Christ’s person, one that fit normal categories of reason: God or Man? Which is it?  

One group wanted to make Christ just like us, merely human. OK, maybe not merely human, but certainly more human than divine. A different group wanted to make Christ so divine that his humanity was nothing more than apparent – “drive-by” at best.  

Ephrem’s response: God doesn’t give us neat, tidy definitions. Instead, he provides a profound relationship with Someone the Bible describes in elegant metaphors and similes: 

[God] clothed Himself in language, 
so that he might clothe us 
in his mode of life. 

In one place He was like an Old Man 
and the Ancient of Days, 
then again, He became like a Hero, 
a valiant Warrior. 
For the purpose of judgment He was an Old Man, 
but for conflict He was Valiant. 

Grace clothed itself in our likeness 
in order to bring us to the likeness of itself. 

He gave us divinity, 
We gave him humanity. 

Sing the Whole of the Human Story 

Ephrem celebrated the scale and sweep of Christ’s mission. He refused the heresy of mystical Narcissism. Back then, many were looking for a personal experience of “mystery,” just a little spiritual “somethin’ somethin” to help them get through. Today their spiritual descendants turn to Jesus as some sort of “rabbit’s foot,” a personal avatar they can enlist to make their lives (of which they remain firmly in control) turn out better.   

To counteract the spiritual Narcissism of his day, Ephrem wrote his Hymns of Paradise against a backdrop that includes the whole of the human story. My salvation comes with everybody else’s; everybody else’s includes mine. Thus (though it rather stretches the actual biblical text), Ephrem built on Hellenistic Jewish notions about Adam’s name coming from a Greek acrostic:  

“A” (Anatolē = East)  
“D” (Dusis = West)  
“A” (Arktos = North)  
“M” (Mesēmbria = South).  

[God’s] hand took from every quarter  
and created Adam, 
so has he now been scattered in every quarter… 
For progression is from the universe to Adam, 
and then from him to the universe.  

The old Adam is all of us (“from the universe to Adam”); the new Adam came for all of us (“from him to the universe”). For this reason, Christ’s followers come from all quarters of the globe and our mission is to go to all quarters of the globe.  

Sing the Whole of Christ’s Work 

And while then as now, many well-meaning believers whittle down Jesus’s work to one manageable dimension, Ephrem challenged believers to think large so they can thank large.  

Thus, Ephrem sings redemption’s story across a wide canvas: from original Paradise to a new, pristine Paradise. From the loss of Adam and Eve’s original “Robe of Glory,” to the Second Adam’s “putting on the body” from Mary, to His laying the “Robe of Glory” for us in Jordan’s baptismal waters, to our “putting on Christ” in our baptism, and finally to our being “Robed in Glory” at resurrection. Ephrem sings that the angel’s sword barring us from the Tree of Life becomes a centurion’s lance opening the way into Paradise:   

Whereas we had left that Garden 
along with Adam, as he left it behind, 
now that the sword has been removed by the lance,  
we may return there. 

Sing Widescreen, HD 

At the invention of the small-screen, black and white, low-definition television, who could have imagined today’s widescreen, color, HD home theatre systems? Today’s experience makes yesterday’s seem, to use Ephrem the Syrian’s terms, “diminished” and “pale” by comparison.  

Ephrem offers us a glimpse into a reality that “has come” and “is coming” where the colors are even more vibrant and the definition even sharper than we’ve yet begun to imagine.  

May God grant the grace to grow in our capacity to worship in yet bolder colors, more vibrant textures, sweeter sounds, and sharper shapes. The reality is that good.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Happy Little Trees - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 9/28/2023 •

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

“Happy Little Trees” 

On her birthday Meg’s husband told her he didn’t love her and wasn’t sure he ever had. Seven months after the divorce became final, he married his girlfriend. By a happy coincidence Meg was out of town visiting my family the day of her ex-husband’s wedding.  

How to spend that day? We discovered that the late Bob Ross, host and star of the TV show  The Joy of Painting, had established a teaching studio in nearby New Smyrna Beach, FL. His students still teach people how to paint “happy little trees.” The promise was that in a 3-hour session we could learn the basics, and each student would walk away with a personally completed work of art. We signed up for a class. 

