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

Thursday • 3/3/2022
Thursday of Last Epiphany, Year Two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Adapted from Pixabay

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

Wednesday • 3/2/2022
Ash Wednesday, Year Two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We make such a confession because we believe that in the end “dust” is not all we are. We do so because we know we were made by the God who redeems “dust.” Our God makes “gold dust” from plain “dust.” Our God surveys a valley of dry bones, gathers the bones, rebuilds the skeletons, gives them new bodies, and breathes new life into them. (Ezekiel 36). Our God raises the dead. Those who acknowledge they are dead before their death, he raises to eternal fellowship and glory. That’s why Jesus says the humble will be exalted. And that’s why, on the far side of the confession of the deadly sins, we dare to ask: 

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

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

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

Be richly blessed this wondrous Ash Wednesday,

Reggie Kidd+ 

Image: Reggie Kidd

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

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

Shrove Tuesday - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 3/1/2022
Tuesday of Last Epiphany or Shrove Tuesday, Year Two 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Pixabay

Preparing for Ash Wednesday - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 2/28/2022
Monday of Last Epiphany, Year Two 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Adapted from Pixabay

The Four Voices - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 2/25/2022

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office Monday February 28.

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 “With Four-Part Harmony and Feeling” 

Maybe you’re like me? On any given Sunday, I may show up for worship worn out or close to giving up or guilty and ashamed – or ready to celebrate. I know there’s an even more diverse range of moods among the people I’m called to lead. How can the worship of Jesus’ people rise from such disparate hearts? How can worship leaders orchestrate such discordant voices? 

“With four-part harmony and feeling.” That’s how Arlo Guthrie introduces the last chorus of his classic story-song “Alice’s Restaurant.” To me, it’s an apt summary of God’s gift to us of the four voices through which he tells us Jesus’ story: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In his “four part, one song” gift, God provides hope that Jesus can make sweet music of our disparate voices.

It’s not a given that we would have access to Jesus through precisely these four gospels. Some people in the early days of the church experimented with something else. Marcion (mid-2nd century, Rome) championed an edited Luke over the other three — and wound up pitting a New Testament God of love against the Old Testament God of wrath. Epic fail. Tatian (mid-2nd century, Assyria) tried to amalgamate the four gospel accounts into a single narrative — the result was a mish-mash. Less epic, but fail nonetheless. 

Nor have other sources been that helpful. Historians like the Roman Tacitus (2nd century) and the Jewish Josephus (a turncoat during the 1st century war with Rome) do little more than note that Jesus lived. The Gospel of Thomas (2nd century, Egypt) gives us sayings (many quite odd), but little of the story. The Gospel of Judas (2nd century, Egypt) gives us story, but one that just didn’t ring true. 

For the last 200 years or so, scholarship has tried to get behind “the Christ of the Gospels” in quest of “the Historical Jesus.” The problem is that scholarship is done by scholars, and scholars are people. Consistently, those scholars’ quests lead them to a Jesus that looks just like them. Churches have their own reductionistic bent. Protestants filter Jesus through the apostle Paul. Catholics favor the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) because of the Synoptics’ ethical teachings. The Orthodox favor John because of his perceived otherworldliness. 

But the reality is that the four Gospels pressed themselves in concert upon the early church; and the early church wisely let each sing its own part of the song. 

The four winged creatures of the book of Revelation gave the early church its most powerful metaphor for the singular message and fourfold voice of the Gospels: “the first living creature like a lion, the second … like an ox, the third … with the face of a man, and the fourth … like an eagle in flight” (Rev 4:7). Each has eyes for sight, and wings for flight. Each ceaselessly worships: “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty” (4:8). 

Each winged creature became associated in the early church’s mind with a particular gospel. Each became a metaphor for its gospel’s angle of vision, its aspect of Christ’s message to be taken to the nations, and its facet of worship. 

Matthew is the winged man because Matthew begins with Christ’s genealogy. Beyond that, Matthew presents Jesus as “gentle and lowly in heart,” and as one especially attuned to the burdens of “all who labor and are heavy laden” and who need “rest for your souls” (11:28,29). Matthew’s Jesus is Emmanuel (“God with us,” 1:23) who teaches in the Sermon on the Mount what our true humanity looks like.   

Mark is the winged lion because Mark begins with John the Baptist roaring like a lion in the desert. Beyond that, in his focus on Christ’s coming “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many,” Mark shows Christ’s true, Aslan-like power. 

