Sin is a Stubborn Opponent - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 2/19/2024 •
Monday of 1 Lent, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 41; Psalm 52; Genesis 37:1–11; 1 Corinthians 1:1–19; Mark 1:1–13 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 9 (“The First Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 12:2–6, BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 19 (“The Song of the Redeemed,” Revelation 15:3–4, BCP, p. 94) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we explore that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd. Thanks for joining me. This is Monday of the first week of Lent, a season of preparation for Holy Week, and we are in Year 2 of the Daily Office Lectionary.

Genesis 37 and envy. Sin is a stubborn opponent. Envy (resentment at the perception of someone else’s advantage) is especially so. Adam and Eve fall because they envy God’s advantage in knowing good and evil in a way they do not. Cain falls because his brother’s sacrifice is favored over his own. When Isaac’s second son Jacob realizes that he is God’s choice for the blessing normally reserved for the first son, Jacob fails to show regard for the temptation to envy that his older brother Esau faces. Instead, Jacob conspires to seize the inheritance by deceit, virtually insuring the envious wrath of his older brother. Jacob is on the receiving end of envy when Jacob’s uncle Laban resents the bounty that God bestows upon Jacob’s sheep-breeding practices.   

Throughout, God gradually draws Jacob into a closer relation to himself; but, sadly, Jacob remains blind to the deadly power of envy. “Now Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him” (Genesis 37:3–4). There’s culpability all around: the older brothers who fall into envy’s trap, the younger brother whose ill-advised dream disclosure offers no mitigating language, and, of course, the father who has not spread paternal affection equitably.  

We’ve all known, I’m certain, what it is to feel that others get attention and affection at our expense, and we know it can bring ugly things to the surface. Thank God for not letting us off the hook! And thank God for a Lenten season that allows us to name the evil.  

Image: Rijksmuseum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons 

1 Corinthians 1 and pride. Pride (feeling superior to others by virtue of one’s own real or perceived advantage over them) is also a stubborn opponent. It is to an especially prideful community of Christians that Paul writes 1 Corinthians. God has peculiarly blessed them “in speech and knowledge of every kind” so that they “are not lacking in any spiritual gift” (1 Corinthians 1:5,7). So much so that Paul feels he must remind them that they are called “together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2b). They’re proud of their prophecies, their tongues, their miracles, their spiritual mentors, their wealth, their liberty of conscience. I’ve been part of churches that felt like I was among the Corinthians, among people who imagined themselves especially kissed by God with gifts and perspectives that set them apart as special. That sense of superiority can be deadly. Throughout this letter, Paul will be reminding the Corinthians that everything they have, they have because of “the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 1:4).  

During this Lenten season, I am grateful for the call to “self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial, and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word” (BCP, p. 265). I am grateful for Lent’s reminder that God grants his favor despite our lack of merit.  

Mark and our Christus Victor. Happily, we are not left to attempt to kill sin by ourselves. What is especially encouraging in a backdoor way is reading about how the deadly sins of envy and pride afflict faithful followers, like Jacob/Israel and the Corinthian Christians. We have only one Champion, the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone has stood successfully against the assault of every kind of temptation. And while we would, just like Adam and Eve, fail in a garden of delight, he has succeeded. That victory was on our behalf, during 40 days in a wilderness of desolation. This Lenten season is a new opportunity to entrust ourselves to his care, his forgiveness, and his strengthening power.  

Collect of the Day: The First Sunday in Lent. Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan; Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son 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+ 

“…All Lives Are Mine” - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 2/16/2024 •

Friday of Last Epiphany, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 31; Ezekiel 18:1–4,25–32; Philippians 4:1–9; John 17:9–19 

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 Last Week of the Season After Epiphany. We are in Year 2 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Being or Not Being 

I once had a co-worker (in a non-church job) who said he was abandoning Christianity. The faith of the Bible was dangerous, he had concluded, because it gave every individual a sense of their own self … their own importance, their own boundaries, their own accountability. He was experimenting with a rival religious system that taught that we all just get absorbed back into “the All … the Great Cosmic Soup.” Somehow, the cash value for him was that he felt no obligation to carry out his supervisor’s instructions. His job didn’t last long.  

Sadly, I never had the chance to get to know my former co-worker well enough to find out what weight he was under that was making him want to escape the responsibility of selfhood. All I know is that my conversations with him made me reflect on what a massive thing it is to accept responsibility for my own self. I am the only “me” I have, and I want to steward it well.  

It's only been two days since the imposition of ashes on my forehead. I still feel their imprint, and the weight of the words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It is a serious thing to be made steward of the “me” that I am for the days allotted to me.  

Ezekiel 18 lays down markers on the trail.  

“For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God” — Ezekiel 18:32a. Let’s start at the end. It’s important to know that we deal with a God who has a certain heart, a certain wiring. The God of people’s imagination is either William Pullman’s senescent old man who deserves to be dethroned by younger, fresher, cooler spiritual powers, or he is an insincerely smiling Santa who says he wants your wish list, but who’s really making his own naughty-and-nice list. If that’s who we are dealing with, maybe it is better to be a non-being, just an impersonal part of cosmic soup.  