Image: "Bob Ross FD3S" by zanthrax-dot-nl is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

It was amazingly fun. We happened to sit on the back row. We couldn’t help but notice the two teenage girls in front of us who didn’t fit the middle-class profile of most of the people in the room. They were accompanied by someone who carried herself like a softer version of SNL’s “church lady.” Nobody in the class was having more fun, or experiencing more delighted surprise, at what was showing up on canvas, than these girls.  

At the end of the class, we were all given the opportunity to pay a little extra to have our paintings framed – right there on the spot. Who wouldn’t want to do that after discovering they could actually paint something not just recognizable, but really kind of cool?!  

I failed to catch the wistfulness on the two girls’ faces as they watched classmates’ paintings being framed. But Meg noticed. Quietly, she asked the proprietor if she could pay for the girls’ frames. Stunned, he obliged. The girls were thrilled.  

My throat tightened. I knew that Meg’s divorce had strained her in every way, financially as well as emotionally. Yet as deep as the sorrow she carried within her was, her spiritual resources were deeper. On a day in which she could have nursed bitterness, she created joy for someone else.  

Meg’s act was horizontal worship. The Gospel changes us from self-centered to other-centered. Vertical worship teaches people that they are profoundly loved; the bread and wine that they take in makes them different people. As theologian Alexander Schmemann quips: “At this meal we become what we eat.” That day Meg did a lot more than paint “happy little trees.” She became bread and wine to two girls, a shop owner – and me.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

We Need a Change of Clothes - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 9/27/2023 •

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

Undressed for Church 

Jesus tells a parable about a man who accepts a king’s invitation to a wedding banquet but who shows up without clothes appropriate to the occasion (Matthew 22:11-14). Noticed by the king, he is kicked out.  

Whenever I read the parable, I think of myself in the early and woefully immature days of my faith – and of how my first pastor, Mort Whitman, related to me. I think of the several times I sensed in Mort’s sad eyes the King’s expectation: “Do you understand Who invited you? And to what an amazing occasion it is that you have been invited?” There were both sadness and tenderness — both a rebuke and a further invitation — in Mort’s gaze.  

Room to Grow 

Every time I caught that look, I felt undressed, and was reduced (as was the fellow in the parable) to silence. Unlike the parable, though, strong arms didn’t grab me and throw me out. Happily, the King gave me time and space to move from a sullen to a teachable silence. Over time, the kindness with which Mort’s eyes answered my spiritual childishness melted my cold heart. 

Mort welcomed me past the entrance, and into the expansive living spaces of God’s Kingdom palace. He did so by reminding me of the worth of the faith that I had embraced – or that had embraced me (I’ve never fully sorted that out).   

Early Church 

Mort’s method was a lot like that of Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem (mid-4th century). In Cyril’s Jerusalem, becoming a Christian was the “deal.” The huge and elegant Church of the Holy Sepulchre had just been built over the site of Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection (replacing a pagan temple to Venus).  

The city was awash with pilgrims and new residents. Many were flirting with the faith. Many sought baptism, the prerequisite for inclusion at the Christian Feast (Communion). Some sought baptism because they genuinely believed; some because they thought baptism might help them get a job; some because they thought baptism might help them find a mate; and some out of sheer curiosity.  

Cyril asked candidates for baptism a cautionary question: “Do you expect to see without being seen? Do you think that you can be curious about what is going on without God being curious about your heart?” (Procatechesis 2).*  

This is not just any occasion, so not any old clothes will do. The One in whose honor this feast is being held, after all, is “Bridegroom of souls.” Cyril reminds the candidates of the parable of the man who dressed wrongly for the king’s wedding feast: “If your soul is dressed in avarice, change your clothes before you come in…. Take off fornication and impurity, and put on the shining white garment of chastity.”  

Overdressed 

Cyril wasn’t asking people to clean themselves up so God would accept them. As they would eventually discover, no matter what they wore, on the day of their baptism they were going to have to strip – yes, literally (in the dark, men and women separately) — and undergo baptism without benefit of any clothing! As Christ hung naked in his crucifixion, Cyril explained, so we go naked into the baptismal waters where we share our co-crucifixion with Christ. As Adam and Eve were originally garbed in nothing but their innocence, so, in Christ, we rise as those to whom innocence has been restored! Cyril’s message was: don’t think you can take your greed and impurity with you into the baptismal waters; he loves you too much to let you hold on to that stuff! 