Luke is the winged ox because Luke begins with Zachariah fulfilling priestly duties in the Temple. As Irenaeus (2nd century, Gaul) notes, “For now was made ready the fatted calf about to be immolated for the finding again of the younger son.” Luke, Paul’s traveling companion, is the only Gentile author in the NT. His two volume Luke/Acts is rooted in “secular” history and the ethical sensibilities of the Gentile world. He understands especially well that humanity experiences redemption through Jesus fulfilling OT sacrificial requirements and promises. 

John is the winged eagle because the eagle is a good symbol for Christ’s coming from above as the divine Logos. With his seven “I am” statements (6:35; 8:12; 10:7; 10:11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1) and Jesus’ crowning claim, “Before Abraham was I am” (8:58), John offers the most exalted view of Christ in the NT. Doubting Thomas speaks for all of us when he confesses: “My Lord and my God.” 

As Jesus reveals himself through his fourfold gospel, he speaks to the diverse needs of his people. Some hear him say, “You will find rest for your souls.” Some hear the Father rejoicing because the fatted calf has been sacrificed and they are welcomed home. Some hear that Christ is their Lion-protector. And we all find ourselves bowing before the one who is the great “I am.” 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

"Happy Little Trees" - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 2/24/2022

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office Monday February 28.

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“Happy Little Trees”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

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

The Bible's Six-Word Story - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Wednesday • 2/23/2022

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office Monday February 28.

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“Psalms Keep Us in God’s Story”

There’s a story that Ernest Hemingway won a bet that he could write a six-word novel:

It’s hard to imagine so much punch being packed into so few words. But there it is. The story recently prompted a “flash fiction” movement, along with books like Larry Smith & Rachel Fershleiser’s Not Quite What I was Planning and a website (smithmag.net) offering collections of life stories in six words:  

“Birth, childhood, adolescence, adolescence, adolescence, adolescence…”

“Bad brakes discovered at high speed.”

“Stole wife. Lost friends. Now happy.”

“Barrister, barista, what’s the diff, Mom?”

“I still make coffee for two.”

Many six-word stories make me pensive. Somehow, they remind me that the most common funeral inscription of the Roman world in which Christianity emerged was just such a six-word memoir: “Non fui. Non sum. Non curo.” (“I wasn’t. I’m not. … Don’t care.”) They also remind me that what got imprinted in me growing up was a similarly despairing six-word formula: “Expect bad. You won’t be disappointed.”

Psalm 136’s Six-Word Story

In the ESV, RSV, and NRSV, the second half of every verse of Psalm 136 is the six-word chorus: “For his steadfast love endures forever.” Over the course of 26 verses, we extol the glory of Yahweh as creator of the universe, then rescuer of his people. Twenty-six times we interrupt the flow of the psalm’s story with praise of Yahweh’s “steadfast love.” 

The universe, the psalm explains, didn’t have to be there. Everything that exists does so, not as the result of sheer randomness, nor for any other explanation than the steadfast love of the Lord. The only reason our world—and we in it!—are here is God’s steadfast love.

The psalm skips over the fall, the flood, and the call of Abraham, and goes directly to a celebration of the rescue of Israel and the violent takeover of “lands for an inheritance.” The rescue and the takeover happen, we are invited to sing, because of God’s steadfast love. 

Through the obscure nation of Israel, seemingly doomed to expire in Egyptian captivity, God intends to right all that has gone wrong under the heavens he made “by wisdom.” The Bible’s whole storyline—from creation through re-creation—is a long study in steadfast love. So, even while we puzzle over the mysteries of creation, the enigmas of the texts that tell Israel’s tale (such as including the deaths of Egypt’s firstborn and of “great” and “mighty kings”), we take the long view. In God’s story, Psalm 136 reminds us, everything will be made right.

Psalm 103’s Six-Word Story 

The first two verses of this psalm have an unusual audience: me. The psalm tells me to tell my soul to bless the Lord—which, of late, Matt Redman and the whole Church are echoing—and not to forget his benefits. It seems to know that such may not be my default mode of being. Several of my preacher friends talk about “preaching the gospel to myself.” I’d rather sing it—and this psalm shows me how. 

Verses three through five recount to my soul God’s six-word story for my life: “Forgiven. Healed. Redeemed. Crowned. Satisfied. Renewed.”  