Instead, though, the Bible’s God likens himself to a father who waits longingly for the prodigal child to return, and who grieves over the emotionally constipated child who never dares to rebel but doesn’t really love either (Luke 15). The Bible’s God compares himself to a man who intentionally marries a whore, and when she all too predictably runs off with another man, he pursues her and “allures her” and “speaks tenderly to her” to win her back (Hosea 2:16). Ezekiel says the Bible’s God has set his affections on us, that he has “no delight in the death of” us.  

Image: iStock

“Know that all lives are mine; … it is only the person who sins that shall die. … the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own” — Ezekiel 18:4a,c,20b. It is not with an impersonal, faceless mass of humanity that God deals. The Bible calls us “bearers of God’s image,” each of us stamped with his likeness and called to reflect his character out into the world. Each of us distinctly, wonderfully, and uniquely bears that image, stamp, and calling—like it or not. And Ezekiel soberly lays out the stakes for us: glory or shame, approbation or reprobation, relationship or alienation. What my former co-worker was cutting himself off from was the potential satisfaction of the deepest of emotional needs: to know glory, approbation, and relationship — in other words, the joy of loving and being loved.   

“Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!” — Ezekiel 18:31. The Bible also recognizes we have all failed the responsibility of selfhood. We have all squandered our inheritance in a strange land or stayed home thinking we are playing it safe but grudgingly and resentfully. We have all gone whoring after gods who are no gods. We all fully deserve to be returned to the dust from which we came, and to be left there. But the Bible also insists that “a new heart and a new spirit” are only as far from us as one simple (if not easy) prayer: “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” The Lenten season that lies before us is an opportunity to let that prayer sink itself deeper and deeper and deeper into our consciousness.  

Collect for Ash Wednesday: Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Hope in the Face of Instability - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 2/15/2024 •
Thursday of Last Epiphany, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 37; Habakkuk 3:1–18; Philippians 3:12–21; John 17:1–8 

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

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we consider some aspect of that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Thursday in the Last Week After Epiphany. Our readings come from Year Two of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Yesterday’s Ash Wednesday’s sober words ring especially true these days: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” There’s nothing like a once-in-a-hundred-year killer virus to remind us of our frailty. It feels like nature itself is trying to destroy us. There’s nothing like vitriol spewing nationally and the unleashing of the dogs of war internationally to make us conclude that if nature can’t kill us, we are perfectly capable of doing it to ourselves.  

The one place I know to go to find “big picture” help is the Bible.  

Habakkuk 3: to sing in hard times. “…in wrath may you remember mercy” — (Habakkuk 3:2e). The Bible is a book of relentless hope. It refuses to give up on us, because it holds that the God who made us does not give up on us. Habakkuk knows the feel of creation crashing down on us, of enemies at the gates, and of folly and wickedness inside the gates. He knows we fully deserve the wrath.  

Nonetheless, he sings in the face of the fury. In the superscription to Habakkuk 3 is the Hebrew word, Shigionoth, which commentators are pretty sure is a musical instruction. And the chapter ends, “To the leader: with stringed instruments” (Habakkuk 3:19b). Today’s passage is a song the prophet lifts to God. In it, he recites all the calamity God’s people have deserved, from storms of nature to the storm of invading armies. But he remembers the way God’s “storming” presence has conquered his enemies and theirs. Habakkuk remembers the way Yahweh has set limits on the destruction his people have brought down on themselves at the hands of their enemies, and sings, “yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:18b).  

Image: Adapted from Pixabay

Philippians 3: to be “taken hold of” by Christ. The apostle Paul is grateful (as we should be too) for a reality that has taken hold of him from above despite himself. He says that the reason he presses on toward the goal of resurrection and the full enjoyment of life in God’s presence is “so that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12 my translation). Grace has laid hold of Paul’s life … and Grace will not let him go. May it be so with you and me.  

Confident of Christ’s gracious grip, Paul (as underserving as he knows himself to be) extends grace to those who haven’t caught up with him theologically in every respect (“…and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you” — Philippians 3:15b). Here’s a wonderful thing to contemplate: we don’t have to make sure everybody lines up with us exactly. Sometimes Christ calls on us to give each other breathing space, or room to grow.  

At the same time, Paul also calls out those who spurn the cross of Christ. Whether the “enemies of the cross” (Philippians 3:18b) claim to be believers but invent a cross-less and suffering-free version of the faith, or whether these “enemies” outright oppose the faith, Christ’s grace gives Paul the boldness to say their earth-bound perspective is a dead end — quite literally, a dead end.  

John 17: to be prayed for by Christ! But the thing that most deeply protects us from despair in the face of all that would destroy us is simply who Christ is and what he has done for us. There is a special comfort in knowing that Christ’s journey to the cross was bathed in prayer — and to judge from John 17, prayer not so much for himself, but for us: “I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours” (John 17:9). He asks the Father for protection for us, for joy for us, for the ability to be in the world without “belonging to the world,” and for being so solidly grounded in truth that we are “sanctified” in it.  

There is perhaps even more comfort in the knowledge that he didn’t just pray for us on the night of his arrest, but that, according to the writer to the Hebrews, he prays for us now: “He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25 NASB).  

