Too Many Decisions - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 10/4/2021
Monday of the Nineteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 22) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 106; 2 Kings 21:1–18; 1 Corinthians 10:14–11:1; Matthew 8:28–34

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

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Everybody I know is experiencing decision fatigue. Of course, there are all the issues that have to do with living through a pandemic, complicated by our uncivil political and social climate: Is it safe to go to a restaurant? Do I get a vaccine or not? Do I wear a mask in the grocery store or not? Which news services do I trust? 

But there’s more to it than that. I realized the other night that I was spending more time scrolling through Netflix or an infinity of offerings on cable,  looking for something to watch, than it would have taken to watch something. I found myself wistfully (if naively) recalling “the good old days” of the 1950s and 1960s when you had four choices: ABC, CBS, NBC, and if all else failed PBS.

Just a parable of the feeling that there are too many decisions and too few guidelines, too few rules. 

Most of us simply have to learn how to live with this reality. Sociologist Peter Berger calls it “the heretical imperative,” the fact that in our world we must make a multitude of choices that for previous generations were pre-determined. You were born into them (class, status, occupation, whom you were going to marry, where you were going to live). 

Without the anchor of the Bible’s perspective, I’m lost. In fact, the Bible seems like it’s written to help people like us. 

“All things are lawful,” acknowledges the apostle Paul. But he’s watched the Corinthians abuse the freedom Christ has won for them. They are suing each other. Some of them are sleeping around. Some are refusing to sleep with their spouses. They are pompously parading their spiritual and temporal blessings. 

In today’s passage from 1 Corinthians, Paul counters with two considerations: 

What benefits other people? — “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up. Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other” (1 Corinthians 9:23–24). On many matters, this consideration makes the calculus simple: I’ll get vaxxed, and I’ll wear a mask in the grocery story, because I care about my neighbor. 

What brings glory to God? “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 9:31). The truth is — I know that reading a good book or playing the piano or working on a drawing project makes me more the person God has called me to be than does sitting in front of a screen. Maybe I’ll put down the remote control. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Adapted from Pedalito, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

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

Friday • 10/1/2021
Friday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

And Don't Disrespect God! - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 9/30/2021
Thursday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Love vs. Knowledge - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 9/29/2021
Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21)

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

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

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1 Corinthians: “love” versus “knowledge”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

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

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

Tuesday • 9/28/2021
Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21)

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

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 13 (“A Song of Praise,” BCP, p. 90); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)

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

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

Three points are worthy of note:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

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

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

Monday • 9/27/2021
Monday of the Eighteenth Week After Pentecost (Proper 21) 

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

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

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

Our Old Testament and Epistle readings shore up the teaching:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

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

The Poetry of Redeemed Humanity - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 9/24/2021

We are taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we are thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office Monday, September 27.

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“Beautiful Things”

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

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

The Poetry of Redeemed Humanity

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

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

Beautiful Maker

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

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

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

How He Loves

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

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

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

Healing Arts

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

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

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

An Excarnate Life - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 9/23/2021

We are taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we are thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office Monday, September 27.

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“Self-stewarding in a Multiplicity World”

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

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

when children were leaving school.

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

Seduction and Captivity

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

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

Embodying Faithful Ministry

I’ve been an “online minister” for two years now (Monday nights, 7:00 EDT @ northlandchurch.net). With all the busyness of the screen—the live streaming, the myriad “chats” going on, the scrolling avatars of logged-in worshipers, the world map with locations of worshipers—it’s astounding that worshipers can worship. But worship they do. I am grateful these brothers and sisters bring so much of themselves into our “virtual” worship space.

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

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

Hunger Is good.

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

Rest Is good.

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

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

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Creativity, KOA & the Wilderness - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 9/22/2021

We are taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we are thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office Monday, September 27.

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“Creativity, KOA, & the Wilderness”

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

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

KOA Diversions

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

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

From the Wild

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

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

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

The Real Song

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

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

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Creativity, KOA & the Wilderness - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 9/22/2021

We are taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we are thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office Monday, September 27.

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“Creativity, KOA, & the Wilderness”

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

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

KOA Diversions

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

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

From the Wild

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

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

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

The Real Song

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

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

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Samurai Sanctification - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 9/21/2021

We are taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we are thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office Monday, September 27.

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Samurai Sanctification: The Seven Deadly Sins & the Beatitudes 

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

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

It’s simply the character of Jesus.

True Selves

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

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

The Deadlies

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

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

Humility

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

Compassion

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

Forgiveness

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

Involvement

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

Sacrifice

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

Restoration

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

Deliverance

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

“Amen.” 

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

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

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+