Sometimes I chant those verses in plainsong (in his Plainsong Psalter, James Litton renders the psalm in Tone VIII.2). Sometimes I hum Paul Baloche’s “Praise the Lord, O My Soul.” Regardless, it’s as though the psalmist understood my “Expect bad…” mantra. It’s as though he had his own despairing six-word story: “Sinful. Sick. Doomed. Ashamed. Dissatisfied. Decaying.” And it’s as though he perceived that writing a psalm to the Lord was the only way to reverse it: “Bless the Lord, O my soul.”

I’m glad Paul said to sing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16); they’re the way we keep telling the true story about our lives. Each kind of singing can have a particular effect. “Spiritual songs” remind us of the freshness of the Lord’s moving ... in our lives right now, in our particular church right here. “Hymns” unite us in the whole church’s celebration of the fact that Jesus Christ is the center of history. “Psalms” keep our own stories centered in God’s story. Thank you, Lord, for your six-word exhortation: “With psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.”

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Pixabay

"Most Freaking Awesome!" - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Tuesday • 2/22/2022

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office Monday February 28.

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Worship That Is “Most Freaking Awesome!”

One year, I had to miss Father’s Day because of an out of town speaking engagement. I got home so late that night, I dropped my bags in the front hallway and went to bed. The next morning I got up at my usual zero-dark-thirty, made coffee, and headed for my study.

When I walked bleary-eyed into my study, I caught a “presence” in my peripheral vision. I turned to look, and … Yikes! My coffee went everywhere. Freak out! Goosebumps! A tall person – thin, expressionless, motionless – Was.Standing.There.Staring.At.Me. 

After a few seconds, I realized that the “person” was a life-sized cardboard cutout of Sheldon Cooper from the TV series The Big Bang Theory. It turns out my wife thought this would be a fun welcome home surprise. BAZINGA! I laughed and laughed.  

Ultimate Awe

When heaven and earth converge – or perhaps better – when the thin veil between them gets drawn back, it’s the sort of thing that makes your hair stand on end. God covers Mt. Sinai with “a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them” (Heb 12:18 NRSV). 

According to the writer to the Hebrews there is a “Presence” among us even more more goosebump-raising than Mt. Sinai’s “blazing fire … darkness  … gloom … tempest … trumpet … voice.” “In these last days,” he says, “God has spoken through his Son, the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being” (Heb 1:2-3 NRSV). 

Supremely Amazing

Not only that, but “through the eternal Spirit,” this Son has “offered himself without blemish to God” … to “purify our conscience from dead works to worship the living God!” (Heb 9:14 NRSV).  He could do so because he is the true Melchizedek, a priest and king whose ministry could not be cut short by death (Heb 7). As a result, he is now able to be in two places at once: physically in heaven at the Father’s right hand where he is – as the new Melchizedek – “Liturgist (or Worship Leader) in the sanctuary and the true tent” (Heb 8:2), and Spiritually (note the capital S) among us leading us in that worship. There and here at the same time, he pulls back the veil between heaven and earth and creates a reality that is truly goosebump-raising. That is what we taste in worship. 

The fourth century Greek-speaking church created a word for Christ’s goosebump-causing presence among us as our Liturgist and Worship Leader: phrikodestates (pronounced approximately “freak-oh-des-TAH-tays”). It’s an adjective in the superlative degree, based on a verb (phrisso) that means, literally: “shudder,” “get goose bumps,” or metaphorically, “be overcome with awe.” It wouldn’t be far off in modern vernacular to render phrikodestates as “most freaking awesome!”

Commune

For over 1,000 years the locus of awesomeness was the presence of the Lord at the Table. Thus, the 4th century’s Cyril of Jerusalem said that at the Eucharist we “Lift up our hearts to the Lord” because we have come to a “phrikodestates hour.” And rightly has the church celebrated that awesomeness, because our great Liturgist, the new Melchizedek, has brought us to an altar from which “those who serve the tent have no right to eat” (Heb 13:9) – but from which we do! 

Faith by Hearing

In the Reformation of the 16th century, the locus of awesomeness became the presence of the Lord in the proclamation of the Word and the rediscovery of the Bible in worship. And rightly has the Church celebrated that awesomeness, because Our Great Liturgist is among us declaring the Father’s name to us (Heb 2:12a). 

Intercessory Evangelism 

In the great “awakenings” and “revivals” of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, the locus of awesomeness became the presence of the Lord in the conversion of the soul – and by extension in the mission to the world. And rightly has the church celebrated that awesomeness because Our Great Liturgist is at the Father’s right hand, “ever interceding” that the lost will be found and the found will be cleansed, preserved, and gathered to the Father at the end (Heb 7:25). 

