The Merciful Invasion of Jesus - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 9/20/2024 •

For these two weeks, we are taking a thematic approach to Paul’s Pastoral Epistles, his letters to Timothy and Titus. The first three days of this week, we looked at the way the apostle addresses our deficits in faith, hope, and love. Today we are in the second of four days in which we take up the way Christ teaches us godliness, temperance, justice, and courage. And on the last three days of this special series, we will think about what Paul describes as the positive aspects of faith, hope, and love in these letters. Today: temperance, self-control, or self-mastery. 

Image: Pixabay

Growing up, I had a temper problem. A bad one. I’d throw my bat and helmet if I struck out in baseball. I could fly into a rage if my clothes didn’t fit just right. I had a favorite red striped shirt — I could count on getting into an argument when I wore it to school. I’d quarrel with a teacher to the point of tears if I didn’t like a test grade. 

Flying off the handle felt so … so, freeing. But eventually I came to see that when I lost control, I was, well, out of control. I was the definition of our Eucharistic Prayer: “when we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death.” There was part of me that was broken and in need of healing. 

One of the fantastic features of the Pastoral Epistles is the way that Paul (perhaps under the influence of his traveling companion the Beloved Physician Luke) talks about “sound teaching” (see, for example, 1 Timothy 1:9; Titus 2:1). The Greek for “sound” is an adjectival participle from the verb hygiainein, which means to make healthy. In part, Jesus came into the world to heal us of the out-of-control appetites that cripple and enslave us. He came to deliver us from: 

• Gluttony (“Cretans are … lazy gluttons” — Titus 1:12) and Drunkenness (“not enslaved to much wine” — Titus 2:3; also 1 Timothy 3:3). Instead, Jesus enables receiving “with thanksgiving … and consecration by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:3-4)

• Avarice — “love of money” (1 Timothy 3:3; 6:5-10). Instead, Jesus enables receiving good things in life for enjoyment (1 Timothy 6:17-19)

• Uncontrolled tongues (“not to be slanderers” — Titus 2:3) and Anger. Instead, Jesus enables us to be “not quick-tempered… or violent … but … master of oneself” (Titus 1:7,8) so that we can promote “the good” (Titus 2:3-4)

• Being a lover of self and of pleasure (2 Timothy 3:2,4). Instead, Jesus enables us to be a lover of “the good” and of God (2 Timothy 3:3,4) … and in the case of younger wives, of husbands and children (Titus 2:4)

It’s as though there’s a certain madness, a sickness of soul, from which we must be delivered. Recalling, I suspect, his own emotional prison of hatred for the first believers in Christ, Paul describes the situation of all of us in Titus 3:3: “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another.” 

The only possible remedy must come from on high. It does so, as Paul says in the following verses. As we pointed out two days ago, these are verses the lectionary appoints for reading on Christmas Day: “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4–7 in the NASB, emphasis added). 

God’s response to our enslavement “to various passions and pleasures” is the sending of his Son. The “kindness” that appears is Christ; you’ll recall that the term Paul uses here (chrēstotēs) would have sounded to the Greek ear like the title “Christ.” 

And the term Paul uses for “love for mankind” is philanthrōpia, (“affection for humankind”). Titus and his congregation would have been reminded of the story of Prometheus. To amplify our discussion of two days ago: Prometheus had given fire to people so they could turn darkness to light. Zeus punished Prometheus for too much philanthrōpia, affection for humans. By contrast, Paul is saying, God sees us in the darkness of our foolishness, disobedience, straying enslavement to desire, malice, envy, despicability, and mutual hatred — and God’s heart is softened toward us. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound! God sends his own philanthrōpia in person to rescue us — not by our works, but by his mercy — to wash us clean by baptism, to make us new by rebirth in the Holy Spirit, to make us right in his sight, and to make us members of his family, indeed heirs of his estate. 

The picture that the Beloved Physician Luke (along with Mark) paints of the formerly shackled and demon-driven Gerasene sitting at Jesus’s feet and “in his right mind” (sōphronein) is a picture of us! Jesus’s healing gift for the Gerasene was self-mastery, self-control, temperance. Jesus comes to give us ourselves back again. 

For most of us (certainly for me), the merciful invasion of Jesus into our lives brings a nearly instant healing of some disordered affections and unruly passions: anger dissipates, wanderings lose their allure. At the same time, for most of us (and again, certainly for me), the merciful invasion of Jesus means the Holy Spirit works over the long haul to bathe and rebathe, pushing back lingering areas of darkness within, giving us gradual control over besetting sins, and working an ongoing renewal that we know he will see through to completion on “the Day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:7). May you and I find him faithful to the end. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Eusebia ("Good Religion") - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 9/19/2024 •

For these two weeks, we are taking a thematic approach to Paul’s Pastoral Epistles, his letters to Timothy and Titus. Over the last three days, we looked at the way the apostle addresses our deficits in faith, hope, and love. For the next four days, we will take up the way Christ teaches us godliness, temperance, justice, and courage. And on the last three days of this special series, we will think about what Paul describes as the positive aspects of faith, hope, and love in these letters. 

Today, let’s think about Paul’s distinctive—I’d call it even countercultural—use of the language of “religion.” In the face of modern blather about how to be a “Christian” without being “religious,” Paul tells us he wants us to be practitioners of what he calls—heads up!—“good religion,” the Greek for which is eusebeia, etymologically “good” + “religion.” Translators usually render the term “godliness” or some such — but I’m afraid that terminology is misleading. I think we should call it what it is for Paul: “good religion.” 

The normal word for “religion” is simply sebeia. Without going into detail here, I will point out that in his earlier writings, specifically in his letter to the Romans, Paul offers a devastating critique of mere religion, bad religion, or irreligiosity. He calls it asebeia (“irreligion” or “godlessness” — see Romans 1:18; 4:5; 5:6). In their irreligion people reveal the wrath of God. Amazingly, it is irreligious people that God declares righteous, and he does so because it is for irreligious people that Christ died!

Now, in his last writings, as he prepares his trusted proteges to carry ministry into the next generation, Paul works to redeem the language of “religion.” To the term sebeia Paul adds the prefix eu-, which means “good.” For instance, aggelion is “message,” whereas euaggelion is “good message,” which is why we translate that term as “good news” or “gospel.” Paul’s not commending mere “religion.” He’s promoting “good religion” — and he’s doing so unapologetically and boldly — because for him, to know Christ is to have come into “good religion.” 

Image: Adapted from "the Sizzling Pepper Steak" by dbgg1979 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Here’s the New English Bible’s rendering of a few phrases in which Paul speaks of eusebeia — in each case, you should mentally supply “good” in front of the boldface “religion”: “… that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life, free to practise our (good) religion with dignity … And great beyond all question is the mystery of our (good) religion: He was manifested in flesh, vindicated in spirit … Keep yourself in training for the practice of (good) religion; for while the training of the body brings limited benefit, the benefits of (good) religion are without limit…” — 1 Timothy 2:2; 3:16; 4:7–8. 