May Christ’s intercession prove strong for us: protecting us from despair over the evil around us, among us, and even in us; giving us grace to extend grace to the struggling; making us bold to hold forth the glory of the cross regardless of the cost; and granting us a heart always to “rejoice in the Lord and exult in the God of our salvation.”  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Dust is Not All We Are - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 2/14/2024 •
Ash Wednesday, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 32; Psalm 143; Amos 5:6–15; Hebrews 12:1–14; Luke 18:9–14  

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, this Ash Wednesday, in the Last Week After Epiphany. Our readings come from Year 2 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

“God, I thank you that I am not like other people…” (Luke 18:11b). Ash Wednesday’s sobering words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” leave us no room to compare ourselves with others. Whether our politics are more enlightened, our self-awareness more acute, our financial position (seemingly) more secure, or our compassion for the poor more compassionate, all of us, no less than anyone we might feel ourselves superior to, are dust.  

Winston Churchill sought something like immortality through the power of his words. A journalist before he became a politician, Churchill churned out the words, bajillions of them, and well-crafted words at that. He won the Nobel Prize, but not for what he did as Prime Minister of England. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature, “for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.” He won it for his words, and deservedly so. But he is dust, and the destiny of the most eloquent of wordsmiths is accurately forecast in T. S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding II”: 

“And I am not eager to rehearse  
My thoughts and theory which you have forgotten. 
These things have served their purpose: let them be. 
So with your own, and pray they be forgiven 
By others, as I pray you to forgive 
Both bad and good. Last season’s fruit is eaten 
And the fullfed beast shall kick the empty pail. 
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language 
And next year’s words await another voice.” ** 

Eliot understood that everything we offer is incomplete, imperfect, and impermanent. All of it is tainted: “all that you have done, and been; the shame of motives late revealed, and the awareness of things ill done and done to others’ harm which once you took for exercise of virtue” (Little Gidding II). And so, we offer what we offer humbly, penitently, tentatively — knowing that the last word on any offering is His. Our very best offering, in fact, is the publican’s prayer, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13c).  

Image: Reggie Kidd

“…but all who humble themselves will be exalted” (Luke 18:14c). In the Litany of today’s Ash Wednesday service (one of my favorite services of the entire year), we confess our way through the deadly sins: “the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives” … “our self-indulgent appetites and ways” … “our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves” … “our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts” … “our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us” … “our indifference to injustice and cruelty.” * 

We make such a confession because we believe that in the end “dust” is not all we are. We do so because we know we were made by the God who redeems “dust.” Our God makes “gold dust” from plain “dust.” Our God surveys a valley of dry bones, gathers the bones, rebuilds the skeletons, gives them new bodies, and breathes new life into them. (Ezekiel 37). Our God raises the dead. Those who acknowledge they are dead before their death, he raises to eternal fellowship and glory. That’s why Jesus says the humble will be exalted. And that’s why, on the far side of the confession of the deadly sins, we dare to ask:  

“Restore us, good Lord, and let your anger depart from us; 
Favorably hear us, for your mercy is great. 

Accomplish in us the work of your salvation, 
That we may show forth your glory in the world. 

By the cross and passion of your Son our Lord, 
Bring us with all your saints to the joy of his resurrection.” * 

Be richly blessed this wondrous Ash Wednesday, 

Reggie Kidd+  

* Book of Common Prayer (1979), pp. 268,269.  

** T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding II,” from The Four Quartets, in Collected Poems 1909–1962 (NY: Harcourt, 1963, 1991), p. 204.  

Shrove Tuesday - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 2/13/2024 •
Tuesday of Last Epiphany or Shrove Tuesday, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 26; Psalm 28; Proverbs 30:1–4,24–33; Philippians 3:1–11; John 18:28–38 

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 Last Week After Epiphany. Our readings come from Year 2 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which makes today Shrove Tuesday. The term “shrove” comes from an old English word “shrive,” which means “absolve.” Thus, it’s a day of confession and absolution. On Shrove Tuesday, some churches burn the previous year’s Palm Sunday ashes for use in the following day’s Ash Wednesday liturgy. The eating of richer and fattier foods (in the Anglican church world, pancakes are the norm) anticipates a leaner and more austere diet during Lent (which accounts for the celebration of Mardi Gras, literally, “Fat Tuesday,” in some traditions).  

On Shrove Tuesday, Christ’s followers are invited to take stock of wrongs that need to be corrected in their lives, and to ask God for help in personal reformation. The day has its place in the classic Christian discipline of what Paul calls “dying to sin” and “living to righteousness,” or what older theologians called “mortification and vivification.”  

Today’s Old Testament and Epistle readings provide an opportunity for taking stock and looking to God for help.  

Proverbs 30. Without God’s wisdom, confesses Proverbs 30 author, Agur, son of Jakeh (otherwise unknown to us), we are lost in the universe. We need a word from outside our plane of existence: “Who has ascended to heaven and come down? … Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is the person’s name? And what is the name of the person’s child? Surely you know!” (Proverbs 30:4). Here’s one of the Old Testament’s clearest calls for God to send his Wisdom in person!   

Meanwhile, Agur invites us to observe the created order and learn what life-lessons it holds for us. The first thing that this discipline will require for many of us is that we slow down, sit patiently, and observe.  