Inhabited Praise

In the wake of the Charismatic Renewal, the locus of awesomeness has become the Lord’s “habitation in the praises” (Psalm 22:3). And rightly has the church celebrated that awesomeness because the Risen Christ – Chief Musician in the new order of Melchizedek – “sings hymns” to the Father in the assembly (Heb 2:12b). 

Holy Convergence

Oh for the day when we all know Christ’s phrikodestates presence in all aspects of worship: at the Table, in the Word, in intercession, and in praise!

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

How Can I Keep from Singing? - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Monday • 2/21/2022

We’re taking a detour from the Daily Office readings for a few days. Instead, we’ll be thinking through various facets of worship and how our Lord provides meaningful communion with him through our formal corporate worship as well as in individual worship in our daily devotions. The thoughts offered here are excerpts from articles I wrote for Worship Leader magazine a few years ago.  We’ll resume our reflections on the Daily Office Monday February 28.

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I Know Why the Prisoner Sings *
For two millennia, Christians have sung their theology—from catacombs to dorm rooms, and from cathedrals to football stadiums. Every distinctive shape the faith takes – each its own “Jesus Movement” – finds its own musical voice. Ambrose’s robust trinitarianism both created and was supported by the florid hymnody of the church of fourth-century Milan. Gregorian chant both bespoke a quest of a spiritual music for the church and announced the ascendancy of the medieval church. In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther trumpeted his newfound grace as much through broadsheets and hymns as through sermons and books. 

Along the way, preachers and songsters have paired off, and sometimes the songsters have shaped the message as much as the preachers: John Calvin and Louis Bourgeois, John and Charles Wesley, Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey, Billy Graham and George Beverly Shea, Louie Giglio and Chris Tomlin. The evangelical uprising that began right after World War II, gained new life in the Jesus Movement of the 1960s, and persists into the beginning of the third millennium is characterized as much by its “praise and worship” as by anything else. When groups think about starting new churches, they are as anxious to establish their “sound” as they are their message.

Hopeful Abandon

God is in the process of reclaiming our lost planet, so singing fits the way things are. As a result, Christians have been irrepressible singers from day one. What J. R. R. Tolkien said is true: every fairy tale echoes the biblical drama—we were lost, and then we were found. Praise and thanks come unbidden to the surface of our being—and in the unbiddenness of our singing lies its rightness.

A song will illustrate. One of my coworkers teases me: “I always know it’s you coming down the hall, because I hear the music first.” I am an incorrigible singer, hummer, and whistler. The one song that forces itself into my consciousness more than any other is this:

My life goes on in endless song, above earth’s lamentations.
I hear the real, though far-off hymn, that hails a new creation.
Above the tumult and the strife, I hear its music ringing.
It sounds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing?

When tyrants tremble, sick with fear, and hear their death-knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near, how can I keep from singing?
In prison cell and dungeon vile our thoughts to them are winging.
When friends by shame are undefiled, how can I keep from singing?

What though my joys and comforts die, the Lord my Saviour liveth.
And though the darkness round me close, songs in the night he giveth.
No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that Rock I’m clinging.
Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?

Anne Warner composed this folk hymn in the middle of a most uncivil Civil War, and Doris Plenn reshaped it during the Cold War and its attendant paranoia. It is a hymn of courage in the face of tempest and darkness and tyrants. 

Trembling Courage

My absolute favorite version of the song is Eva Cassidy’s kicking “gospel” rendering. She sang it while she was trying to fight off the malignant melanoma that would eventually take her life. Perhaps that’s why she sings with an urgency most who take up this song don’t have. I know that there are different kinds of “prison cells” and “dungeons vile,” and that melanoma—which I too contracted—is one of them. I know therefore that the gift of a song in the night does keep the darkness back, if barely—“Dear God, do not let my children grow up without a father.” And I know that a response of unbidden song rings true because, and only because, Christ is indeed “Lord of heaven and earth.” I hope this was Eva Cassidy’s hope—it is mine, for though my cancer was found at a much earlier stage than hers and appears to have been treated successfully, I know that the “far-off hymn” isn’t as far off as it was pre-cancer. I know in a way I didn’t before that Christ’s victory over the grave promises “new creation.” More importantly, I know that in the worst of my fears I can’t keep from singing; Christ has plundered death and hell.