Good Religion is Christ-Religion. Good religion, in the first place, is Christ Jesus, fully human and fully divine. In Ephesus, Paul urges Timothy to promote Jesus as “the mystery of our ‘good religion.’” A fully human mediator between God and humans (1 Timothy 2:1–7; 3:16), Jesus Christ contrasts with Ephesus’s patron deity, a rock that fell from the sky. In Crete, Paul urges Titus to promote Jesus as “God’s grace … kindness and ‘man-lovingness’” (Titus 2:11–14;3:4–8). A fully divine savior, Jesus Christ teaches us to live “religiously well” (eusebōs, an adverb, Titus 2:12), thereby putting the lie to Crete’s romantic myths about humans-who-would-ascend-to-deity.*

In two stunning strokes of pastoral acumen—one in 1 Timothy and one in Titus—Paul slays the twin beasts of pride and sloth. “Good religion’s” fully human Mediator discourages the slothful anti-humanism that Paul detects in Ephesus. “Good religion’s” fully divine Savior discourages the pretentious narcissism that Paul detects at Crete. 

Good Religion Has Both Form and Content. One of the reasons people avoid the language of religion is that they associate it either with dry, empty formalism or with high-energy, but equally empty entertainment. Maybe they grew up with a lifeless liturgy, or maybe they grew up with smoke machines that covered manipulative messaging. Or maybe they grew up pointedly avoiding both! 

Like a prophet of old, Paul denounces “the outward form of ‘good religion’” minus its power (2 Timothy 3:5). Liturgy that does not transform lives is not “good religion.” Worship-tainment that is all sizzle-and-no-steak is not “good religion” either. 

“Good religion” offers “thanksgiving,” for which Paul uses the term eucharistia. In the ancient church, “thanksgiving” was the universal term for Communion or the Lord’s Supper. Paul denounces those who “forbid marriage and abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving (meta eucharistias) by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by God’s word and by prayer” (1 Timothy 4:3b–5). In its Eucharist (Thanksgiving with a capital “T”), the church gives thanks for the Body and the Blood. Because by the offering of his own Body and Blood, Jesus has consecrated and blessed all of life, we receive (and rightly use!) all the good things of this life with thanksgiving (lower case “t”). In Paul’s vision of “good religion” there’s no break between the form of worship and the content of life. 

Good Religion Loves People. Another reason people avoid the language of religion is that they see religious people as phonies. “I don’t go to church because it’s full of hypocrites!” Truth is: the greatest saints harbor dark places of duplicity and deceit. That’s why they come to Christ in the first place. And Christ commits himself to the long and arduous process of making them over into something else: bearers of his own likeness. 

Paul is as impatient with pretend religion as are the severest of critics. He excoriates those who make a show of religiosity but refuse to take care of widows in their own family. Paul accuses them of failing to practice a fundamental duty of “good religion. “If a widow has children or grandchildren,” he says, “they should first learn their religious duty (their eusebeia) to their own family and make some repayment to their parents; for this is pleasing in God’s sight. … And whoever does not provide for relatives, and especially for family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:4,8). Paul is just like his Master, Jesus, who denounces those who hypocritically refuse relief to their parents because they are too busy fulfilling “religious” requirements (Mark 7:11). “Good religion” cares for people. 

Good Religion Practices Disciplines of Personal Piety. Spiritual self-care is “good religion.” Paul is concerned that Timothy’s youth, his ill-health, and his susceptibility to being bullied by rivals in Ephesus will prevent him from providing the leadership the congregation needs. And so, Paul counsels him to practices of personal piety: “Train yourself in “good religion” (eusebia), for while bodily training (gymnasia, that is, good things for your body through physical exercise) is of some good, “good religion” is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:7b–8). 

Paul lays out the elements of “good religion” in the following verses. Those elements are living a life that is exemplary in speech and conduct, reading scripture, teaching, not neglecting the gifts which the Lord has given you …practice these duties,” he says, “devote yourself to them so that all may see your progress. Take heed to yourself and to your teaching. Hold to that, for by doing so you will save both yourself and your hearers” (see 1 Timothy 4:11–16). 

The way we keep ourselves spiritually alive and healthy is by practicing these disciplines. By immersing ourselves in God’s story through reading, meditation, prayer, and worship, we insulate ourselves from false choices (justice versus piety, faith versus works, forgiveness versus transformation). Spiritual self-care is “good religion.” 

Paul commends to us eusebeia, “good religion.” Eusebeia is “Christ-religion.” It consists of both form and content. It cares for people. And it practices spiritual disciplines. I commend it to you as well. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

* I explore Paul’s contrasting approaches to Christology in Ephesus and Crete in my essay, “Redeeming the ‘R-Word”: Paul against and for Religion,” in Justin Holcomb and Glenn Lucke, For the World: Essays in Honor of Richard L. Pratt, Jr. (P&R, 2014). 

Our Affections Change - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 9/18/2024 •

For these two weeks, we are taking a thematic approach to Paul’s Pastoral Epistles, his letters to Timothy and Titus. First, we are looking at the way the apostle addresses our deficits in faith, hope, and love. Second, we will take up the way Christ teaches us godliness, temperance, justice, and courage. Finally, we will think about what Paul describes as the positive aspects of faith, hope, and love in these letters.

Flawed Love in the Pastorals

One of the reasons Paul thinks it is important that we maintain a posture of “hope,” refusing to delude ourselves into thinking that we have arrived in the final state of blessedness, is that in this “not yet” period our “loves” can become confused. In the paragraph that begins at 2 Timothy 3:1, Paul characterizes his (and by extension our) times as “the last days.” In these “last days”—the final period of apocalyptic struggle (see, for example, Ephesians 6:12’s “we battle against principalities and powers”)—, Paul sees people losing sight of what it is that they should love: “For people will become lovers of self, lovers of money … not-lovers-of-good … lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:2–4, my translation). 

Our loves—our affections, our appetites, our inclinations—make us what we are. “What the heart loves, the mind justifies, and the will chooses,” offers contemporary theologian Ashley Null, summarizing the theological heart of the architect of the English Reformation, Thomas Cranmer. Read that again: “What the heart loves, the mind justifies, and the will chooses.” Or as philosopher J. K. A. Smith puts it, himself crystallizing a basic insight of Augustine of Hippo, “You are what you love.” 

When we have settled in and made this world our home, our affections will be set here as well. But those loves—self, money, pleasure—they are too small. 