Ants, badgers, locusts, and lizards teach profound things about cooperation, creativity, mutual deference (Proverbs 30:24–28), In ironic juxtaposition, the lion’s stateliness and the rooster’s strutting give perspective to prideful aspiration (Proverbs 29–31). For, in the end, self-exaltation, evil schemes, and pressing anger are poor life strategies — the antidote for which is to become “shriven.”  

Philippians 3. Paul’s words here are especially apt for Shrove Tuesday meditation. All of us who think we make it through life on our bona fides, or by building our resumes and portfolios, would do well to heed the apostle who discovered for himself that it’s all “rubbish” (a polite rendering in English of solid waste material that goes into a toilet — Philippians 3:8).  

Seriously, take time to read through Paul’s credentials and his rejection of their worth. The point isn’t to make us rip diplomas off our walls, but to make us understand that those things don’t commend us to God. They certainly don’t make a life.  

Then, read carefully and slowly why Paul can divest himself of his personal and social capital: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:8–11). Knowing Christ is life. And he can indeed be known because, while his body was pierced for our transgressions, and while his dead body was laid in a tomb just outside Jerusalem, nonetheless, he is now the resurrected, ascended, and returning Lord.  

“…and the power of his resurrection…” — Because he is raised from the dead and promises a full resurrection like his when he returns in glory, there’s also a power for living in the now that Christ can and does extend to us.  

“…and the sharing of his sufferings…” Paul’s phrase is “the koinonia, the fellowship, of his sufferings.” This “koinonia of sufferings” is more than the fact that we experience sufferings that are like or similar to his. There is a mysterious way in which, because Christ does in fact live now, he can and does come to us when we suffer in this life. By his Spirit within us, Christ is ever-present to us; he personally and really communes with us and shares our sufferings with us. That’s what Paul is saying. Christ indeed tells us to take up our cross, but he does not ask us to bear it alone.  

Part of what we do on Shrove Tuesday is renounce the “rubbish.” The other part of what we do is ask for more of knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. May Christ “shrive” us, and indeed meet us in the renunciation of the “rubbish” and in the asking to know him better.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+

Preparing for Ash Wednesday - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 2/12/2024 •
Monday of Last Epiphany, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 25; Proverbs 27:1–5,10–12; Philippians 2:1–13; John 18:15–18,25–27 

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 Last Week After Epiphany, in Year Two of the Daily Office Readings.  

Collect of the Day: The Last Sunday after the Epiphany: O God, who before the passion of your only-begotten Son revealed his glory upon the holy mountain: Grant to us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

The Christian experience is not the stoic grey of the denial of appetite, of wanting, of desire. It is the embrace of the wild extremes of the emotional spectrum, from the joyous and radiant golds and whites of the shining sun and the ultimate satisfaction of our hearts’ deepest longings, to the mournful and shatteringly cold blacks of death’s night, a night that is darker than dark, lonelier than lonely, and laden with an eternity of sadness.  

Every year the Sunday lectionary readings give us glimpses of a future that is nearly too glorious to imagine: Every year, they take us to Christ’s mountain-top transfiguration, recalling his pre-existent glory and anticipating his resurrection glory. Every third year they contemplate Moses’s face being temporarily lit up with the glory of God, and Paul’s celebration of our progressive internal transformation into a permanent glory like that of the resurrected, ascended, and returning Christ (Exodus 34:29–35; Luke 9:28–36; 2 Corinthians 3:12–4:2).  

Preparing for Ash Wednesday. In the middle of this Last Week of Epiphany stands the inescapable and unavoidable hurdle: Ash Wednesday. Ashes form a cross on our foreheads, and we hear haunting words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Remember that there’s no Transfiguration that is not preface to a Crucifixion, nor an Easter without first a Good Friday. On Ash Wednesday, we embrace the dark so we — with Christ — may step into the light. Throughout all of Lent, that is the reality that will be burned into our consciousness.  

With today’s readings, we begin the Lenten journey with Paul’s exquisite hymn to Christ who laid aside his divine prerogatives, to clothe himself in our humanity, suffer a criminal’s ignominious death, and rise to claim “the name that is above every name” (Philippians 2:6–11). All this in the interest of making us into a people who care more about each other than about ourselves (Philippians 2:1–5), and in doing so become lights in a dark world (Philippians 2:15).  

At the same time, today’s readings remind us that we continue to live with our frailty and fallenness: 

Living with frailty. Proverbs 27 reminds us how tentative our plans must be, how unsure our grip on our own lives: “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Proverbs 27:1). And, therefore, how humble towards others we must be, and how circumspect in all our relationships: “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth—a stranger, and not your own lips. A stone is heavy, and sand is weighty, but a fool’s provocation is heavier than both. … Better is open rebuke than hidden love … The clever see danger and hide; but the simple go on, and suffer for it” (Proverbs 27:2,3,5,12).  

Living with fallenness. John recounts Peter’s failure even to acknowledge the one who just hours before had washed his feet and called him friend. In doing so, John reminds us how in need of forgiveness we all remain. Peter’s three denials, happily, call forth from the resurrected Jesus a simple threefold query. Jesus doesn’t ask about whether Peter feels guilty about the past or resolute about the future. Simply this: “Do you love me? … Do you love me? … Do you love me?” (John 21:15–17). When we too, like Peter, fail, that’s all he wants to know: “Do you love me?” 