This hymn is a parable of the entire history of song in the church. It explains why we are such a singing lot. From the very beginning, God has been orchestrating a grand drama, the reclamation of his lost creation—and in operatic fashion, he has used the singing to his Jesus Movements to carry the story line. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

Image: Pixabay

* Today’s post is adapted from Reggie M. Kidd, With One Voice: Discovering Christ’s Song in Our Worship (Grand Rapids, MI: BakerBooks, 2005), pp. 17–20. 

We Live in "The Between Times" - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Friday • 2/18/2022
Friday of 6 Epiphany, Year Two 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 102; Genesis 32:22–33:17; 1 John 3:1–10; John 10:31–42

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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Genesis 32–33. There have been several mini-breakthrough moments in Jacob’s relationship with Yahweh: the prophecy of his destiny (Genesis 25); the dream of the stairway between heaven and earth (Genesis 28); the dream preceding the Mizpah covenant (Genesis 31). And ever since his stairway dream, Jacob’s life has taken a turn towards faith. The decisive breakthrough lies here, though, in his wrestling with the angel. To be finally subdued, Jacob must throw his body into one last self-assertive grapple with God. The result is a vision of the “the face of God,” a permanent limp, as well as a new name. Jacob/Israel is finally not just Abraham’s grandson and heir. Now it’s fair to say he’s God’s son. 

1 John 3. We, says 1 John, are children of God, which means our lives increasingly take on the characteristics of our Heavenly Father and his only Begotten Son, our brother. The conclusion that John draws in today’s passage in 1 John is that a life of sinfulness no longer defines us: “No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him” (1 John 3:6). At the same time, John has already told those who abide in Jesus that they are kidding themselves if they pretend they are beyond sin; but they always have access to forgiveness through confession, because Christ is their atoning sacrifice (1 John 1:9–2:2).

The reality is that our lives work themselves out somewhere between an Eeyore-ish fatalism (“Salvation is just moving from one failure to the next”) and Tigger-ish triumphalism (“Good morning, Jesus! I’m so glad I’m getting better and better every day, and growing closer and closer to you!”). We live in “the between times,” no longer slaves to sin, but also not yet able to say we don’t have to be ever vigilant. 

The resources that John offers us in today’s words are: 1) the surety of our Father’s love; 2) the promise that God has committed himself to transform us into “the spittin’ image” of the Father whose children we are; 3) our Christus Victor is destroying the power of the Evil One who would destroy us if left to his own devices; 4) there is an inner compass within us that keeps pointing us in the direction of “doing right” and “loving our brothers and sisters.”

John 10. That’s why it’s so intriguing to find Jesus countering his opponents’ charge of blasphemy by citing to them Psalm 62, which faults Israelite leaders for failing in their duties: “I said, ‘You are gods’” (i.e., I called you and equipped you to exercise God-like care for my people). If God calls mere humans “gods,” how can it be blasphemy for the “one who came into the world” (i.e., the eternal Word who was in the beginning “with God” and who from eternity always “was God” — see John 1:1) to call himself God’s Son? (John 10:36).

The direct point is that Jesus as God’s Son is fully divine. May his name be praised!

The indirect point is that God’s lesser sons and daughters (you and I) are so invested with God’s blessing, so infused with his communicable attributes, and so commissioned to exercise dominion over his creation that there is a way in which they (we) can be referred to as “gods” without violating the distinction between Creator and creature. Accordingly, Paul refers to our salvation as a complex of “justification, sanctification, and glorification” (Romans 5–8). Peter says God has made us “sharers (koinōnoi, partakers, participants) in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). 

There’s a deep mystery here, one that challenges the imagination. And we, whose perspective tends to be earth-bound, need the challenge. C. S. Lewis probably put it best when, in an oft-quoted passage from his “Weight of Glory” sermon, he said that the destiny of the redeemed is to become “everlasting spendours.” If we could see each other as we will be when this whole “between times” process of mortifying the flesh and living into the reality God’s sanctifying work in our lives is over — if we could see the finished product now, we would be tempted to fall down and worship each other. (Of course, when God’s work is finished, we’ll be beyond that temptation!)