Image: Peter Paul Rubens , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Repaired Love in the Pastorals

God counters with big love. Paul says that he found love “in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:14; 2 Timothy 1:13). He explains what he means by that in Titus 3:4, a passage rightly read on Christmas Day in lectionary-churches: “But when the kindness (hē chrēstotēs) and lovingkindness (hē philanthrōpia, lit., “man-lovingness”) of God appeared, he saved us….” The lectionary’s instinct to make this a Christmas Day reading is sound. Paul’s term for “kindness” (chrēstotēs) would have sounded something like “Christ-ness.”* And his term for “lovingkindness,” is the Greek word from which we get the English “philanthropy.” Jesus Christ is the embodiment of God’s love for and his beneficent bearing toward humans.

Paul’s language here is unique and extraordinary. This is the only time Paul calls Jesus God’s philanthropia, literally “love for humanity,” “love for mankind.” What is worth noting, I think, is that the normal word for “love” in the New Testament is not this one. What Paul says he finds in Christ Jesus in 1 and 2 Timothy is agapē. In John’s gospel and in his letters, what moves God so much that he sends his son is agapē (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9–10). The lexicons depict agape as a deep, considered, volitional kind of love. But the stem that communicates the “love” part of philanthrōpia is the simpler phil-. This term the lexicons describe as a lesser kind of love, more like “friendship-love,” more like “fondness” and “affection.” It’s more tender, less volitional, closer to natural affection. And sometimes, less is more. As my friend Steve Brown of Key Life Network (https://www.keylife.org/) likes to say: “God doesn’t just love you. He is rather fond of you, and likes having you around.” Perhaps that’s why this stem underlies Paul’s critique of wayward loves in 2 Timothy 3—the terms there connote something more like “fondness of self,” “an appetite for money,” “lack of caring about the good,” “a taste more for pleasure than for God.” 

Remarkably, to my mind, God’s counter to the waywardness of our affections and appetites is his own fondness of the human race, his philanthrōpia. So he sent his Son to save us. The hero of Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound is tied to a rock on the side of a mountain, with a bird eating at his guts. Why? Zeus is mad at him because Prometheus brought fire to humans, showing too much philanthrōpia—too much affection for the likes of you and me. 

The Christian story is different: God’s amazing grace shows up in a stable in Palestine. And rather than a narcissistic deity sending a bird of prey after our Friend from heaven, the God of grace sends the dove of the Holy Spirit to wash, to regenerate, and to renew us (Titus 3:5). As a result, our affections change, our loves become obedient rather than transgressive—we become lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:4), lovers of strangers (Titus 1:8; 1 Timothy 3:2), lovers of goodness (Titus 1:8), lovers of family members (Titus 2:4). 

In these first three devotionals on the Pastoral Epistles, we have seen how our lack of faith gets overridden; how our misplaced hopes get redirected; and how our love for wrong things is compensated for by God’s love for us. 

In the next four devotionals, we will see how Paul understands God’s grace imparting a new life of godliness, justice, self-control, and courage. First, in tomorrow’s devotional, we will look at godliness, the relationship between faith and truth. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

* A word play that Paul exploits in his letter to Philemon, where he refers to Onesimus (whose name comes from a Greek word that means “useful”) as achrēstos (a word meaning “useless” that would have sounded like “Christ-less”) prior to coming to know Christ, but as euchrēstos (a word meaning “useful” that would have sounded like “well-Christ-ed”) after coming to know Christ. 

The One Certain Hope - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 9/17/2024 •

For these two weeks, we are taking a thematic approach to Paul’s Pastoral Epistles, his letters to Timothy and Titus. First, we are looking at the way the apostle addresses our deficits in faith, hope, and love. Second, we will take up the way Christ teaches us godliness, temperance, justice, and courage. Finally, we will think about what Paul describes as the positive aspects of faith, hope, and love in these letters.

Today, Paul addresses flawed “hope.” One way to think about his subject is: “Hope: what it isn’t.” 

My black Labrador retriever, Lipton (no longer with us), always reminded me that we are creatures of hope. Every morning was Christmas morning for Lipton! He woke up each morning thinking that day was going to be the greatest day—the greatest breakfast, the greatest walk, the greatest play session, the greatest car ride to the greatest destination! Lipton was inspiring for me—always keeping before me the way that hope motivates vibrant living. 

The Christian faith is nothing if it is not a life of great expectations. As Luke describes it in his gospel: that first Christmas morning infused life with anticipation of profoundly good things: “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth!” 

Flawed hope. Paul is concerned that some Christians in Ephesus where Timothy is ministering have gotten hope wrong, however. 

Image: "It arrives!" by thetorpedodog is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Some of them are wealthy and are tempted to place their hopes in their riches. As Paul advises in 1 Timothy 6:17, “As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches but rather on God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” In Luke’s gospel (and remember that Luke and Paul were traveling companions—they must have had lots of time to compare notes), Jesus warns about building bigger barns (Luke 12). In contemporary terms, maybe “building barns” means building an investment portfolio or living from one vacation to another. Maybe it’s the addiction of buying one thing after another, always anticipating a delivery from Amazon. It is all, as Paul sagely observes, so uncertain. A matter of misplaced hope. 

Some people in Ephesus, perhaps the same people, are declaring the general resurrection to be a past event. Paul denounces certain teachers “who have swerved from the truth, saying resurrection has already occurred” (2 Timothy 2:18). In the next generation, the apocryphal Acts of Thecla riffs on this theme, positing that “resurrection” takes place in having children — which is ironic, because in Paul’s day, the temptation was to denounce marriage. Paul was dealing with people who denied resurrection so they could have their “best life now.” Unencumbered by children, unencumbered by domestic obligations. Free, like Demas, to “love this age” (2 Timothy 4:10). 

It’s a problem Paul had countered earlier in his ministry with the Corinthians. Somehow the Corinthians had persuaded themselves that being in God’s “new creation” meant there was no resurrection still ahead, and so they also were demanding their “best life now.” They were suing each other, competing to show the superiority of their spiritual gifts, bragging about their spiritual mentors, letting the “haves” of the congregation display their dominance over the “have nots” at the “Lord’s Supper.” 

Fixed hope. In the very first sentence of his first letter to Timothy, Paul announces his intention to recalibrate Ephesians’ hopes, calling Christ Jesus: “our hope” (1 Timothy 1:1), a unique title in the New Testament. In Colossians 1:27, Paul uses similar phraseology: “Christ in (or among) you, the hope of glory.” But here in 1 Timothy it’s a straightforward title: our hope. It’s the opening of an inclusio he will close at the end the letter, with his warning about hope “in the uncertainty of riches.” Throughout 1 Timothy, Paul offers Christ himself as the one certain hope.

For Paul, not to have a resurrection to look forward to is not to have Christ. Plain and simple. Christ himself is our hope, says Paul.  