Once again, from the Collect for the Day: “…may [we] be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory. … Amen.” 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

We Don’t Need to be “Good Enough” - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 2/9/2024 •

Friday of 5 Epiphany, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 88; Genesis 27:46-28:4,10-22; Romans 13:1-14; John 8:33-47 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93) 

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday in the Fifth Week of the Season After Epiphany. We are in Year 2 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Genesis: “Grace, grace, God's grace, Grace that is greater than all our sin!” The Bible’s story is one long proof of this line from Julia H. Johnston’s (b. 1910) hymn. Today’s account of “Jacob’s Ladder” is case in point.  

If anybody ever needed grace, it was Jacob, the “Supplanter.” This second son had been prophesied to be the inheritor of his father Isaac’s estate, and the one through whom God’s promises to his grandfather Abraham would be fulfilled. Nonetheless, rather than trusting God to fulfill the prophecy and secure his inheritance, Jacob had conspired once to swindle his brother, and a second time to dupe his father.  

As today’s narrative picks up, Jacob is fleeing from his vengeful brother. At his mother’s urging, he is on his way to his uncle Laban’s home to seek refuge and simultaneously a wife. “He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set” (Genesis 28:11). In matter-of-fact fashion, Jacob takes a stone for a pillow, lies down, and goes to sleep. No Evening Prayer, no Compline, no “Now I lay me down to sleep.” He just lays down a weary head.  

Image: Pixabay

Unsolicited, Yahweh comes to him in a dream. A stairway to heaven opens and Jacob sees angels traveling back and forth between heaven and earth. It’s not a means by which merit and effort and pride climb up. Later, Jacob calls it “the gate of heaven.” It’s the gateway through which grace condescends to come down. “Grace, grace, God’s grace….”  

With not a single word of rebuke, Yahweh pronounces over this wayward sinner the same promises he had given faithful Abraham: “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Genesis 28:13b–15). Magisterially, Yahweh promises land, offspring, expansiveness, and presence.  

The good news is that for God to come to us, he doesn’t necessarily need us to be looking for him. He emphatically doesn’t need us to be good enough! “…Grace that is greater than all my sins!”  

John: whose child will we be? At some point, grace’s approach demands a receptive response. Jacob’s response takes time, but it does come. Eventually Jacob embraces Yahweh’s overture of love, and welcomes his role in his family’s unfolding mission to bless the nations. Sadly, not everyone in Jacob’s line does the same. (Well, they think they do, but they don’t.) That goes for too many of Jesus’s contemporaries, especially those who have risen to positions of spiritual authority. Abraham was promised “a seed,” a singular child (Genesis 12:7), through whom all the promises of land, of offspring, of expansiveness, and of God’s presence would come to fruition. That “seed” proved to be Jesus of Nazareth, but “He came unto his own,” John says, “and his own received him not” (John 1:11 KJV). To those who would not receive him Jesus utters the most chilling thing he ever says to anyone:  

“If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing what Abraham did, but now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are indeed doing what your father does” (John 8:39b–40). 

The stakes are high. Recognize the grace that is offered in Jesus. When it comes to us, whether we’ve been seeking it or not, we decide either to receive it or to spurn it. Embrace it (that is, embrace Jesus) and know what it is to be welcomed into God’s family. Rebuff it (or, him), and wake up one day staring into the most dreadful of faces, and bearing the most damning of family resemblances.  

A Prayer of Self-Dedication. Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to thee, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly thine, utterly dedicated unto thee; and then use us, we pray thee, as thou wilt, and always to thy glory and the welfare of thy people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

Truth That Sets Free - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 2/8/2024 •

Thursday of 5 Epiphany, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 146; Psalm 147; Genesis 27:30–45; Romans 12:9–21; John 8:21–32 

For more extensive reflections on Romans 12:9–21 from 7/17/2020 

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

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

The truth that “will set you free.” Truth that sets free is the fact that Jesus is the great “I AM” come in the flesh. John’s Gospel is characterized by the stupendous claim that Yahweh himself has come in the person of the Word, the true and only begotten Son of the Father. “I AM” is the name by which God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush of Exodus 3 & 4. Jesus has the audacity to claim the same name for himself (note the use of the pregnant, free-standing phrase “I AM” at 8:18,24,28, and especially 8:58, “Before Abraham was ‘I AM’”)! Truly, if Jesus isn’t lying or delusional, here is God in flesh! Christians believe, in fact, that the divine and eternal Word has come in the flesh to reverse the corruption that set in when the world came under the dominion of “the prince of the world” after the Fall.  

Truth that sets free, moreover, is the fact that Jesus is the Light of the World (John 8:12). To redeem the world, Yahweh had called Israel to be a light to the nations (Isaiah 49:6). Through Israel’s one true Son, Yahweh’s light indeed shines into the world, bringing enlightenment and truth where there once was only darkness and error.  

And truth that sets free is the fact that Jesus’s being lifted up on the tree of Calvary is the way not to “die in your sins” (John 8:21,24).   