May we walk in God’s calling as children he cherishes, and yield to his hand as he enables us to “do right” and “love our brothers and sisters.” May we worship him in wonder, love, and praise. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+

Getting Us All the Way Home - Daily Devotions with the Dean

Thursday • 2/17/2022
Thursday of 6 Epiphany, Year Two

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 105; Genesis 32:3–21; 1 John 2:18–29; John 10:19–30

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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Some overall perspective on the first 21 verses of Genesis 32: Graciously, Yahweh has intersected Jacob in his waywardness, revealing to Jacob that he is indeed the chosen bearer of the promises made to his grandfather Abraham. For this mission, he was chosen from the womb despite being the second born son: “The older son will serve the younger” (Genesis 25:23).  Somehow, he has not disqualified himself because of his earlier willfulness, deceptions, and maneuverings. Yahweh has seen him through terrible treatment at the hand of his uncle Laban. During his sojourn under Laban, Yahweh has even blessed him with a multitude of sons, and has prospered him with immense flocks. And at Mizpah, Yahweh has shown his readiness to stand guard between him and the resentful and envious uncle who has become his enemy. 

Still, there is a walk of humiliation that Jacob knows he must walk. Geographically, Jacob could have made a more or less straight line from Laban’s tents in Haran to Isaac’s tents at Hebron in south Canaan. But on his journey southwards, he unexpectedly veers east and heads for Esau’s tents in Shechem. Jacob needs reconciliation with the older brother whom he has deceived, and at whose expense he carries the blessing of Abraham. For Jacob, benefiting from God’s blessing lies on the far side of a walk of humiliation. 

. Jacob sends messengers to Esau, and Esau’s only answer is to send 400 men to meet him. Are they coming in friendship? Or are they coming to exact revenge? It’s not difficult, I think, to identify with Jacob’s plight. As commentator Derek Kidner observes, “Nothing could be more ominous than Esau’s silence and his rapid approach in force. Jacob’s reaction is characteristically energetic: he plans, (verses) 7,8 — prays, 9–12 — plans, 13–21 — prays, 22–32 — plans, 33:1–3. It is over-facile to condemn his elaborate moves as faithless … Jacob’s prayers show where his confidence lay.” *

John 10: why Jesus is such a good shepherd. For those of us who, like Jacob, teeter between faith and unfaith (“God you promised … but my brother could just kill me!”), it’s hard to imagine Jesus uttering more comforting words than these: “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.” (John 10:27–30). 

If we recognize Jesus’s voice and find ourselves inclined to follow him, we can be confident that that inclination did not begin with us. We are not that clever, nor that brave, nor (most of us, at least) that humble. (I mean, really — willing to give control of our lives over to somebody else?!) If we recognize Jesus’s voice and find ourselves following him, it is because way back in the counsels of eternity the Father loved us, chose us for himself, and gave us personally to his Son. It is that deeper call to which we have responded. And the comfort of it is that there is nothing — nothing — that can keep the Good Shepherd from getting us all the way home. 

1 John: As under-shepherd, John warns against “antichrists.” In yesterday’s reading in John’s Gospel, Jesus warns us against bad shepherds, hirelings who pretend they care for the sheep but in fact care only for themselves. When John becomes a shepherd to a portion of God’s flock, he senses there are bad shepherds in his churches. In 1 John 2:18, he calls them “antichrists” because they substitute for the true Christ (truly God and truly human) a false Christ (if he is fully God, then he is not fully human; if he is fully human, then he cannot be fully God). John says there are “many antichrists” in his day, And, alas, there have been many since. 

John’s Gospel and his Epistles carry such power because of their finely balanced and pastorally perfect perception that Jesus is fully divine with the authority to save, and fully human with the capacity to absorb all our sins and griefs. Fully divine to bring us Truth (with a capital “T”), and fully human to model and lead us in Life (with a capital “L”). 

Bad shepherds adjust the message because they are “hirelings” who attend more to their market than to their Master. They do so either in the direction of making Jesus a purely divine figure who swoops down just long enough to rescue us for heaven; or they adjust the message in the direction of making Jesus a purely human figure who helps us fantasize about making earth into heaven. A not-quite-human Jesus who has nothing to say about, say, civic responsibility or creation care, or a less-than-divine Jesus who leaves us frustrated and angry and despairing because we never seem to be able to make the Kingdom come. That makes them antichrists, and fully deserving of our inattention. 

May God give us discernment to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd in the words of faith-keeping, hope-instilling, and love-inspiring under-shepherds. Under-shepherds who themselves are being shepherded by one Shepherd who is truly Good. More deeply, may we know that our heavenly Father has lovingly placed us in the strong and secure hands of our faithful Good Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Be blessed this day, 

Reggie Kidd+

* Derek Kidner, Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1967), p. 168.