By referring to Christ Jesus as “our hope,” Paul mirrors the way the Greek translation of the Old Testament calls the Lord (Yahweh) his people’s hope (e.g., Jeremiah 17:13). Paul can do so because he presupposes Christ’s deity. This allusion to Christ’s deity is especially attention-grabbing at the beginning of this letter, because, as we shall see, it is Christ’s humanity (“one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human”) that Paul feels he needs to stress to the Ephesians. More about that in next Wednesday’s devotional. But for now, Paul’s point is that Christ gives us so much more to hope for than anything or anyone else. All other hopes besides Christ himself are lesser hopes. 

Second, Paul wishes to insert an element of futurity into Christian existence. Hope that is seen is not hope, he says elsewhere (Romans 8:24). Hope hopes for what is not yet here. What the your-best-life-now Christians in Ephesus need to see is that living heaven’s life on earth now means patience, it means suffering, it means endurance, it means waiting, it means not insisting on your own way. Hope takes the long view in the now, gladly and patiently, if expectantly. 

So, yes, my black Lab Lipton was right. Every day is Christmas, because every day is filled with the hope of finding my “best life now” in the power of Jesus’s resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Including a Vicarious Faith - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 9/16/2024 •

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions. I’m Reggie Kidd, and every Monday through Friday, I offer devotional observations on some portion of that day’s readings for Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. Thanks so much for joining me this Monday following the 14th Sunday after Pentecost. Because of my travel schedule, for the next two weeks we are taking a detour in our devotionals

These next ten devotionals will treat Paul’s last three letters — those to his ministry proteges, Timothy and Titus. First, in three devotionals on the so-called Pastoral Epistles, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus, we will see how God overcomes our lack of faith, hope, and love. Then, in the next four devotionals on the Pastorals, we will see how God implants in us basic ingredients of human flourishing: godliness, temperance, justice, and courage. Finally, in the last three devotionals of this special series on the Pastorals, we will see how Paul inspires us to faith, hope, and love. 

Paul shows us in the letters to Timothy and Titus how Christ compensates for our lack of faith. Paul wants us to know that Jesus meets us in our lack of faith. That’s what Jesus did for Paul. It’s what he does for us. It puts Paul in awe of God’s mercy. It puts me there too. 

Here toward the end of his ministry, Paul has reason to look back on his life and marvel at the way God set aside Paul’s flawed faith — his false or misguided faith — through Christ’s faith or faithfulness. In fact, as we will see, Paul claims that his life prior to his encounter with Christ had been animated by “lack of faith,” or in Greek apistia. In 1 Timothy 1:13, Paul says that it had been out of a lack of faith—or in unbelief—that he had persecuted Christ’s church. 

Flawed faith. In that self-reflective mood Paul contemplates the horrible prospect of other people losing their faith or living out of unbelief like his own. In striking metaphors and figures of speech, he warns Timothy about people:

• shipwrecking their lives by rejecting the faith (1 Timothy 1:12); 

• abandoning the faith (1 Timothy 5:12); 

• contradicting the faith by their lives (1 Timothy 5:8); 

• changing the teaching to something “other” than what it is out of conceit, showing themselves to be “pompous ignoramuses” (REB, tetuphōtai mēden epistamenos) who then promote envy, blasphemy, and base motives (1 Timothy 6:4); 

• allowing greed to make them wander away from the faith and “spik[ing] themselves on many a painful thorn” (REB, 1 Timothy 6:10); 

• reducing the truth of the faith to faux-knowledge and “empty and irreligious chatter” (REB), and thus straying from the faith (1 Timothy 6:21). 

Paul is so attuned to those dangers because these are the terms in which he views his own life prior to that fateful trip to Damascus in which Jesus revealed himself to him. That previous life had been one of a passionate championing of the faith of his ancestors, of defending the cause of his people, of protecting the honor of Israel’s God. But Paul had come to see all of it as an exercise in “unfaith” (apistia). 

“I used to blaspheme the name of Christ,” he asserts. “In my insolence, I persecuted his people. But God had mercy on me because I did it in ignorance and unbelief (apistia — 1 Timothy 1:13 NLT). 

In this verse, Paul names himself a blasphemer, because he mocked God’s name — by rejecting Jesus, he got God’s story entirely wrong. Paul labels himself a persecutor, because, in the name of God himself, he attacked the people God resided among, championed, and commissioned to represent him. Paul accuses himself of being excessively proud (hubristēs, a concept that weighs heavily in Greek tragedy).

In his old life, Paul had been doing his very best—but his very best was entirely wrong. That’s my biggest fear in life—mounting (metaphorically) a cool motorcycle, and racing off … in the wrong direction … right over a cliff. Paul found that his zealous, loyal service to God was its opposite: misguided, self-centered faithlessness. 

Image: Pixabay

Though less dramatically so, that was my experience too. Though raised by skeptical public educators, I was nonetheless raised in church. And I thought I had it figured out: if there was a God, that God was a projection of our best selves (à la Eric Fromm’s Psychoanalysis and Religion). If there was such a thing as justification, it was by virtue of attaining the best self-knowledge possible (à la James Michener’s autobiographical The Fires of Spring). If there was such a thing as sanctification unto glorification (as Western theologians put it), or such a thing as “divinization” (as Eastern theologians put it), it was by molding ourselves into our best selves (à la Nikos Kazantzakis’s The Last Temptation of Christ). 

Not only that, after I became a Christian, I flirted with theological ideas and ethical practices as dangerous as Paul warned Timothy about.

Fixed faith. But what rescued my wrong belief was exactly what rescued Paul. And, like Paul, I found it was a Who that rescued and redirected my faith. In 1 and 2 Timothy, Pauls says that the faith he could not find within himself, he found “in Christ.” He found that while he couldn’t believe rightly for himself, Another believed for him. “The grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:14). Again, in 2 Timothy 1:13, Paul says that the faith and love he couldn’t find in himself, he found “in Christ Jesus.” 

Christ’s vicarious life and death for sinners included a vicarious faith. When Paul couldn’t correctly confess the faith, Christ had confessed it for him: “…Christ Jesus … in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession” (1 Timothy 6:13). It was that confession that enabled Paul and Timothy, and that enables the rest of us, to make a good confession (1 Timothy 6:12). Christ’s prayer for Peter got Peter through his dark night of doubt and denial (“I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail, and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” — Luke 22:31). In all of us, Christ’s same prayer imparts and sustains faith. Praise be. 

Be blessed this day. 

Reggie Kidd+

Tenderness: Ours, and God's - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 9/13/2024 •

Friday of Proper 18

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 40; Psalm 54; Acts 15:12-21; John 11:30-44

Job 42 (a departure from the Book of Common Prayer)

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)

As I noted on Monday, we are jumping ahead in our Old Testament readings to the last chapters of the Book of Job, today to Job 42.

Job is restored. Despite appearances, the happiest part of the happy ending of the Book of Job is not the restoration of the sufferer’s fortunes (42:10-17). I don’t mean to minimize Job’s receiving “twice as much as he had before” (42:10). However, the real climax of the story lies in Job’s words to the Lord, “But now my eyes see you” (42:5b), and in the Lord’s words to Eliphaz, “And my servant Job shall pray for you” (42:8b). 