Image: Pixabay

The chains from which “the truth will set you free.” Within this paragraph in John, the truly liberating truth is that those who trust him do not “die in our sin,” and therefore, we do not wind up in an eternity of separation from God (really, a separation that would have been an extension of the hell already begun in this life).  

Within today’s reading in Genesis about Jacob and Esau, the truly liberating truth is that we have been freed from living life as either manipulators (like Jacob or Rebekah) or manipulated (like Esau or Isaac). The great I AM has come to free us from feeling we have to lie and cheat our way into getting what we deserve (like Jacob). The great I AM has come to free us from feeling envy of people, or enmity against a world that we feel has victimized us (like Esau).  

Within today’s reading in Romans 12 (Paul’s “Desiderata” — see an earlier DDD on this passage), the liberating truth is that we have been freed: 1) from a life of pretending to care about others when all we care about is ourselves (“let love be unhypocritical”); 2) from masking evil motives beneath a veneer of doing good things (“hate what is evil, and cling to what is good”); 3) from sloth, malaise of spirit, and a “who cares?” outlook on life itself (“do not lag in zeal, be enthusiastic in spirit, serve the Lord”); 4) from xenophobia and caring only about people who look/talk/think like us (“pursue hospitality”, literally, “love for the stranger”); 5) from quarrelsomeness (“live in harmony with one another”); 6) from arrogance (“do not be haughty … do not be conceited”); and 7) from vindictiveness (“do not repay anyone evil for evil … do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”).  

Oddly, looking over this list, I, for one, feel a great weight being lifted. I feel freedom from things that don’t have to define me, hold me down, bind me up, and set me against everybody around me. I hope it has the same effect on you. If so, that is Jesus providing truth that sets you free!  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

God Continues to Work His Plan - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 2/7/2024 •
Wednesday of 5 Epiphany, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:97–120; Genesis 27:1–29; Romans 12:1–8; John 8:12–20  

For comments on Romans 12:1–8 from DDD 7/16/2020 

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 Fifth Week After Epiphany. Our readings come from Year 2 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Virtually every day gives me reason to thank God for this one truth: it is a mercy that the God of grace works his design to do us good despite our sometimes purposeful and sometimes unwitting penchant for fouling things up. I see this truth within myself. I see it in the people around me. I read it in the headlines. And I read it in the Bible. Every person in today’s account of Isaac’s blessing of Jacob acts in an unworthy, if not horrible, manner. Still, through all their questionable acts God advances his gracious plan to redeem the world.  

Isaac and Rebekah both know that Yahweh has prophesied that their second son will receive the family inheritance, not their first-born: “And the LORD said to [Rebekah], ‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples born of you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger’” (Genesis 25:23).  

Image: Pixabay

Moreover, Esau has sold his birthright to his younger brother: “Jacob said, ‘Swear to me first.’ So [Esau] swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob” (Genesis 25:33). 

In defiance of what he knows, Isaac conspires with Esau to thwart God’s plans as well as the standing agreement between Esau and Jacob. Nor are Rebekah and Jacob innocents in the incident, as commentator Derek Kidner observes, “Rebekah and Jacob, with a just cause, made no approach to God or man, no gesture of faith or love, and reaped the appropriate fruit of hatred.”*  

Treachery and deceit win the day, as does, ironically, God’s sovereign will for the deliverance of the world through Abraham’s line. That God continues to work his saving plan through sinners desperately in need of salvation is, well, the point. Jacob’s very name testifies to God’s power to work through the mixed motives of his subjects. Jacob’s name can mean “May God be your rearguard” (that is, “My God be at your heels to protect you”). But instead of living up to his name, Jacob lives down to its other possible meaning: “You will grasp another by the heel.” He could be “Faith-filled.” Instead, he is “Supplanter” of his brother — and in today’s account, his mother is co-supplanter.  

Nonetheless, as Isaac himself eventually confesses, “Yes, and blessed [Jacob] shall be!” (Genesis 27:33b). And the writer to the Hebrews recognizes there is at least a kernel of faith in the blessing that has been coaxed out of Isaac under false pretense: “By faith Isaac invoked blessings for the future on Jacob and Esau” (Hebrews 11:20).  

John does a lovely thing when he juxtaposes Jesus’s teaching at the Festival of Booths that he is the source of living water (John 7) with his teaching that he is the Light of the World (John 8). Water and light happen to be main themes of the Festival of Booths. At the Festival of Booths, Israelites celebrated not only the future coming of the Spirit who would pour refreshing waters over the earth, but they celebrated Israel’s identity and destiny as bearers of God’s light to the nations. Moreover, Jesus claims that light to be himself, and that destiny to be his own, and therefore the destiny of all who belong to him and come to him.  

John begins his gospel by announcing that Jesus Christ has brought light into the world: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it,” says John (1:4,5). Thus, it is doubly lovely that the way John’s gospel came together, the story of the woman caught in adultery is sandwiched between the themes of Living Water and the theme of the Light of the World. He is Living Water for souls in need of cleansing from sin — sin overt (like hers) and sin covert (like those of her accusers). He is Light of the World for image bearers stumbling in the dark of self-made rules for living and the harsh consequences thereof.   