When the newly baptized emerged naked from the waters, they were wrapped with new, white robes. The message: in place of whatever clothes we start with, Christ offers “a shining garment,” “the garment of salvation,” and “the tunic of gladness.”** The newly baptized wore those robes during the next week, when they received daily teaching about the mysteries they had just experienced and about the baptized life that now lay before them.  

Welcome to Transformation 

The King has sent for everybody, “the evil and the good” (Matthew 22:10). But the One who invites insists on meddling. He refuses to rubber-stamp the attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs we bring with us. Our “Bridegroom of souls” insists we surrender the right to define who we are – all of who we are: our occupational, our musical, our political, our sexual selves. Jesus, insists Cyril, calls us to welcome people all the way into baptismal waters, where grace transforms everything.  

My take-away from Mort’s penetrating gaze and Cyril’s challenging words: worship worthy of the Feast is welcoming worship that helps us all understand that a change of clothes will be necessary.  

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

* References are from Edward Yarnold, S.J., Cyril of Jerusalem (Routledge, 2000), pp. 79,80,85,180-181. 

** (Procatechesis 16; Mystagogy 4.8; the latter two phrases, quoting Isaiah 61:10) 

The Peace of the Lord - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 9/26/2023 •

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

High-Touch Worship: “The Peace of the Lord” 

“Christian worship has always been a “high-touch” affair. “Greet one another with a holy kiss,” Paul told worshipers (2 Corinthians 13:12). Peter urged those gathered for the reading of his letter, “Greet one another with the kiss of love” (1 Peter 5:14). Accordingly, from the 2nd century on we find Christians exchanging signs of mutual affection and reconciliation before they go to the Table.  

I think that’s a good thing.   

There’s a genuine artistry to the way the classical liturgy makes the passing of the peace a part of worship. In the 4th century one of the great voices of the ancient church, Cyril of Jerusalem, explained why believers exchange a kiss of peace just before they approach the Lord’s Table.  

Next let us embrace one another and give the kiss of peace. Do not think this is the kiss which friends are accustomed to give one another when they meet in the marketplace. This is not such a kiss. This unites souls to one another and destroys all resentment. The kiss is a sign of the union of souls.  

That was Awkward.  

Recently, an advice columnist responded to a complaint about being forced to greet fellow attendees in church. The columnist countered that in a world as disjointed as ours, we should be grateful that the church tries to bring people together. I agree! But I also feel the sense of artificiality and of being put upon when there’s a “meet & greet” that is no different than what I might experience at the Chamber of Commerce.  

To me it’s a wonderful thing to be asked to look my neighbor full in the face and wish him or her Christ’s peace. That makes me (along with all my fellow believers) a priest who offers God’s healing touch. Respectfully, though, it’s a turn-off to be told to smile, turn to the person next to me and say, essentially, “How ya doin’?”  

The first act invites Christ into the moment and makes us family; the second makes two awkward strangers even more awkward about not knowing each other. At least the Chamber of Commerce encourages us to exchange business cards.  

Welcoming Peace 

When I coached Little League, a friend and “master coach” gave me some good advice: “Kids this age have too many challenges, and not enough encouragement. Every practice you should go to each player, put a hand on their shoulder, look them in the eyes, and say, ‘I’m glad you’re on this team. You make a big difference for us.’”  

When I come to worship I never know what sort of pain my neighbor is in, how much it can help him or her to be touched and to be reminded: whatever the deficit, whatever the enmity, whatever the trouble, whatever the funk, Christ speaks his peace into it.   

Healing Peace  

Benjamin Barber writes that we live in a world split between the centripetal force of McWorld (the forced unification of a global market) and the centrifugal force of Jihad (the fracturing of the human race around tribal loyalties). We all, I think, feel those wounds in one way or another.  

Followers of Christ believe that if there’s any hope for overcoming the evil twin forces of McWorld and Jihad, it’s living and telling the subversive story of God’s invasion of the planet through his Son. In Jesus, as the song goes, “Heaven’s peace and perfect justice kissed a guilty world in love.” When we pass the peace of Christ to one another, heaven’s peace becomes embodied once again. Then at the Table we taste how Jesus even now “unites souls to one another and destroys all resentment.” 