Image: William Blake , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“But now my eyes see you.” In his striving for an audience with God his “tormentor,” Job had dared to hope that after his death he might “see” God, and in him see his Advocate and Friend (19:25-27). Yahweh has done so much more than that. Yahweh has pulled back the curtain between heaven and earth, if only to show Job his own limitedness and Yahweh’s incomprehensibility. In doing so, God has permitted Job to see as much of Yahweh’s own self as a human can stand. Job has taken his place alongside Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah as those who have “seen” the invisible, eternal, and almighty God. And for Job, that is more than sufficient. As Peter Kreeft puts it: “Here God answers Job’s deepest heart quest: to see God face to face; to see Truth, not truths; to meet Truth, not just to know it” (Kreeft, Three Philosophies, p. 92). 

“And my servant Job shall pray for you.” Throughout the Book of Job, his friends have mouthed many abstract truths about God. But the only person who has spoken directly to God is Job. Even if his thoughts have been confused, he has known to Whom to go with his confusion. God’s verdict is that Job alone has spoken truthfully. His friends, by contrast, have lobbed mortars of “truths” (we might say that they have fired off “Bible bullets”)—but they have not spoken truthfully. 

So, now, the second thing that makes for a happy ending to the book is that Yahweh calls upon Job to pray for his friends. Ministry flows out of a real relationship with the Living God, not out of a lot of head knowledge about the idea of God. Here is a powerful anticipation of the Apostle Paul’s discovery that it is the consoled who can console: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). 

Jesus weeps. The Job story’s tenderness towards the friends is its own indication that there’s more to the God of Job than the high and mighty Tester of souls, spinner-outer of the stars, and manufacturer of Behemoth and Leviathan. That is what makes today’s account of Jesus at the tomb of his friend Lazarus so wonderful. God-in-flesh has tears sliding down his cheeks as he beholds the grief of Lazarus’s circle of friends and family. His heart is breaking for them, but Jesus feels something stronger as well (John 11:35). God-in-flesh shudders within himself in rage at what death does to God’s image-bearers. (Here please note that the NRSV is entirely too tame, twice offering “he was greatly disturbed in spirit” when the Greek in this passage really denotes rage! — John 11:33,38). And God-in-flesh has come to do something about it. He will take it all into himself when he is lifted up on his Cross. In advance of that, he stands with weeping friends and makes their sorrow his. He will not let them weep alone. He will cry with them. 

What we learn from John 11 is that the God who weeps at the sadness of his friends, stays alongside each of us through burials, sicknesses, bouts of depression, spiritual turmoil, broken relationships, seasons of apathy or aloneness, sorrow at global unrest (as the date September 11 has reminded us ever since that blue-sky Tuesday morning in 2001)—and he weeps with us. He sighs as you sigh, shudders as you shudder, and matches you tear for tear. As Jesus wept on the way to the tomb of his friend, people exclaimed, “See how he loved him!” So Jesus loves you now. And just as he called then, “Lazarus, come out!” so will he do for you. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Right On Time - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 9/12/2024 •

Thursday of Proper 18

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 50; Acts 15:1-11; John 11:17-29

Job 41 (a departure from the Book of Common Prayer)

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)

Lessons on humility from Behemoth and Leviathan. As we saw yesterday, Yahweh is reducing Job to the realization that he does not have the capacity to defeat the powerful and the proud: “Look on all who are proud, and bring them low; tread down the wicked where they stand. … Then I will also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can give you victory” (Job 40:11-12). As final proof of Job’s incapacity, Yahweh brings forth two untamable monsters, Behemoth and Leviathan. 

Behemoth (literally, “Beasts”) is a huge vegetarian beast that lives in the marshes (40:15,21). It is powerful (“its limbs like bars of iron” … “if the river is turbulent, it is not frightened”), if not especially dangerous. Who could tame it (“can one … pierce its nose with a snare”)? Who would want to tame it? A strong strand of scholars’ commentary on Job suggests that the prototype for Behemoth is the hippopotamus. If so, the poetic imagery expands its proportions: “It makes its tail stiff like a cedar … It is the first of the great acts of God” (Job 40:19). The modern reader—well, this one, at least—can almost not think of a huge dinosaur like the brontosaurus or the stegosaurus. The Behemoth is an ancient curiosity of God’s inventiveness—its “why” and “wherefore” are beyond Job’s comprehension. 

Leviathan, the main topic of Job 41, appears in other biblical passages as a terrifying and dangerous sea dragon (Psalm 104:26; Isaiah 27:1; Psalm 74:13-14—see also Job 3:8; 7:12). It’s curious to me that Peter Kreeft credits J. R. R. Tolkien with translating the Book of Job for the Jerusalem Bible, when Tolkien himself says that the only translation he managed for that project was Jonah (Peter Kreeft Three Philosophies of Life, p. 62; Humphrey Carpenter, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, p. 378). Still, the description of Leviathan in Job looks so much like Tolkien’s dragon Smaug in The Hobbit that it’s not difficult for me to imagine Tolkien finding inspiration from this text in Job: 

Can you fill its skin with harpoons? …
No one is so fierce as to dare to stir it up. …
Who can penetrate its double coat of mail? …
Its back is made of shields in rows, shut up closely as with a seal. 
Its sneezes flash forth light …
From its mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap out.
Out of its nostrils comes smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.
Its breath kindles coals, and a flame comes out of its mouth.
Its heart is as hard as stone…
When it raises itself up the gods are afraid…
Though the sword reaches it, it does not avail,
nor does the spear, the dart, or the javelin….
The arrow cannot make it flee…
it laughs at the rattle of javelins. …
On earth it has no equal, a creature without fear.  

Many commentators find the prototype of Leviathan in the crocodile—but if so, the poetic imagery leaves that point of departure in the dust. Here is a monstrously terrifying creature. Tellingly, for the lesson in humility that Yahweh is impressing upon Job, the description concludes: “It surveys everything that is lofty; it is king over all that are proud” (Job 41:34). 

Image: "Time" by John-Morgan is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

“Four days late…” There is only One who is powerful enough to conquer Leviathan, the deadly dragon. There is only One who is ancient enough to comprehend Behemoth, God’s oddity. That is the One who, in John’s Gospel, comes for Lazarus—the One who comes, as the gospel song by Karen Peck and New River says, “Four Days Late … and Right on Time.” (songwriters: Aaron and Roberta Wilburn):

The news came to Jesus: “Please, come fast,
Lazarus is sick and without Your help he will not last.”
Mary and Martha watched their brother die.
They waited for Jesus, He did not come,
And they wondered why.