I pray we live in the wonderful knowledge that our God graciously rules all things. He will not be thwarted in his design to reconcile heaven and earth through his Son. He is the God of whom Paul says, “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6 my translation). He will not fail to see through to the end the good work he has begun in each of his children. That includes you and me. It includes us when we are at our best and when, like Isaac and Rebekah and Isaac and even Esau, we are at our worst. God’s Son Jesus has come as the Light of the World, and “the darkness did not overcome” the Light.  

Collect for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany. Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+ 

* Derek Kidner, Genesis, p. 155.  

Our Great Shepherd - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 2/6/2024 •

Tuesday of 5 Epiphany, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 78; Genesis 26:1-6,12-33; Hebrews 13:17-25; John 7:53-8:11 

For comments on John 7:53–8:11 from 12/9/2020  

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 Fifth Week After Epiphany. Our readings come from Year 2 in the Daily Office Lectionary.  

Closing out Hebrews’ “brief word of exhortation” 

We are learning precious truths about: our great God, our great Shepherd, ourselves, our great fellowship, the coherence of the New Testament’s message. 

Our great God. “May the God of peace…” Notice who he is: the God of peace — our Father God is himself the source in eternity of a covenant to reunite heaven and earth. He is not the wrathful, vindictive tyrant he is often caricatured to be. He is not an insecure, fickle Zeus who is torqued because Prometheus has brought us fire. Our God’s goal and intent from eternity is our flourishing, and our rising to the full stature of bearing his own divine character (2 Peter 1:4).  

Our great God and Father is the one who sent his Son as Apostle and High Priest to reclaim us for that high calling. Notice what he has done: he raised Jesus from the dead. And notice the careful phrasing of verses 20 and 21: “May the God of peace …make you complete … so that you may do his will, working in you that which is pleasing in his sight.” Our great God works to equip us to do what aligns with who he is, and then he does that very work within us.  

Ourselves. Every one of us feels, I’m certain, the drag of “the sin that clings so closely” (Hebrews 12:1). Some of us have even, perhaps, felt the temptation to adjust the requirements of faith in apostate ways (like the congregation of the Hebrews — see Hebrews 6). But as we’ve just seen, we have something powerful within us: God himself working (as Paul put the same thought) “both the willing and the working” (Philippians 2:13). We have the privilege of cooperating with a most amazing, transformative process: our own makeover. We are created and destined to reclaim our stature as lords and ladies of the universe! Recall the way Hebrews 2:6–8 cites and comments on Psalm 8: “Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere, ‘What are human beings that you are mindful of them …  you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet.’ … As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus….” We see him, in fact, as Lord in advance of our return to the lordship we lost at the Fall. And now we enjoy the Father’s work in us, by the Spirit of his Son, molding us in that direction—an onboard presence to steer and to guide, as the hymn puts it. Amazing, but true.  

Our great Shepherd. “…our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep…” (Hebrews 13:20b). It is because Jesus has shed his blood for us that we can know we are forgiven. It is because he has been raised from the dead that he can now serve as our Shepherd, guiding us in our living and leading us in our worship.  

Our great fellowship. We have in front of us the example of Jesus. We have above us a great cloud of witnesses. We have the presence of one another around us “stimulating us to love and good works.”  

We have leaders so that we may “stimulate one another” well: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls and will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with sighing—for that would be harmful to you” (Hebrews 13:17).  

The NRSV translation of the first sentence in this verse is perhaps a bit misleading. The first verb in this sentence (which the NRSV renders “obey”) is peithesthe, a passive imperative from a verb that in the active voice means “persuade.” In the passive voice, it means “be persuaded by.” The second verb (which the NRSV renders “submit”) is hupakouete, and is normally translated “obey”; but its etymology is revealing. Its parts are hupo, which means “under,” and “akouein,” which means “to hear” — it’s not naked, unthinking submission or blind obedience that is called for, but rather a “coming under the hearing of.” In combination, peithesthe … upakouete mean “listen to your leaders with a readiness to receive what they teach; listen attentively and discerningly.”  

The thrust of the verse is that we trust that our spiritual leaders’ joy lies in helping us flourish. And the Lord will hold them to account for that. Our job is to receive what serves to help us thrive in our relationship in Christ and with each other.   

Our great tradition. Nobody knows exactly who wrote this magnificent treatise on Jesus as our great High Priest and our need to stay true to him. Because the writer speaks of “exhortation/encouragement” (paraklēsis) in verse 22, because he is attentive to the contours of the priesthood, and because Joseph Barnabas was a Levite who came to be called “Son of Encouragement” (huios paraklēseōs — Acts 4:36), some people think Barnabas wrote the letter to the Hebrews. Some people notice how similar the Alexandrian manner of contrasting earthly things with heavenly things is, and they conclude the highly articulate Alexandrian Apollos wrote it (see Acts 18:24). Still others, sensing strong affinities with Paul’s thinking throughout Hebrews, and noticing that the writer references “our brother Timothy” and seems to be writing from Italy (the place of the last citing of Paul — see 2 Timothy), believe Paul may be the author.  