Possible applications: 

Some of us are in churches where it might be worth opening up the following conversation: ”Are we so respectful of people’s privacy, of their personal space, that we miss the opportunity to let them know that this is a place – no, the place — where the lonely, the estranged, the fearful, and the broken, can be touched and can hear that God has come near to them?” 

Others of us are in churches where it might be worth opening up a different conversation: “When’s the last time we asked people to think about what a holy and healing thing it is that they do when they offer the Lord’s peace?” 

The peace of the Lord be always with you, 

Reggie Kidd+ 

Game-Saving Wisdom - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 9/25/2023 •

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

From Centerfield: Athanasius, the Psalms, and Making the Right Play 

I once attended a college baseball game in which the crowd cheered a spectacularly dumb throw from deep centerfield to home plate. The throw itself was quite a feat (though it had no chance of catching the runner). But it was dumb, because it gave the game away by allowing what would become the tying run to get to second base. What could have saved the game would have been a less impressive throw to second base, keeping that runner at first. 

Four Ecumenical Councils took place between A.D. 325 and 451. They exemplified game-saving wisdom, of the sort the college centerfielder should have shown. 

Those Councils made four statements in response to spectacularly dumb things that were being said about Christ. The Councils’ statements can be crisply put, and their implications are profound: first, Christ is fully divine, since only God can save. Second, Christ is fully human, since “only that which is assumed can be healed.” Third, Christ is one integral person, since a bi-polar Savior could not restore us to inner wholeness. Fourth, Christ’s divine nature does not eclipse his human nature, since he came to glorify our humanity and not diminish it. 

A small often overlooked letter on the psalms by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria and one of the inspirers of the Councils’ statements, sheds light on the origins of such spiritual and theological insight. 

A friend named Marcellinus wrote to Athanasius looking for guidance on how to get to know the psalms better. In his response, Epistle to Marcellinus, Athanasius sounds the very themes the Councils will later apply to Christ. 

Divinity 

In the Incarnation, God has funneled his fullness to us through one Man; in the Psalter, God has concentrated for us the whole Bible in miniature. Each of the other books, says Athanasius, “is like a garden which grows one special kind of fruit; by contrast, the Psalter is a garden which, besides its special fruit, grows also some of those of all the rest.” In Genesis, for example, we read about the creation; in Psalms 19 & 24 we celebrate creation in song. Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy recount the exodus from Egypt; in Psalms 87, 105, 106, and 114 we “fitly sing it.” Impressively, Athanasius shows how virtually every theme of the Bible shows up somewhere in the Psalter. Through the psalms, God’s great cosmic story becomes our personal story as well. 

Humanity 

The psalms aren’t just a way into God’s story; they provide a mirror for our soul. In them, “you learn about yourself.” They describe us better than we can describe ourselves. Moreover, while other portions of Scripture tell us what to do, the Psalter shows us how. Elsewhere, for instance, Scripture tells us to repent, but the psalms “show you how to set about repenting and with what words your repentance may be expressed.” Elsewhere, Scripture tells us to bear up under persecution, but the psalms describe “how afflictions should be borne, and what the afflicted ought to say, both at the time and when his troubles cease.” 

Integrity 

Most of us can identify with the horrible split the apostle Paul experienced between his inner self and his outer self: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. … Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:19,24). Paul’s answer, of course, is Christ. The Councils affirmed, therefore, that Christ himself was unified, rather than split, in his Person. Otherwise, there’d be no hope for the splits within us. In the same vein, Athanasius encourages – no, urges – us not merely to read the psalms, but to sing them. When we sing, our inner being and our outer being work together: our “usual disharmony of mind and corresponding bodily confusion is resolved.” The result is that when we sing psalms, Christ heals our inner brokenness. 

Dignity 

Do you get the sense that some believers think that when Christ comes into their lives he replaces their souls? Do you know spiritual zombies you can’t even have a conversation with because all you get is Bible verses or spiritual clichés? 

Athanasius must have known people like that too. One of the most impressive things he does in his epistle is comment on almost every psalm, and invite Marcellinus to look – really look – at whatever life-situation he might find himself in and ask how that psalm could fortify him: “Has some Goliath risen up against the people and yourself? Fear not, but trust in God, as David did, and sing his words in Psalm 144.” 

The message: God wishes to meet you in your life, not give you some sort of escape button to get you out of your life. The psalms – like Christ himself – are here to enhance, not diminish, what it is to be fully human. 