The deathwatch was over, buried four days.
Somebody said, “He’ll soon be here, the Lord’s on His way.”
Martha ran to Him and then she cried,
“Lord, if you had been here, You could have healed him.
He’d still be alive…

“But You’re four days late and all hope is gone.
Lord, we don’t understand why You’ve waited so long.”
But His way is God’s way, not yours or mine.
And isn’t it great, when He’s four days late
He’s still on time.

Jesus said, “Martha, show me the grave.”
But she said, “Lord, You don’t understand,
He’s been there four days.”
The gravestone was rolled back, then Jesus cried,
“Lazarus come forth!” Then somebody said,
“He’s alive, he’s alive!”

You may be fighting a battle of fear.
You’ve cried to the Lord, “I need You now.”
But He has not appeared.
Friend don’t be discouraged,
‘Cause He’s still the same.

He’ll soon be here, He’ll roll back the stone,
And He’ll call out your name

When He’s four days late and all hope is gone,
Lord, we don’t understand why You’ve waited so long.
But His way is God’s way, not yours or mine.
And isn’t it great, when He’s four days late,
He’s still on time.
God, it’s great, when He’s four days late
He’s still on time …

“If you had been here…” An underappreciated, but wonderful, part of the story of the raising of Lazarus is contained in our reading today in John 11. As Jesus arrives in Bethany, Martha (sister of Lazarus) comes to meet him. Yes, this is the whining, complaining Martha of Luke’s gospel (“Jesus, can’t you get my sister Mary to help me? I’m doing all the work here all by myself.”) In our reading today, Martha says to Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died” (verse 21). At first glance, this looks like another complaint from the familiar fault-finding Martha we know from Luke. But there’s something different here. Martha goes on to express a belief that Jesus can bring Lazarus back to life. She is hesitant to dare to ask outright for that miracle. She cautiously hints instead: “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” (v. 22)

“Yes, Lord, I believe…” When Jesus tells her Lazarus will rise again, she’s not exactly sure what he’s telling her. It’s as if she can’t presume to hope for Lazarus’s death to be reversed. She hedges: “I know he will rise again at the resurrection.” And that’s when Jesus drops another of the “I AM” statements we find in the book of John. This one’s a bombshell: “I am the resurrection.” Those who believe in him, though they will die, they will live, Jesus says. He asks Martha if she believes this. And what we get from Martha is the clearest, most emphatic recognition of Jesus by anyone in the entire book of John: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” To grasp the import of this statement from Martha, we only have to compare it to Peter’s declaration in Matthew 16, where Peter says, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven” (Matthew 16:16-17). 

Martha recognizes Jesus as God even when a miracle seems far-fetched. Job never loses trust in God even when his own restoration seems unrealistic. What gifts these stories of faith are for us!  Do we trust that he will always be “on time” for us? I hope we all do.

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Suffering and the Christian Life - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 9/11/2024 •

Wednesday of Proper 18

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 119:49-72; Acts 14:19-28; John 11:1-16 

Job 40 (a departure from the Book of Common Prayer)

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)

Job & the Problem of Evil. Throughout the Book of Job, Yahweh is there, and he is not disengaged. It’s not that he doesn’t listen; thus, he speaks from quite near us, within the very chaos (“the whirlwind”) that surrounds us (Job 38:3; 40:6). However, he would have us understand that his moral governance of the universe includes: a) things that appear to us to be evil or harmful or bad; and b) things that appear to us to be arbitrary or frivolous or meaningless. It is prideful to think that we can wrap our heads around it all, much less do a better job running things if we were in charge. 

Yahweh’s final proofs will be the Behemoth (Job 40) and the Leviathan (Job 41), both of which are beyond human comprehension and control, and each for its own reason. I will compare their attributes tomorrow. But for today, notice the first half of chapter 40. The most dangerous idea that Job has flirted with is the idea that there is a law of justice that stands higher than God himself, and to which God must be held answerable. 

Image: Jules Bastien Lepage / MBA Nancy, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

God’s answer is basically that there is a pride in the human heart that you, Job, cannot fix: “Look on all who are proud, and bring them low; tread down the wicked where they stand… Then I will acknowledge to you that your right hand can give you victory” (Job 40:11-12,14).  Here is OT scholar Bruce Waltke’s elegant summary: “Human beings cannot impose through irresistible power from the top on down perfect justice. God did not endow them with the power to impose a utopian state here and now (v. 14)” (Waltke, Old Testament Theology, pp. 942-943). 

Evil sucks. Even so, in this fallen world it has its place in God’s governance. What makes him God is that his good governance allows for and works through the existence of evil in humans, and of harmfulness, arbitrariness, and frivolity in the natural world. 

As he is beginning to understand all this, Job wisely shuts his mouth: “See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but will proceed no further” (Job 40:4-5). 

Not that Job leaves us with a counsel of despair. Not that silence in the face of the impossibility of attaining perfect justice means resignation to, or compliance with, the reign of evil in this life. No, it means simply giving up triumphalistic delusions about our own powers to right all wrongs, not to mention to dictate the terms of our “best life now.”  

There is good counsel and helpful perspective in today’s New Testament readings. 

John: Death & God’s Glory. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of God’s promise to put an end to evil once and for all, to overthrow death’s reign, and to end the long season of night that began in the Garden of Eden. John 11 chronicles one of the most magnificent displays of that promise in action. Jesus will proclaim himself in this chapter as “the Resurrection and the Life,” as proof of which he will raise his friend Lazarus from the dead. 

But today’s reading in John is merely the preface to that story. Here we find Jesus, having been informed that his friend is in danger of dying, intentionally staying away long enough to make sure that Lazarus is good and dead: “Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was” (John 11:5-6). What nobody else knows, but Jesus does, is that Lazarus’s dying “is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). 

Hard to swallow though it may be, that truth has animated generations of believers in Jesus Christ. Knowing that no death died in him is final, we see our deaths—and all the “little deaths” that lead up to it—as ways that God’s glory and the Son of God’s glory come to light. It’s why we can say, with Thomas (minus the Eeyore-like resignation), “Let us go, that we may die with him” (John 11:16). 

Acts: Suffering & the Christian Life. A remarkable thing happens at the end of the First Missionary Journey, as Luke describes it in the Book of Acts. Paul has received brutal treatment in city after city on the mainland of Asia Minor. His last stop is Derbe, where there turns out to be a good reception. Surprisingly—indeed shockingly!—Paul turns around and retraces his steps through Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch. He goes back to the cities from which he has been bounced, and in one case beaten and left for dead. 

He has two purposes. The first is to explain that the sufferings that the new believers in these cities had seen in him are part of the “normal” Christian life: “They strengthened the souls of the disciples and encouraged them to continue in the faith, saying, ‘It is through many persecutions that we must enter the kingdom of God’” (Acts 14:22). 

The second purpose is to put in place competent and godly leadership who can mold these new believers into churches, for worship, mutual support, and extension of the ministry: “And after they had appointed elders for them in each church, with prayer and fasting they entrusted them to the Lord in whom they had come to believe” (Acts 14:23).