We just don’t know. What’s wonderful to me is that the overall coherence and congruence of the great teachers and leaders of the New Testament era is such that any of them could have given us this masterpiece from God. They were that much in sync. What a great tradition they have passed on to us! 

I pray we can walk confidently in the great fellowship of those who know the God of peace, who has called us to life through his Son the Great Shepherd of the sheep, and who nurtures our life together in the Holy Spirit. Amen.  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+

A Foreshadowing of Christ - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 2/5/2024 •
Monday of 5 Epiphany, Year Two  

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 80; Genesis 25:19–34; Hebrews 13:1–16; John 7:37–52 

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 Fifth Week After Epiphany, in Year Two of the Daily Office Readings.  

Today’s New Testament readings provide subtle but powerful insights into Christ’s identity and into his ministry among us.  

In John 7, Jesus claims that he has come to fulfill the prophecies that streams of water would come gushing forth from God’s temple to bless the earth (Ezekiel 47:1–12; Joel 3:18; Zechariah 14:8). Jesus has already said that he will be building a new temple from his own body (John 2:19–22). Now, he offers a word about the life that will emanate from that new temple.  

Part of the beautiful symbolism of the Feast of Tabernacles was a pouring out of water on the altar of Jerusalem’s temple each morning of the week-long festival. The symbol reminded God’s people of Zechariah’s promise that in the last days “living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea; it shall continue in summer as in winter. And the Lord will become king over all the earth; on that day the Lord will be one and his name one” (Zechariah 14:8–9).  

On the last day of the feast, Jesus stands up in front of everybody assembled and shouts out (yes, really, he SHOUTS it out): “IF ANYONE IS THIRSTY, LET THEM COME TO ME… (John 7:37a). Most translations (including the NRSV) treat the rest of what Jesus shouts as promising that water would then flow from believers’ hearts. However, it’s not clear how the Greek should be punctuated (there was no punctuation in the originals). Along with a number of influential commentators, I think that the rest of what Jesus shouts is: “AND LET THE ONE WHO BELIEVES IN ME DRINK. JUST AS THE SCRIPTURE SAYS, ‘FROM WITHIN HIM (by which Jesus means himself) WILL FLOW RIVERS OF LIVING WATER!” (John 7:37b–38). John explains that Jesus is talking about the Spirit that had not yet been given. On the Cross, water and blood will flow from his side (John 19:34). After his resurrection, the Spirit will flow from him to the apostles and the church (John 14:16; 20:22). In other words, first the living water flows from Jesus, King over all the earth — and then the living water flows from him into and through us, by the Spirit, to the world that he has come to reclaim, bless, and renew.  

Admittedly, we are in the deep end of the pool — but what a pool!!   

In Hebrews 13, the writer provides the fourth of four ways in which Jesus acts as High Priest in the line of Melchizedek and as our Worship Leader in the Heavenly Sanctuary. Hebrews has already recounted how Jesus declares the Father’s name in our worship, leads song when we assemble, and ever lives to intercede for those he has cleansed by his sacrificial death (Hebrews 8:1–2; 2:12; 7:25). Now, in Hebrews 13, the writer shows how Genesis 14’s Melchizedek foreshadowed Jesus as Priest when he brought “bread and wine” to Abraham, and received, in return, a tithe 0f the spoils of Abraham’s victory (Genesis 14; Hebrews 7).  

“We have an altar from which those who officiate in the tent have no right to eat,” says the writer (Hebrews 13:10). As he does so, he invites us to go outside the provincial camp of the earthly temple’s rites in Jerusalem; he invites us, instead, to partake of fellowship with Jesus who “suffered outside the city gate” (Hebrews 13:12). Ancient readers of this text (and rightly I think) understood the writer to be inviting us to recall Melchizedek, Gentile priest and king of Jerusalem, the very city outside of which God’s Messiah was to be crucified. Melchizedek had come outside that city to bless Abraham and to offer him “bread and wine” (Genesis 14:18–20).  

As in Paul’s writings where “promise” precedes and takes precedence over “law,” here in Hebrews the church’s “bread and wine” for everybody precedes and takes precedence over the temple’s sin offerings that were consumed by Levitical priests only (Leviticus 6:26). As our great High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, Jesus brings us bread and wine from God’s holy altar. He does so week after week; and he will do so until that time when, at the end of time, he will host us at the great feast that ushers in the age to come (Isaiah 25:6–8; Luke 12:37).  

Here in Hebrews 13, instead of tithes from victorious Abraham, our Heavenly Melchizedek receives the twofold offering of: 1) “a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name”; and 2) the doing of good and in the living of lives of koinōnia — a rich New Testament word that denotes “intimate fellowship,” “generosity,” and “sharing with one another” (see Acts 2:42; Romans 12:13; 15:26–27, and elsewhere).  

The first part of Hebrews 13 offers a beautiful catalog of what such a life of koinonia looks like: hospitality, care for prisoners, honoring marital and sexual boundaries, freedom from a greed that would inhibit generosity, the sharing of community-building sound teaching rather than community-destroying “strange” teaching (Hebrews 13:1–9).  

Praise be! The New Melchizedek leads us in worship services (that is, what we come in from the world to do on Sundays), and in service that is worship (that is, what we go out into the world do on Monday through Saturday).  

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+