Through practice and scrimmage and games and, well, simply breathing baseball, a centerfielder should know where to throw, without even having to think about it. Through worship and prayer and study and, well, simple immersion in the faith of the psalms, may we absorb their “game-saving wisdom.” 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+  

Ten Words - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 9/22/2023 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, I’m Reggie Kidd, I’m glad to be with you on this Friday 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.   

Ten Words  

The most remarkable worship leader I ever knew didn’t lead singing. He didn’t play an instrument. Robert Webber (1933–2007) was an evangelical theologian who happened to fall in love with ancient liturgy. He held the past in one outstretched arm and the future in the other and proclaimed: “What Christ has joined together, let not the church put asunder.”   

Worship practitioners are also worship theologians. We always implement a theology of worship when we lead. Our job description may put us more or less “in control” of that theology. But most of us have some say in its shaping. Here are “ten words” from Webber – six from his liturgical, and four from his evangelical sensibility – that may serve you in your vision of what worship can be.    

Doxology. We gather for one thing: to honor God. Worship, of course, includes education and evangelism. It may even be entertaining. But worship is first and last doxological. Thus, it is theocentric, not narcissistic. Worship celebrates Christ as the central cosmic figure of the universe. Worship features God’s story, not our nation’s, not our favorite team’s, not our denominational tribe’s.  

Mystery. If God could be figured out or if he could be understood in his entirety, he wouldn’t be God. Sometimes he’s more real in his silence than in our answers. Some things get killed when they are over-explained. They just have to be allowed to be – to be experienced, not parsed.  

Incarnation. But God hasn’t left us in mystified befuddlement. He came in the very flesh of what we are. Jesus came as one of us, in order to redeem a creation God had made to be “good.” He reclaimed the world for God, so we tend it. He re-appropriated time, so we reshape it: B.C. and A.D.  

Sacraments. Christ meets us as material beings in material stuff. We’re not just dust. We’re not just spirit. We’re unified beings: dust that God has breathed into. We have ears to hear. Hands to raise. We have knees to kneel. Lips to drink, tongues to taste, noses to smell. 

History. This is the “Be true to your school” principle (via the Beach Boys). No matter how our church got its name (e.g., such-and-such saint, such-and-such street, such-and-such one word), every church came from somewhere. And we can help it be the best St. Matthew’s or Delaney Street or Cornerstone or whatever.  

Catholicity. This is the complementary principle that comes from St. Vincent of Lérins: “What has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.” Before there was a Reformation with its Confessions, Revivals with their sawdust trails, the Jesus Movement with its “New Song,” or Emergence with its eclecticism, there was a Great Church that gave us the Creeds and a remarkably common pattern of worship.  

Orthodoxy. Life is at stake in our holding forth true theological truths. It matters that there is one God in three persons (one hope for humanity because of the eternal community of love). It matters that Jesus is truly God and truly man (he has the authority to forgive and the nearness to heal). It matters that his work saves from the guilt of sin, from the despair of death, from the lovelessness of loneliness.  

Scripture. Evangelicals embrace Scripture as a non-negotiable formal principle. Wisely, we refuse the serpent’s hiss: “Hath God really said?” At the same time, the classical liturgy is Scripture-saturated and Scripture-shaped in ways that evangelical worship often is not (even if too many in liturgical churches are reluctant to confess the Bible’s absolute authority). How powerful it is when evangelical and liturgical sensibilities merge.  

Image:  Cathedral Church of St. Luke, Orlando, Florida (adaptation of Theo Gordon photo) 

Conversion. Each person matters. The actual faith of individual worshipers matters. It doesn’t matter how “cool” the ad-libbed prayer. It doesn’t matter how profound the historical litany. Neither means anything apart from regenerate hearts and personal faith. Worship tells God’s story so new characters can take their place in the storyline.  

Mission. The Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead and indwells us impels us into the world in mission. The worshiping church is neither a museum of quaint antiquities nor a mall of religious exotica. It’s an Ark, says St. Augustine, a place that offers refuge to sojourners “in this wicked world as in a deluge.” Into its walls of safety the one Righteous Man draws those who otherwise would drown, and then makes them co-heralds of his victory over sin and death, his Father’s love for sinners still outside, and the Spirit’s power to rescue them as well.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+