What’s remarkable about Job is how much faith he exercises in the absence of the full revelation of “the Resurrection and the Life,” and minus the support of a community of faith to cheer him on. With so much more going for us on this side of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ, may we know that in whatever whirlwind surrounds us, the same Lord is still present, still hears our cry, and still speaks. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

God's Own Dominion - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 9/10/2024 •

Tuesday of Proper 18

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 45; Acts 14:1-18; John 10:31-42

Job 39 (a departure from the Book of Common Prayer)

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)

There is delicious irony in the juxtaposition of today’s NT passages. 

Jesus is facing stoning for his claim: “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30). Stoning is the punishment for blasphemy, so his interrogators have heard him correctly. Jesus belittles their incorrigible unbelief by calling up Psalm 82:6. There, mere human judges are called to execute God’s own justice for the benefit of others, and thus to share in this aspect of God’s attributes: “I said, you are gods” (John 10:34, quoting Psalm 82:6). If the Bible is willing to dignify mere humans as “gods” when they have been given the “godlike” task and status of reflecting God’s image (an irresistible thought for ancient church theologians—a notion to pursue on another occasion!), how readily apparent it should be to Jesus’s opponents that Jesus’s words and especially his works (“signs”) confirm that he is even more than that: “from the beginning,” both “with God” and “God” (John 1:1).  

Right in front of these spiritual dullards stands their “Good Shepherd,” (John 10:14), the physical embodiment of the prophet Ezekiel’s promise: “I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice” (Ezekiel 34:15-16). To Jesus the Eternal Son, God the Father has given all judgment: “The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father” (John 5:22-23).

The occasion for this entire dialogue is the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22), celebrating the 2nd century bc liberation of the Temple from the pagan and self-idolizing Antiochus Epiphanes, and the re-consecration of the Temple to the service of Yahweh. How much more should people acclaim the coming of the One who has been consecrated by the Father (John 10:36) to raise up a new and better Temple (John 2:18-22)! 

Image: Johann Heiss , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

By contrast, in Acts 14 Paul and Barnabas must intervene to prevent blasphemous worship of themselves. It is a predicament revealing a sadly humorous aspect of Lystra’s history. Because of their miracle-making, Paul and Barnabas are misidentified as Zeus and Mercury. (The citizens of Lystra believed they had missed a visitation by those very deities centuries before, and they were determined not to let that happen again.) The apostles insist that they are simply human bearers of good news that comes from “the living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them” (Acts 14:15). As Yahweh did with Job, they begin by pointing to the wonders of creation to help their audience reach proper conclusions about the relationship between Creator and creation: “… [God] has not left himself without a witness in doing good—giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food and your hearts with joy” (Acts 14:17). This teaching achieved only moderate success. The miracles of Paul and Barnabas were sufficiently impressive that some of the crowd continued to attempt to offer sacrifices to the apostles.

And then there’s Job. According to the NT Book of James, part of the dignity of human beings is that “every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species” (James 3:7). Yahweh, by contrast, wants Job to understand the limits of humans’ dominion over the animal kingdom. The Lord puts before Job the characteristics of one exotic creature after another that defy human comprehension and control. The single creature mentioned that humans are able to domesticate is the war horse. However, even in this case, while humans may direct the war horse’s energy, humans can never understand where its fury for battle comes from: “Do you give the horse its might?” (Job 39:19-25). 

In every other case, Job is confronted with incomprehensibilities in God’s design of his creatures. Why give the huge ostrich such impossibly small wings? Why the predation of the lion, the raven, and the eagle; yet the independence of the mountain goat, the wild ass, and the wild ox (or aurochs)? The list will continue in chapters 40 and 41 with the even more mysterious Behemoth and Leviathan. But the point is clear: although we humans have been given the mandate to exercise dominion under God, we will never understand some aspects of God’s own dominion over his creatures. God’s delight in variety will always outstrip our desire to control and to comprehend. And we should draw sound conclusions as regards our own lives. So much of Job’s own experience seems out of control. It is indeed unfathomable by any human accounting. Our faith in Yahweh must dwell in contentedness at never knowing everything there is to know about our own stories. 

Which takes us back to Jesus as Good Shepherd and as God-Incarnate. It is good to learn to rest in the knowledge that what we can neither control nor understand, he can and does—and that, to our benefit. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

When Yahweh Finally Speaks - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 9/9/2024 •

Monday of Proper 18

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 41; Psalm 52; Acts 13:44-52; John 10:19-30

Old Testament: Job 38

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)

Job 38–42: Yahweh answers Job out of the whirlwind. I don’t know how many times I’ve said: “I’m going to add that to my list of questions for God when I get to heaven.” If Job’s experience is any indication—and I think it is—the question looks like it’s going to be directed in the opposite direction: “Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? … I will question you, and you shall declare to me” (Job 38:3). 

Image: "dust devil" by [TheAsarya] is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

In Chapter 19, we saw Job expressing the extraordinary hope that he will “see” God. But Job ends his final complaint against God in Chapter 31 by returning to his oft-expressed demand that God “hear” him and answer his charges that God has been unfair to him: “O that I had one to hear me! (Here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me!)” — Job 31:35. 

In Chapters 38 through 42, God finally answers Job’s prayers. Several things to note:

First, throughout the dialogues or arguments between Job and his four friends, God had been referred to in less personal terms, as either “God” (Elohim) or “the Almighty” (Shaddai). When God reveals himself to Job, he does so in terms of his personal, covenant-making name, “Yahweh” (usually rendered the Lord in translations). 

Second, when Yahweh finally does speak there are matters that he never addresses. Job has been protesting his unjust treatment at the hand of God—why have such bad things happened to a good person? We the readers have known all along that Yahweh has been proving Job’s faith to heaven’s Accuser. Yahweh never offers Job any explanation. Even so, when Yahweh shows up, Job’s questions cease—his demand to know “Why?” disappears. We learn that what Job has needed all along is not answers, but the Answerer. 

Third, Yahweh never accuses Job of sin. He adjusts Job’s field of vision by taking him on a tour of the mysteries of creation. And Yahweh tells the friends that Job is the only one who has spoken truthfully the whole time. Even though just about every word that the friends have spoken is echoed elsewhere in Scripture, they have been totally wrong about the applicability to Job’s situation, and Job has been in the right: “You have not spoken of me what is right,” Yahweh tells Job’s friends, “as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7). 

Job 38. What Psalm 19 (“The heavens are telling the glory of God”) and Romans 1 (“What can be known about God is plain to them … through the things he has made”) say succinctly, Job 38 says more expansively. In this chapter, Yahweh takes Job on something like an excursion through his creation. With one striking, gorgeous, and poetic metaphor after another, Yahweh invites—indeed, challenges—his image-bearer to receive the gift of createdness, and to marvel. 

The world is a vast edifice that has Yahweh as its designer and builder, from foundation-laying to capstone-setting (38:4-6). The stars had sung in praise of Yahweh’s craftsmanship—as Job is now invited to do (38:7). The sea is envisioned as a child at birth, with clouds as its swaddling clothes (38:8-11). Each morning’s dawn is like a housekeeper that opens the house to the newness of the day, shaking sleepers from their slumber (Job 38:12-15). Job hasn’t a clue as to subterranean wonders: the depths of the sea, the gates of death, the secret recesses of light and dark, how old the earth actually is (Job 38:16-21). Snow and hail presuppose a storekeeper. The east wind bespeaks one who summons it. Green vegetation springing up briefly in the desert whisper that there is one who delights in evanescence (38:22-27). The fact that constellations appear every night shouts that there are “ordinances in the heavens” (Job 38:31-33). That rains fall as though from tilted waterskins (not to mention lightnings that strike like called up soldiers), as Jesus will later say, “on the evil and on the good.” Everything testifies that there is a wisdom beyond ours (Job 38:34-38). 

Yahweh invites Job to look around himself—and the tour will continue in chapters 39–41, as we trace them Tuesday through Thursday. But we begin to see that God would stun us with the elegance of his grand design. For the modern reader, the effect of the poetry behind the science is to make our jaws drop … and to make our lists of questions fall from our hands to the ground. 

The prospect that the Book of Job puts before us—and by which he invites us even now to a perspectival shift—is that today’s “Oh, the tragedy!” will one day give way to “Oh the majesty!” 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

God My Redeemer - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 9/6/2024 •

Friday of Proper 17

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 31; Job 19:1-7,14-27 (per BCP) or Job 19:1-27; Acts 13:13-25; John 9:18-41

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)

Job expects to “see” God. To this point, Job has been seeking a hearing so he can be vindicated. Not at all sure now that he will not die from his afflictions, he wants to make sure his words are written down or inscribed as a permanent record. Nonetheless, his faith rises to a height virtually unparalleled in the Old Testament. Even should he die, he believes that he will not just hear from, but that he will see God—just like Abraham did (Genesis 18), just like Moses did (Exodus 33,34), and just like Isaiah did (Isaiah 6). Resurrection! A familiar concept to Christians, who live on this side of the story of the cross. For you and me, the idea of resurrection, of seeing God face-to-face after death, is an idea we accept, even if we don’t fully understand it. Here, way ahead of Christ’s coming, Job expresses his astounding belief that it will really be Job the man—and not some disembodied spirit—who sees God. Three times in the first part of Job 19:27, Job uses the pronoun “I” to emphasize that it is the same Job who has lived on the earth: “whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.” Throughout this passage, Job stresses his “skin,” his “flesh,” and his “eyes” experiencing his seeing God on the far side of death. His belief in resurrection is at least latent, around the corner, or nascent in this passage. 

Image: Orazio de Ferrari , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

God my Redeemer. Moreover, when Job sees God, he genuinely believes that God himself will be his Vindicator or Redeemer or Advocate. The words of the lovely aria from Handel’s Messiah, “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth,” are all the more lovely and poignant when we ponder the depths of despair out of which Job perceives God’s help for him. Verses 25-27 are like an extraordinary lightning strike from the future, when the one who is the Light of the World and the Resurrection and the Life will come “for us and for our salvation,” as the Creed puts it. There is here a flash of the same sort of confidence that Jesus says characterizes the astute reader of Scripture: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matthew 22:32). Job’s insight is breathtaking. Gaze upon it! Bask in its light! 

Light of the World. The man who is healed of his blindness in John Chapter 9 provides one of the best hymn phrases ever: “… was blind, but now I see” (John 9:25). In context, this line is a statement of the limits of this man’s knowledge. This truth is all he knows. His virtue is that he states the truth as far as he knows it. And he sticks to his guns. When his parents deflect their inquisitors who call the man back for a follow up interview, the man turns the interrogation on its head: “Do you also want to become his disciples?” That’s a question this story not so subtly puts to all of us: will we believe? Will we become his disciples? 

At this point in the story, the man still doesn’t even know who it is who has given him his sight. But he’s already pointing people to the source of light—or at least exposing those who love the dark! Have you ever tried to talk to someone who… Just. Won’t. Listen…?  They don’t want to understand what you are trying to say! You realize, finally, that you’ve said as much as you possibly can: “end of discussion.” The formerly blind man understands this. All he knows is: “I once was blind, but now I see.” Even so, he’s become an apologist and evangelist. When Jesus does finally come and have the conversation in which he reveals himself as “the Son of Man”—“you have seen him and the one who is speaking with you is he” (John 9:37, emphasis added)—the man gives the best response possible: “Lord, I believe.” Now he really “sees.” John’s Gospel celebrates the moment when this man realizes the One who brings light to his physical eyes is truly the Light of the World: “And he worshiped him” (John 9:38). Amen. 

Light to the nations. In today’s reading from Acts, Paul gives the introduction to his sermon at Pisidian Antioch about Jesus Christ. Paul lays down a compressed history of the way God had rescued his people from slavery, given them the land of Canaan, and provided judges and then kings Saul, whom he removed, and David, “a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes.” From David’s line has come “a Savior, Jesus, as he promised.” Paul explains that John the Baptist’s proclamation of a baptism for repentance was a preparation for Jesus’ coming. 

Saturday’s reading will include some of the most pivotal moments in the book of Acts. Paul explains that the death of Jesus, wrongful though it was (Acts 13:27-28), had been in accordance with the Scriptures (Acts 13:29; e.g., Isaiah 50:6; 53; Psalm 22; and even today’s Psalm 31: “Into your hands I commend my spirit”). The linchpin of Paul’s sermon is the resurrection of Christ, which also fulfills Scripture’s promise of an eternal rule for David’s line. Moreover, Christ’s death and resurrection mean that Jesus does for us what the law could never do: bring forgiveness of sins (Acts 13:38-39). 

Most of Paul’s Jewish listeners reject his message. However, “many Jews and devout converts to Judaism” do believe. The longer Paul stays in Pisidian Antioch, the more hardened Jewish resistance becomes, and the more receptive his Gentile audience becomes. As a result, Paul announces a shift in his own ministry: “we are now turning to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46). Even this phenomenon, Paul declares, is a fulfillment of God’s promises in Scripture: “I will set you to be a light for the Gentiles, so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth” (Acts 13:47, quoting Isaiah 49:6). 

Here is the Light of the World at work. The overwhelming light of Christ’s first appearance to Saul/Paul had brought him temporary blindness (Acts 9:8-9). With his baptism, sight returns. (Acts 9:17-19). And then, through Paul, the Spirit’s work to illuminate the whole of Scripture as Christ’s story begins. Now, Paul is ready to fulfill Israel’s ministry to be a “light to the nations.” Praise be. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+